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poem about the tiger
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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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I do value and appreciate that, though I have strong opinions about how much of Shakespeare's pandering to the regime that financed his work was taken as some sort of self-evident historical fact in his so-called historical plays. The most notorious example was his portrayal of Richard III, making him a sort of "too strong and too weak" caricature villain (hunchback optional) that downplayed the absolute monster in battle that dueled, and killed, all but the last of the Tudors would-be kings that went out to kill him, one after the other.
Oh yeah the regime propaganda is an issue, and we can never fully "absolve" any artist of the time for their monarchist propaganda.
Of course Dollimore's Radical Tragedy is a good thing to keep in mind here - thanks to the existence of the state censor, the degree one could radically oppose monarchy was circumscribed by the conditions of artistic production. You can do a Richard II and present Bolingbroke as politicking (casting doubt on Tudor and later Stuart ideology about divine right in the process), but unfortunately the peasant uprisings are always dealt as if they are beyond the pale and the most you might get is some good rhetoric from their leaders.
But we can't forget this was all produced under a state censor (indeed we should emphasize it!) since it shows the limits of imagination imposed on Shakespeare, and if you're into his "genius" then you can point to the radical elements he did include in spite of this regime.
However I really don't think he's more than a great mixtape artist, mashing up good bits in pleasing ways. He was an artist for the people, and that's the thing worth celebrating.
It was one thing to vaguely hail the proverbial king and the other to say "the now-dead enemies of the reigning dynasty were the soyjak, and the reigning dynasty, as you see, are the chads."
I could be tempted to go hard on the opportunity he had to solidify the humanization of Shylock and the injustice he faced but no that was a comedy and yes audiences of his time thought it was joyous that Shylock lost his livelihood and his daughter was converted and married to the man that ruined him and basically removed from his family but later interpretations and presentations did that for him because he was more than fine with that status quo by the accounts I've seen.
That's actually my take too. He was definitive for his time, a trendsetter and trailblazer in both language and theatrics and few individuals had as much direct influence on the cultures they lived in, but fuck the Bardology
that simultaneously dominate humanities colleges and also make average tryhards quote Shakespeare as a shortcut to presenting as smart.
I assume you've read Marlowe's Jew of Malta, at once 1000x more horrible but also more radical since it's a tragedy and not a comedy.
And yeah bardolotry is cringe and I feel ppl that actually study Shakey nowadays are way less prone to it (though it's still there). If nothing else, there's a deep Marxist tradition in the academy now that pushes back on great man theory.
Say what you will about the new historicisists, they gave us that at least
On a side note I could also rant about the Sonnets that are pretty much out and out negs of Shakespeare's child actors that he was creeping upon, in some cases mocking their breath, their disappointing appearances, but settling on noncing with them anyway. Bardologists hate when that gets brought up.