The Discovery of the Human in Shakespeare
The title of Harold Bloom’s book brings back the Evelyn Waugh story of an Englishwoman’s return from the Holy Land where she announced to her friends, that a local Catholic arab had told her St. Helena, invented Christ’s Cross. The woman stated she always knew the story was a lie. What she didn’t understand was the definition of invention in English, means to discover. To invent is not to lie, but to find truth, either in the physical or moral world.
Bloom confers on Shakespeare the invention, discovery of the human. In this, I would have to agree wholeheartedly. Where I differ with Harold Bloom is the difference between invention and discovery. What Shakespeare discovered in his work, was the new man born of the Resurrection. Mr. Bloom is correct that before Shakespeare’s recounting of Christ, men were not as they are now, after the revolt of Henry VIII, against Christ, all understanding of the human was lost within fifty years. The entire world changed on March 25, the year 1 A.D., in the town of Nazareth with the Incarnation of Christ into Mary by the Holy Ghost. Nothing before or since has approached this level of importance. God becoming man, was a necessary presage to all subsequent events in the world, especially man recognizing his humanity in the sight of his Lord. Humanity being the reflection of his commitment to the Word in each man.
The Incarnation and the True Cross, are the beginning and the summation of Christ’s mission to the world. He came to pay the price of man’s sin. In Nazareth, Christ arrived to change the savages who inhabited the world into men. Even men who grew up with Him, spending several times the three years His Apostles did, were incapable of recognizing Him. They were not baptized, so they continued to live in the darkness of the spiritually blind. King Herod and the high priests, had fallen away from Christ, unto the worship of some foreign god, who inspired their attempt to murder the Child. The kingdom these men ruled followed their example and rejected Christ, their Saviour.
From the Cross and the Resurrection, came the conversion of many in the world. By the birth of Shakespeare, Europe had been in the fold of the Church for 1200 years, North Africa gained and lost, while Spain had been lost and won. Constantinople had fallen a hundred years before his birth. England had turned against Christ less than forty years before his birth. So severe was King Henry’s persecution of Christ, that Christian civilization had been almost totally extinguished in England by the time Shakespeare began his career.
Except not completely. Great men, honorable men who had sworn loyalty to Christ, kept a semblance of His influence alive in England. It was among these men Shakespeare grew and reached adulthood. Is this an unwarranted conclusion? Harold Bloom posits, that like himself, Shakespeare believed in nothing. This will not stand. Any reflection on the Master’s work reveals the breath of his knowledge of literature. What has been lacking is any consideration of the depth of his commitment to Christ’s work.
Because of the purge of Catholic thought from England, Shakespeare could not safely refer to works which accepted the Truth of Christ’s efforts in the world. In practice, this meant fifteen hundred years of effort in praise of Christ had to be excised from his Majesty’s realm. The effort to accomplish this feat was prodigious, in both theology and blood. The entire history of man’s ascent from savagery was burnt, both books and men. In doing so, the persecutors compromised their own work, because without an education in Christ, they could not recognize Christ’s imprint upon a play. Harold Bloom recounts the suffering of lesser artists, because their efforts to expose the crimes carried out against Christ, were easily discovered. At the same time, in many of the same places, Shakespeare, because of his vast intellect, acknowledged first by Thomas Carlyle, easily evaded the weak understanding of the censors. If a man is forbidden to read his enemy, how can he recognize him?
Harold Bloom described Shakespeare’s characters as defined flaws and decay, but also by the will. The description is the definition of one who rejects belief in Christ. Sin for a Catholic, consists of three parts, knowing, willing, and as a cure, loving. There is not a place in Shakespeare’s work for a sin which is not willed. For if a sin is not willed, God then becomes the author of sin. Such is the definition of heresy. To believe so, is to be an enemy to Christ. The Church has held from the beginning, Creation is good, all God made is good, while all sin is generated from the will which refuses to accept the Trinity as God. The will is not a, as well, but is of itself central to man’s choosing freely to do evil. Every man in Shakespeare supports this fact. Those who denigrate the will are demons.
