What Can We Learn From Shakespeare?
By DONALD DeMARCO
Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, has stated that schools must look beyond “dead white men such as Shakespeare and Shelley to make the curriculum more diverse.” In response, Joseph Pearce, Catholic editor of St. Austin Review, comments that “Bousted has managed to combine racism, sexism, and ageism in one fell swoop in her prejudice against Shakespeare and others” who were born white, male, and suffered the misfortune of dying.
We need Shakespeare to expose the very immoralities that Bousted allegedly renounces: Iago’s unconscionable racism leveled against Othello and the reprehensible prejudice against Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. Portia, the heroine of The Merchant of Venice, and Cordelia, the faultless daughter of King Lear, are strong women. And Prince Henry V, later in his life, became a very popular and successful king.
If we want to portray the ugliness of racism, prejudice, sexism, and ageism, these four Shakespearean plays are a good place to start. Bousted is arguing against herself. She is even recommending what she denounces.
Bousted is by no means alone in her rejection of Shakespeare. In the January 2021 issue of School Librarian, Amanda MacGregor, a Minnesota-based librarian, bookseller, and freelance journalist, expressed her wonderment at why teachers continue to teach Shakespeare. She and others who share her point of view think that educators should make room for “modern, diverse and inclusive voices.” After all, she writes, Shakespeare’s works have “outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogynoir (hatred of Black women).”
Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the history of the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. According to Guinness Book of World Records, the sales of his plays and poetry are in excess of four billion copies. He is the most quoted writer in the history of the English-speaking world, after the Bible. His plays have been translated into every major living language (more than 100) and performed more often than those of any other playwright.
The noted American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger listed William Shakespeare as the most influential person of the last thousand years. The Bard’s influence is considerable with respect even to writers of today.
The attempt to ban or banish Shakespeare is a rather daunting task. To expunge his influence is even more daunting. It would mean abolishing nearly everything written after Shakespeare.
As a gag to test human gullibility, someone collected over 500 signatures from people who supported a ban on Dihydrogen Monoxide. This substance was getting into rivers, our food, and even our tears. And it kills thousands of people every year. Little did these signatories realize that they were supporting a ban on water. Banning Shakespeare would be just as likely to succeed as banning Dihydrogen Monoxide.
With respect to what Shakespeare can teach us today, let us turn to his Julius Caesar which offers us a parallel with abortion in how to go about killing with an easy conscience. The murder of Caesar bears a striking similarity with the killing of the child in the womb.
In Act 2, scene 1, Brutus spends a sleepless night, bothered by the crime he will soon commit.
Sleeplessness is a device Shakespeare uses in other plays to indicate a restless conscience that is all too aware of an evil for which one is responsible. As a sign of guilt for committing regicide, Macbeth hears a voice say, “Sleep no more: Macbeth doth murder sleep.”
In his unrested state, Brutus decides that Caesar must be killed to prevent him from becoming a tyrant. He also decides to take charge of a conspiracy against Caesar. The assassination must take on a broad approbation. In this way the reprehensible act of murder is replaced by an act of public service.
The abortion movement could not have been widely accepted if not for the fact that it was promoted by sundry professionals. A lonely act of killing is contemptible, but it becomes acceptable when carried out by people of social prominence.
Also, like abortion, the victim must be dehumanized. Brutus thinks Caesar “as a serpent’s egg which hatch’d would, as his kind, grow mischievous, and kill him in the shell.” The unborn child has been misrepresented as a “parasite,” a “vampire,” an “aggressor,” or merely an object of choice. It is stated repeatedly that an unwanted child will be an unacceptable burden for the mother if allowed to be born.
Finally, the act of killing must be met with social approval, even public praise. Brutus has an answer to the vexing question, “Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough to mask this monstrous visage”? “Hide it,” he retorts, “in smiles and affability.”
There are remarkable similarities between the rationalizations used to approve the killing of Caesar and those to promote abortion. In Julius Caesar we see how easily we can cover our sins with lies. This is a lesson that should inspire us to rectitude.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus, St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. He is a regular columnist for St. Austin Review and is the author of 41 books. He is a former corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy of Life. Some of his recent books, The 12 Supporting Pillars of the Culture of Life and Why They Are Crumbling, Glimmers of Hope in a Darkening World, and Restoring Philosophy and Returning to Common Sense, are posted on amazon.com. His two latest books are Let Us Not Despair and The Road to a Better World. He and his wife, Mary, have 5 children and 13 grandchildren.)
