Tolstoy, as you know, is the novelist I love and admire the most. One of the reasons is the vast range of characters, vast range of human experiences in his works: from childbirth scenes to death scenes; from battle scenes to intimate domestic scenes; from hunting to dancing; from farming to dressing; from children to old people to animals; from princes to serfs; from generals to mothers; from saints to madmen; from Russians to Cossacks to Chechens… Anna Karenina and War and Peace are about everything. Other novelists seem more narrow in comparison.
But sometimes when I compare Tolstoy to Dostoyevsky or Chekhov, both of whom are generally more narrow in range and scope, I can think of things Dostoyevsky can do but Tolstoy can’t do (spite, humiliation, perversity, sadism, masochism), and I can think of things Chekhov can do but Tolstoy can’t do (female sexuality/ desire, goodness without religion).
But then I think about Shakespeare, and all the things that these supreme writers seem unable to do can be found in Shakespeare. Female desire: Venus and Adonis and many plays. Spite: Iago in Othello, Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, Timon in Timon of Athens, Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, Edmund in King Lear… Humiliation: Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Malvolio in Twelfth Night… Masochism: Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Viola in Twelfth Night… Perversity and sadism: Goneril and Regan in King Lear, Iago in Othello, a few characters in Titus Andronicus… The range of characters in Shakespeare is unmatched: there are characters of different classes, different backgrounds, different races, different sexualities... Everything can be found in Shakespeare. There’s a Harvey Weinstein (Angelo in Measure for Measure). There’s even a Marxist (Gonzalo in The Tempest).
Shakespeare really is the “biggest” of writers. All-knowing, to use my friend Tom’s word. But how? How does Shakespeare seem to contain us all?
Clearly the answer is that he must have had the knowledge, experience and wisdom that ONLY comes with being an earl, with money, a fancy title, bejeweled fingers, snotty relatives, and rich estates. Nothing spurs achievement like having everything handed to you on a silver platter from birth.
ReplyDeleteBut honestly, it really is a kind of miracle that this man, a glover's son from Stratford, could create something so lasting, universal and deep -- all while simply creating entertainment. It's amazing that any person could do it at all, even more so when we think about the fact that he probably never thought he was creating works to last the ages. Maybe Shakespeare did think of himself as an artist (though the modern concept of the artist, arising in the Romatic era, would have been a anachronism anyway), but however he thought of himself or his work, he was in the end writing works meant to attract playgoers and make money for himself and his troupe. He readily adopted genres popular at the time -- he wrote history plays when histories were in vogue, dark comedies when they were in style, romances when came into style, etc. He even stuck a masque into the Tempest. And yet, as you say, he contains us all. It just shows how great art, and indeed the greatest of art, can rise out of any soil, and under any circumstances. And always totally mysteriously.
It is miraculous.
DeleteBut speaking of Shakespeare writing plays that attract playgoers and make money, I should share again this blog post about the kind of plays he didn't write:
https://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2021/10/shakespeare-and-his-actors-and-kind-of.html