The readiness to deconstruct is all


A.D. Nuttall, Shakespeare the Thinker, Yale University Press. 428 pp.

Colin McGinn, Shakespeare's Philosophy, HarperCollins. 230 pp.

Review by Carlin Romano

To be or not to be a philosopher did not concern Shakespeare, so far as we know. And we know very little.
Indeed, it might be said that the endless interpretations of scholars who claim Shakespeare meant this or that, or wrote from a familiar ideological position - "closet Catholic" keeps rising as a trendy view in recent bios - die many times before their deaths (savaged by rival scholars), while modest approaches taste of deconstruction but once, when the books in which they appear get pulped.

And there's the nub - the paradox of Shakespeare scholarship that continues nearly 400 years after his death.

On the one hand - a phrase Shakespeare may have invented, along with a higher percentage of English truisms than anyone else - the Bard endures as the supreme writer in the history of the English language and, to many, the most profound ever across all cultures.

When we refuse to "budge an inch," excoriate "rotten apples," or admonish slackers to "sink or swim," we speak in his voice. Although the arts sections of newspapers teem with products from self-anointed "artists" who will not survive their publicity budgets, Shakespeare after roughly four centuries still pleases general audiences, challenges intellectuals, and provokes academics. How can we not presume that such a stupendous orchestrator of character and insight operated with a coherent, multifaceted theory of human nature?

On the other hand, our ignorance of Shakespeare the man - he left no diaries or letters in his short life of some 52 years - and the clashing multiple versions of some of his texts, have always dovetailed with a contrary belief that his greatness arises precisely from utter openness to the varieties of human behavior, emotion and thought, his ability to render in concrete scenes and daring metaphors more non-reductionist nuances of the heart and mind than an army of writers centuries later.

Full review at philly.com >>>

Posted: Fri - May 25, 2007 at 08:38 AM          

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