Paper Draft

Much Ado About NOTHING: Shakespeare and Mythical Creativity

                                                            As imagination bodies forth

                                    The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

                                    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

                                    A local habitation and a name.

           

                                                            -A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Imagination, innovation, creation: the miracles of human ingenuity and the drivers of human progress. In the end, humanity’s most miraculous power is its ability to make something of nothing, to use his imagination, intellect and ingenuity to perform a perfect act of creation. No one was more aware of this basic human power than William Shakespeare, whose most constant characters by far are artifice and imagination. Plumbing the depths of his powerful playland, Shakespeare contemplates in his drama the inherent unreality of our human habitations and the ultimate power of our mythical creative faculty. Shakespeare encapsulates this every day miracle in his use of the word nothing, using a simple word to denote many meanings, and, in the end, describing through nothing the entire realm of possibilities that we can explore with imagination. Borges said that Shakespeare embodied everything and nothing, and indeed he did. Shakespeare embodied nothing in its mythical sense, in which humanity can utilize pure creativity to give to “airy nothing A local habitation and a name.”

            At the source of nothing’s power is Shakespeare’s ability to read into it so many different possible meanings that intimate its full mythical sense. Chief among these is the concept of “noting”. This Elizabethan pronunciation of nothing makes heady appearances in Shakespeare’s comedies, especially Much Ado About Nothing, which it can be argued has no other purpose than to comment on the misunderstandings that can arise when our imagination fills in the blanks of “noted” conversations. Much Ado also explores the moral ambivalence of the imagination. In the case of Beatrice and Benedict, noting, nothing and their own imaginations allow their love to spring from less than nothing, open dislike. For Hero, however, artifice and imagination lead to her spiritual death, rebirth only being achieved once the curtains are drawn and the artifice revealed. Nothing, then, in this sense is neither good or evil. It can help us to unveil deeper truth, encourage us to change false perceptions or engender love where it didn’t exist before, but noting and active imagination can also be used as tools to create great evil through the exploitation of jealousy.

            Nowhere is this more sinister side of noting and nothing more apparent than in Othello. The moor of Venice falls prey to specters of his own mind, his downfall arising from his receptive imagination’s cultivation of Iago’s seed of doubt. Othello’s obsession illuminates another dimension of nothing, the importance Elizabethans placed on female chastity. As Hamlet puts it, nothing is also “a fair thought to lie between maiden’s legs” (III.2.114).  The perceived worth of Hero, Desdemona and numerous other Shakespearean heroines rests on this sort of nothingness, the idea that nothing has lied twixt their legs. 

            Shakespeare, however, digs much deeper throughout his works, developing in nothing a meta-myth to guide his creative philosophy. As Shakespeare’s contemporary, Descartes, was questioning the worth of our sense perceptions, Shakespeare was exploring the boundaries of the possible. While Descartes attempted to define and fix the actual in his Meditations, Shakespeare went further, working in his plays with the relation between actuality and possibility. Instead  of smelling “this business with a sense as cold as is a dead man’s nose,” Shakespeare “see’t and feel’t” (The Winters Tale, II.1.152-153). As Prospero’s magic circle divides the island into the dream realm and reality, our world can be divided into what is and what could be or might have been but is not. As Goddard put it, “In this realm are all the deeds that were not done when the other choice was made, all the roads that were not traveled when the other fork was taken, all the life that did not come into existence when its seeds failed to germinate” (Goddard, 272).  For humanity, this nothingness defines our existence, for our existence is nothing without it. The ability to dream, to create, to imagine, defines who we are and how we act. It provides hope for the future, and informs our lives. “Out of something nothing new ever came without the aid of nothing in this high potential sense” (Goddard, 272).

