Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

I was going over my old university books to see if I could sell any of them to get a little money for Christmas this year.  I was loath to sell any of my novels and books of poetry, save for some of the modern stuff. That left doubles- books that both Puff and I had bought in our courses- and the secondary novels, commentaries and works on literary theory.  Philosophical works on language and literature, leading lights of the time, what was considered brilliant and cutting edge at the time.  The books are all now out of print, unwanted, worthless.

This isn't too much of a surprise to me:  I thought the books were pretty much worthless back when I bought them.

The professors who put those books on reading lists and pushed them on me are still around.  I wonder what they are now pushing.  I don't think they've had any big conversion experience, so I wonder what they are teaching now, what their new reading lists are.

I went through university when Literary Theory was all the rage, although anti-literary theory would be a better name.  I thought it was all nonsense, even back then, but like most nonsense, it did contain a grain of truth.  If nonsense through and through, it would not have lasted as long as it did.

Literary theory of the kind I was taught began around 1900 when a new professor by the name of Ferdinand de Saussure took over the general linguistics course at a European university.  He taught the course for three years, and taught maybe thirty students. He changed the usual course of study by switching from a diachronic approach to a synchronic one. Allow me to explain.

Previously, linguistics was taught diachronically, or historically.  Students were taught that words had the meaning they had because they acquired that meaning from earlier words.  Thus, the English word "table" came from the French word "table" which came from the Latin word "tabula" and so on.  The goal of linguistics was to trace language back to the original language of humanity, the language of Adam, which he in used to name the animals (more on that in a minute), the language inherited from God.

Rather than look at language historically, and trying to reconstruct a lost language, he looked at languages synchronically- what was happening in language right now.  Thus the English use words like "table", whereas the French use words like "table" (pronounced the French way, of course) or "school" where the French say "ecole", and so on.  Different languages, Saussure was saying, use different words to say basically the same thing.  Different words, or sounds, were used for the same things, or rather, ideas of things.  From the earlier courses, words had a definite, inherited, intrinsic meaning.  from Saussure's point of view, meaning was arbitrary, random, based on consensus.

From this observation, Saussure created a theory of semiotics, or signs, based around the simple idea that a sign was made of two elements: a signifier, which is the word or sound, and a signifiied, which is the idea to which the sound is connected.  So the word table, either English or French pronunciation, has nothing to do with the thing that we call a table, but with the idea in the speaker's mind that they associate with the sound  "table".

Over the course of the twentieth century, the connection between a signifier and its signified was of great concern to philosophers of language, as they reasoned more and more that there was no inherent connection. As they pushed this idea to its limits, they reasoned that the signifiers are inherently meaningless,  and therefore language is inherently meaningless, and communication is fraught with dangers of misunderstanding and incomprehension.  They wrote thick, fat books explaining this problem in tremendous detail.

Others celebrated the disconnect, and made new pronouncements, turning the literary and philosophical worlds on their heads.  There is no real meaning in a text, said one, only and endless interplay of signs.  Since there can be no perfect reading of a text, said another, then any reading will be in part a misreading.  Another turned that on its head, and claimed that since there is no perfect reading, and since every valid reading will be in part a misreading, then a misreading is still a valid reading (thus proving that logic is truly dead).

In practice, the usual tactic of theorists was to take an argument, reduce it to its premises, and then show how the premises really don't exist, or are contradictory, or are ironic.  They were really big on irony- or as Elizabethan writer George Puttenham called it, "the drie mocke."

The flaw in all this thinking, to me, is that the theory turns all language into nouns- words are all a series of names (signifiers) given to ideas.  There was another theory that came out around the same time, to my way of thinking a better theory, that took language from another point of view.  Essentially, it turns all language in verbs- action.

Saussure and his heirs all looked at language from the premise of "what/how does language say?" and concluded that it says, in the end, nothing.  My preferred theorist, J.L. Austin, looked at language with the question "what does language do?"



This theory challenges the other theory because, whereas the one theory definitively says nothing can be definitively said, the other theory holds that language can definitely do things.  For example, the word 'bet' may have different meanings, if not in denotation that perhaps in connotations to different people, but  if a bet is offered and accepted, the bet is definitely on.  Or, take the example of the archetypal clear statement: "The dog ran down the street."  A practitioner of literary theory may point out for various reasons (the fact that none of these signifiers are tied to absolute signifieds, or various psychological or experiential factors) that there is no definite meaning to this statement.  One reader, upon seeing those words, may envision a husky running down a city street, while another may see a spaniel mutt running down a suburban one.  One may see a street lined with trees, another may not.  Nothing is definite.  All are equally valid.  But the other theory holds that this was an example, a statement used to illustrate a point.  As such, it either worked, and illustrated the point, or it failed to do so.  One way or the other, something happened through the use and agency of words.

I explored the idea of words acting, doing, persuading, amusing or affecting the reader in my time as a doctoral student, at a time when my colleagues were either saying that written works followed the narratives of their theories- either the words and works and texts revealed the Marxist narrative, or the feminist one, or the postcolonial one, or they said nothing at all, and so on.  In order to do my work, I had to take classes wherein I was taught the theories I did not believe, and I was about as welcome as a skunk at a tea party.  I had to buy their books, learn their theories, and prepare myself to teach them one day myself.

And now, those books are literally worthless.  I could not even get the price of the paper on which they are printed.  They are not worth the price of a match to set them all alight and burn them to ash.  I am reminded to something I read once while in high school.  It was a muscle and fitness magazine, about as lowbrow as these university books were high.  The magazine contained an article about ten commandments of fitness, and it ordered the reader, among other things to "never follow any information more than five years old."  The reasons being were that science was always progressing, and what was cutting edge and advocated today may be found to be harmful and destructive tomorrow.  (A more cynical mind may say that the editors of the magazine had a vested interest in this command.  If one could keep following the same advice endlessly, there would be no need for future magazines, and sales would plummet. I actually am of such a cynical mind.  Like Lily Tomlin, it seems that no matter how cynical I get, events always prove that I was never cynical enough.)   As I read those words, it occurred to me that, in order to follow this advice, in five years I would have to ignore the advice contained in the magazine in front of me.  The thought then occurred to me 'Why wait five years?  I could start ignoring it right now.'  That's what my education meant.  What was once true is set aside, not because it is false, but because it is outdated, old.  Back then, I should have realized that in twenty years I could ignore what was written then.  The books may be worthless now.  I should have realized they were worthless then, no matter what the price tag said.

Shakespeare vs Anonymous

With the imminent release of the movie "Anonymous",  many people- well, one- are asking me two questions: Is there anything to the claim that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare? and Are you going to see the movie?

The answers to these two questions are no, and no. 

As for the second question, by way of explanation I offer the plot outline as taken from Wikipedia:

It dramatizes a fringe theory, unsupported by any historical evidence, ^[3][4][5] according to which the works of Shakespeare were written by an Elizabethan aristocrat, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. de Vere, depicted as a literary prodigy in childhood, is Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate child. His poetic genius seduces his mother when he is a young man, and they become lovers. But his works are never published, since de Vere is hostage to the censorship of powerful court bureaucrats. When, towards the end of her reign, rival lobbies clash over the issue of her successor, de Vere finds a way to stage his censored plays in order to support Essex, one of the contenders. Emmerich has Shakespeare, depicted as an alcoholic bit player, become Oxford’s secret frontman. The 'truth', that the aristocratic de Vere, not the Stratford hick, is the real author of the Shakespearean canon, is lost to the world, creating what Oxfordians consider to be history’s greatest literary scam.^[6]

To quote English speaking teenagers everywhere:  Seriously?  Unsupported by any historical evidence, indeed.  Let's take a brief look at the other question, and say exactly why this movie, as far as this outline goes, does not rise to the level of bovine scatology.