Harold Bloom denied Shakespeare had a deep connection with the Bible. We have to consider here, Shakespeare’s plight in writing under constant duress, but also Shakespeare’s reason for duress. Shakespeare believed! How could Shakespeare have had a deep connection with the Bible, and which has not been revealed? The question is, who did Shakespeare believe in? Henry VIII, or Christ? If Henry VIII, he would have used the Tyndale Bible, or later the King James version. On the other hand, if he was a believer in Christ, aside from the Vulgate, Shakespeare would have referenced the Douay Rheims Bible written in exile, by the Catholic clergy who escaped the headman’s axe. Reflecting the differences in belief, the two Bibles are very different in their translation.
Professor Bloom then posited Shakespeare never made a heroic or vitalistic gesture. In this, Shakespeare may have agreed with Harold Bloom. In Romeo and Juliet, which took its form from the Divine Comedy, Dante came across Statius, a Catholic author, who served a Caesar who persecuted the Church. Statius on the sands before Purgatory, saved but still to suffer, admits he did not do all he could for his fellow believers. The question is not whether his effort would have made any difference. The fact Statius had been accepted into God’s bosom, would have given hope to Shakespeare, but Statius committed the sin of sloth in not attending to his fellow believers. Statius came to Christ, like many Romans from having read the Aeneid, Virgil’s work which opened Romans hearts to the Truth of Christ. Shakespeare followed Virgil’s Aeneid in both Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Would Shakespeare have had to suffer as Statius? Was Shakespeare being as close to Queen Elizabeth who punished Catholics as severely as Domitian, did in Rome, a crime? Shakespeare did not decry Statius’s punishment, perhaps thinking he could achieve such an exalted position. Harold Bloom in comparing Hamlet and Falstaff to the most vital of men, accepted the evil as the good.
Harold asks why did Shakespeare favor Fortinbras? Fortinbras in Hamlet is actually the son of King Herod, who found Christ innocent on Good Friday. The Herod’s, though Jews, were loyal to Rome, which was important to Shakespeare. Antipas was the son’s given name which is in Fortinbras minus two letters. The German Fortinbras was still loyal to the Pope, unlike the heretic Henry VIII. Antipas was also a martyr who was slain by Emperor Domitian. All were loyal to Christ. Fortinbras was both a martyr and loyal to the Pope, no man could achieve more in the world.
Harold maintains we cannot from reading Shakespeare and attending the plays, know whether he had any extra poetic beliefs or disbeliefs. Such an “understanding” defies belief. The blind do see other men as being as blind as themselves. If a man simply considers each play by itself, and the fact in each play there is a man who always lies, one has to admit, Christ called the devil the father of lies. In all realms, in all history, the liar has always been associated with the devil. Evil cannot be accomplished except through lies. A demon cannot tell the Truth, for the Truth, contradicts all the evil are attempting to bring about. In this, Shakespeare confirms the existence not only of evil, but demons possessing men. If Shakespeare did not believe in the Resurrection, how did his father return from the dead to guide him from play to the deeds which would reveal his murder? In the New Testament, it is the good who rise from the dead, on Good Friday, not the evil. The dead return to tell of Christ’s victory over death. Harold in his enthusiasm for Falstaff, overlooks Falstaff took unfit misfits into his unit of the army for money, and led them all to their deaths. The demon Falstaff, like the demon Iago, wanted to fill his purse. As Christ said: the love of money is the root of all evil. Is there a clearer definition of comradeship, between two characters? For the purse among the Apostles was carried by Judas, who betrayed Christ to the high priests. Falstaff alone survived, because you can’t kill the devil. Prince Hal renounced and executed Falstaff for his crimes, because Hal had renounced evil and returned to the Church, once he accepted his duty to lead England. Hal, like St. Peter, had lost his way, but he returned to Christ. An audience which opposed Christ, wanted the devil to succeed. Shakespeare later, acquiesced.
