Shakespeare: The Prism, and the Wheel

Once upon a Monday, after discussing Pryamus and Thisbe vs. Romeo and Juliet in class, I got to thinking, ever a dangerous venture....I thought about how, as much as I love myths, it is often hard to tell them in a way that I find satisfactory. That is to say that, I feel like I never quite do them justice, which is strange, because the language of myth usually seems a little lackluster as is, and I find it almost difficult to tell a myth in an even less vivacious manner than it is generally presented. And then I thought to myself "No Jerrod, you're just being dumb and blind." and that was a little mean of me to say, even to myself, but it's true. The language of myth is anything but dull; it is full of potential! it just appears a bit plain to people sometimes (including myself, I'll shamefully admit) because they don't know how to look at it. Shakespeare knew how to look.
This brings me to Pyramus and Thisbe, the myth which Dr. Sexson recounted for us all in class, in all of a minute and a half, but which Shakespeare somehow turned into the bane of every high school English student: Romeo and Juliet. "How did he go about it?" one might ask his/herself. Well friends, it is both simple, and ridiculously difficult at the same time. It involves one natural idea of physics, one construct of art, and a lot of talent in writing. To fully explain how it works, I need to use an analogy, so bear with me.

When one thinks of the language of myth, one can imagine it as a beam of white light, which isn't particularly special to look at, but in itself contains every color we can imagine. To say this is to say that myth is not lackluster, but rather vague to a purpose, which is to leave it fraught with potential! Much like a beam of white light can be refracted through a prism, and turned into all the beauty in the natural world, so too can a myth be likewise expanded, and turned into many a lurid tale, generally more vibrant than its progenitor. When Shakespeare uses a mythological archetype, he isn't being a copy/paste plagiarist, or a cheater; instead, he is exercising a poetic license. He is filling out the skeleton of the myth, giving it flesh, and animating it. He is taking the idea "There once was a boy named Pyramus, who lived on one side of a wall, and girl named Thisbe, who lived on the other, and their families didn't like each other." which is, in effect what the myth in Ovid's Metamorphoses gives us for background information, and turns it into the couple acts of Romeo and Juliet: thousands of iambic lines, fleshed out with a street brawl, a party, poetry, speeches, and the kitchen sink. The myth is hardly recognizable, but for it's main elements: star crossed lovers, secret meetings, eloping, and tragic death. All other things Shakespeare has construed to suit his own fancy, and his fancy is quite fanciful. He has taken the barren beam of white light, and put it through the engine of his own creativity, his prism of thought, and the results, the spectrum of colorful, vivid language that he produces is a creation seemingly all its own. It has only borrowed the potential of it's predecessor, a thing so bare as to be called myth, from which one can create as many tales and colors as he or she so chooses, all of which will be a thing all their own.

If anyone can create a story from a myth, such as Shakespeare so often does ( and truly anyone and everyone has most certainly tried) then what makes Shakespeare's interpretations so special? If we continue with the theme of multi-dimensional language that we have been talking about in class, the analogy of the prism remains easily applicable. Imagine, if you will, someone like me, who is color blind. I have never seen the color purple, but instead see only blue (or maybe vice versa; I'm not really sure). If one imagines the tales that others tell as a single color refracted through the prism, one can imagine that someone like me might not be able to appreciate every story, most notably the purple ones (or the yellow ones, or the light and dark green ones or the dark red ones, or the light pink and blue ones, for that matter, but that is really more of a personal problem). What Shakespeare's language has done is offered a complete spectrum of words, characters, and meaning, so that even I am bound to see it (more or less) for the beautiful piece of work that it is. It has something for everyone, as we have discussed.