First, the brief facts.  Plays in that era were censored, and had to be cleared by the Office of the Revels If the play was to be printed, which was rare for the company to do itself but common in the case what we would call "bootleg editions" it was listed on the stationers register.  We also have the diary of Henslowe, and other writers who speak of the plays of Shakespeare.  Altogether the evidence can give us a good idea of when the plays were first performed. According to my Riverside Shakespeare, Shakespeare's plays begin in  1589-90 with the first part of Henry VI, and end with The Two Noble Kinsman, (printed as a collaboration with John Fletcher) in 1613. Fletcher, for those who have not heard of him,  is a writer who was once considered among the greats (Dryden lists the three great playwrights of England as Fletcher, Jonson and Shakespeare) who is now largely and unfortunately forgotten.  Fletcher was the dramatist who took over as the principle writer for the King's Men acting troupe after... let us say "someone"... left. I'll get back to that in a moment.

This dating of the plays poses a problem for the claim that Oxford wrote the plays of Shakespeare, because Oxford died in 1604.  The Oxfordians must therefore claim that the King's Men must have sat on more than a dozen plays for nine years following his death.  There is a problem with that, and it brings us back to Fletcher, or rather, his position as playwright for the King's Men.

Most of the major acting troupes of the period had an offical writer, whose job it was to crank out plays.  The playgoers of the period, as they do now, craved novelty, and the demand for plays enormous.  Playhouses and their troupes were fiercely competetive in producing the plays quickly.  What all this means is that it is unlikely, given the fierce competition, that a playhouse would simply sit on a body of plays for nine years.  It goes completely against the mindset of the time.

Another way of considering the authorship of the plays begins with one of the few manuscripts extant from the period: the play Thomas More. The manuscript is made up of seeral loose pages, several of which appear to have been removed and replaced.  The replacement pages are written in several different hands. The history of the manuscript and the different hands has been pieced together thusly: The play was written for one company, but over time the company changed, and new parts had to be written in or adapted to meet the needs and the abilities of the new members and the new company. In short, the play was written and then re written for specific actors. It is this point that I wish to address. But before I do, let me say the Thomas More manuscript has been under intense scrutiny of late, because one of the sets of handwriting in on of the adapted scenes bears a very strong resemblance to the handwriting found in the six most famous signatures in the world: Shakespeare's. Some of the people who claim Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare claim the signatures were written by law clerks, thus proving Shakespeare was illiterate and could not possibly have written Shakespeare. They have not explained what a law clerk was doing writing amendments to Thomas More.  Let us call it a coincidence for the moment.

Going back to the issue of the relationship between plays and actors, we find that the plays written under the name of Shakespeare share a close relationship to the actors in the company. First and foremost, the best known and greatest actor in the troupe was Richard Burbage. He was regarded as one of the greatest actors of the age. He appears to have been, to put it mildly, a ham. Of all the plays extant from the period, those which may be regarded as what we today call a 'star vehicle', those plays which are dominated by one roll, and by dominated I mean the plays have one roll of five hundred lines or more, over ninety per cent of those star rolls can be tied to one of two actors, Richard Burbage, and Ned Allen. The implication is that these rolls were written for these actors.

As a further indication of how these rolls were tied to the actors, we can see in the plays of 'Shakespeare', as they are currently dated, a progression in the age of the main character. Is this because the writer was getting old, and thus more sympathetic to and concerned with the issues of age? Or is it because the lead actor is getting older, and can no longer play Romeo, but instead must needs play a Lear or Prospero instead?

There is also the question of Shakespeare's clown characters. They often seem to fall into one of two categories: Rather morose, and rather wise fools. Does the difference follow some dramatic need, or a change in the troupes, with an actor who specializes in one form of comedy being replaced by someone who specializes in another? Critic Edward Malone has claimed that the arrival of John Heminges, an actor who specialized in playing fat, funny drunks, to Burbage's troupe lead to the creation of one of the plays' most memorable figures: Sir John Falstaff. As evidence that an actor who specialized in playing the popular fat drunks continued with the troupe, another very similar roll, Sir Toby Belch, appears in Twelfth Night.

We have before us what seems to me a difficult question: What part did the actors take in writing their own rolls? In all honesty, I cannot answer that question. I can tell you that John Heminges did play for other troupes, but only one had an author who created Sir John Falstaff. I can say other writers wrote for Burbage, but none of them created a Hamlet. At the very least we have a gifted writer who has close ties to the troupe, who knows their strengths and their weaknesses thoroughly.

The writer(s) also know the playhouse. The stage directions, while few, were geared towards the Globe Theatre where these plays were originally performed. The writer also knew the stage well and tailored his plays to work within its strengths and weaknesses.

This movie, along with books and articles all argue that Shakespeare could not possibly have written Shakespeare.  Some people, as well as the movie, believe the plays could not have been written by some boring, backwoods country hick like the man from Stratford, and believe it must have been written by a daring, dashing, exciting, (and, according to the movie, incestuous) nobleman, and Oxford seems the most likely, despite the problem with dates.  If I am correct in my belief that the writer of the plays must have known the actors and worked intimately with the actors, then I would have to say that a noble author seems unlikely to me. Players in the period were considered to be servants and vagabonds. It is unlikely a nobleman would have worked as closely and for as long as these plays would have required. He would have considered it beneath him, and could have caused a scandal for working so closely with another man's servants, as the players were.  It is very unlikely that he would have tailored the roles of his plays to suit the vanity of the actors.

The alternative to this is that the writer was someone within the troupe itself, as most troupes did have a writer on hand.  The familiarity the author fo the plays shows for his company and his theatre indicate strongly, in my opinion, someone who was connected to the theatre and the actors, with the possibility of the actors adding and embellishing their rolls. Do we have any evidence that there was someone in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later the King's Men, who wrote? As it turns out, we do.  He is mentioned frequently in the Stationers register, and by his fellow playwrights.

He went by the name of 'Shakespeare'.

Ghosts of University Past

A while ago, when reading a post on John C. Wright's journal, I came across this video, and while I don't agree with it in its entirety, I must say some of it took me unwillingly down memory lane..  First, here's the video.



As I said, I do not agree with it in its entirety, but what did strike a chord is the idea of narrative, and, in particular, its relation to critical theory,

During my time in university, the old forms of criticism were pretty much abandoned.  We no longer appreciated books, or read them for pleasure, but rather, we encountered "texts" which were neither good nor bad, and which inherently said nothing.  We were told that it was impossible to ever understand a text perfectly, so, any reading was in part a misreading. While there was nothing new about this notion- no critic ever claimed a perfect understanding of any book, to the best of my knowledge- the critical theorists turned this idea that a valid reading of a book would also be a misreading, at least in part, on its head and then claimed that a misreading was a valid reading.  a book could not mean whatever the interpreter wanted it to.  Then this got married to the notion of narrative, and all texts told the story the interpret wished them to tell, and usually bad stories at that- sexism, racism, classism, all the evil isms were represented in what were once considered the great works of Western Art, the bedrock of our society.  If the old great works once embodied the ideals of our culture, critical theory stripped the ideals away from us, and instead gave us nothing.  The most common brand of Critical Theory practiced at my university was called "Deconstruction", which, as the name implies, builds nothing, only tears down the work of others.