Professor Bloom understood the pain of Shakespeare was almost as great as his pleasure. Why should this not be so? All who follow Christ, have to agree to carry Christ’s cross as did Simon of Cyrene. Simon did not step forward to help Christ, but was impressed by the soldiers carrying out the execution. The Church has always accepted and taught, pain is the order of life, as God decreed when he exiled Adam and Eve, from the Garden. In this, the world never changes, nor can it change until Christ returns. Harold identified with the pain experienced by King Lear with Cordelia’s death in the fifth act or Othello’s just exposure, at the end. I however would see the greatest deaths as Queen Katherine, in Henry VIII, Desdemona’s in Hamlet and Hamlet’s mother. All these women, are good. They all die because they support Christ, or because in Hamlet’s mother’s case, they are the Church. The question I have to ask, is why did Professor Bloom find more pain in the death of the murderer Othello, than of the pure Desdemona? Why would anyone be troubled by the death of a man who had just killed his wife? Is this because Henry VIII, made killing wives acceptable to those who oppose Christ? Othello’s great fall, was not his death, but his accepting the lies of Iago. Was there ever another king in Europe, who murdered so many of his wives?
Professor Bloom identified Shylock as a hero-villain! Where, on God’s earth, could such an identification come from? Shylock hated not only Antonio, but Portia, and vastly his innocent daughter, Jessica. It was innocence which angered Shylock and the attraction of innocence for the good which resides supremely in Christ. Professor Bloom hoped the play would be painful for Gentiles, even though he described himself as a “heretical, transcendentalist, gnostic,” When did he stop believing, in what? His attachment to Gnosticism explains his choice of the great characters, and their falls, which he lingered over. Just as Herod and the high priests, could not see Christ, as their God, neither can a gnostic assign good and evil to the appropriate characters in Shakespeare. Shakespeare under immense duress, identified with Christ and Christ’s Church. Everything Shakespeare believed was of Christ. The gnostics were the first who pretended their gods were Christ, in order to undermine the Church. Yet the followers of the church of England, could no more understand their own bard, than could a gnostic. Christ said in order to see, you must believe. This is Truth. Everything which warps the soul, detracts from understanding. Those who have kept Shakespeare alive for four hundred years, recognized his genius, but have been blind as to its source. If there was a blind man in the street, who heard Othello recited, he would identify with Desdemona and Cassio. They continued at the risk and cost of their lives to support Christ. Portia, Harold decried as a delightful hypocrite. Portia, like Pilate came to judge Antonio, from Rome, the seat of Justice for the world. His wife, who was not a judge, insisted Pilate have nothing to do with that good man. All of Portia is in Pilate except o and r, which accords with Shakespeare’s custom. Both found the accused innocent, but Pilate was not able to rescue Christ, which Portia did while giving the clearest defense of the Eucharist ever written outside a theological work. She said, you can have your pound of flesh, but not one drop of blood. Her defense refuted both Luther who declared the bread remains, also Calvin, who insisted Christ’s body was solely spiritual, which meant Christ was no longer on earth, He had abandoned His sons. Portia’s defense confirmed Christ’s blood is in his living body, and therefore communion under two species, bread and wine, is not necessary. Portia was able to defend Antonio, because even though she had never studied the law, she knew the law, because she lived the law. The law of God and the law of Venice were identical since Christ ruled in Venice. In Jerusalem, the high priests expected Elias to save Christ. In the play Bellario sent Portia. Bellario has four of the five letters of Elias’s name. The blessing which Portia bestowed upon the young Lancelot, “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,” is the same as Isaac in Genesis, “And in the dew of heaven from above.” Portia is the fulfillment of the Scriptures as a judge who received her position from Christ. Professor Bloom did recognize the play is Portia’s, not Shylock’s. This shows once again the great man’s understanding. If only Pilate had followed the advice of his wife, he could have saved himself, but mankind would have been lost. Could Pilate have avoided making a judgment like Statius, and by deception saved himself? No! Men who rule without Christ, cannot carry out justice, except accidentally. The question of the play is, why is a Jew, concerned with the Eucharist?
Shylock’s cry for his bond, was like the high priests call for Christ’s life. Shylock intended to use the law, as the judges of Susanna had, as too, the priests of Babylon would use their law against Daniel. Neither Antonio’s, nor Susanna’s, nor Daniel’s, trials were of the law. All of the law accords with the Law of Christ, the Ten Commandments and the ordinances of His Church. This has been true from Creation to the present day. All other claims to the law are false. The law is above all else meant to serve the Trinity. The world being created by God, of necessity, only obeys Truth, when it serves Him. A man can give his word, when he enters the priesthood, the brotherhood, or a nunnery, these are bonds with the Lord, which cannot be broken. In like manner is the bond of marriage, joined by a priest serving Christ. A law which serves to bind believers to their state is also just. But a bond to a liar, a heretic, or a pagan, is not valid. Society has to be kept, so even pagans must enforce their laws. Heretics, being the enemies of Christ can never hold their own people loyally to them. Their rulers know, have known from the beginning their laws are false. Yet their punishments, as against believers in England, are final.
