Re: [Marxism] Shakespeare

[DCQ <deeseekyou@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Agreed.

What is interesting though is that your example is actually a pretty 
crude example of Shakespeare's villains. Not surprising since Richard 
III is one of Shakespeare's early plays. His admission of guilt is 
quite open and plain. What is interesting is that Shakespeare has his 
villains become much more subtle over time, much more complicated. 
Claudius, to some extent still verbalizes his guilt ("My offense is 
rank to heaven"), but only does so alone. He cannot even admit his 
guilt in prayer to God. Later, what critics have often called Iago's 
"motiveless malice" is actually a malice sparked by ambition, greed, 
and jealousy. But Iago never self-consciously reflects that his malice 
and spite is disproportionate to his goals. Still later, Shakespeare 
gives us Macbeth, whose "dagger" soliloquy ends--after a tortuous and 
titanic psychological battle--with these lines: "Whiles I threat, he 
lives: Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives." (Whole speech 
below, since it's just some damned beautiful writing). This is one a 
Shakespeare's great insight's, that self-reflection and evil are, in 
general, mutually exclusive. Hence, the right's constant promotion of 
"men of action," regardless of how they act.

Bush as Iago or Macbeth, minus the intelligence and competence.

MACBETH
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.


On Sep 8, 2006, at 2:27 PM, Louis Proyect wrote:

> One of the reasons I referred Charles to Shakespeare is that his plays 
> are shot through with rulers who admit their villainy to themselves. I 
> can't imagine Bill Clinton ever feeling the slightest tinge of 
> conscience for throwing helpless women and their children off welfare. 
> Bourgeois politicians generally are not capable of these sorts of 
> insights:
>
> KING RICHARD III
>
>     Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
>     Have mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.
>     O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
>     The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
>     Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
>     What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
>     Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
>     Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
>     Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
>     Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
>     Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
>     That I myself have done unto myself?
>     O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
>     For hateful deeds committed by myself!
>     I am a villain: ... [snip]


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