Now thinking about the bit of philosophy we have gotten in class, about how the bottom is closest to the top, one may think to apply the analogy of the color wheel to this situation. In a spectrum, the Red and the Violet are as far apart as possible, but what Shakespeare has done, is to turn this spectrum, created as a crude product of the raw natural force of his imagination, and turned it into a color wheel, an artful and symbolic rendering of the same spectrum. And what is the closest color to red on the color wheel? Violet. The two colors are no longer extreme opposites, but neighbors instead. Perhaps warring neighbors like the Capulets and the Montagues, or perhaps neighbors in a perfect natural harmony. The color wheel may be the human construct, the ultimate rationalization of the spectrum, yet it still has it's basis in nature, because it maintains a natural order, a pattern of relation, one color to the next, which symbolizes the same interconnected nature as Dr. Sexson's interpretation of Vico's four ages. We can see that the color wheel is still something natural, not an abhorrent abomination and disfiguration of nature. Of course, this natural relationship that exists among all of the colors in the wheel/spectrum had to first be discovered by the scientist/artist who decided to mix and match his colors. The color wheel thus becomes a representation of a few different relationships: the purely natural relationships among things; the relationship between human ingenuity and nature that allows those natural relationships to be brought to light; and the relationship between artistry, and ordered, patterned construction, almost purely human. In the same way that the color wheel and the prism create all of these phenomena and elucidate these many relationships, so too do Shakespeare's works present a type of synthesis between nature and art. Like the color wheel as a human device cannot be separated from its natural elements, and its elements cannot be separated form their natural relationships, Shakespeare's works maintain a natural truth, and a semblance of the myth form which they come, which allows us to appreciate them on an almost subconscious level, an instinctive level, if you will. Also as the color wheel cannot be called a natural event like the spectrum, so too can Shakespeare's plays and poems be regarded as the ultimate, pure, very human representations of the myths he has based them on. In other words, I have just gone through a whole dog and pony show to tell you something that you all already knew: Shakespeare is an artist.

I have this friend, and she does not particularly care for the art that is English literature. She largely prefers the sciences. So naturally (and admittedly it was mostly to be "that guy") I read to her some of the sonnets and explanations given by Mr. Hughes in his essay, and naturally she responded like a total grinch. "Don't you think people read way too much into this kind of stuff?" she asked me, and I had to respond with "Yes, Alli. Yes I do, but that is my favorite part about 'this kind of stuff' because I get to read too much into it too, but in whichever way I choose. Don't people read too much into ice core samples?" and she was not very happy about my response because to her, snow science is a passion, and ice core samples are an integral part of snow science, and climatology in general. I then tried to explain to her that I was not dissing on snow science, but rather trying to prove a point; that no matter what one is reading, the intent is to pull as much information out of the text as is humanly possible, and apply it to the study which they are undertaking. In the case of ice core samples, one is trying to determine the amount in parts per million of particular gasses trapped in a layer of precipitation from a given era, which will detail the chemical composition of the atmosphere for said era. In the case of Shakespeare, one is trying to learn about one's self. English, and by extension Shakespeare, is a study of reflection. If, as a writer, one is not relatable, then he or she is not really a writer. Shakespeare, obviously, was a writer of tremendous repute, and so it is fairly intuitive to conclude that he is also probably tremendously relatable if one looks at his plays with the correct frame of mind. But try explaining that to a wonderful young girl who studies snow science, and is a horrible cynic (as are many of us).

I do not, however, feel I need to talk to all of the people in my 400 level English class about how relatable Shakespeare is, because I feel like at least the vast majority of the students who will end up reading this post will already understand and agree that it is almost sickening to know that ol' Bill can get so close to your heart without even knowing you. He says all of the lovely things we wish we could have said first, 400 years before we even had the opportunity. "Who is it that says most? Which can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you?" You have no idea how many times I have wished that I could've said that to someone I cared about, and yet I could never put it quite so simply, and eloquently. Damn you Bill, for being so much more the man I wish I was than me. But how could I damn him, really? Now I have those words, and I can use them at will (public domain) and I would rather say what I come up with than plagiarize Shakespeare, (because he alone is he, and I alone am me) but I will judge my words based on what the situation calls for in the future. The point is this; although my friend who likes frozen water too much doesn't appreciate Shakespeare when I read it to her, she would appreciate the sentiments in a real world context, and that is what Ted Hughes is trying to get us to see and appreciate: that we can pull these things out of their immediate contexts and place them as needed into our own situations, and they will still be spectacular, and they will still be packed to the rafters with heart, and lovely meaning, and they will still be poetic. So even though there are plenty of haters (and lets be honest, half of us hate because we are jealous) Shakespeare is still going to have said almost any endearing thing we say long ago, on a continent far far away. 

I told my friend about this blog post, and she does not seem to be flattered by the fact that she is a very important contributing member to this discussion, but that is ok, because she does not seem to appreciate many things that I find important. For instance, she is wondering how discussing our personal conversations is relevant to my Literature class, and I am now trying to explain to her what Mr. Hughes said about how many of William's plays centered around exploring the dark inner workings of people and social groups, but she doesn't seem to get it. How much more clearly can I read the phrase "Without controling precedents, without opressivley revered earlier masterpieces, those dramatists ha only the bare boards, the fever of global exploration, and the brand new, volcanic, terrible subject matter- the secret inner life, up to that point unexpressed,...", to that woman? And yet, she refuses to understand how any of this is pertinent. I will just tell her that perhaps she will understand to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow... but in reality she just might never understand.