Harold Bloom saw the growth of Hamlet encompassing “negative capability” in Hamlet’s death soliloquy, “But let it be.” In the Aeneid, of which Hamlet follows the first half, Dido ends her life, “But furious,” “her eyes were rolling,” as were the eyes of Othello before he killed Desdemona. Dido shivered at approaching death, while Hamlet trembled. With the death of both, a kingdom died. Rome and Carthage would be enemies the entire of either’s existence, because of the betrayal of Dido’s love by Aeneas, who was following the demands of Venus to rebuild Troy on the Italian peninsula. The deaths follow from one era to another, but the gods change from pagan gods to God, the Trinity. Rome has continued to be the seat of law, since the city’s founding in 700 B.C.
Professor Bloom took the view, Shakespeare gave us the most “true” representation of the universe of fact, than anyone else. The question, he left unanswered was why? Granted the gifts of the man are beyond equal. However, if Shakespeare had served a false cause, he would have fallen with the Tudor dynasty, in its short nasty end. Henry VIII, Othello, brought forth no male surviving sons, so his war against nature, and Christ, was carried out in blood, for absolutely no purpose. Does crime ever have a purpose? Are empires built upon crime? England lasted, but Henry did not. His line ended.
At the end of his introduction, Professor Bloom, again spoke the absolute Truth, without realizing why. “I have written elsewhere that Shakespeare is not only in himself the Western canon, he has become the universal canon.” Never was a truer word spoken. But not of the Shakespeare which Harold Bloom perceived in his clouded, but not blind mind. Each of Shakespeare’s plays, is a summation of twenty, thirty, literary and philosophical works, from the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the Fathers of the Church, and writers under their influence. The Apostle Paul said: To the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and the unwise, I am a debtor. The world consists of all the men in it. All are not sages, nor are all warriors, nor farmers, nor fisherman. We live among men. We should reach out to all men, and if not all, then to enough, that they might reach those who fall by the side. Shakespeare in a time of fear and despair among Christ’s followers, took all of literature and philosophy, condensed them into parables, to speak to the men who had rejected Christ. The Truth lies, as Professor Bloom accepts, in Shakespeare’s works. What one has to do, is read what Shakespeare wrote, while believing. Without belief we are all blind.
Remember, Shakespeare was most fond of the groundlings. They are those upon whom the seeds of Christ’s word fell upon good ground, and will bring forth fruit a hundred fold.
Harold Bloom in summation: If there is validity to my surmise that Shakespeare by inventing what has become the most accepted mode for representing character and personality in language, thereby invented the human as we know it. Shakespeare did all this and more. He defended Christ against His most determined enemies, a battle which continues today, as Professor Bloom admitted when he considered the state of our educational system. He then veered into Shakespeare’s acceptance of sin, which Shakespeare would never have done.
Antonio was distressed before his death, at the loss of Bassanio. The love between Antonio and Bassanio, is the love between Christ and St. Peter. St. Peter made a promise never to betray his Master. Before the cock crew twice, St. Peter betrayed Christ, only hours later. How could any man break a promise to God, so quickly? How long from when the angels were Created to the betrayal of the Lord, by Lucifer. How long had Adam and Eve been in the Garden, before they listened to the snake, satan? We have to ask. All creatures with free will are weak. We, having inherited the burden of Original Sin, are prone to believe lies, and desire evil. Our promises to do good and support the Cross, are seldom fulfilled. Antonio, Christ, waited for Bassanio, as Christ waited for St. Peter. Bassanio also, like St. Peter, failed in his promise to Portia about parting with her ring. Men make promises and then break them. How has the Church survived? Only with constant support from Christ.
