The Collected Writings of Sardonicus

I've been sleeping a LOT at home. I didn't even lose that much sleep during midterm week, so I don't have a clue why I've been so tired. Anyway, isn't it sad that today I chose to turn off a dvd of King Lear starring Lawrence Olivier- arguably the greatest actor of all time- in favor of watching a bit of Veronica Mars, and then West Wing? I mean, it's not like West Wing has even been any good the past few seasons. But I wasn't that surprised of my choice. I won't blame it on society, or the "dumbing down" of entertainment. I just don't like Shakespeare. I've tried to jump on the pompous elitest-bandwagon regarding his plays, but they just simply don't appeal to me. Now, I of course I am forced to admit that Shakespeare was a genius- each of his works are a testament to that- but the novelty of iambic pentameter is not what it used to be.

A few days ago, I was watching an interview of the Yale professor Harold Bloom, who was promoting his new book Jesus and Yahweh. Previously, he wrote extensively on the role of Shakespeare in modern-day culture, and I thought he put forth a few extremely thought-provoking theories. One that perked my ears especially was his belief that Shakespeare is the most influential figure in Western history. Now that in itself isn't extremely controversial, but it was his reason WHY he believed so that got my mind reeling. In his opinion, the works of Shakespeare, and all the ways they penetrated into other mediums, completely redefined HOW PEOPLE THOUGHT in the Western world. Each time you try to think of something romantic to say or write, you're basically aping Shakespeare, whether it's subconscious or not. Whenever you're grieving, you're aping Shakespeare. Whenever, you're being dramatic and think you're feeling emotions unique to yourself, you're actually simply emoting in a way that has been conditioned-in a sense- in you through media and entertainment. According to his thesis, many modern human behaviors have been instructed to us by either Shakespeare or a work derived from Shakespeare. Bloom believes that BEFORE Shakespeare, people - at least in the West- did not feel or recognize emotions in the way that we do. His primary example was Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. In his opinion, Juliet provided a template for how a girl can be overcome with distraught or love, and demonstrated how emotions can overpower the will to live in a female. Now, obviously, I was not the one conducting the interview, and I wouldn've loved to remind him of the power of Greek tragedies, and the depiction of the full spectrum of emtions in them, but I thought he was a fascinating interviewee nonetheless. Despite the primary topic of the interview being his research of Yeshua of Nazereth, Jesus as a historical figure, and Yahweh (misspelled as Jehovah in the New Testament), he believed that the ONLY person whose impact on Western civilization even approaches Shakespeare is Miguel de Cervantes and his work Don Quixote IF you believe that Don Quixote provided the behavioral templates for hispanic peoples the same way Shakespeare did for English-speaking peoples. This I also found to be interesting, because Shakespeare produced a considerable number of works; whereas, Don Quixote is Cervantes' only recognized masterpiece. Bloom explained that Cervantes was able to depict emotion and behavior almost as much as all of Shakespeare's work in a single novel. Now, he was careful to qualify his statements with narrowly applying his thesis on the West, but I wonder if there are any Eastern authors that have had as large an impact. Possibly Confucius and his disciples.

Of course, when I'm not being cynical, I'm being skeptical, so I'll have to hear him defend his views against some of my counterarguments before I can subscribe to most of the things he has said, but I honestly wouldn't be all to surprised if he was right. Not that it really matters, because I doubt there are any definitive answers for cultural claims such as this. But it's always nice to have something to think about from time to time.