Canceling Shakespeare

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is in charge of the vast array of the Shakespeare sites in Stratford-upon-Avon–the playwright’s home, that of his future wife Anne Hathaway, and numerous houses and farms owned by his family members; plus museums, archives, and programming galore.  According to its mission statement on its website, the Trust “promotes the enjoyment and understanding of his works, life and times all over the world.”

But now, thanks to an academic consultant, it will “decolonize” Shakespeare.  From a news story on the subject:

The process of decolonizing Shakespeare’s work reportedly includes researching “the continued impact of colonialism” on world history and the ways in which “Shakespeare’s work has played a part in this.” The effort, which roughly means distancing work from western perspectives, reportedly began after concerns were raised that celebration of Shakespeare enables “White supremacy.”

The trust has also warned that some items in its collections and archives relating to the iconic 16th century playwright may contain “language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful.”

Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust reportedly worked on a research project with the University of Birmingham’s Dr. Helen Hopkins, and concluded that praise of Shakespeare as a “universal” genius “benefits the ideology of White European supremacy.” Their research concluded further that “colonial inculcation” spread European ideas about art and used Shakespeare as a symbol of “British cultural superiority” and “Anglo-cultural supremacy.”

Celebrating Shakespeare’s work, the research argued, was part of a “White Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly ‘West-centric’ worldviews that continue to do harm in the world today.”

One of the solutions proposed by the project is for the trust to “present Shakespeare not as the ‘greatest,’ but as ‘part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world.’”

Homophobic?  But what about all the queer theory claiming the bard as part of the LGBTQ community?  What about all of those male actors playing female characters?  It sounds like the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is becoming not only homophobic but transphobic!

Anti-Feminist?  But what about the vast amount of the feminist scholarship praising the bard’s strong female characters?  Lady Macbeth is surely the alpha feminist, pushing her husband around and pursuing her own truth.

Racist?  But what about all of the scholarship that exalts Othello, about a noble black man in a loving inter-racial marriage with a white woman, for its anti-racism?  The Merchant of Venice is sometimes accused of being anti-semitic for its villain Shylock the Jew.  But given the sentiments in today’s academy, maybe Shakespeare is just being pro-Palestinian!  (Kidding!  I’ll talk about Shylock below.)

As for the Colonialist charge, though the plays were written long before England launched its Empire and established its colonies, critical critics fixate on The Tempest.  But Prospero and the shipwrecked Europeans don’t colonize the magical island.  At the end, he sets the indigenous monster and fairy free and shipwreck victims all go back to Europe.  Isn’t that what the anti-colonialists want to happen?  These critics don’t seem to approve of shipwrecked refugees finding asylum in the island.  Do we detect some anti-immigration sentiment?

Excuse the mockery, but critical literary theory seems to be up against its own contradictions.

The “interrogations” of Shakespeare, charging him with today’s political crimes, are familiar to anyone in academia.  Now the public can see what is being taught in today’s universities.  What’s especially comical, though, is that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which operates the great Shakespeare theme park for tourists that is Stratford-upon-Avon and which has been advocating for all things Shakespeare is accepting this negative interpretation of their hero so uncritically, so supinely.

The charges aren’t even valid.  Shakespeare humanizes women and minorities, and indeed all his characters.  Yes, Shylock is a stereotype of the Jew as a grasping money-lender.  But look what Shakespeare does with him.  Shylock’s most famous lines remind us that Jews, like other  are human beings:

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.  (Merchant of Venice, Act 3, scene 1, lines 1292-1302)

One of the keys to Shakespeare’s artistry is that he presents the point of view of all of his characters, which is why they come so alive.  You can’t just say “Shakespeare says. . .” based on what one of his characters says.  You need to look at the meaning and the effect of the plays.

Thus, while the vile villain Iago says cruel things about Othello’s race, the audience’s sympathy is always on the side of Othello.  This works against racism.

What really bothers Dr. Hopkins, which the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is now eager to stamp out, is the “universality” of Shakespeare, the claim that his work appeals to this common “universal” humanity that we all share, so that his plays speak to all cultures and all times.  This sense of universality, she says, “benefits the ideology of White European supremacy.”

This is brilliantly answered by Kenan Malik, a leftist British immigrant from the former colony of India, as published in the leftwing periodical The Guardian.  Malik points out how the black authors W. E. B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin all credited Shakespeare as part of their intellectual awakening.  He then takes up Dr. Hopkins’ complaint about Shakespeare’s universality.  He shows that a belief in universalism is actually necessary for social justice [my bolds]:

The argument draws on a longstanding critique of ideas emerging from the Enlightenment as being “Eurocentric” and “white”. In so doing, it conflates ideas and identity, the value of a claim being indexed by the group to which the claimant belongs, a perspective that ironically mirrors colonial approaches to race and knowledge.

The argument also conflates the imposition of western power with ideas that might have emerged from within the western tradition but which are essential to challenging such power. It was universalism – the belief that equality, democracy and self-determination belonged to all rather than the property of a privileged few – that fuelled the great radical movements that have shaped the modern world, from anti-colonial struggles to battles for women’s rights.

Troubling, too, is the insistence that claims of universalism harm “native culture”. It veers dangerously close to a perception of cultures – of “native” cultures at least – as “mummified” objects, in Frantz Fanon’s words, “put into capsules” and embraced as “authentic”, rather than as living entities continually “grasped anew” through interaction with the wider world.

Here is a leftist writing for a leftist publication recognizing that evaluating ideas according to the group identity of the person who holds them is racist, that stereotyping and condescending to “native cultures” is also racist, and that universalism rather than relativism is necessary for social justice.  This is the surest sign that woke is dead.

Illustration:  Shakespeare mural by Jimmy.C. via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.