One can, like Harold Bloom find support for skepticism in Shakespeare, only by reading man’s sins, and the words of demons, as the point of the plays. One cannot believe and be skeptic. A man has to surrender his will to Christ, before he can understand. This is the quandary of the answer to sin, which is to know and to will, love. How can one save oneself with reason if one has to love first? One must reach a determination to reject sin for the detriments it brings upon oneself and others, before the love of God can seep into a man’s soul. But a man, no man, can decide to reject sin, without grace. To whom is grace given? All grace comes solely from the will of God.
Professor Bloom stated that Shakespeare’s influence challenged the scriptures of West and East. Professor Bloom then denied the world can have a universal and unifying culture, based upon religion. Professor Bloom saw English as becoming the world language, as Latin was for the Western world. Such dominance was the reason the Pope Damasus had St. Jerome translate the Bible into an acceptable Latin version. For all the translators, Catholic or Protestant, the Latin text was definitive, over any translation. Shakespeare’s work, unlike Dante, or Milton or Proust, can not be traced to any development or perfection of what was developing over the prior hundred or two hundred years. He wrote in reaction to the overthrow of Christ in his homeland, which as his acceptance of all kings except Henry VIII, showed
Shakespeare was not, is not, a man of his age, except he created his works under persecution. In this, Shakespeare is at one with many of the martyrs of the faith. Yet, unlike them, he did not suffer persecution, torture and crucifixion. Shakespeare lived and died without attracting the hatred of his most violent enemies, who did not know they were his enemies. What would Queen Elizabeth have done if she one morning after a play realized what Shakespeare had said? The thought is not pleasant. Men, now live under regimes which unbelievably make the persecution carried out by Henry VIII, seem a small sacrifice. What will these men do to believers? Harold Bloom cited Nietzsche as to literature being an incessant and ongoing contest.
The contest metaphor reflected the outlook of men who had rejected God. Whether their rejection took the character of Luther and Calvin, or Hume or Hobbes, or Voltaire and Rousseau, or Marx, the result was the same emptiness as described by Hobbes, a man who rejected the Catholic love of one’s neighbor, positing a war of all against all. Each of these philosophers, in their own manner, desired to return to the world before Christ. Whether Henry VIII’s divorce, or Calvin’s denial of the Eucharist, each longed for the world to which Christ had not brought salvation. They longed for the world were all men, like themselves, but not themselves alone, were damned.
In the Catholic society formed by the Church, the progress of philosophy and literature was called the great conversation. Images of Mary with the Christ child, with Plato on her left side with St. Paul on the right, while a woman held a cup of wine, another woman played a violin, while a third was pregnant, symbolized the interplay of ideas in the world over time. This was not a contest but the invention of the human, with Christ perfecting man’s knowledge through his presence. No Catholic ever denied what man had produced before Christ. How could a Catholic have a problem with the world God made good? Like Cain, some men sinned against their brothers. Others used the Word, the gift of Christ which distinguishes man from the animals, in order to conspire against God. When man was first created, he spoke one language. On a plain in Sennar, man, as he will do, as Lucifer and Adam did, decided to use his ability to match God. Men wanted to build a tower to reach the heavens. God, displeased visited upon man numerous languages, in order to confound man’s plans. After Christ, under the tutelage of the Church, a single language, latin again brought diverse men, from different tribes, lands, and beliefs, to unity, under Christ. As Professor Bloom decried the fall of the universities, so did the enemies of Christ bring multiple tongues into Christ’s Church, in order to separate the men of God from one another. A Spainard could no longer sit next to a Frenchman, nor either with a German, in the same house of God, and worship Christ together. This division was not done by God, because no house divided against itself can stand, but by enemies of Christ who wished to divide the people of God. The enemies of God, Nietzsche, and others, wanted the Church to suffer as man sufferes, divided from his fellows on the plain at Sennar. They accomplished again among Christ’s followers, the same loss of Catholic civilization, which the suffering Englishmen were punished with, after the division brought about by Henry VIII.
