Script:
My name is Shaun McMillan, and this is the Best Class Ever.
These days we are talking about some of the fundamental lessons we can learn about the human predicament from classical literature. We are looking more specifically at Shakespeare. So today let me introduce you to Shakespeare’s Christian Tragedies.
The Usurper
MacBeth
In America we are often required to read MacBeth. Shakespeare’s Scottish play explores the moral and political complexities introduced by violent solutions. In the beginning of the play MacBeth is glorified for his violent strength against the nation’s enemies. He is the classic epic hero and strongman, much like the Iliad’s hero Achilles, Rome’s Corialanus, Israel’s Samson, or Russel Crowe’s Gladiator. The chiefest virtue among these classic heroes is valor, pride, and the ability to best others through displays of strength.
The problem is that the king reigning over MacBeth has Christian virtues but is not a strong military commander like MacBeth and his fellow noblemen or “Thanes” as they are known in Scotland. The king is not a strong epic hero in the classical sense. The Thanes, these noble epic warriors, are in fact ruled over by a weak monarch. This king is dependent upon MacBeth for victory, but what exactly are these generals dependent upon the king for?
After a victory over their enemies, three witches appear to MacBeth and MacDuff, and prophesy over their future much like an oracle would in an ancient Greek play. The witches tell them that MacBeth will become king, while his friend MacDuff is told he shall father a line of kings. Filled with ambition to see this good fortune fulfilled, MacBeth realizes he is just one more violent act away from courageously taking the throne for himself. All he has to do is assassinate that weak king and he can become king himself.
After consulting with his wife, Lady MacBeth, they conspire to do exactly that. He works up his courage and murders the king in his sleep. He turns the same violence that made him such a great military commander against his own Lord. This ambition that is so valued in classical stories turns out to be the tragic flaw that brings about his ruin. One violent assassination turns out not to be enough, and he grows suspicious of the other nobles. To secure the throne MacBeth must always kill yet one more person. One killing leads to another. And with each killing, the throne which seemed so easy to take, becomes more and more violently unstable and impossible to secure. MacBeth articulates this contradiction when he says
“to be thus is nothing but to be safely thus.”
MacBeth
Lady MacBeth also articulates the disappointing gap that grows with each reach in attaining ill gotten gains.
Naught’s had, all’s spent,
Lady MacBeth
Where our desire is got without content.
‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
The Complications that Arise from Christianity’s Introduction of the Spirit
MacBeth also expresses frustration with the contradiction between being an epic hero and a moral Christian. We can see it when he challenges the masculinity of his soldiers while asking them to avenge an unjust assassination,
“Do you find Your patience so predominant in your nature that you can let this go? Are you so gospeled to pray for this good man and for his issue?”
MacBeth
Here Shakespeare makes up a new word turning gospel into a verb. “Are you so gospeled?” meaning, are you so Christian, so patient, so effeminate, that you can’t even avenge this unjust murder?
and so his men respond, “We are men, my liege,” thus defending their masculinity.
This is a running theme throughout Shakespeare’s plays, the conflict between classic Pagan ideas of heroic valor and Christianity which values humility, mercy, and forgiveness. For ancient heroes life was so simple. Kill or be killed. He who kills most is the greatest hero. But for Christian heroes, there is no such certainty. One must consider the fate of the soul as well as the body.
The ghosts of the murdered appear multiple times in this MacBeth as well as some of Shakespeare’s other Christian plays. The story of Hamlet begins with a visit from the ghost of his murdered father. MacBeth is a Pagan style hero caught in a Christian world with a Christian conscience. At one point he even complains that before when you killed a man, he just died. But now in this Christian world, the dead return to haunt you.
Modern Violent Revolutions
When we look at the violent revolutions of modern times including the French revolution, the Communist revolution in Russia, and the cultural revolution in China we see the same tragic pattern unfold. You have these strong minded rationalizing intelligent middle men working resentfully under weak monarchs. These usurpers look at the king, the czar, or the party leader and think, wow, I am just one step away taking the throne for myself and establishing a perfect utopia. But once they commit one murder their leadership is forever tainted. Instead of establishing the perfect utopia, their own insecurity and suspicions overwhelm them causing them to murder anyone who might present a challenge. One death leads to many, resentfulness, deceit, and violence become the reigning modes of conduct, and what was supposed to be a utopia descends into the violent genocide of their own citizens just as they did in the 20th century cases of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
Great Lines Great Language
One cannot bring up Shakespeare without addressing his beautiful use of the English language. But instead of talking about his use of poetry, verse, and prose, let’s just talk about some of these great lines. Most of us don’t read much. But we do watch movies. And a great film often has at least a couple great memorable lines. And I’m not just talking about the cheesy one liners, or clever meta reference jokes or funny banter like we see in modern superhero films. A meaningful film often reveals its message by repeating or revisiting themes through the dialogue throughout the film.
