Harold Bloom’s word at the End

Besides Professor Bloom’s opening, Shakespeare’s Universalism, and his closing, The Shakespeare Difference, he added a further commentary, A Word at the End. He opens: The poet Emerson wrote to Whitman in 1855: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start.”  Harold Bloom posited Emerson meant “a precursory field of poetic, not institutional history, perhaps one might say that its historiography is written in the poetry itself.” Being from a Protestant background Emerson would not have known of the great conversation. Still, he understood enough of poetry, to know Walt Whitman had entered into poetry itself, not simply his own musings.

Here, Professor Bloom went off on the deepest tangent of observation I have read. “Othello loves Desdemona, yet seems not to desire her sexually, since evidently he has no knowledge o her palpable virginity and never makes love to her.” Professor Bloom without “understanding” the Catholic Shakespeare, affirmed the identity of Othello and Desdemona. Who is Othello, Henry VIII? Who is Desdemona, Queen Katherine? What was Henry’s claim in his divorce? Henry claimed Queen Katherine had had relations with his brother when she was married to him. The brother took sick during or before the wedding, and died shortly thereafter. Henry knew the Truth of Katherine, but overturned Christ in England because he wanted a family empire. Professor Bloom admitted the basis of Othello. All else in Othello follows from Desdemona being a virgin. The importance of virginity to the play cannot be overstated. It was the violation of such, which formed the basis of Henry’s divorce complaint. All of the lies told by Iago, were matched by lies spread by arch-bishop Cranmer. Cranmer, himself, lived amidst lies about not being married, while he posed as a member of the Catholic clergy, in order to subvert Christ. Whether Desdemona, Katherine was a virgin, was the center of the empire. The lie about Katherine’s virginity, was the cornerstone of the church of England. Catholic monarchs did not get divorced, neither did Catholics, nor did they murder their wives. Othello, Henry VIII, did both.

How could Queen Elizabeth not understand? Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 A.D. Othello was first performed in 1604 A.D. Shakespeare may have been clever, but he wasn’t stupid. He waited until the Tudors were finished to crush their usurpation of the monarchy and Christ, into the ground. Queen Elizabeth would have recognized the crime of her father, against his first wife, and the illegitimacy of her own rule. Shakespeare understood, best to wait until the king has fallen, to strike a blow, if you cannot kill the king. Hamlet was not performed until 1609, six years after her death. Shakespeare knew the Queen to be smarter than her censors, or those educated under Tudor rule. It is said Queen Elizabeth heard the Mass, though it was suppressed for her subjects. Anyone who heard the Mass would have recognized Shakespeare’s truth. Shakespeare’s Truth would have cost him his head, as it did thousands of martyrs.

Professor Bloom puzzled over why so many of the characters in Shakespeare were childless? If he had considered or understood, England, he might have asked, who in England is willfully childless? The clergy! Such a thought cannot be uttered. For to think the childless in England were not unfortunate but blessed, is to undermine the entire of Henry’s rule. Henry committed his vast crimes in order to have the proper child. Who was good and who was evil? The childless who revolted against their own station, Iago, arch-bishop Cranmer, who married the daughter of the Lutheran theologian Ossiander, took holy orders after having been married. Could there be a more inveterate liar? To lie while taking an oath to serve Christ, puts one with heretics at the bottom of hell. The arch-bishop never admitted to his marriage until after Henry VIII’s death. He understood what punishment he would have received for having betrayed his oath. Deceiving not only Christ, but Henry. Professor Bloom found no honor for virginity, therefore totally dismissed English society, before Henry, who destroyed the honor bestowed upon virginity by Christ.

Professor Bloom then asked why was Shylock made to accept Christ. Why must men who have committed sins, repent? To ask this question puts one in complete darkness about the quest of Catholic societies. Shylock was easily forgiven his attempted murder of Antonio, as Othello would have been if he had confessed. Christ does not seek to punish, but to redeem. Shylock whose every word until his conversion is a lie, needed redemption. Even though he had attempted to kill Christ, Antonio, and denied the validity of Catholic Eucharist, he could be forgiven and accepted into Catholic society with penance. The beauty of this, forgiving, ones enemies, escaped Harold Bloom. It is the basis of Catholic society. All men sin and need redemption. Christ is the only avenue to redemption. Christ is willing to give his life for sinners, willingly. Antonio, Christ in Venice, was willing to die, for mankind again, if only Bassanio, his friend, would not desert him, as St. Peter had, Christ.

Professor Bloom in the next paragraph put forward the reason he was among the top Shakespeare scholars of the twentieth century. “It is less than two months since the sudden death of his father and only a month since his mother’s marriage to his uncle, who has assumed the crown.” Where does the king result in remarriage so quickly, with a celebration to match the new wedding? Where else, but Rome. Hamlet’s father was Pope Julius II. His uncle was Leo X. The only Pope to be seated on his tomb, is Julius II, Michelangelo’s favorite, and Shakespeare’s. Hamlet’s father was seated in his garden when he was poisoned by his brother. Would anyone, except those who had traveled to Rome, know the position of Julius II on his tomb? Julius II, was a great Pope who defended the Church. He would have dealt quite differently with Luther than the feckless Leo X, who did party while the Church collapsed. Who is the Queen, the Church? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, is one person. But you will have to read Hamlet in Elsinore, Luther in Eiselben, to find out. When a Pope dies, not matter how great, it is necessary for the Church to meet and elect, under Christ’s guidance, a new Pope, The Church needs a Pope. Delay serves no purpose, the Church must have her connection to Christ.

