My Shakespearean Character

Harold Bloom maintains that our deepest emotions are, in "reality," Shakespeare's thoughts.

What he means by this provocation (or what I take him to mean) is that we are, all of us, to some degree that we can never quite fathom and never fully shake, the product of other people's expectations. Shakespeare's characters have had such a deep impact upon our collective imaginations that they have helped to shape our expectations of what this or that sort of person ought to be like.

I am reminded here of John Cheever's Journal entry from 1968 that reads:

"What, then, is my self-esteem? It seems composed of imponderables--shifty things. It is, at its worst, I suppose, a deep wish to placate Muzzy and Dazzy. It is, at its best, a sense of fitness that approaches ecstasy--the sense of life as a privilege, the earth as something splendid to walk on."

Where does Shakespeare fit into this formula? He created some of the most memorable characters in all of world literature, and those characters--to the extent to which we have encountered and imbibed them--inform our sense of self. They also informed Muzzy and Dazzy's sense of self and were communicated to us through their expectations, but also through the expectations of our peers, our teachers, Hollywood screen-writers, producers, directors, etc. As Bloom puts it simply, Shakespeare has "educated us."

And it is important to understand that many people have encountered and imbibed Shakespearean characters without ever having read or witnessed the performance of a single play. That is because his characters are ubiquitous in our drama and literature. Just to give a simple and all too obvious example, anyone who has seen "West Side Story" has also seen, by means of allusion (what I like to call the elusive illusion of allusion) "Romeo and Juliet." Shakespearean characters are present to each and every one of us because they have supplied the template of the creative imagination wherever European culture has penetrated human consciousness--and that is, today, much if not most of the globe.

It is therefore an interesting exercise to consider what Shakespearean character (or characters, for few of us ever manage to attain "purity" of form) each of us instantiates. Bloom is quick to identify himself as Falstaff. After much consideration, I have been unable to escape the impression that my role in the cosmos is that of the "unfee'd lawyer," Lear's Fool.