For instance, I once gave a seminar that ended up giving me no end of headaches for quite some time.  I was going to present on Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella.  My troubles began because another student, who was considered to be a rising star at the time, presented on the same work before me.

In her interpretation, she consulted her feminist theory to see what was to be seen in the poems.  It told her that the poems were sexist, about the subjection of the object woman (Stella) to the dominant gaze of the male observer/poet, Astrophil.  Astrophil dominates Stella through his poetic practices, forcing her in his poetry to be the woman he desires to be, as his poetry represented her and dissected her for consumption.  So dependent upon her feminist critical theory for this reading, she quoted frequently and often feminist critical theorists, but she did not once quote the work she was interpreting. The work was going to fit her narrative, the only thing she believed was to be seen.  What the work actually said was less important that what the critics had already decided it had to say.

To be honest to that student, and I was to note in my presentation, her interpretation would have been accurate had it been applied to virtually any other sonnet sequence extant today- but not to this one.  This one was quite different.

I had prepared myself in a different way.  My presentation was based on, first and foremost, the poems themselves, and also another work by Sir Philip Sidney entitled "A Defense of Poesie" in which he outlines what he believes to be the nature and job of poetry.  It seemed to me to be a no brainer at the time to take  the man's ideas of what poetry should be and do, and apply it to his own poems, but that was not apparent to my colleagues. 

The guts of my presentation went like this:  Sir Phillip Sidney says in his Defence that the purpose of poetry is to move and delight the reader.  Poetry is, in short, an art of persuasion. Astrophil and Stella is a series of sonnets in which the poet fails to persuade and move the main target of his poetry, namely, Stella. In the whole work, Stella speaks only once, and that is to tell Astrophil "no".  Astrophil cannot persuade Stella and therefore, according to Sidney's own ideas about poetry, he is a failure as a poet.  But more than this, Sidney also says in his Defense that poetry shows the rewards given to the good, and the punishments given to the wicked, as it shows behaviours that are to be emulated and those which are to be shunned.  Astrophil and Stella, therefore, is a warning to the reader in general not to behave like this. 

The other student was livid with me that I had shot down her presentation, for denying her narrative, for failing to affirm that her narrative was correct.  She became yet another rising star in the department whom I had alienated, because I still had this quaint and outdated notion of looking for what was to be be seen, rather than simply seeing what the theories and narratives told me was to be seen.  I had committed the secular heresy of denying the narrative, and denying the nihilism of modern scholarship and saying that there was, in fact, meaning in a text.  I used to tell my students, a book may be able to support any number of interpretations, but that does not mean it will support just any interpretation.  One narrative does not fit all.

Part One of A Brief History of the Toronto Catholic Diocese Chapter 1: A Parish in Crisis.

Previous

Part one.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. - Ecclesiastes 1:9-10

Gather round, my friends, for in this chapter I have a story to tell. It is a fascinating story and it will begin in earnest momentarily with the phrase ‘there was a knock at the door.’

The phrase ‘there was a knock at the door’ is a very useful and versatile phrase for storytellers, which is why it is so often appears in mystery stories, or horror, or even romance stories. It is an effective device to get the plot moving or to introduce the plot twist. You simply open the door and it walks through. In this case, the door will open to a world of a priest caught up in a social justice movement; Catholics divided along ethnic and language lines; a parish desperately divided between its popular priest, with his questionable theology, and the laws of Rome; hints of improper relations with women; an ostensibly Catholic newspaper that published anything but the Church’s true stance; and ultimately, a priest who ultimately is forced from the priesthood and a church placed under interdict. Where did all this happen? you ask. Why, right here in Toronto, at St Paul’s church.

Not this St Paul’s.

This one.

That’s right, our little story does not take place in the days following Vatican II as you might have guessed from my little description, but rather back before the days of Vatican I. Let us cast our minds back in time to time of the beginning of our story, in 1828, before Toronto was even a diocese, Before Toronto was even Toronto but still muddy old York, when the bishop was in Kingston, and there was but one parish in the city, and its church had just been finished. Now it’s time to start meeting the characters of our story.

First, let’s meet Angus MacDonnell, nephew of the bishop seated in Kingston, Alexander MacDonnell; first person born in Upper Canada to be ordained a priest; Pastor of St Paul’s in York, and poster boy for the society of the overworked, underpaid and unappreciated. On this evening in June of 1828 we find him hard at work in his pastoral office. “Hard at work” is a phrase that very much defines father MacDonnell. At this time, St Paul’s is the only parish in the village. It is, in fact, the only parish between Kingston and Windsor- at that time referred to as “Sandwich”. In addition to St Paul’s, our Father MacDonnell must also handle the mission churches that dot the surrounding countryside. By “surrounding countryside” I mean a geographical area roughly the size of Wales. He has many concerns weighing upon his young mind. Among them, he is in danger of losing the Catholics in the outlying regions of his parish to Protestant missionaries, because the Church has little presence out there. But it isn’t only the distant Catholics out there who are causing him so much concern. His parishioners close to home are also causing him many problems.

The problems with his parishioners at St Paul’s stem from the politics of the day. During the 1820’s and 30’s, there were a great number of civic disturbances- riots, by another name-  focused around political issues. The society at the time was split along lines of ethnicity and wealth. At the time the colony was ruled by an appointed governor. There was an elected assembly, but the governor was not bound to consult with them, or to ratify any bills they passed. Instead, the governor could and did choose his own counselors. These counselors almost always came from a small group of wealthy and privileged families, who became known as the family compact. Against them stood a groupd who called themselves reformers, who wanted, well, reform.  The politics of the day mainly consisted of reformers who wanted a more American style of government, who wanted the Assembly to be the ruling body of the government, and the Tories, who wanted nothing to do with American politics and desired the system to remain as it was.  There was a third group which stood balanced between the two, called the Moderates.  They wished for reform, but preferred to seek it piecemeal, within the system.  They are rarely mentioned in the hisotries, and are pretty much irrelevant for most of this story as well, save for a brief mention at the end.  As the decades progressed, the clashes between the Tories and the Reformers  grew more violent, leading ultimately to rebellion in 1837.

The rumblings of rebellion echoed even at St. Paul’s. Bishop MacDonnell was a Tory of Scottish origin, and even a member of the family compact following his appointment to the Legislative council in 1831. Angus, like his uncle, was also Scottish Tory. There were a few wealthy Tories within St. Paul’s church, but they were definitely in the minority. The majority of MacDonnell’s parishioners were lower class Irish who sided with the Reform movement, and many did not trust the Scottish patrician priest. So, to say MacDonnell is both overworked and under stress is a little like saying Leonardo da Vinci was a smart cookie.

The reason we are meeting Father MacDonnell (who, not so incidentally, will be leaving our little narrative shortly) here, on this evening in June of the Year of Our Lord 1828, is because a prayer of his is about to be answered. For it is on this evening, while he was hard at work in his room, that there was a knock on the door.

