Shakespeare Elitist
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William Shakespeares plays are often considered universal pieces of literature whose themes and morals transcend the 17th century and can be related to all generations. Many of the morals and feelings Shakespeare wrote about still carry weight today and can easily be adapted to modern situations as seen in many recent adaptations such as West Side Story and 10 Things I Hate About You. However there are some aspects of Shakespeares work which do not transcend the 17th century. Within in the majority of his plays are presented political and societal values which would appear terrible by todays largely liberal democratic society. This is of course Shakespeares tendency to show his contempt for the poor and working class within his plays. There are many people who might argue against this view, choosing instead to read Shakespeares contempt for the poor and aristocratic attitude ironically. Yet this is nothing but a failed attempt to place their own modern values onto the plays, if Shakespeares intentions truly were ironic when writing his plays then it is unlikely that it would have taken us Four hundred years to realize it. Since it is after all only reasonable to assume that the greatest playwright of all times would have been able to successfully portray the meaning of his plays. Besides its not hard to see why Shakespeares sympathies would lie with the noble aristocracy rather then the poor worker. First of all Shakespeares mother Mary Arden was of aristocratic birth and his father John Shakespeare, a commoner by birth, later achieved the title of “Gentlemen” as well as his own coat of arms (Mabillard). Besides Shakespeare himself was a land owner who was respected and befriended by the social elite in England, thus it is easy to see why Shakespeare would oppose the movements of the poor. In Shakespeares plays Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Troilus and Cressida, but not limited to these, Shakespeare shows his contempt for the poor as well as appealing to the values and views of elite aristocracy who attended his shows. Though Shakespeares plays at times may be considered progressive, such as in womans rights, these plays offer amble evidence of Shakespeare elitist attitudes. In Walt Whitmans own words, Shakespeares plays were “conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism — personifying in unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation). Everything possible is done in the Shakespeares plays to make the common people seem common — very common indeed.”(Nelson)
It is a common occurrence that within Shakespeares plays the commoner is either depicted as a fool or degraded by the Main characters of the play. In Hamlet, Shakespeare makes his low opinion of the common man clear “the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.” (Hamlet, 3.2) This comment is especially cruel as it is aimed at Shakespeares own audience. Clearly Shakespeares must have had very little concern for the common man if he was willing to risk alienating his own paying customers with verbal attacks. Usually Shakespeares mockery of the common men is not stated outright but seen by his consistent portrayal of them as fools, idiots or worse. In The Tempest it is Trinculo and Stefano, the two commoners on the island, who are the ones consistently made out to be buffoons. In their attempt to take control of the island because of Ariel they soon become nothing more then an comical spectacle to the audience. In the end even Caliban the beast-like savage of the island is made to look superior to Trinculo and Stefano “What a thrice-double ass was I, to take this drunkard for a God and worship this dull fool!” (Tempest, 5.1) In a Midsummers Night Dream it is Nick bottom and his fellow craftsmen who become the butt of the jokes. Their performance of the play Pyramus and Thisbe for the duke is a complete mockery and serves to entertain him only because of their complete incompetence. Finally in Julius Caesar, the Roman people are characterized by their collective stupidity and emotional instability. They are easily manipulated into doing the biding of any Roman leader who gives a passionate speech. In the Forum scene we see that the common people of Rome are concerned only with personalities, and are unable to comprehend either principles or reason. They cannot think for themselves and their loyalty as a result consistently changes. “They change their favorites with alarming rapidity and completeness. Yesterday it was Pompey, today it is Caesar. Tomorrow morning, it will be Brutus, and the evening will find the noisy admires of Brutus become the Devoted followers of Anthony, and vowing vengeance on the hero of an hour before”(Hunter) Though they had worshipped Caesar all along, they choose to celebrate his murderer, Brutus, as a great hero. The Roman people admire Brutus and listen to his speech with great respect shouting “Let him be Caesar”(Julius Caesar, 3.2) obviously not understanding what he was trying to say. It is clear that Shakespeare must think that most common men are mindless lemmings or fools.
In The Two Noble Kinsmen, Shakespeare does not even attempt to mask his contempt for the poor; he begins immediately by depriving the weak and poor of names. This is just one of the many techniques in the Two Noble Kinsmen that Shakespeare uses in order to show how he is not speaking about the poor, but that the poor are simply in the play in order to affect the lives of the elite. The first scene shows this very well, while Theseus, Hipolyta, and Emilia are all given names the three queens, who were once noble, are deprived of theirs. Though this could have been an act done by Shakespeare merely to save time, it is consistent with the deprivation of names throughout the play. The three women are powerless, their kingdoms are gone and they are left with nothing and no way of moving out of their given state. Even their dead husbands are not named except in the past. Theseus has no problem of saying, “King Capaneus was your lord” (The Two Noble, 1.1). The reason why he is able to refer to a former king by his name is because when Theseus knew him he wasnt a powerless beggar, but rather a king who was about to get married. Shakespeare goes on to have the queen appeal to Hippolytas sensitivity and she convinces Theseus to help them. Theseus simply wants to get married, but has to try to appease his wife. The queens earlier had said that Hippolyta was, “To thy sex captive” (The Two Noble, 1.1). Since Hippolyta even by other women is seen as weaker than men it