I missed this when it first came out, ran across it the other day and it so perfectly summarizes our treacherous political situation and the man at the helm with his enablers and sycophants. Want to understand the underlying reality of today's craziness here's a good place to start. Thus, I can't resist adding it to my little collection.
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Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election
By Stephen Greenblatt | October 8, 2016
In the early 1590s, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that addressed a problem: How could a great country wind up being governed by a sociopath?
The problem was not England’s, where a woman of exceptional intelligence and stamina had been on the throne for more than 30 years, but it had long preoccupied thoughtful people. Why, the Bible brooded, was the kingdom of Judah governed by a succession of disastrous kings? How could the greatest empire in the world, ancient Roman historians asked themselves, have fallen into the hands of a Caligula?
For his theatrical test case, Shakespeare chose an example closer to home: the brief, unhappy reign in 15th-century England of King Richard III. Richard, as Shakespeare conceived him, was inwardly tormented by insecurity and rage, the consequences of a miserable, unloved childhood and a twisted spine that made people recoil at the sight of him. Haunted by self-loathing and a sense of his own ugliness — he is repeatedly likened to a boar or rooting hog — he found refuge in a feeling of entitlement, blustering overconfidence, misogyny and a merciless penchant for bullying.
From this psychopathology, the play suggests, emerged the character’s weird, obsessive determination to reach a goal that looked impossibly far off, a position for which he had no reasonable expectation, no proper qualification and absolutely no aptitude. ...
Keep reading at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html
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You may be wondering, who is Stephen Greenblatt PhD and what does he know? Here are some informative links:
The John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities
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Tyrant: Shakespeare on Power by Stephen Greenblatt review – sinister and enthralling. by Robert McCrum
A scholarly study revealing the seeds of Trumpism in Shakespeare’s villains is highly entertaining
In a twist that Shakespeare himself might have relished, he is as much America’s national poet as Britain’s. Here, he is an icon; there, in a crisis, his poetry and plays can become a touchstone. Indeed, in the “general woe” (Shakespeare’s words) that attended the 2016 US election, it was to Shakespeare that many Americans turned in their distress. When, in the midst of the most vicious presidential campaign in memory, Professor Stephen Greenblatt, bestselling author of Will in the World, published an op-ed piece in the New York Times headlined “Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election”, it went viral.
Greenblatt was at once topical, impassioned and provocative. “In the early 1590s,” he began, “Shakespeare sat down to write a play that addressed a problem: How could a great society wind up being governed by a sociopath?” After a pointed analysis of Richard III, he closed with this appeal: “Shakespeare’s words have an uncanny ability to reach out beyond their original time and place and to speak directly to us. We have long looked to him, in times of perplexity and risk, for the most fundamental human truths. So it is now. Do not think it cannot happen, and do not stay silent or waste your vote.” …
In general, Shakespeare’s villains are more sinister than the clownish, lazy and narcissistic Trump, though no less evil. Still, Greenblatt is very perceptive about the “enablers” who sustain a weak and incompetent leader in office.
As a Harvard professor and a prominent member of America’s liberal elite, Greenblatt is probably too appalled by Trump’s insurrection to see the funny side, as depicted, for example, in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury. He does concede “a touch of comedy in the tyrant’s rise to power”, but doesn’t develop this promising line of thought. ...
Keep reading at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/01/tyrant-shakespeare-on-power-by-stephen-greenblatt-book-review-robert-mccrum
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There's also a video version over at Curiosity Stream
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