            Nothing in Shakespeare actually takes on a mythical scope, mirroring the most basic miracle, creating something out of nothing. As Borges’ God answered Shakespeare, “I have dreamt the world as you dreamt your work, my Shakespeare, and among the forms in my dream are you, who like myself are many and no one.” Shakespeare is constantly confronting this creation, reflecting on it through plays within plays, imaginative gambits and deeper philosophical manifestations. Lear’s answer to Cordelia for instance, “nothing will come of nothing,” sets the stage for a demonstration of this basic miracle and meta-myth. As the story progresses, everything comes out of Cordelia’s nothing, her father’s blindness, her virtue, and the dreadful climax of the play. Similarly, Mercutio’s premonitions in Act I of Romeo and Juliet, “begot of nothing but vain fantasy,” prove prophetic by the play’s climax.

            In the end, Shakespeare is arguing for the utter reality of possibility. To Shakespeare, denying the imagination is akin to denying reality. If imagination is meaningless, “why then the world and all that’s in’t is nothing, The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing, My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings if this is nothing” (The Winter’s Tale, I.2.292-295).  The mythical Shakespeare argues that reality can and is shaped by our creative faculty through the base myth and miracle, creation. For, as God proclaimed “let there be light” and there was light, Shakespeare feels that man may be “like a god” in his ability to answer the mythical mystery of how something may come from nothing.  All myths are based on mystery, and this is the most basic mystery of all. Shakespeare’s works demonstrate how man is a mythical being through his most basic and important characteristic, his ability to imagine, to create and to explore the realm of the possible. 

Everything in Nothing

So, I've been rather enamored recently with the various concepts of nothing that arise in Shakespeare. William, of course, means for us to read much into his time's pronunciation of the word and its connotation of hearsay and gossip, but I think he also is trying to address something much deeper and more profound.

The classic miracle, for instance, is the ability to create something of nothing. Genesis, transubstantiation, and, most importantly, our own imaginative faculty, are all miraculous examples of the Shakespearean concept of nothing. Goddard's criticism argues that within NOTHING is the idea of the actual and the possible, the "two constituents of the imagination" "In this realm," says Goddard, "are all the deeds that were not done when the other choice was made, all the roads that were not traveled when the other fork was taken, all the life that did not come into existence when its seeds failed to germinate."

It's as if Shakespeare asks the questions of Descartes--what is real? What is fact? Can I trust my senses? If not, what do I trust?--and comes to a unique and profoundly mythological conclusion. "It matters not," Shakespeare says, for "the poet's pen...gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." Our ability to trust our senses and our world is inconsequential, for we can live in a world of pure creativity through imagination.

And, indeed, imagination seems to be Shakespeare's most powerfully moving character. Lear's exhortation that "nothing will come of nothing" rings true in Shakespeare's grand sense, for encapsulated in the concept of nothing is the entire realm of possibility. For Cordelia, Goddard says, "her whole spiritual inheritance came from nothing."

"Nothing" then seems to be a stand in for the creative faculty of the imagination.

Let us at least put our lands in order

I like Frye's idea that tragedy and comedy are somehow enclosed in each other. It seems to me that Shakespeare's last four plays  extend upon that concept, attempting to reflect on that fact that every comedy contains possible tragedy, and every tragedy can possibly turn to comedy. The romances show darkly comic situations, misunderstandings that lead to tragic outcomes of oedipal significance, yet they still manage to end with some form of cathartic, redemptive power.

Shakespeare in Lear shows the greatest depth of despair that can be had on this world. In Hamlet he confronts the problems of evil head on. In Macbeth he explores the corruption that follows lust for power. Everywhere Shakespeare asks why. Why do we continue with this existence if it can lead to such overwhelming sorrow? Some may argue that the comedies provide answers, their "happy" endings providing hope to life. This hope, however, hangs by a thread of chance, as every comedy contains tragedy within.

It is in the romances, then, that Shakespeare finds his profoundly mythological answer. For although comedy escapes being tragedy by only chance, tragedy can also be transformed to comedy. The romances attempt to unveil this entire cycle, showing an eternal recurrence, a mixture of possibilities that provide hope that man might achieve either the light or the dark

History and Myth

To say I'm way behind on blogging is like claiming that Cleopatra is "only a little needy"....gross understatement. Anyways, here goes.

