A Teaching in Corona Times

'A Teaching in Corona Times' by Ms. Janelle Doria

As an English literature teacher, I found a really interesting podcast on the Economist last night where James Shapiro, a professor of literature at Columbia University and author of “Shakespeare in a Divided America” was being interviewed.

In 2020, a year of plagues, power struggles and star-crossed lovers divided by lockdown, Anne McElvoy asks James Shapiro, what the bard would make of it all. For centuries, in our turbulent world, people have turned to Shakespeare to make sense of our struggles. The story, the myth, is always the same, according to the great philosopher and mythologist, Joseph Campbell. These stories are ours. As a literature teacher, and an ardent Shakespeare fan, I thought what better story teller, than William Shakespeare, is there to turn to in these dark, Covid, uncertain days?

Shapiro reflects that we think of Shakespeare writing his plays in a bucolic Elizabethan London when in fact the opposite was true. When he started writing his plays in 1592/3 an enormous plague ravaged London where one out of seven Londoners died. Almost ten years later, in 1603, the plague returned killing one out of five people and kept recurring until 1610. This was in the second half of his writing career, when he was churning out his tragedies. He was writing for an audience either recovering from an epidemic, in the middle of one or anticipating another one. The idea of these epidemics is not obvious in his plays. He kills people in all manner of violent ways – drowning, decapitation, hanging, stabbing (as we saw in BISA’s magnificent production of Macbeth this year) but we never see anyone overtly dying of the plague. Why is this? The reason, as Shapiro surmises, is that perhaps it was too close to home. But more interesting is that the authorities would close down theaters, and knew only too well the importance of social distancing.

There is one reference to the plague in King Lear where he calls his daughter Goneril a plague sore “a carbuncle”, about the worst thing anyone could say in a crowded Globe Theater in 1606. Everyone knew the invisible enemy was amongst them. There are lessons in these tragedies, Shapiro continues, especially in Macbeth. Here, Shakespeare alludes to the plague, through Ross, who speaks of a man leaving the house, a flower in his cap and he dies before the flower, showing how quickly tragedy can take over ordinary lives. Here, in Macbeth, we see how Shakespeare connects national politics to the plague. Ross, in Act IV, Sc 3 contemplates, “Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself, it cannot be call’d our mother, but our grave; where nothing, but who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air are made, not mark’d; where violent sorrow seems a modern ecstacy; the dead man’s knell is there scarce ask’d for who; and good men’s lives expire before the flowers in their caps, dying or ere they sicken.”

This all seems so somber. We know Shakespeare wrote many comedies and perhaps from these we can find some form of light relief, find some inspiration and spiritual resilience to see us through. As always, Shakespeare has never made it easy. The endings of all his plays, at times annoyingly, leave the decision with us and highlight the uneasy duality of our existence. We want endings to be life enhancing, to leave us with a new order, and hope. Yet the bard, as Shapiro so cleverly points out, “… doesn’t leave us in a fantasy land at the end of comedies.” Yes a new community is created through marriages and dances and love matches which give us pleasure and hope but they always have a darker side. Because, as Shapiro points out “ those comedies depend on creating new communities through exclusion. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is excluded from his religion and economic circle, Caliban is excluded in The Tempest, Malvalio at the end of Twelfth Night. Even as we celebrate community we have to be aware that community is based on exclusion and inclusion.”

This left me with unease so, I leave you with these from one of my most favourite ‘comedies’ Merchant of Venice:

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.”

And if anything were more truer than today with looming economic struggle, it is this: “All that glitters, is not gold.” Look to the sun, to nature, to family, to love.

Be safe everyone and in the immortal words of Vera Lynn, we will meet again.

Here is the link to the podcast if anyone wants to listen to the interview:

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2020/04/30/what-would-shakespeare-make-of-donald-trumps-america