From Shakespeare to Trump @3QD

My latest post at 3 Quarks Daily: Shakespeare, the Starry Welkin, and Donald Trump. I’m playing around with the idea that, while we (whoever “we” are) regard Shakespeare as central to our culture, Elizabethan England is in fact a foreign culture. It may be in our cultural lineage, but it is still foreign. The language is somewhat different, as are the customs. The political system is quite different, a monarchy vs. a representative democracy. The economic system is quite different as well, though I don’t mention it in the post, nor do I mention the educational system.

I then work my way around to Henry IV, Part II, where I quote from the scene known as the rejection of Falstaff, which I’ve discussed in a number of posts at New Savanna, including, Trump, Gibbs & NCIS, and the Queen @3QD. This is the scene where Falstaff approaches his good body, Hal, who has now become Henry V and expects advancement at court. Hal rebuffs him, however, pointing out he is no longer the person he was when he was hanging out with Falstaff and the gang. Thus he distinguished between his personal life, with its duties and obligations, and his public life, as king. He may be the same biological individual, but he is a different social individual.

That’s an important distinction, one that Trump does not make. He has in the past, and presumably will do so in the future, treated his position as president as his personal fiefdom. That’s what corruption is about, failure to distinguish between one’s private personal life and one obligation to an organization in which one holds a position.

That’s one thing that was on my mind. But there’s another, and this is somewhat different. How has Shakespeare influenced our culture and society? On the one hand he has influence subsequent writers and so his influence has diffused through the population in that way. That process has been going on for over four centuries.

But what about his current influence? How does that work? The plays continue to be taught in secondary schools and in colleges and universities, and they continue to be performed in various amateur and professional venues. There is a considerable scholarly establishment devoted to studying his work and publishing about them. There is a sizeable institutional structure built around him – do a search on “Shakespeare festival” and see what comes up. How does that influence our culture and society? Much of that seems to me ceremonial and symbolic in nature (I include the scholarship). There’s something going on here that’s more than ordinary influence. I’m not at all sure how that works.

More later.