I found that Antony and Cleopatra provided the best mix of tragedy, comedy and history that I've read thus far. In Egypt (Cleopatra) and Rome (Antony and then Octavius) we have figures of such historical importance that they are raised nearly to the level of myth just by how their short time on earth shaped the destiny of western civilization, yet Shakespeare manages to both demythologize Caesar Augustus and reshape they mythology of Antony and Cleopatra, elevating them to god'like status whilst using the prodding of comedy to question whether they deserve that distinction.

As we discussed in class, the play and its characters are very much separated into Egypt and Rome. Rome is historical, linear, rational. Rome is passionless ambition, duty, the occident. Egypt is the orient, exotic, erotic and without rhyme or reason.

It is little wonder that Eliot made a nod to Cleopatra in The Wasteland. The second section, whose title, "A Game of Chess", is in itself a nod to machinations of history, explores one distinction that Egypt and Rome embody, the difference between historical and mythological time. "Hurry up please, it's time" says Eliot's Cockney woman at the end, mirroring the perception of Rome, describing a time that presses forward. For Octavius and his ilk time is a constant, linear thing moving inexorably through history. For Cleopatra, however, and, I think, for Eliot, time is not a linear matter. It is cyclic, it is an eternal recurrence. Cleopatra is "fluid" because she is a recurrence of Isis, of the Mother Goddess, and Antony, although he seems to shed his herculean ancestry as he removes the fetters of his Roman past, is also a reincarnation of Hercules. Both are, in the end, profoundly mythological.

Mythology in As You Like it

So, I've been falling a little behind with this blogging bit. Ah well.

I found the dichotomy between nature and fortune in As You Like It particularly fascinating. It seems Shakespeare is confronting the classic pastoral myth. He creates a distinction between the gifts of fortune and the gifts of nature, much as there is a boundary between the urban court and the forest of Arden. Celia and Rosalind's conversation in act II on how these gifts are misplaced show the issue with attributing such mythic qualities to the pastoral scene. Nature can give great gifts, as it has to both Rosalind and Celia, but without the gift of fortune, without the urban, these gifts are often left by the wayside, unused or unwanted.

It also seems that Shakespeare again confronts the artifice of the play in As You Like It. This time, the bard through Jaques brings this questioning of reality to the metaphysical level. If "All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players," of what consequence is free will? What, if any, is humanity's place in the greater scheme? In ACT IV we see yet another play within a play, Rosalinde's charade as Ganymede with Orlando. We perceive the artifice, we contemplate how the play acts as a mirror for real experience, yet Shakespeare attempts to apply this to the greater play, to life.  As in A Midsummer Nights Dream, The lower rungs of the mythical ladder are reflections of those above. "The best in these are but shadows." Shakespeare questions whether we are but a shadow, and if so, what are we shadows of? Like Plato's cave, are our daily lives only a shadow of some higher, purer truth. If so, what is the purpose of life, and what is the purpose of the play?

" Why he's a regular Prince Myshkin"

Hamlet is Ivan, Ivan is Hamlet.

Should I chose a sacred text, my personal scripture, a text which inspires in me the true depth of emotion that literature (and myth) ought to provoke,  I would chose The Brothers Karamzov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Not for nothing does Vonnegut's Mr. Rosewater say that everything one needs to know about life can be found within its pages. Ivan, Alyosha, Mitya and Smerdyakov evoke emotions and motivations so terrifyingly real that they strike a bitter chord with all that is human within each of us (or, at very least, within me). Freud and Nietsche felt that bite, felt it and reveled in it, for Dostoevsky's great gift, much like Shakespeare's, was his ability to portray emotions so deep and so ingrained in mankind that they seem almost timeless, almost mythical.

So, it should come as no surprise (though it often does) that the Shakespeare and Dostoevsky often seem to express the same myth, the same deeply entrancing emotion. In fact, as I read A Midsummer Night's Dream I heard echoes of Brothers K., most notably Mitya as he said "God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man." Titania and Oberon, in being "the parents and the original" elevate to a supernatural plain the struggles of Love. Similarly, Dmitri, Alyosha, Ivan and Smerdyakov elucidate in their quarrels the titanic battle between human rationality and spirituality. In each, supernatural occurrences define and describe the troubles of humanity.