Professor Bloom observed English is becoming the world language, therefore Shakespeare is the glue upon which a universal culture can be built. If you consider this idea, Providence has taken the broken egg, of England, spilled it across the world, and will out of such a catastrophe bring salvation to peoples who otherwise would not have been reached after the break brought about by Luther and Calvin. Using their division, with the appropriate punishment for the world which abetted the division, the Lord gave the world a means to attain unity once again. Harold Bloom derided any unity brought about by religion, because the religions of the world are so divided. However, the Church of Christ is one. Shakespeare, could become like the Aeneid was for the Roman world, an entry point into accepting Christ. The Aeneid’s first half is encapsulated in Hamlet, while the second half, is carried on in Romeo and Juliet. This is just because Virgil guided Dante, as Shakespeare guided Romeo and Juliet. If the world of Shakespeare has entered into the entire world as deeply as Professor Bloom believed, this is the work of Providence. Pagan Rome built the roads upon which the Apostles walked in their work to bring Christ to man. The English empire spread English, as the Roman Latin. Using modern communication, and English, outgrowths of the empire, Shakespeare has penetrated man’s mind across the world. If like the Romans with the Aeneid, which foretold Christ, men can be enlightened to follow Shakespeare they will surmount the Gnosticism of Harold Bloom and join together in Christ.
Professor Bloom took a point, from Charles Lamb, whose Lamb’s Tales, (Shakespeare for children), said Shakespeare should be read. I could not agree more. I went to Shakespeare plays for thirty years, ten a year, before joining the Great Books Course at the University of Chicago. Only in reading the play Othello for class, did I come to have any understanding of what Shakespeare conveyed. I believe this is because, in our time, we see performances once or many times a day, and no longer are able to listen to what is said. If you went to one or two plays a year, how long would the play remain in your imagination? Attending a performance of Henry VIII, in Stratford, Ontario, I noticed the strawberries which trimmed the curtains of the set. The playbill admitted they looked like strawberries, but were actually pomegranates. I was confirmed that Desdemona was Queen Katherine. For the modern man in the cacophony of media, it is not possible to attend a performance and recollect in detail the conversations. Without a deep memory of words, it is impossible to connect the text to its meaning. Our minds are adapted to reading for meaning. I compared Othello to Henry VIII and found them quite close. From there I began to investigate other plays, and later Othello in depth.
After recommending for us to read Shakespeare, Professor Bloom posited it is possible Shakespeare was unaware of how well he portrayed individual men. Shakespeare’s work, being beyond Shakespeare’s ability to comprehend. This assertion contradicts Shakespeare’s invention of the human. Or was professor Bloom intimating, Shakespeare was inspired by God? No. We have to constantly remind ourselves, all the declarations of love, all the arguments, all the weddings, all the killings, were made to continue the eternal conversation between authors, and thus peoples, from the beginning until then. Shakespeare knew exactly what his words meant! He knew, he willed to defy the censors, and he created the love of Christ on the stage, in a country officially devoid of Christ. Has any other man, a friend insists only with the help of an angel, ever been able to discern discussions between works written up to 2500 years apart, down to the sentence? Never.
I do believe Shakespeare thought his work would prove effective if not during his lifetime, shortly thereafter, as the Apostles expected Christ to return in a lifetime. Unfortunately, plays were banned for an entire generation between 1642 A.D. and 1660 A.D. Thus, the growth which would have flowered in freedom, under an unfree structure, was totally cut off. The loss of a generation may have done almost irreparable damage to Shakespeare’s efforts to convert his audience. But the delay, with the expansion of the empire, has allowed its poet laurate, to penetrate the world. We will see if understanding increases if not the reach of Master Shakespeare, the effect. I hope so.
