Shakespeare is Universal---Why?

William Shakespeare(1564-1616)• Born in Stratford-on-Avon.• His plays are performed more often than

any other playwright.• His identity is disputed by some.• Records show him beginning to be active

in London in 1592.• His plays are performed all over the world

(more than any other playwright)and translated into many languages.

Shakespeare is popular—why?• People choose to perform his plays again and

again—all over the world.• The key to Darwin's theory of evolution is the

survival of the fittest. Species survive according to their capacity to adapt, to evolve according to environmental circumstances.

• As with natural selection, the quality that makes a really successful, enduring cultural artefact is its capacity to change in response to new circumstances. Shakespeare's plays, because they are so various and so open to interpretation, so lacking in dogma, have achieved this trick more fully than any other work of the human imagination. –Professor Jonathan Bate, Oxford

Global Shakespeare, popular Shakespeare (Chinese “Hamlet”, Japanese “Titus Andronicus”, South African “Macbeth”, Takarazuka “Romeo & Juliet”, modern California “Much Ado About Nothing”, modern USA “Julius Caesar”)

“Lacking in dogma”Shakespeare recognized that human affairs always embody a combination of permanent truths and historical contingencies (in his own terms, "nature" and "custom"). He grasped the structural conflicts shared by all societies: religious/secular, country/city, birth/education, strong leadership/the people's voice, the code of masculine honour/the energies of erotic desire. Professor Jonathan Bate, Oxford

In a 1947 essay, George Orwell wrote that "We do not know a great deal about Shakespeare's religious beliefs, and from the evidence of his writings it would be difficult to prove that he had any... The morality of Shakespeare's later tragedies is not religious in the ordinary sense, and certainly is not Christian. Only two of them, Hamlet and Othello, are supposedly occurring inside the Christian era, and even in those, apart from the antics of the ghost in Hamlet, there is no indication of a ‘next world’ where everything is to be put right."

“…not religious in the ordinary sense”

Shakespeare had a philosophy, but it was not usual religious dogma

What was it?It must have been something.It cannot have been “nothing” or “zero”.It must have been something beautiful since his poetry and plays are so beautiful…And it is just as beautiful as the stars!

Allow me to propose an answer!• Shakespeare used the beauty of the

sun and the earth as the basis for his plays.

• The sun warms the earth and makes life possible.

• This is a universal concept on our planet, since the sun shines everywhere.

• It’s lovely and simple!• It’s cosmic!

The planets circle the sun and receive its light and heat—we

know it’s true

But the mainstream view of the cosmos was different in the 1500s and 1600s---a few people like Copernicus and Giordano

Bruno proposed heliocentrism but it was disputed

The sun and its role—its very position and its function---thus were in dispute in the world in the

1500s and early 1600s

• Giordano Bruno proposed thermodynamic heliocentrism in the 1580s. He was then imprisoned and put on trial. (He was executed one year before Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet”!)

• Pre-Christian nature festivals (based on seasons & sun) were under attack by Puritans in England.

Who was Giordano Bruno?• Giordano Bruno was a philosopher and

natural scientist.• He used Copernicus’ heliocentric model to

propose a thermodynamic heliocentric model of the solar system.

• He said the sun was a star.• He was executed for heresy (burned at the

stake) in Rome on February 17, 1600. (After a trial that started in 1592 in Venice and ended in Rome.)

Some images of Giordano Bruno

Bruno had come up with a thermodynamic model of our solar system and…..

• The opening lines of Bruno’s Lo Spaccio della besta trionfionta (1584) (“The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast”) are all about the sun:

He is blind who does not see the sun, foolish who does not recognize it, ungrateful who is not thankful unto it, since so great is the light, so great the good, so great the  benefit, through which it glows, through which it excels, through which it serves, the teacher of the senses, the father of substances, the author of life. (Bruno, Lo Spaccio della besta trionfante

In De Immenso (1582), Bruno wrote:

“The Earth, in the infinite universe, is not at the center, except insofar as everything can be said to be at the center. In this chapter it is explained that the Earth is not central among the planets. That place is reserved for the Sun, for it is natural for the planets to turn towards its heat and light and accept its law.” (De Immenso, III.iii)

In other words,• Thanks to Giordano Bruno (who had

read Copernicus) the science about the sun was there; Bruno’s modern ideas were present when Shakespeare was active as an artist, although Bruno’s ideas were still pretty daring.

How about Shakespeare and the sun?

• One of his most famous lines is “Juliet is the sun”

Couldn’t this be an image of or metaphor for man on planet Earth and the sun?

• The sun is like a beautiful shining being providing nature and bounty to mankind

• In the balcony scene, Juliet says “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.” (II.iii.132-5)

When they meet, there is the heavy use of religious language….

• Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest handThis holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready standTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,Which mannerly devotion shows in this;For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

Please watch Act I scene v of Romeo and Juliet

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAbpWYmTzhE

• This scene is so beautifully done!• Notice how the lovers share the scene alone

(through their dialogue) although others are around.• This movie was a huge hit! • Shakespeare was probably trying, in the party scene

of Romeo and Juliet, to depict in allegory mankind’s earliest relationship with the sun—these were nature religions where the sun and nature were worshipped.

Subsequent scenes where the lovers are together play out the rest.

But this slideshow is not about that.This slideshow is only about how the

sun and its beauty and importance for the Earth was likely an inspiration for

Shakespeare.

From Twelfth NightViola: I saw thee late at the Count Orsino’s.Feste: Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere….

… ….and so does the work of William Shakespeare

Thank you!