Father MacDonnell rose from his seat to answer the door, and into his room and our little story stepped a priest who identified himself as William John O’Grady, and who promptly asked Father MacDonnell if he needed any help.

At first MacDonnell was a trifle suspicious. The Church at that time was having a great amount of difficulty controlling the mission areas- and York was a mission. One part of the problem was that sparseness of the population, coupled with the itinerant nature of many priests, coupled with the inventive nature confidence men have displayed throughout all of history. A regular parish priest at that time was a great rarity for most of Upper Canada. Con men in the area took advantage of this situation by dressing up as priests and traveling through the hinterlands and administering sacraments- all for a nominal fee, of course. Because priestly visits were rare, and priests were often moved around, the people had no real way of telling whether or not the stranger in their parish was a real priest or not. The real priests then traveling through the region on their regular rounds would find a series of false sacraments, when the people were not ignoring the sacraments altogether, and no one was willing to pay the true priests for the same sacrament twice, false or not.

MacDonnell’s suspicions were therefore justified. So while he was polite and invited the man in, he spent much time going over O’Grady’s credentials. Perhaps it is now time we do the same, as far as is possible.

William John O’Grady's exact date of birth unknown. From his own testimony he was ordained a priest in 1816 and later served as secretary to the Bishop of Cork. From the testimony of the enemies he is about to acquire, he was fired from that position. At some point in the 1820’s he and his brother John became attached to a group of disbanded British troops who were going to settle in Brazil. What happened in Brazil is once again unknown, but whatever happened resulted in the disbanded troops and their chaplain changing their minds about settling and Brazil, and the whole lot of them rushed off to Upper Canada, with William John O’Grady in the lead. O’Grady presented himself first to Bishop MacDonnell, and offered him his services. Before the bishop could make any sort of reply or effectively go over the newcomer’s credentials, O’Grady left the bishop and made his way to York, where he offered his services to pastor MacDonnell. And here we are.

O’Grady had only been present in York a very short time when he made a request to both MacDonnell’s that St Paul’s Parish be turned over to him. Indeed, it is entirely possible he made that suggestion the very night he arrived. (If any phrase can accurately describe O’Grady, “made of brass” would be the one.) Pastor MacDonnell was eager for the help of an Irishman to aid him with his congregation. He was also wanted to leave York and head for the shores of Lake Simcoe- a real wilderness area at the time- to try and shore up the Church there, and therefore was quite amenable to the plan to hand the Parish over to O’Grady. Bishop MacDonnell also began to warm to the plan, though it was six months before the transfer was made- a delay that caused O’Grady a great amount of irritation. Patience truly is a marvelous virtue; only, not one of O'Grady's.

Pastor MacDonnell made his preparations to leave York and our little narrative, but his uncle chose not to send him to region around Lake Simcoe, but rather to Bytown, better known today as Ottawa. O’Grady, on the other hand, was rapidly consolidating his position, becoming popular with both his congregation and with the Bishop. As his on-line biography states the matter:

Once in charge of the church, O’Grady showed himself to be a man of considerable intelligence and charm who mingled easily with the grandees of York, including Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne*. He also proved to be an extraordinarily able and energetic priest, brimming with schemes for the advancement of Catholicism. His missionary travels took him to several townships in the vicinity of York. He constantly petitioned the government for land on which to build churches; he supervised the raising of funds for a parochial school in York and later oversaw its construction; he lobbied for financial assistance for the building of a convent; he suggested clerical conferences to control the “waywardness & impetuosity” of some priests. (Bishop) McDonell regarded O’Grady as a godsend and in January 1830 vested him with the “power and control” of a vicar general. O’Grady claimed not to wish an official appointment to this post, and indeed it was never made.

 His popularity was so great it was said many Protestants came to hear him preach. Everything appeared to be going well.

So, as we bring part one of this little history of a crisis to a close, we as yet have no crisis. In fact, everything is going swimmingly. We have an ambitious priest who is a stirring orator, a social climber and popular with all who know him, and who is gaining in power within the diocese and seems to be making converts. He was truly an answer to many prayers. What could possibly go wrong?

The answer to that question is, in a word, everything.

Next

McBrien: ignorance is bliss.

h/t LarryD

There has been some discussion among bloggers about Fr Richard McBrien's latest article, in which he discusses the apostolic visitation of women religious in the United States, mostly debating his theology and errors therein. I have discussed some of McBrien's articles in the past using my training in deconstruction and rhetoric to examine how he creates himself to be the one true point of view. I don't do so very often, because, quite frankly, fisking McBrien is like hunting cows. His bag of tricks is rather limited, as I have shown in the past, and he shows an unwillingness to discuss or even engage with his opponents, even as he condemns them for being unwilling to discuss or engage his point of view.

This new article has an interesting twist to it. This time McBrien's argument hinges on absolutely nothing at all. His article is in blue, my comments black.


In a letter written on Feb. 20, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, informed the officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that the Congregation would be conducting a "doctrinal assessment" of the organization.

The Leadership Conference is an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States, with more than 1,500 members representing about 95 percent of the 68,000 U.S. women religious.

As is typical with McBrien, he begins with a few truths. He is an observer, presenting simple facts. He continues in this line for the next few paragraphs.

In a statement released soon thereafter, the officers acknowledged receipt of the letter and pointed out that the conference "faces this process with confidence, believing that the conference has remained faithful to its mission of service to leaders of congregations of women religious as they seek to further the mission of Christ in today's world."

The Vatican assessment became necessary, according to Cardinal Levada, because the three issues that were surfaced at a 2001 meeting in Rome between the officers of the conference and the Congregation remain in his mind unresolved.

Still true, but the facts are being canted slightly in their presentation. "According to Cardinal Levada" and "in his mind" are phrases that begin to shift the presentation. McBrien is still presenting facts, but his facts are the facts of someone's opinion- they exist in that person's mind. Pay attention to the "mind" in this one.

Those three areas of doctrinal concern are the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis on the ordination of women to the priesthood, the Congregation's 2000 declaration Dominus Iesus on the unique role of Christ in salvation, and "the problem of homosexuality."

Levada informed the officers of the conference that "Given the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses given at the annual assemblies of the conference in the intervening years, this dicastery can only conclude that the problems which had motivated its request in 2001 continue to be present."

Levada also acknowledged that his decision to conduct this "doctrinal assessment" was reached in concert with Cardinal Franc Rodé, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which had announced last December that it was initiating a "visitation" of communities of women religious in the United States, to examine the "quality of life" among their members and to determine why their numbers have declined in recent decades.

Still quoting, still citing facts, although the use of scare quotes- a common McBrien technique- begins to call to question and insert a kind of ironic observation on what are otherwise objective facts. McBrien is both establishing himself as a neutral observer- his favoured position- while at the same time setting up his perceived opponents for dismissal. And here it comes.

Not having at hand copies of the talks given at conference assemblies since 2001, I am not in a position to evaluate Levada's expressed concern about these addresses nor how the three issues (women's ordination, salvation, and homosexuality) were treated in these presentations.

Here's where people's jaws start dropping. This is the hinge point of the article. For the first time in this article, McBrien inserts himself. He moves from being an objective impersonal observer to a personal subjective one, and the first thing he does is admit a lack. The very thing he needs to address the concerns of Levada is something he lacks. As a former academic addressing an article written by someone who always, always touts their own academic credentials, this is a shocking omission. You always, always research the topic you address. If a potential academic were to sit before a board of examiners and admit they knew nothing of a critical piece of information, he would be flunked immediately with contempt. Yet McBrien flaunts his lack, and continues on. How then can he address the Cardinal's concerns?

