The Gods Must Be Crazy (FINAL PAPER!)

Mything Shakespeare:

Shakespeare and Divine Visitation

The gift of rapturous love and the maddening sense of isolation ostensibly stem from the same source—that is, according to William Shakespeare. To trace the origins of any of Shakespeare’s characters’ consuming adoration of another, or descent into mental decay, one must only look to the gods and beings from the heavens that cause such sensations through their intervention. Myth pervades the works of Shakespeare, whose most enduring works of any genre overflow with allusions to the divine, however distant these allusions may be at times. The presence—or absence—of otherworldly beings has repercussions that prove pivotal to the fate of the characters in Shakespeare’s own mythology. Whereas divine visitation sets the stage for a strictly comedic resolution and inspiration, the absence or rejection of this godly presence typically results in characters meeting a tragic end.

Of the works studied this semester, the most striking example of divine presence as a unifying force in the universe of the play is found in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the initial setup of Hermia facing death if she does not choose a suitor to her father’s liking is one that bears tragic possibilities, the comedic conclusions reached are those of the will of Oberon, the fairy king. Taking place in a cross-section of the human world (Athens) and the land of fairies (the wood), the two interact in such a fashion that the divine forces manipulate the course of events to their liking. However, this otherworldly influence does not make itself known to the main players of the story. As explored in Northrop Frye on Shakespeare, the author explains that though Theseus, king of Athens, overrules the will of Hermia’s father, it is really Oberon and the other fairies who, through the magical orchestration of the two couples of young lovers, overrule the authority of the king (40).

Peter Quince, or Bottom, stands out amongst the cast of characters as the only person to have knowingly bridged this gap between the worlds of fairies and humans. An object of love and adoration for the fairy queen, Titania, Bottom emerges from the experience inspired and gives what Frye calls “one of the most extraordinary speeches in Shakespeare”. However lowly and unrefined his character is portrayed in the play in comparison to the lovers or the ruling class, his spirit is filled with a glowing perspective that Peter Quince describes as a dream—and a “bottomless” dream at that. The specific details of this dream are not definite, but Frye argues that he comes “closer to the centre of this wonderful and mysterious play than any other of its characters” (50). Unseen yet pervasive divine power, however chaotic, unifies the action of the play to a fitting, celebratory end.

Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It is unique in that its inclusion of divine visitation is often omitted in performance due to the contrived nature of the occurrence. What began as a problematic play with feuding brothers, banishments, and betrayal ends in classic comedic fashion with the wedding of four couples. Hymen, the god of weddings, oversees this ceremony and ensures that separated family members are reunited and that all old sins amongst brothers are atoned. His presence is likewise a comedic, if arguably unnecessary, unifying plot point that enforces a comedic end.

This play also explores the notion of isolation from such godly forces. The character of Jaques in As You Like It gives a bleak speech that, as discussed in class lecture, depicts a world without myth. In Act II, Scene 7, his ponderings of the world as a stage and “the men and women merely players” walk through various phases in the life of men—ending with the individual living in “mere oblivion…sans everything.” This grim analysis of life betrays the comedic nature of the play, yet is remarkably telling when reflecting on Shakespeare’s more tragic works, in which the presence of the divine is absent.
The pre-Christian setting of King Lear is a barren landscape of gods and forces that the cast of characters does not understand. From the references to mythology throughout the play, it is apparent that the mindset amongst Lear and others is that of a deist mentality—that some form of a god is there, but does not interfere with matters of the earthly realm. According to Frye, it’s absolutely appropriate that this tragic story is pre-Christian, as the story behind Christianity is one of the salvation and redemption of man, which is comedic in its structure (102). Though no actual divine visitation occurs, there are suggestions of a detached influence. The world in King Lear is filled with “impotent or nonexistent gods” that present themselves as forces of Nature or fate (107). For example, the storm in Act III acts as a force of Nature that is representative of a sort of Old Testament “crossing of the Red Sea in reverse” (114). The vague, mysterious qualities of the otherworldly depicted in this tragedy yield only madness and despair as all characters meet a savage fate.

When taking into account the absence of the divine in King Lear, a similar tragic end occurs in Shakespeare’s narrative poem Venus and Adonis. In what Jonathan Crewe prefaces as “an ‘early’ representation of sexual harassment”, the love of Venus, the goddess of love, is rejected by the mortal Adonis (Pelican Shakespeare, 5). Borrowing heavily from Ovidian mythology, the epic poem resonates throughout the Shakespearean canon as what Dr. Sexson described as his “consuming myth”. The refusal of Adonis to become Venus’ lover speaks to a disparity between the love of the divine and the capability of humans to experience it. Adonis’ tragic slaughter by the boar in a hunting accident, while mourned by Venus, was nonetheless a result of his reluctance to embrace the divine love of the goddess—Shakespeare having implicated Venus in the death of the man (5).

The adage that man needs myth to survive is not a new one, and it is through the works of Shakespeare that we might come closer to understanding why these stories of the divine resonate so deeply. The rejection of such myth is commonplace in the current times, often disregarded as irrelevant. Yet if there’s one thing that can be learned from Shakespeare is that the inspiration from story and myth is a blessing that can be experienced by any one of us. In my mind, dismissing these divine gifts of the mind can’t be described as anything other than tragic.