Take for example three of Dostoevsky's most noted characters: Alyosha Karamazov, Prince Myshkin the Idiot and the depraved underground man. Each in his own right parallels Tarquin or Adonis. Each spurns a women, often the best of the breed, for different reasons: the underground man for his own depravity, Myshkin out of selfless naivette and Alyosha in his search for higher meaning. Each is hunting his own personal boar, and each, with the possible exception of Alyosha, is gored.

It's odd, almost, this comparison, for although Myshkin is the best man of the three, he ends up in the worst position. A moments hesitation, caused by the deep goodness in his nature and his pity for Nastasya, robbed him of happiness with Aglaia and condemns him to a life of insanity. In many ways Myshkin is the christ child in a society that can no longer tolerate him or the mother goddess. As with the Grand Inquisitor of the Brothers Karamazov, the Russia Myshkin finds may profess a love of simple goodness, but in its essence it spurns such perfection.

In the Underground Man we find a stunning reversal of this situation. Liza, who at once represents Russia, womankind and humanity, is taken in and then betrayed by the Underground Man, who openly displays what the rest of society tries to hide: the underlying depravity of the modern human condition. "As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves."  The Underground Man is Tarquin without a conscience, but he is also a reflection of his society. Liza, the downtrodden modern version of the Mother Goddess, is disgraced not by disinterested naievette, as is Venus, or by the blinding pangs of passion, as Lucrece, but rather by the malice of the modern man attempting to come to terms with modernity.

Alyosha, youngest of the sordid, sensual Karamazovs, is the last of Dostoevsky's characters to spurn a woman. He choses the religious life over that of love, but is saved, in a sense, by Father Zosima, who tells him to enter the world. Alyosha ends his story, after surviving the travails of modern life and keeping his sense of self amidst the nihilism of Ivan, sensuality of Dimitri and depravity of Smerdyakov, by walking down the street with a gaggle of school children. It seems he is saying after the wasteland "let us at least put our lands in order."

Hopefully I'll have some time to expand on this later, but this should do for now.

Initial thoughts on the bard

I have only ever kissed one man.

I assure you, it was for a good reason, though my fiance remains skeptical. The vaunted kiss took place at a Lutheran bible camp as I performed, with my best friend Mark, a two man version of Romeo and Juliet (with some humerous alterations).

Whether through misquotation ("a nose by any other name would still smell"), hyperbole ("SWEAR NOT BY THE MOON!") or outright slander ("by yonder blessed virgin I swear") Mark and I managed to slay the typical conventions of Shakespearean acting. My point in this blog, however, is that we also managed to slay the audience.

 Perhaps performance adds a vital component to the concept of "mything shakespeare". Shakespeare, you see, apart from his stunning ability to add to our lexicon and vividly describe and orchestrate the human condition in his works also seems to have set the eternal standard for acting. Playing Richard III or Henry V seems to be an appropriate Everest for any budding actor, and to attempt the part of Hamlet is often described as akin to attempting the part of God.

So why is Shakespeare even today considered the pinnacle of an actor's repertoire?  I'd argue that it has something to do with the myth of Shakespeare, the ever present pressure his plays retain on our collective consciousness. Shakespeare was not great merely because he wrote beautifully. His plays speak so deeply because they effectively address a deep part of human nature. Hamlet's existential angst, Romeo's ill-fated love, Hermia's jealousy--all reflect basic passions that oft inflict the human soul. To act Shakespeare is to act human, all too human. And so, in playing these parts, modern actors, though they come from a different age, must attach themselves at the roots of human emotion and participate deeply with the characters on the page in order to make them truly appear on the stage.

Mark and I, in our little production, managed only the most basic rendition of Shakespeare's mastery of human emotion. We were able to use the myth he has passed down to inspire some laughter, a few snickers and a couple of horrified camp director's. Even this marginal accomplishment, however, showed me that often, to truly understand the power of the bard, one must play the part.


Videos from the Reduced Shakespeare Company's performance of Romeo and Juliet