However, I do know enough about the nature and history of the Leadership Conference to express amazement that there could be any "doctrinal" concerns about the organization and its leadership.

He addresses it by using his own personal experience. Once again, "trust me, for I know," is the unwritten underpinning of McBrien's article. Although, in conjunction with the last paragraph, he seems to be saying "Trust me, for I don't know." Also, note the return of the scare quotes. Irony and dismissal of Levada instead of addressing and dealing with Levada's concerns. After all, how can he address Levada's concerns when he doesn't even have the documents to which Levada referred? His ignorance becomes the enabling condition for McBrien's defence of the Leadership Conference. It reminds me of the old Matlock series: "Your honour, I don't know spit about law, but I remember when I was a boy catching crawdads up on crackleberry creek..." I believe the Latin phrase is "non sequitor."

Some of the finest women religious in the United States, and worldwide, have headed the Leadership Conference. By identifying only a sample, I do not mean to imply that those sisters who remain unmentioned are (or were) of lesser quality and achievement.

So he knows the women to be fine, and therefore the cardinal can have no objection.

The list of past national chairpersons and presidents of the Leadership Conference reads like a Hall of Fame of religious life: Mary Luke Tobin, Thomas Aquinas (Elizabeth) Carroll, Margaret Brennan, Francis Borgia Rothleubber, Joan Chittister, Mary Dooley, Theresa Kane, Nadine Foley, Doris Gottemoeller, Camille D'Arienzo, and so many others.

Moreover, the Leadership Conference's mission statement is as straightforward in its pastoral and doctrinal purposes as it could possibly be: "to promote a developing understanding and living of religious life by: assisting its members personally and communally to carry out more collabora-tively their service of leadership in order to accomplish further the mission of Christ in today's world; fostering dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations within the church and in the larger society; [and] developing models for initiating and strengthening relationships with groups concerned with the needs of society, thereby maximizing the potential of the conference for effecting change."

This is the only document from the Leadership conference which he cites, since he does not cite the documents to which Cardinal Levada referred in his letter. How, then, can this be a defence against the Cardinal's concerns? Because of the ethical proof upon which McBrien so often depends. "Trust me, for I know." He uses that proof to make two thrusts. First, note the positive terms with which he introduced the above quotation. Then look at the negative terms which frame the next paragraph, which is most emphatically not a quotation. But McBrien knows. McBrien even knows the Cardinal's "mind".

But there are certain key words and phrases, like "developing," "dialogue," "collaboration," "change," and "today's world," that are red flags for some church officials and a minority of women religious who are locked into the religious culture of the 1940s and 1950s, when nuns wore elaborate habits, remained for the most part confined to their convents and religious houses, took the names assigned to them, often those of male saints, and limited their apostolic activity principally to teaching children, and ministering to the sick, orphans, and unmarried pregnant girls.

After dismissing the concerns of the Cardinal, he now presents what he sees as the Cardinal's real motives. He has once again raised a straw man to be bashed about, even though there is no trace- none- of this in the first part of his article, nor is it to be found in Cardinal Levada's letter by McBrien's own admission. Had these concerns been presented in Levada's letter, it would have made sense for McBrien to have cited it rather than create this out of whole cloth. Again, McBrien is dismissive and contemptuous of those with whom he disagrees. McBrien now launches into his peroration, his final act of rhetoric to convince everyone of his truth, leading up to a final statement.

It was unthinkable in those pre-conciliar years for a nun to appear in secular clothes, however simple, to engage in apostolic activities outside the convent or religious house, to reclaim their baptismal names, and to become engaged in ministries of social justice, human rights, and peace.

It was even more unthinkable that these now highly educated women would begin to think for themselves and to speak and act accordingly.

That is what seems to bother their critics the most.

McBrien has dismissed everything he started with in the beginning of this article, a typical McBrien move, everything about the Cardinal's letter asking for an examination of certain specific doctrinal issues stemming from certain specific presentations at certain specific conferences, as being dishonest in order to present his own view of what this visitation is really about. Breathtakingly, he does this not despite the fact that he doesn't know what the Cardinal was speaking about in his concerns, but because he doesn't know what the Cardinal was speaking about. Not having those conference notes in front of him is not a hindrance to this article, it is the article's enabling condition. Ignorance is not only bliss, it is a virtue to be trumpeted. I don't know anything about that, says McBrien. But I do know something else. His entire article makes about as much sense as a conversation that runs like this:

1: How you feeling today?

2: Not so good.

1: That can't be true, because I feel fine.

"I have concerns," says Levada. "That can't be true," says McBrien, "because I don't know what you're talking about. It must be something else." Judging from this article, this is McBrien's idea of proof.

Pursuant to the last post

After I had had published the previous post, several more thoughts occurred to me regarding this 'heteronormativity'.

First is more thoughts towards the neologism issue. Neologisms are a sort of club or sect language, as I said. They are also a way of controlling debate in the way of Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland. Those who remember noted modern linguist Humpty's scenes will remember his great theory of language. From memory, it went something like this:

Humpty: My words mean what I want them to mean.

Alice: The question is, can you do that?

Humpty: The question is, who is master? That is all.

Modern linguists are absolutely concerned with power and mastery. Neologisms are a way of controlling and asserting mastery over language. It also reduces debate to a three card trick, one which I have been trapped in many times. You cannot call your opponent on their assumptions or meanings during a debate because she/it is always redefining their terms to suit them as the debate progresses/ goes against them. Neologisms are perpetual weasel words. The she/its would be more honest if they argued in pig Latin.

Next, I have not seen the entire piece, but the sections quoted in the article contradicts themselves. The movies encourage heterosexuality in children who are predetermined homosexuals. The article seems to be working both the idea that children are a tabula rasa (blank slate) upon which society writes their character, while at the same time the are also inherently homosexual. Is the article saying that homosexuality is inherent whilst heterosexuality is a construct that constantly needs reinforcement? Perhaps I should look it up and look more closely into the issue.

Finally, it strikes me as amusing just how often academics get it absolutely wrong. By this I mean they often come up with elaborate theories which sound good even to me, and then they choose some example which not only doesn't prove their theories, but actually disproves them.

The basis of their theory is that movies aimed at children generally portray heterosexuality as the norm. I can agree with this point: my debate is mainly what they do with this premise. But after saying how these movies promote the normalcy of heterosexuality, what movie do they single out as an example? Little Mermaid. That's right: a romance between a girl who is half fish and a human male is promoted as a paragon of heterosexuality. If they were going to coin a neologism, they should have termed what happens ni this movie as "cryptozoophilia". It would be a more accurate description of this situation. That would make a more interesting article. Disney promotes illicit love between humans and mythical beasts/monsters rather than heterosexuality or even homosexuality.

Not to worry, though. I'm sure Disney's next movie after Little Mermaid promoted heteronormativity. Let me check... that movie was... Beauty and the Beast. Whoops. Cryptozoophilia again. Don't worry. I'm sure there must be some movie out there which proves their theory right. Let me know if you she/its find it.

And in the meantime, ixnay onay ethay eologismnay, ooyay umday itshays.

