Steele writes:
“What has interested me is the power of poetry or literature over philosophy for imparting ideas and truths about the human condition to a layperson like myself.”

And I think that most would agree. But for many, and I include academics here, Shakespeare’s is the only voice of the age to which they have listened in any detail. Therefore, rather than recognizing the commonality of humankind’s concerns through the ages, they attribute solely to Shakespeare the ability to illustrate this commonality, attributing it to his ‘genius’.

Yet whenever I come across Sidney’s “They Flee from Me’’ (that sometime me did seek) it speaks to me with clarity of all of those who have, down through the ages, suffered from reversals and fallen from the dizzy heights of fame to obscurity, or from love to indifference.

John Donne’s “The Canonization" which begins “For God’s sake hold your tongue and let me love” reflects words once said to me (and no doubt, through the centuries, to many) in such a startling way it seems incredible that these words were written in 1633.

I am not denying Shakespeare’s gifts, but pointing out that, if we talk of parallels in the human condition throughout history, he is neither unique nor the most gifted in illustrating them. By keeping such a narrow focus on the works of one man we miss out on recognizing just how little men’s and women’s concerns have changed across time.

For instance,Margaret Cavendish who was far more famous than Shakespeare at that time, reflected long before Greer or Pankhurst or Wollstonecraft “…men… keep us in the hell of subjection, from whence I cannot perceive any redemption or getting out…we may complain and bewail our condition, yet that will not free us…our words to men are as empty sounds… and our power is so inconsiderable as men laugh at our weaknesses” and, rather waspishly “I wish men were as harmless as most beasts are, then surely the world would be more happy and quiet than it is”

Romany

Thanks for your illuminating post. I know little of Margaret Candevish, now I shall add her to my ever increasing list of 'stuff I should read and understand'.

I realise from reflecting on Romany’s and Foxy’s posts that in my preoccupation with making analogies to other times and other places I was wrong. The analogy of Obama with Henry V was laboured and silly.

According to the Barnes and Noble outline, in actual history Henry V tried to arrange a settlement with the French since he was greatly outnumbered. The French rejected it since they wanted the battle. The play has the French seeking settlement but the English rejecting it.

Historians differ in their estimate of the two armies. The estimates of the French range from 40,000 to 60,000 and the English 5,000 to 10,000.

John Gassner’s "A Treasury of the Theatre", Bloom’s ‘Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human’, Sidney’s “They Flee from Me’’ and John Donne’s “The Canonization" are all matters to investigate.

As I had never heard of her I looked up Margaret Cavendish (1623 – 15 December 1673) on the net and found her an amazing person.

Christine de Pisan (1363–c.1434) was a precursor of Cavendish. Left a widow and having difficulty getting access to her late husband’s estate she became a professional writer, possibly the first professional woman writer in Europe.

Her most successful literary works were “The Book of the City of Ladies” and “The Treasure of the City of Ladies”, or The Book of the Three Virtues. The first of these shows the importance of women’s past contributions to society, and the second strives to teach women of all estates how to cultivate useful qualities in order to counteract the growth of misogyny.

csteele wrote: My own upbringing probably conditioned me to place the New Testament on a pedestal but the Old Testament, or rather the Hebrew Bible, has been a far greater source of ah-ha moments for me. Indeed I was originally led to Bloom through his book ‘Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Devine’.

Dear csteele,

I appreciate your distinction between the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible. The various versions of the Old Testament in Christian Bibles differ from the Jewish Bible.

Nietzsche, the Nazi’s favourite philosopher, was actually pro-Jewish and disapproving of German nationalism and many aspects of German culture. They must have edited his works considerably to make it acceptable for them. He regarded the Old Testament highly.

The following is from his "Beyond Good and Evil".

52. In the Jewish "Old Testament," the book of divine justice, there are men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian literature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with fear and reverence before those stupendous remains of what man was formerly, and one has sad thoughts about old Asia and its little out-pushed peninsula Europe, which would like, by all means, to figure before Asia as the "Progress of Mankind." To be sure, he who is himself only a slender, tame house-animal, and knows only the wants of a house-animal (like our cultured people of today, including the Christians of "cultured" Christianity), need neither be amazed nor even sad amid those ruins--the taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone with respect to "great" and "small": perhaps he will find that the New Testament, the book of grace, still appeals more to his heart (there is much of the odour of the genuine, tender, stupid beadsman and petty soul in it). To have bound up this New Testament (a kind of ROCOCO of taste in every respect) along with the Old Testament into one book, as the "Bible," as "The Book in Itself," is perhaps the greatest audacity and "sin against the Spirit" which literary Europe has upon its conscience

Fractelle & Davidf

- I am really pleased you looked up Mad Madge (her nickname which I chose to regard with approbrium rather than indignation). When I first started researching her there were only four other people in Australia who knew about her! I had to fight really hard to get my thesis accepted when it was known I was arguing for her inclusion in the Canon.

If you are interested, you might like to read "The Forgotten Literary Canon"(published Wed. Dec 28 2005) which I wrote for OLO when I had won that battle.

And yes, Christina was also an amazing person whom I acme across when a colleague was writting a thesis upon her. As my field is confined to English Literature, it was this discovery of that remarkable woman who inspired me to go searching for our very own pioneers.

Davidf, of course your previous ideas weren't 'silly'. Any true quest for knowledge takes us down many twisting paths which are never wasted because, upon them, we usually discover little tracks we never knew existed and which frequently take us back to the main road by a route most people don't often take.

Its when we stop looking for the side roads completely and are content to stick to the choked and commonly travelled highways that we are being silly!

Speaking of which, you might also like to read "Was Shakespeare Mad?" which appeared on OLO on March 8 2006. Unfortunately, in that article I tried to precis a 5,000 word paper I had written and the result was less than convincing, though.

Groan... My list of must read literature has just grown considerably, because of course once you start looking up one interesting link will only lead to other links.

Dear David, my heritage is actually Dutch/Indonesian, but lived mostly in South-America with a few years on the West African Continent. Access to different languages is the most wonderful way of 'walking in the shoes' of another people with another culture with accompanying set of beliefs. Your grand-kids are very lucky. Brazil is a truly fascinating country.

Not only through literature, a people's use of language to comment on political/societal aspects, love, power and what it means and takes to be 'acceptable' or rather 'good'.

As you pointed out, history is also fascinating reading through another's eyes. Another of my very favourite subjects (along with food, think potatoes or goulash for instance). It makes laughable the notion that history is just a 'set of facts'.

As to authors, those you mentioned and also Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa amongst others. Marquez uses language so beautifully. Never a superfluous word. He can tell a story in a couple of pages that would take others a whole book.

In all that, reading the thoughtful commentary on this thread, to me one of the most powerful aspects of great literature is its ability to provoke different levels of awareness in the reader on any number of issues.

Fractelle, I'm going to start with your suggestion. Thanks for the link.