Shakespeare and the end of humanity as we know it

It’s difficult to overstate the radical rewiring of humanity and our role in the world that occurred in Shakespeare’s era, fundamentally altering the nature of our relationship with ourselves, others, and reality itself.  A rewriting that might be breaking down today…

The late, great literary critic and legendary scholar Harold Bloom once claimed that William Shakespeare invented the modern human.  For so bold an argument, the reasoning was deceptively simple.  Prior to the Bard, humans were generally seen to be buffeted by outside forces, our emotions and passions the product of the whims of the gods or some other external entity, either malevolent or munificent.  The ancient Greeks, for example, imagined a whole host of supernatural beings with the power to influence our behavior.  There were gods and goddesses for love and hate, fear and anger, reason and wisdom, jealousy and passion, and more.  For example, Euripedes’ classic Medea opens with the titular character in a fit of rage and grief upon learning her husband, Jason, has chosen to marry another.  Her children’s nurse comments on her emotional state in physical terms.  There is a “cloud of bitter grief rising inside her” and “her heart’s been bitten by these injuries.”  The Chorus meanwhile calls up “Zeus and Earth and Sun” to “hear this young wife” and believes “Zeus will plead for you in this.  Don’t waste your life away, with too much wailing for your husband.”  Medea herself calls to Themis and Artemis for succor, “do you see what I am having to endure, when I’m the one who bound that cursed man, my husband, with strong promises to me?”  The Chorus agrees with this interpretation, saying “Suffering such injustice, she cries out, calling the gods—calling Themis, Zeus’s daughter, goddess of those promises which carried her across the ocean to Hellas, through the black salt waves, through the place which few men penetrate, that strait which guards the Pontic Sea.”  Emotion, generally speaking, is something that happens to the characters, a fact of life that requires no introspection and can even be said to be immune to it, impenetrable and fixed by whims that are external and inaccessible.  Even after the rise of monotheism in Europe, a singular god was perceived as being responsible for our fates, either providing us with a fixed destiny, divine inspiration, love, or what have you.

Shakespeare, however, was different.  Emotions remained things that could not be fully controlled in his work, but they were the product of an individual’s inner life rather than an external force, introducing us to the idea of a monologue where a character discusses and analyzes their emotions before taking action. Across almost countless examples, Shakespeare’s characters therefore dance from thought to thought and from emotion to emotion, as they contemplate the contents of their own minds in a way that was decidedly unique at the time.  Nowhere is this more clear than in Hamlet, what Bloom himself has described as a “Poem Unlimited” because it contains whatever human experience one is looking for at the moment, where it can be argued that the nature of thought is the subject of the play itself.  Consider just the short sequence after Hamlet becomes convinced of Claudius’ guilt, only to find him alone and discover his enemy praying.  At first, Hamlet draws his sword, thinking Claudius is defenseless, making it an opportune time to strike.  “Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying, And now I’ll do ’t,” the Danish prince declares before considering what it might mean that his uncle is “a-praying,” “And so he goes to heaven, And so am I revenged. That would be scanned: A villain kills my father, and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven.  Why, this is hire and salary not revenge.”  At first, Hamlet realizes his uncle is alone and defenseless, literally on his knees, but as soon as “a-praying” enters his thoughts, he cannot stop himself from considering the impact on his plans to exact vengeance.  From there, he must ask himself, what type of revenge would that be if his uncle died and went to heaven anyway even after murdering his father?  Of course, that is no revenge at all, certainly not for the murder of a father, and so Hamlet’s thoughts immediately turn to him as the “sole son” and the only one that can seek vengeance in the first place.  He follows that thought inevitably with the next, comparing the killing of Claudius now directly to his father.  “He took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; And how his audit stands who knows save heaven.  But in our circumstance and course of thought ’Tis heavy with him.  ” Hamlet cannot know the full extent of his father’s sins, but he knows that he was consigned to suffer in purgatory for some prolonged period and understands that his father is in significant distress.  The “‘Tis heavy with him” then prompts Hamlet to reconsider his options.  The line is, in that sense, a comment on the state of his father, but the Claudius that he encountered praying was also wracked with guilt.  The notion that these deeds in general are “heavy” can apply to both at the same time, serving as a hinge for Hamlet’s mind to switch back to Claudius, rephrasing the potential action as a question.  “And am I then revenged To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?”  This time, he finds it easy to answer:  No, but now Hamlet is dissatisfied that he hasn’t taken his revenge, and so he casts his mind forward. imagining his dark thoughts coming to fruition, recounting the other sins Claudius has committed.  “Up sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.  When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed, At game, a-swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation in ’t—Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damned and black As hell, whereto it goes.”

