The Repertory Company of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation
Honoring Shakespeare
Honoring
Shakespeare
We are proud to present selections from five works by Eli Siegel, poet, critic, and founder of Aesthetic Realism, who honored William Shakespeare and understood greatly the beauty and meaning of his plays, the sonnets, and the music of his poetry.
Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Revisited
Why was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, unable to speedily avenge the death of his father, the King? This question has been approached by critics of power and discernment — including Coleridge, Schlegel, and A.C. Bradley — but without an answer so full and exact that it explains Hamlet himself: his depth, largeness, and confusion. That explanation is in Eli Siegel’s critical masterpiece, Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Revisited of 1963, in which he takes up every line of the play.
The following passage introduces us to this work, originally presented in a series of 13 evenings of drama. And as you’ll see, Mr. Siegel shows that Hamlet is about fathers and sons today. In the section titled “A Father Approaches” he writes:
Edwin Booth as Hamlet
Every son sees his father in a certain way, and it has been presumed for many years that the way Hamlet saw his father was affectionate, respectful, loving. It has been thought, too, that Shakespeare saw Hamlet’s father as a right father, right as fathers should be. So we look at the play and present the play to see how Hamlet and Shakespeare thought.
The Ghost of Hamlet’s father has come to Elsinore, Denmark.
We have early in the play Horatio, Bernardo, Marcellus, saying this:
Horatio. What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?
Bernardo. I have seen nothing.
Marcellus. Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Yet this can be seen: Shakespeare chooses to present Hamlet’s father as stern, not tender. Hamlet’s father is described as a thing; he is termed a dreaded sight. Ah, we know that this is not conclusive, but there are so many ways of presenting a ghost other than (1) to soldiers; (2) in armor. Were Shakespeare trying to accent a father’s affection to a son, paternal tenderness, he certainly might have had the Ghost come otherwise.
What Shakespeare understood about humanity can teach us how we want to be. For example, in an issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, titled “The Shakespearean Awareness,” Mr. Siegel writes about Othello and the emotion of regret:
Paul Robeson as Othello
Perhaps the greatest expression of regret in the world’s literature is Othello’s statement just before he uses his sword on himself. I quote from this self-critical statement. Othello tells a waiting literary and actual world — beginning with some Venetian dignitaries:
Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.
Othello here tells us of something that often takes place. The noted general tells us that he didn’t value someone or something accurately. Incorrect valuing of what the world has in it is mighty frequent.
Five short poems in rhymed couplets tell of Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, with exact knowledge and literary snap. Here is the poem about Lady Macbeth:
Eli Siegel discussed every one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, explaining their meaning and beauty. Here is an excerpt from his discussion of the eighth sonnet, which appears in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, titled “Shakespeare and Mandela”:
The plays and poems of Shakespeare, like all great literature, are about the desire of a self to meet the universe at all points, and as subtly and richly as possible; and yet to retain a clear and permanent independence….
A constant counsel of Shakespeare in the Sonnets is: Do not make thyself interesting and monarchic by making all else besides thee look dull and not so meaningful. This counsel is to be seen with unusual clearness in the eighth sonnet. This sonnet, like the others of the first twenty, is essentially not about the need for “begetting a child” but about the lovely necessity for feeling that the world is in us, and so we should show, joyously, the presence of the world in us.
“The Suppression of Good Will” & Shakespeare’s Richard III
How do we use our disappointments—to be kinder or to have ill will? In an issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known titled “The Suppression of Good Will,” you will see the choice made by Richard III. Writes Mr. Siegel:
Edwin Forrest as Richard III
Shakespeare enables us to see the suppression of good will, visibly, simply….The Richard III of Shakespeare, in the first lines of the play, says:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days. (I.1.28)
The Duke of Gloucester, determined to be king of England, gives, as everyone does, some reason for his choosing ill will. He is a hunchback, and therefore has disadvantages. He cannot be soft-spoken, and therefore cannot accomplish the amorous deeds of others.
Whenever good will is suppressed or diminished, we have a reason for it, however dimly we may see the reason….The large question is whether good will can be rightly maintained, even when we see ourselves as the recipient of injustice.
Edwin Booth&EdwinForrest — papers on the lives and work of these eminent Shakespearean actors, by Bennett Cooperman, actor with the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company