Batman Begins
The best example I can think of is Batman Begins by director Christopher Nolan. In this film his alter ego pretends to be a meaningless playboy, but is caught off guard when his childhood sweetheart sees him playing the fool. He tries to defend himself by saying,
“You know this isn’t really me. Deeper down I am more,”
to which she stingingly replies,
“It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us.”
Later in the film when he saves her while wearing the mask, she asks him,
“At least tell me who you are,”
to which he responds,
“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”
It’s clever because it not only reveals his identity from behind the mask, but it also adds a philosophical aspect to the film.
It might be a little on the nose when pointed out like this, but while watching the film it is not only a poignant way to move the plot forward, but it really drives home a key message the writer wants to point out. It’s good writing. The more these symbols and ideas show up in the movie, the more cohesive these worlds become as they serve not only as entertaining action, but also have an undercurrent of meaning. It’s a style that has both a beautiful physical setting, but also simultaneously reveals insights into the moral landscape. Once you get used to stories that stimulate you at these various layers of depth, it’s hard to settle for poorly written action films that only operate on one shallow surface layer and lack that second or even third layers of depth.
Shakespeare’s plays were no different, except his lines have stood the test of time and become so fundamental to our understanding of the world that we now consider them almost cliche. Just like the Bible, people often quote Shakespeare without realizing its Shakespeare. Let’s look at a couple great examples. Here are some lines from MacBeth
Things without all remedy
Lady MacBeth
Should be without regard.
What’s done is done.
In other words, when you have a problem you cannot solve, why waste time endlessly thinking about it. What’s done is done and cannot be undone, so just move on.
I am in blood
MacBeth
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
In other words, I am walking through so much blood so deep now that to retreat would be as difficult as pushing through.
As human beings we so often do as we desire and then rationalize it afterwards. But though we justify our deeds to others do not our deeds undo us? Shakespeare and Dosteyevsky seem to think so.
Lady MacBeth says to MacBeth after his first murder, “A little water clears us of this deed.” Yet later after more murders we see her sleepwalking and washing her hands repeatedly while crying out,
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two [blood stains]…
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”
Lady MacBeth
Like MacBeth, who keeps seeing the ghosts of his murdered victims throughout the film, his wife also is driven mad by their murders.
One of Russia’s greatest writers, Dosteyevsky, also explored the rationality of murder, and it’s psychological undoing in his great novel titled, “Crime & Punishment.”
In this story the protagonist is a poor student who poorly manages his health and resources. He’s very intelligent and questions the social norms and status quo but has no standing in society to implement his ideas. It’s hard not to see his rationality as unearned moral superiority and resentfulness.
But he is heroic in that he decides to put the world’s sense of justice to the ultimate test. In the very beginning of the story he challenges himself to commit what he thinks is a morally rational murder.
He even gets away with the murder, but can he live with himself after becoming a murderer? Can such deeds be rationalized? Does God or Karma exist outside the socially constructed systems of justice inadequately setup by imperfect men?
These are the deeply mysterious questions Dosteyevsky was exploring by creating this character and putting him in this situation to run a sort of simulation. Like MacBeth, Dosteyevsky’s main character ends up undoing himself psychologically and betraying himself to the police step by step until he can receive the punishment he needs to restore his soul.
King Henry IV
Shakespeare introduces another noble usurper in King Richard the Second and King Henry the Fourth. In these plays, a strong English noble also takes the throne from a weaker king Richard. Richard has the divine right to be the ruling monarch and considers himself chosen of God even comparing himself to Jesus, but he is less than considerate when it comes to the concerns of his strongest nobles. Once the nobles remove and place one of their own on the throne the new king, King Henry IV, must go about trying to secure a throne he didn’t inherit.
How do you secure a throne when your own rule proves its insecurity? How do you claim divine right, when you, a mere human, ascended to the throne through very human machinations?
The same courage it takes to violently create a utopia, is the same dangerous ambition that turns their world into a tragic dystopia.
Next Week
Next week we will explore what makes a great political leader according to the philosophies of these classical thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Shakespeare.
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