Instead of over the Church, Professor Bloom posited Shakespeare as a despairing philosopher, whose “subject was the vexed relationship between purpose and memory.” Here again, Harold Bloom saw the Truth of Shakespeare. What had been broken in the 1500’s? Man’s relationship with God, had for many men, been irreparably shattered. They refused to make amends with their Lord. They rebuilt the Tower of Babel, and brought it into the Church, Christ established 1500 years before. This is the most important occurrence in history since the birth of Christ. The prior heretics had all been defeated, except the Muslims, against whom Othello fought. Henry VIII, had been made a Defender of the Church, because of his Defense of the Seven Sacraments, from Luther’s attack. Still, he fell. He fell, because he denied Queen Katherine’s virginity. One of the main sources of Othello is the 13^th century work by St. Bonaventure, The Mystic Vine. The Mystic Vine is the work in which the Sacred Heart of Jesus was revealed to St. Bonaventure. The center of the work besides the Sacred Heart, is the sacredness of virginity. Would Queen Elizabeth have recognized the references to the Mystic Vine?

The hatred of the reformers for virginity, and for women, was manifest in the behavior of Henry VIII. They expelled the clergy from the Churches, and monasteries and nunneries, built to worship Our Lord. Their hatred for Christ has never ceased. Living among the hatred for Our Lord, Shakespeare developed a method of bringing Christ to a nation which had been forcefully deprived of Christ’s presence. The forty thousand killings which Othello cried out for, were only a drop on the number of the faithful actually killed. Even at the end, Harold Bloom claimed Wittenberg was London. He was right, the play was about London, but Wittenberg was not an allusion but a fact. Then Professor Bloom posited Shakespeare created nihilism. Nothing could be further from the Truth. Shakespeare lived his entire life under the rule of men who desired to erase meaning from the world. They wished, like the high priests, Christ had never been born. They began with killing his saint, Thomas More. Nothing in Shakespeare supports nihilism. Shakespeare is the cry of one in the wilderness, hoping to bring salvation to those, like those in Israel, rejected salvation, when they had it presented to them.

Harold Bloom in a surprising, stunning ending, discussed a friend, J.H. Van den Berg, a Dutch psychiatrist who dated the inner man, not from Hamlet, but from Martin Luther, a hundred years before. The inner man came from Luther’s discourse on “Christian Freedom.” Luther in the treatise distinguished the inner man from the physical one. Hamlet in the mousetrap, asked the player king, whether the players were followed in London, as they had been. The player king replied, not. The question is whether this is about Shakespeare, or about the Church to whom Shakespeare dedicated his life. The Church had been irreparably harmed by Henry and Shakespeare had to live in the detritus of lost belief.

Why could Harold Bloom not take the further step from his friend’s observation and see Hamlet as actually coming from Wittenberg? If the division between man and himself came from Luther, it was a problem for both Hamlet, and Shakespeare, but most of all, for those who left the Faith, under the false illusion, man is divided. Man, as affirmed by St. Thomas More in the Summa Theologica, is not a separate soul put in a body. All the souls were not created at Creation and then placed into physical holders. The soul and the body are one. Each body and soul are different from all others, but share the same characteristics. Each man has his own will, but he is not alienated from his body but bound to it. As the angels have their form, we have ours. Professor Bloom intent on seeing a meaningless Shakespeare rather than a believer could not accept Hamlet as Luther. For if Hamlet were Luther, Falstaff would actually be OldCastle, Iago and Shylock would be arch-bishop Cranmer and Othello would be Henry VIII, while Katherine would be Desdemona. Each play would then be imbued with the greatest meaning in the world, testimony to the Truth of Christ.

Did Harold Bloom ever ask himself, I’m certain he did, wouldn’t the greatest dramatist of all ages, actually follow the Greeks and Romans, and write about great men? What other subject is there for a great writer? Harold Bloom went on to say that Prospero is Shakespeare’s Faust. Harold Bloom identified the first Faust with Simon Magnus, whom St. Peter expelled from his company, because he offered money for the ability to impose hands upon a believer, and bring forth the Holy Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles, Simon is referred to as the great one. Professor Bloom equated great with favoured. Professor Bloom did not consider the actual Faustus, against whom St. Augustine conducted a theological argument, described in his writings as “Against Faust.” Faust, as a Manichean, believed the world was divided between the dark and the light. The dark being matter, the light being the good. However, the Catholic Bible states all God created was good. There is not battle between man and matter. The battle is waged between men and within each man, as to whether he will adhere to the law, which extends from Christ, or whether he will follow satan in attempting to be as God. In the first sentence of the play Iago says “Sblood, but you will not hear me: if ever I did dream of such a matter, abhor me.” Iago’s first sentence includes matter, which is his tie to Faust. Faust posited matter as opposed to spirit. This may also be the split Luther was referring to when he posed the material man against the spirit. Professor Bloom probably had not read St. Augustine. This comes from Henry VIII’s break with the Church. No longer does education include the Father’s of the Church. Professor Bloom did not understand who Faustus was. In this, like most men, he was blind. How can this be when in Othello Cassio condemned himself for discourse fustian. Or unscrambled, in Faust. Faust is the subject of Othello, a deal with the devil. The devil being Iago. At the end, Harold Bloom identified with Falstaff. To be as Falstaff, is to be alive. The world is in the shape it is, because so many men believe so.