Harold Bloom at the end attempted to make Shakespeare a transcendentalist. What men will dream of themselves, they will dream of others. It took three hundred years of having abandoned the Church, for transcendentalism to be accepted by some man in his conversation with an anonymous god. The Muslim god of Othello’s time would have had none of such a god, if they could have imagined him. We know, obviously not all the gods who attempted to replace Our Lord over man’s existence, but we should know enough to realize some of our current crop have not shown themselves before. All the beliefs after Henry VIII, were proud in pronouncing themselves new. Yet the men who hold to them cannot refute all history. They need to see themselves as part of mankind, not some barnacle clinging to the side of the Ship of Christ. To cut oneself off from the past, as Henry VIII’s England did, leaves a vast hole in the conversation which men have been conducting since Creation. Where we can ask, did those fifteen hundred years go? No one wrote, or performed, or sang anything? Nothing is the answer. Professor Bloom found in Shakespeare characters referring to nothing and embraced them, as he embraced the demon Falstaff. Professor Bloom admitted Falstaff’s true name was OldCastle. Who was OldCastle, a heretic prior to Henry VIII’s rebellion? OldCastle was a friend of Henry V, who revolted from the Church, escaped punishment and then waged a rebellion against King Henry. His forces were defeated and John OldCastle was executed. OldCastle’s sergeant was a Falstaff. Shakespeare threatened by the OldCastle family, changed the name under duress. But he made a note of OldCastle, so readers, not playgoers, could know the true evil of Falstaff. Men always know the characters who represent them in history and literature. They fashion the reputation of these men to suit their image of themselves. Why does Professor Bloom ask why Henry V, executed Falstaff, when history showed his crimes? Professor Bloom wanted Henry V to be punished for accepting the faith and rejecting brigandage. Contemplation can acquire the identification.
Here I would take the singular position in regard to why Shakespeare’s characters seem so real. I would claim all of Shakespeare’s protagonists good or evil, are real people. Almost none of whom were as articulate as Shakespeare, but the Master reflected their beliefs as true to themselves as possible. Working with his knowledge of human nature, each of the characters is multiple people, allowing Shakespeare to show a man, from many other men’s point of view. Of the stories and philosophy which make up each play, each character plays a similar role to his character as the story progresses. The varied streams of reality, all coalesce to an historical conclusion. Why was Falstaff executed, because OldCastle was?
Very near the end of his observations, Harold Bloom found Shakespeare to be secular. What, in the 16th century would secular mean, if not to be an enemy of Christ? At the time there were several new Protestant sects, not yet firmly established. There was an empire of Islam bordering Christianity on all sides. English sea captains allied with Muslim crews to ravage the coasts of Catholic countries for loot, and slaves to be sold in Arabia. Further East, Islam was constantly encroaching upon a dying Hindu empire. Genghis Khan and his successors conquered much of the world from Hong Kong to Moscow, from Peking to Baghdad. Even Moslem countries were conquered. This does not consider the New World, or Africa. Where in this overlay of empires, one on top of, one following another, was there a secular empire? No such state emerged, even in claim, until the overthrow of Louis XVI. To live without sacrifice to God or a god, was totally foreign to any man before the destruction of the Church. Only after the fall of the Church, have men claimed to sacrifice lives to a god with no name. Everything which Professor Bloom found human in Shakespeare’s plays, is the expression of his deepest orthodoxy. Shakespeare is the summation of Catholic doctrine, in theatrical expression.
Professor Bloom continued, rightly, When, we relate a story to the human, we think of parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. All of these relationships shine in the Master’s works. How could any great writer not deal with the familial? We are born into families, and until recently, lived our lives out, among them. Our relationships, as determined by Our Lord, are familial. He gave us not just conversion, but adoption as His sons. We are with Him a family transcending geography, language and time. Professor Bloom claimed Shakespeare is secular because Shakespeare does not describe gods. If you read, Merchant of Venice, who is Antonio but Christ, who offers his life for his brother. Who is Hamlet, who has come to avenge the murder of his father, Julius II, and strike down the murder, Leo X? Who is Romeo? Most of all, who is Desdemona, the divine? A writer, as Professor Bloom truly described could not speak of God in England during Shakespeare’s life, without losing his head. The trial of Antonio, the coming from Wittenberg, the recounting of sins throughout Romeo and Juliet, and lastly the murder of Desdemona by Othello, which matched that of Christ, and Queen Katherine. What name could Shakespeare have used to separate Christ, from the new christs? In England of Shakespeare’s era, there were neither Jews nor Moslems. Both are alike in being heretics. God in Shakespeare is everywhere, just as He is in the world, only disguised to belay the headman’s axe. The reason Shakespeare’s audiences took Falstaff as their favorite, was, he was a reflection of them. The mirror of the plays separated these men, from the groundlings who worshipped Christ.
I will in the future focus on each of the four plays I have written about, Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and lastly, when finished Othello.