Hamlet’s mind, much like our own, cannot simply end it there, however.  Having brought up the “incestuous bed,” he thinks of his mother and her role in the dreadful crime.  What punishment should she suffer?  “My mother stays,” and then he is back to his justification for not killing Claudius at this time, “This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.” Crucially, these thoughts are Hamlet’s own and are entirely subjective, subject to the usual fallacies and inconsistencies of the human mind.  In this case, Hamlet has delayed his revenge across most of the play.  The scene occurs towards the end of the fourth act in a five act piece.  We have no reason to doubt that Hamlet is actually thinking these words and phrases while he addresses the audience, but we have plenty of reason to doubt whether he is truly being honest with himself or simply making excuses for his failure to act, self-rationalizing as people frequently do.  Thus, Shakespeare introduces more than the idea of a simple interior monologue that allows us to “watch” the thoughts of a character unfold in real time.  He asks us to ponder the difference between Hamlet’s subjective experience and our own objective experience of the play itself, prompting us to consider why Hamlet has these thoughts in the first place, where they come from, whether they are accurate (and in other plays, whether the character knows the truth of a situation in the first place or is being deceived), and what decisions we might make if we were suddenly to become Danish Princes ourselves.  Of course, our own experience is also necessarily subjective.  In this context, the play itself can be said to be objective given the content is fixed and reproducible, representing the “truth” in this limited sense, but each of us will experience it armed with our own inner monologues, making our own connections from thought to thought, interpreting the output based on our own unique history.  Your thoughts will not be my thoughts, which account for the almost innumerable interpretations of Hamlet itself or any great work of literature or art for that matter.  To a large extent, however, even my own thoughts will no longer be my thoughts once I have them.  Later in the play, the Player King says that “our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own,” suggesting that we cannot control the content of our own mind, but Shakespeare himself urges us to go one step further:  We cannot have the same precise sequence of thoughts or emotions twice.  This might seem counterintuitive, but consider that your reaction to any event is contingent on your experience of that event.  Since no two experiences can be exactly the same, no two sequences of thoughts can be either, even if we painstakingly try to recreate them.  This is evident given how a person’s interpretation of Hamlet (or again any great work) is likely to change over time, seeing something different in it based on where they are in their lives, what new experiences they’ve had since the last time they explored the work, or just their own temporary mental state, finding something new that connects to their current mood.  Even outside the interpretation of a great work of literature, how many times have you reread something you wrote years ago and wondered what the hell you were thinking?

It’s difficult to overstate what a radical rewiring of humanity and our role in the world this was at the time, fundamentally altering the nature of our relationship with ourselves, others, and reality itself in ways that would continue to be explored in art, science, politics, economics, and more for centuries to come.  To be sure, whether Shakespeare “invented” this in the strict sense, codified what was already out there at the time, or discovered it along with others is unclear.  There were certainly some in his era who took a similar approach, as we often see in the arts and sciences.  The famous French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, for example, was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s and used his “Essays” to study the content of his own mind.  He did not create innumerable immortal characters like the Bard, but rather probed himself, attempting to ask and answer subjective questions about his own experience and place in the world.  He covered everything from what a cat might think when we play with it,  “When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play. If I have my hour to begin or to refuse, she also has hers,” to the equivalencies between people regardless of their state, “’Tis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. ’Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and, when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech.  The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model; without miracle, without extravagance.”  Similar to Shakespeare himself, Montaigne also urged us to understand our own individuality and only then consider our connection to others.  “We must break the knot of our obligations, how strong soever, and hereafter love this or that, but espouse nothing, but ourselves: that is to say, let the remainder be our own, but not so joined and so close as not to be forced away without flaying us or tearing out part of our whole. The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.”

Regardless of whether one attributes this new focus on humanity as fallible individuals, moved as much from within as without, with no objective access to truth, to Shakespeare entirely or as a general product of the Enlightenment, there is no doubt that it represented a break from the past.  This break informed everything that came after, up to and including the modern era, representing a major revolution in human thought that continues to reverberate today.  The question before us now is whether the revolution has officially eaten its own, or is about to in the near future.  Putting this another way, have we taken the idea that our mental lives are defined by an inner monologue with no objective truth and turned it back upon itself to the point where even our recent ancestors wouldn’t recognize us as human anymore?  Much ink has been shed over why young people today appear to suffer from depression or even suicidal thoughts, are unable to form lasting relationships or put off lasting relationships until much later in life, while being more risk averse and less adventurous than their predecessors.  Everything from social media to the culture to the climate to the rapid growth of psychotherapy has been blamed for these sudden changes in both mood and behavior, but little attention has been paid to what is actually going on inside these young minds.  Mood and behavior are both manifestations of our thoughts, not the content of the thoughts themselves.  Why does their inner monologue appear to be broken or at least measurably different from older generations?  Harold Bloom once suggested that the problem with Hamlet is not that he thought too much, but that he thought too well.  I would suggest, rather simply, that a key challenge for young people is that they think too much in general.  Their inner monologues are on fire, and because they have been segregated from any objective reality, standard of behavior, or understanding of what previous generations have had to cope with, they are stuck in a classic feedback loop, literally feeding their minds their own internal and external fears over and over again.  Rather than contextualize their challenges in the grand scheme of human history and experience, realizing that others have faced similar or worse, and choosing optimism as a course of action as it has usually been in America at least, they emote what they consider their truth to use the parlance of the time.  Indeed few phrases encapsulate it better than “my truth” which has the unique distinction of being both technically correct given you cannot see inside my mind and totally impractical given that as human beings on planet Earth we need to successfully navigate the same world.  Another modern phrase that represents this trend is “in my head,” meaning a person is lost in their own thoughts, insecurities, and failures, unable to see past them, and unable to act in a rational manner.

The combination of the two means that in a very real sense, we have, all of us, become Hamlet in our own way, venting and observing, rationalizing and excusing, rather than acting.  We can see it in the polls and surveys, but we can also see it with our own eyes in viral posts where young people appear incapable of understanding how one progresses in life, believing everyone starts out with the wealth and experience of their parents.  On college campuses, where groups that would be slaughtered in the streets in Gaza are professing their alignment with Palestinians.  We see it in those who claim they cannot have children, for the world is too dark and dangerous while living in the most blessed era in the known universe.  We see it in the need to reduce everything to the oppressions of the day, and the general inability to look beyond their own perceived slights and offenses, believing the world is literally out to get them personally.  In short, we see it almost everywhere.  Hamlet, however, is a tragic figure, doomed by his own hyperactive mind, rather than a role model.  We should take great care in emulating him lest we lose what is most precious about our humanity itself.