Hermeneutics of Control

H/t LarryD

A while back I did a couple of fisks of articles by Richard McBrien. At the time I pointed out how McBrien set himself up as a neutral observer, while at the same time promoting one side of a debate and denigrating the other. He used a variety of tactics- snide remarks, straw men and others- to promote his argument.

I haven't done many fisks after that, and I rarely read his articles. The few I have read are slightly different in tone than the ones I fisked. He wasn't using straw men so much, and he made fewer asides or backhanded remarks. It is possible he is growing more mellow. It is also possible he is using more sophisticated rhetoric now. It is also possible he is doing neither. With that in mind, I am going to examine a recent article of McBrien's in which he examines the recent lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops. As always, my main focus will be on how he goes about making his arguments. His article is in blue, my comments are in black.

Pope Benedict on Vatican II

The controversy generated by Pope Benedict XVI's recent lifting of the excommunications from the four bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (also known as the Society of St. Pius X) has given some critics, on both left and right, occasion to question the pope's commitment to the Second Vatican Council.

This is all true and even fair. As I said, he is not taking potshots. Rather he is setting himself up as an observer making comments on a controversy.

On the left, some voice the suspicion that the pope is really in sympathy with those who question whether the council really changed anything in the Catholic church, even if his views do not exactly match those of the Society of St. Pius X, which openly rejects the council in whole or in substantial part. (Emphasis added)

This is also true. There are two points of curiosity here for me. The first is the double use of the word "really". Really is tricky term. It indicates that the writer or speaker is looking through a veil and seeing what lies behind. They are seeing reality, when others are not. But here he uses the word for the visions of both the left and the right. The left suspects the Pope is really in sympathy with those on the right who question if the council really changed anything. The balance is almost perfect. As I said, curious.

The second curious point is that McBrien is already separating the Pope from the SSPX. Their views, McBrien says, "do not exactly match." In the past, at least in the articles I read, McBrien showed little inclination to defend the Pope. Yet here it is. Let's see where he goes with this.

On the right, there is quiet rejoicing (And I would say a lot of not so quiet rejoicing- McBrien is being diplomatic.) over the lifting of the excommunications because for these critics the action confirms their belief that Pope Benedict also harbors serious reservations about Vatican II.

And again, I have no argument against this. In fact, I agree with it. I will say it: McBrien is exactly right so far. I cannot deny it.

So now he has set up the two sides, and outlined their basic points, and, if I am to evaluate it, he has been fair thus far. In many of his past articles, he endorses one side and dismisses the other, uses it as a "straw man" to make his own preference seem stronger and more forceful. If he is intending to use a straw man here, it is unclear which side it will be as yet. Let's continue.

Both sides, however, seem to base their judgments on the pope's previously stated views (especially in his address to the Roman Curia at Christmas 2005) that distinguished between two opposing interpretations of the council: what he called, on the one hand, a "hermeneutics of discontinuity" and, on the other, a "hermeneutics of reform."

This too is good. McBrien has outlined his point quite well. He is writing in a tone that is objective; he has not chosen sides and he has spoken- I cannot call it anything else- the truth. He has here introduced a term we used to call a "shifter", in this case, the word "however" This indicates that he is about to move in a different direction from what has come thus far. This is the crux of the matter. At the moment, he has just collapsed the two sides: for all their differences, they share a common point of origin. In the next paragraph, he explains that there is a problem with this.

The problem is that both sides, left and right, have interpreted the pope's own view, not as he actually expressed it, namely, as a "hermeneutics of reform," but as they assumed he meant it, namely, as a "hermeneutics of continuity."

Here is a problem indeed. McBrien is now proposing to explain the varying interpretations of the Pope's attempt to explain the varying interpretations of Vatican II. To explain myself fully, I need to digress away from this article for some length to speak about McBrien's key term here: "interpreted".

Interpretation and hermeneutics has long been a hotbed of debate, particularly after the arrival of post-modernism on the academic scene. To cut to the chase, the post modernists claimed that no interpretation of a "text" (and what they mean by text is really, really open to interpretation) is ever perfect. (I should hasten to add that none of the people they opposed ever claimed that there was such a thing as a perfect interpretation.) Since there is no such thing as a perfect interpretation, or reading, as we were fond of saying, then a valid reading is also, to a certain extent, a mis-reading. As sometimes happens, the argument was pushed further, and the "to a certain extent" get removed. Now you have the statement: A valid reading is also a misreading. Later still, with a stunning leap of illogic and hubris, the terms were reversed: A misreading is a valid reading. My failure to agree with this equation lead to no small trouble for myself in the department.

Added to this mix was another post modernist idea: infinite possibilities of readings or interpretations. Many post modern critics would claim that the number of possible readings/interpretations of a text was infinite, and then, as a demonstration of this infinitude, would iterate five or six.

While I could agree that no interpretation is complete or perfect, and I could also agree to the potential infinity of variations of readings, I used to warn my students against carrying this theory too far. A text may support any number of readings. This does not mean that it will support just any reading. For example, if a student were to explain to me that Hamlet is the story of a young farm boy on a distant planet who one day receives a cryptic message carried by one of his two new droids which direct him to seek a meeting with an old warrior of an ancient society who happens to carry with him the young farm boy's father's magic sword etc etc etc, this student would not be giving me a misreading which is still valid, that student would be flat out wrong.

Or, to put it in terms more familiar to the Catholic bloggers: How can one take the phrase: "The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Roman Rite" and interpret it to mean "Latin is hereby banned."? Is this misreading a valid reading, or is it something else? A lie, perhaps?

There are many tricks to lying, many ways. There are, of course, the gross and overt lies. There are also more subtle ways. One way is to tell just the right amount of truth, and then stop. Another is to sandwich a lie between two truths. Either way, I wish to now return to McBrien. Remember how I said how everything he said was true? Here McBrien makes a distinction between hermeneutics of reform and hermeneutics of continuity. The Pope used them as synonyms. McBrien has just told a lie. From what he has set up, he is now going to base his interpretation on that lie.

He has also answered a question: which of the original two groups is going to be the strawman? The answer is: both. Let's continue now.

In an article in the Feb. 2 issue of America magazine, Fr. Joseph Komonchak, professor of religious studies at The Catholic University of America, effectively challenges this assumption ("Novelty in Continuity: Pope Benedict's Interpretation of Vatican II").

Now McBrien has done something typical. he has introduced a favoured authority, one who will explain McBrien's point of view, and he endorses this point of view, but in seemingly objective terms. This new article "effectively challenges this assumption". McBrien is still observing, but now he is trying to direct your attention to this new point of view. He doesn't present this view as it challenges his left/right dichotomy earlier, rather it is presented as already having challenged and defeated that point of view.

The pope had begun his address to the Roman Curia by contrasting two ways of interpreting the council. The first interpretation Benedict did call the "hermeneutics of discontinuity," which he described as an approach that runs the risk of positing a rupture between the preconciliar and postconciliar church.

This is true.

According to Fr. Komonchak's rendition of the pope's remarks, this approach "disparages the texts of the council as the result of unfortunate compromises and favors instead the elements of novelty in the documents."

No argument here. Once again, we are starting off with some truths.

Komonchak notes that some undoubtedly expected the pope to call the position he favors the "hermeneutics of continuity," in contrast to the "hermeneutics of discontinuity." Instead, he called it the "hermeneutics of reform" and devoted the greater part of his address to explaining what he meant by that phrase.

