Paul Cantor on Shakespeare and Politics (Part II)

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2018

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In July 2014, we released the first part of a Conversation with University of Virginia literature professor Paul Cantor on Shakespeare and politics. Now we are pleased to share the second part—in which Cantor analyzes central themes in the English history plays, including the character of monarchies and republics and the relationship of religion and state. Turning to Shakespeare’s comedies, Cantor argues that Shakespeare sought to replace medieval Christian notions of romantic love with a more reasoned approach to love. Finally, in his analysis of "The Tempest," Cantor contends that Shakespeare was the only poet who could write tragedies and comedies at the highest level, transcending the division between the tragic and comedic views of life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Let's talk about the English plays.
0:15.0	I guess three Roman plays, maybe order to morph,
0:20.0	depending on what you count, but what 10 I think.
0:22.8	10, English plays, not counting I guess a couple that are set,
0:26.3	the King Lear, Beth, which are kind of English, but the King John
0:29.8	through what Henry the age, which are really consecutive almost with some skipping
0:35.2	around it within but so what's the sort of overall theme point what is he teaching
0:41.5	us the heart of these plays is what we call the second tetralogy.
0:45.8	That's Richard the second, Henry the fourth, parts one and two, and Henry the fifth.
0:49.4	There's the first tetralogy, the Three Henry the Six Plays and Richard the Third.
0:56.3	What's odd is Shakespeare wrote about the later historical events earliest, and then there's these two separate plays King John and
1:04.8	Henry the 8th. I think Shakespeare was very interested in the issue of kingship.
1:09.6	I mean he was living under a monarchy.
1:13.0	In so far as interested in politics, he chose to examine monarchy.
1:19.0	He's writing for an English audience.
1:21.0	I think he understood these plays would be very popular.
1:24.3	By the way, he more or less created the genre. A lot of people wrote history plays after
1:32.0	Marlow had written some before him, but it's Shakespeare who made the most sustained effort in the area.
1:38.0	Ten out of his 37 plays, so it was very important to him.
1:42.0	Now traditionally in literary criticism,
1:45.9	people that assume Shakespeare was an uncritical
1:49.5	supporter of the English monarchy. I think he really was thinking about the
	...

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