So a friend sent me a quote from -- Ron McLean! -- of all people (not that Hockey pundits are fundamentally stupid, I was just surprised to find that he had an opinion about this....):
"You can almost always pin down the artist in the art, but not Shakespeare, and I’d like to know what made him tic"
Well, respectfully, here's your answer, Ron.
This is so ridiculous, and merely to save the asses of those who believe that the 'man from Stratford' was Shakespeare. They have decided that since the tiny bio of the man from Stratford finds no reflection in Shakespeare's work -- that there is a general principle to be gleaned from this -- that we can learn nothing about a great writer's personal views from a great writer's work itself, and that 'hiding' in your work is what defines a great writer: i.e. a great writer is defined by his or her ability to disappear in their work!
Bullshit.
- Shakespeare was a skeptic -- he believed that there was no ultimate right or wrong, but that instead it was important to bring up both sides of every argument, and then to rest peacefully in the space of contradiction (this is the philosophy of skepticism)
- he was an aesthete, meaning he thought that the truth of the world was to be found in poetry, not in observation of the world, or science (this is the philosophy of Gorgias)
- he was NOT a puritan, he hated them, and was probably closer to a Catholic than a protestant. But remember though he was fond of Christian imagery -- and obviously raised on the bible, his work is Christian only now and then; he was a pagan first and foremost....and a magician
- he was a feminist -- for his time -- meaning he thought that the beauty and literary brilliance of women (wit) was the ultimate value, and that men can and should learn from women how to be good and brilliant people
- he was the opposite of a stoic -- he did not think that people were ennobled by controlling their feelings, but rather ennobled by expressing them
- He was an aristocrat. This means he did not really understand -- or have any interest -- in the affairs of working class people. We know this because he rarely wrote about poor or middle class people, most of the time he wrote about aristocrats (that is, HIS class). But this is not an attitude that is deliberate or dogmatic in his work. He just doesn't get working class or middle-class people. He was not one. (And he also believed in the divine right of kings.)
- 'Something terrible happened to Shakespeare.' His writing is filled not only with horrific incidents, but with deep and extended contemplation on how to deal with grief -- in fact, he goes on and on about it, in quite a batty way -- trying to figure out how we can possibly express grief, or even experience it. This is the subject of many extended monologues and soliloquies.
c) He was obsessed with the unjust hurt he personally had done to a woman -- by accusing her of infidelity that never occurred. In other words he ruined some woman's life by accusing her of being a 'slut' and never recovered from the trauma of that incident. (This could be the 'something terrible.' Or that might be something else, i.e. something worse.)
d) He was very sexual. As a skeptic, he is not going to tell us his final opinion on sex. But it is clear from his work that he KNEW sex WELL, and was no prude, and was pursued by the 'dogs of desire' -- which he often refers to in his work -- those 'dogs' may have had something to do with what destroyed him.
If you want proof for all of this you need only read Shakespeare's work, and/or you can read my books: Shakespeare Beyond Science When Poetry was the World and the soon to be released Shakespeare Lied (both Guernica).