Now McBrien will interpret Komonchak's interpretation of the Pope's interpretation etc etc.

He did not mean that the council changed nothing. "After all," Komonchak writes, "if there is no discontinuity, one can hardly speak of reform."

This is true, but with a caveat. Remember my line about how the academics reversed the reading and misreading dichotomy? Same thing here. Reform is a mixture of continuity and discontinuity. It is based on the old, but it introduces something different, something new. Both sides exist, in sort of the way that an elephant can be simultaneously like a wall, a tree, a snake, a leaf and a rope. Pope Benedict spoke of both reform and continuity. McBrien and Komonchak turn that into discontinuity, along the same lines of "Latin=no Latin"

On the eve of the council, Pope Benedict pointed out, three "circles of questions" had formed, all of which challenged the church to a new way of thinking and acting: about the relationships between faith and modern science, the church and the modern state, and the church and other religions.

In each area, the pope insisted, "some kind of discontinuity might emerge and in fact did emerge," but it was "a discontinuity that did not require the abandonment of traditional princi-ples."

"It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists."

As I said, the Pope is addressing both reform and continuity. McBrien and his preferred writer here wish to see that as the Pope embracing discontinuity.

Vatican II's new definitions of the relationships between the church, on the one hand, and science, the state, and non-Christian religions, on the other, required the council to rethink and even correct earlier historical decisions in order to "preserve and deepen the church's inmost nature and identity."

Komonchak concedes, however, that "the clear disjunction between the two rival hermeneutical orientations with which the pope began his remarks [became] rather blurred in the course of his argument" -- which is also why some readers may have difficulty fully grasping the central point of this week's column.

The Pope's words were not sufficiently clear, which is why we need these people to help clear out the cobwebs. The Pope's distinctions become rather blurred, some people don't understand it (McBrien often makes claims about some people not understanding this or that and therefore needing someone like him to come along and clear things up) and therefore McBrien and Komonchak are doing a public service by coming around and clearing it up with their brand new clarification: Continuity=discontinuity.

Benedict's concept of reform involves important elements of discontinuity. In Komonchak's words: "A hermeneutics of discontinuity need not see rupture everywhere; and a hermeneutics of reform, it turns out, acknowledges some important discontinuities."

After that clarification, McBrien and Komonchak concludes with a few more such clarifications, and with these we see the return of the weasel words "really" and "real"

Komonchak suggests that the real target of the pope's words may have been the traditionalist followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who reject the council because of its perceived discontinuities from church doctrine.

The papal address could be read, therefore, as an effort to persuade traditionalists "that a distinction is legitimately made between the level of doctrine ... and the level of concrete application. ..."

However, some critics on the left and right have concluded, in the aftermath of Benedict's lifting of the excommunications, that the pope is really siding with the Lefevbrites.
Such an assumption is open to serious challenge, and Joseph Komonchak's article in A-merica helps us to see why this is so.

A curious article, not as polemic as some of McBrien's writing, but curious nonetheless. What I see here is a subtle shift in debate. McBrien, rather than arguing that the Pope is wrong, as he has done in the past, is here providing the reader with an interpretation of the Pope's words- the interpretation that he, McBrien, endorses repeatedly. A "Spirit of Pope Benedict", if you will. Very often, to interpret a work is to assert control over it: the interpreter makes the work say what he wants it to say, while at the same time claiming that this is what the work "really" said in the first place. A cunning argument. All McBrien's interpretation needs is for the reader to swallow one small, insignificant lie. Then all becomes clear. Misinterpretation=interpretation. discontinuity=continuity. lie=truth. wrong=right.

How Hamlet Got What Was Coming To Him

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, been thinking about my old degrees with something akin to nostalgia. Plus, it's been a while since I wrote about Shakespeare. Any students out there: I forbid you from publishing or copying this little essay and handing it into your teacher as your own.

Update: After Dim Bulb's comment, I feel compelled to issue a spoiler alert. I discuss how Hamlet ends.

A while back when I was still a teacher at a university I had a discussion with the professor under whom I taught. He had just seen the recent version of Hamlet produced by Kenneth Branagh, and he was in rapture over the movie. He was particularly impressed with its conclusion. “Branagh really drives home the fact that the play ends with the military occupation of Denmark,” he said. “I never really comprehended that Fortinbras invaded Denmark.” In this matter my old Professor, and Kenneth Branagh as well, are absolutely wrong. Denmark is not invaded, and a military occupation is not its fate. Nor is Fortinbras taking over incidental to the plot of the play (Mel Gibson’s version, for instance, wrote it out of the play completely). It is critical to the play and its message. In fact, I would go so far as to say the Fortinbras’ bloodless takeover of Denmark is the entire point of the play.

To understand this point we have to look away from the play for a moment, and talk briefly about the nature of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and the traditions out of which it arose. The immediate precursors to the Renaissance drama, and which were still acted out in Shakespeare’s time, were the craft cycle mystery plays (featuring dramatized scenes of the Bible) and the morality plays, such as Everyman or The Castle of Perseverance.

The morality plays are of particular importance to the study of Renaissance drama. In form they are simple. An allegorical figure (“Everyman”, for instance) takes its journey through life, and is subjected to the temptations that come to all people, either succumbs to temptation or stands firm, ultimately dies and is rewarded or punished according to his ability to stay faithful. The audience such a play is invited to identify with the character and see themselves and their lives dramatized upon the stage, and are encouraged to embrace the character’s virtues or shun their vices, and as a result enjoy the eternal reward of Heaven and escape the eternal punishment of Hell. The plays are, in short, dramatized sermons, and very often clumsy ones at that, designed to encourage the audience to mend their ways.

Modern critics and theorists, such as Catherine Belsey, have written of how the Renaissance dramatists rejected this kind of sermonizing model of drama in order to create their own more naturalistic model of drama. There is, however, another group of writers who claim that this model of dramatic sermons was still in force during the Renaissance period. This group is none other than the Renaissance writers themselves.

During the late 16th and early 17th century a huge debate raged on over the nature of poetry and theatre, and whether or not poetry and theatre should be allowed to exist. The entire debate hinged on two points, which in a sense are really the same: Where does poetry come from, and what are its effects? The critics of poetry, puritans mostly, claimed that poetry and drama corrupted the reader and the audience, and anyone who partook of such things would be made into a worse person for it. The apologists for poetry defended poetry along the same lines as the attackers: namely, the effect poetry would have upon the reader and the audience.

Sir Philip Sidney fairly set the tone for the defenders in his Apology for Poetry when he defined poetry by its capacity to move the audience:

Poetry is a form of mimesis- that is to say a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth- to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture- with this end, to teach and delight.

Sidney goes on to elaborate how delight and poetry work together.

Delight, to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger; and teach, to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved.

Other authors would pick up on Sidney’s premise and embellish it, and defined poetry on its ability to transform a reader or audience. There is Thomas Heywood, for example, in his bizarre Apology for Actors:

Braue men braue acts, being brauely acted too,
Makes, as men see things done, desire to do

And again, later, explaining drama's advantage over poetry in the teaching and delighting department:

A description is only a shadow receiued by the ear but not perceiued by the eye; so liuely a portraiture is meerely a forme seene by the eye, but can neither shew action passion or motion or any other gesture, to mooue the spirits of the beholder to admiration: but to see a souldier shap’d like a souldier, walke speake act like a souldier: to see a Hector... a Troylus... a Pompey... a Caesar... Hannibal... To see as I haue seen, Hercules in his owne shape... Oh, these were sight to make an Alexander.

