"The Mirror of Life"

In a curious (and most welcome) case of intellectual congruence, the April issue of Harper’s hits the newsstands with an essay on Shakespeare in the same month that Stephen Greenblatt contributed an article on our beloved Bard to The New York Review of Books. “Will in the World,” indeed.

Jonathan Bate’s essay, “The Mirror of Life: How Shakespeare Conquered the World,” asks the question, “Why was he the sole dramatist of the age who would eventually have a genuinely international, ultimately, a worldwide, impact?”

Bate’s conclusions are not revelatory, but well articulated: “He works with archetypal characters, core plots, and perennial conflicts, as he dramatizes the competing demands of the living and the dead, the old and the young, men and women, self and society, integrity and role-play, insiders and outsiders.”

Or this tidbit (reminiscent of Greenblatt’s article on “Shakespeare and Power”): “Shakespeare’s insights into the dynamics of royalty and power are such that, whoever is king or president or prime minister, one or more of the plays will always strike a resonance with the times.”

Or how Shakespeare’s tragicomic worldview holds true: “As long as we have wars, rape, codes of honor, and violent acts of revenge, Shakespeare’s tragic vision will go on being contemporary. As long as we continue to be fascinated by human relationship—children rebelling against parents, mothers struggling to let their sons grow up and break free, best friends falling for the same girl, servants and counselors who are wiser than their masters, ordinary people using jokes as a way of deflating those in authority—his comic vision will also remain alive.”

It’s a rich, incisive essay – well worth a read for any bardolater. Pick up a copy at your corner news stand or subscribe online at www.harpers.org