I could continue citing sources to show how widespread these beliefs were, but I trust I have made my point. To sum up, while modern critics believe that Renaissance drama either grew away from, or had a break with the morality plays of the past, to the writers of the Renaissance, their plays continued the trend of the morality plays: they invite the audience to see themselves in the characters onstage, and to embrace what is good and shun what is bad. In fact, both Sidney and Heywood define comedy and tragedy, the two main dramatic forms of the time, on whether they show the punishments meted out to the wicked- which is tragedy- or the rewards given to the good- which is comedy.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is obviously a tragedy and therefore it was to display to the audience how God’s justice strikes the wicked. In order to see the play in these terms, one first step is required, one which requires a reader to go against a century of indifferent high school teachers and bad professors. The reader must understand that Hamlet is a good man who becomes a wicked man and gets his just reward. In order to see this, let me briefly discuss a few other plays that are of the same genre as Hamlet- revenge tragedies.

Revenge tragedies are just that: tragedies that focus on the theme of revenge. They tend to have certain other commonalities. A murdered person’s closest male relative seeks revenge against some high placed figure, usually at the command of the victim’s ghost, but not always. The avenger will wear a disguise or pretend to be insane in order to get close to his intended target. The avenger will frequently put on a play or some other form of entertainment ostensibly for their target’s amusement but really as part of their plot. Ultimately, the avenger is caught up in his vengeance and destroyed even as he enacts his vengeance.

Most of these elements are present in Cyril Tourneur’s (or Thomas Middleton’s, there’s some dispute) The Revenger’s Tragedy. That this play belongs to the Revenge tragedy is clearly broadcast by its very title. This play also broadcasts its relationship to the medieval morality plays in the names of the characters. The characters bear allegorical names like Vindice (vengeance) Lussurioso (lust) Spurio (false- this character is a bastard son), Ambitioso (ambition) Supervacuo (vain, foolish), Castiza (chastity). No personal or individualized characters here. The play opens with Vindice planning vengeance against the Duke who raped and murdered Vindice’s fiancé, while speaking to his fiance’s skull, which he keeps with him as a reminder. He puts on a disguise, goes to the court works his way into the inner circle, and ultimately murders the Duke and all the Duke’s sons. The play ends with the new Duke, who earlier had cried out for vengeance for the rape and murder of his wife by the old Duke, ordering Vindice and his brother away to their immediate executions. Although he wanted the Duke dead, the new Duke cannot allow vengeance in his land. As he tells Vindice: “You that would murder him would murder me.”

Another play by Tourneur, The Atheist’s Tragedy, spells out the lessons of foregoing vengeance even more clearly. It also reads as though Tourneur had a well-thumbed copy of Hamlet close at hand. In this play charlemont is visited by the ghost of his father, Montferrers, who tells Charlemont he was murdered by D’Amville, Montferrers’ brother. Charlemont reacts by immediately swearing to avenge his father’s death, but his father stops him, and warns him not to do anything:

Attend with patience the success of things,
But leave revenge unto the King of kings.

Charlemont is once tempted to forego his ghostly father’s advice and avenge himself, but his father appears to him again to warn him not to seek revenge. By the end of the play D’Amville (the atheist of the title) has been ruined. Everything he sought has been taken from him or made bitter, not in spite of his schemes but because of his schemes, and he dies caught up in his own plots. Charlemont, watching this, speaks the play’s moral: “Now I see/ That patience is the honest man’s revenge.” This is the message the audience is meant to take home and to heart: Vengeance is a fool's game, and anyone who wishes to prosper in the ways of God and man must abandon all thought of it.

Patience is often regarded as Hamlet’s problem, not his virtue. He is indecisive, he takes too long to the point that Laurence Olivier begins his movie version of Hamlet by claiming “This is the tragedy of a man who couldn’t make up his mind.” Olivier, like Branagh after him, misses the point. Hamlet does hem and haw his way through the play, endlessly thinking and not doing, but his destruction comes from two moments in which he fails to stop and think, and thus he, like the other revenge figures, is destroyed in his own web of vengeance. The thoughtless act that starts his downfall is the death of Polonius. In that scene, hearing someone behind the curtain, Hamlet rashly draws his sword and stabs through the veil. When his mother demands of him what has he done, Hamlet replies: “Nay, I know not, is it the King?” Hamlet thought it was Claudius behind the curtain, and thought to achieve his revenge in one rash stroke. It is, of course, not the King, and because of this “rash and bloody deed” Hamlet has created a second avenger: Laertes, who will desire revenge for Polonius’ death.

Laertes pursues his vengeance with a single minded determination that is completely different from Hamlet’s. Laertes does not waste time meditating and considering any possibility. He decides on a plan of action, and carries it out at his earliest possible convenience. His only wavering moment is during his sword fight with Hamlet, when he says in an aside to the audience: “And yet it is almost against my conscience.” That "almost" almost saves him, but he continues with his vengeance, and like Hamlet, gets trapped and destroyed in it, dying from a stroke of his own poisoned blade. The Tragedy of Hamlet also contains what could be called The Tragedy of Laertes.

Hamlet’s second thoughtless moment is his decision to have the sword fight with Laertes, even though he recognizes that Laertes has the same motivation as himself: “For in the image of my cause I see/ The portraiture of his.” Yet Hamlet fails to realize that a man who has the same cause as him may seek the same end. Horatio seems to think this, as he warns Hamlet just before the duel: “If your mind dislike any thing, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.” But Hamlet, heedless of caution, goes ahead with the duel. Within minutes he is dead. His vengeance has taken a very bloody toll. With him in death is his mother, his uncle, Laertes, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Polonius. His vengeance has claimed many lives, and has destroyed everyone close to him, save Horatio.

And it is at this point that Fortinbras re-enters the play. Fortinbras is the third character of the play who sought revenge. Horatio’s long speech in the opening scene outlines how Fortinbras is seeking vengeance for the death of his father by conquering Denmark. We also learn that Fortinbras, although the King of Norway’s son and of legal age, is not the King of Norway, but rather an uncle, “impotent and bed-rid” is King. He, like Laertes, is a figure who is clearly a parallel of Hamlet, but with one important difference: he abandons his plan of vengeance. Instead he takes the army he had raised to invade Denmark, and with his King’s blessing, attack Poland instead. He is even given free passage through Denmark. It is on his return home, again passing through Denmark, that he fires a salute to the King of Denmark, as protocol demanded, and came in to offer the appropriate courtesies. Upon his arrival he discovers the entire royal family dead, the throne empty and his for the claiming. By pursuing the right course, by abandoning all thoughts of revenge, Fortinbras gets everything he wanted at the beginning of the play without ever having fired a shot. The providence that punished and destroyed Hamlet and Laertes and all their kin has rewarded Fortinbras. The play, after displaying how vengeance is a destructive evil, now drives the point home even more by showing how abandoning vengeance leads to prosperity. This play shows both the punishments meted out to the wicked and the rewards given to the virtuous. The Tragedy of Hamlet/Laertes is also the Comedy of Fortinbras.