The Reactionary Utopian
                      June 1, 2006


SHAKESPEARE AND MS. GRUNDY
by Joe Sobran

[Originally published by the Universal Press Syndicate, 
April 15, 1997]

     Lloyd Rose, theater critic of the WASHINGTON POST, 
has asked the arresting question whether Shakespeare 
disliked women. After all, he created some of the most 
appalling harpies ever to walk the stage: Lady Macbeth; 
King Lear's ruthless daughters, Goneril and Regan; 
Coriolanus's fanatical mother, Volumnia; Kate the Shrew; 
and a few others you wouldn't want to meet on a blind 
date. (And Tamora, in TITUS ANDRONICUS, is even more 
terrifying than Bertie Wooster's aunts.)

     But how could a man who =disliked= women have 
created heroines like Juliet, Cordelia, Beatrice, 
Rosalind, and Cleopatra, not to mention such endearing 
lesser characters as Emilia in OTHELLO or the Countess of 
Roussillon in ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL? The whole effect 
of Shakespeare's most powerful scenes depends on our 
feeling of the infinite pathos of the deaths of women 
like Cordelia and Desdemona. He, at least, must have 
cared about them.

     I don't know of another author, male or otherwise, 
who created such a wide range of female characters, or 
who took such obvious delight in witty women. Shakespeare 
can raise a young man's expectations of women even more 
unrealistically than Hugh Hefner. What's more, even his 
most ghastly women are sharply individualized. It seems 
purblind to reduce his amazing genius for characterizing 
women to a single attitude.

     Why should we have to defend Shakespeare, anyway? 
What's the point? Is he on trial for misogyny? If 
convicted, will he be banned from the stage?

     I wish these questions could be laughed away. But in 
this age of crackpot feminism, militant victimology and 
ideological criticism, not even Shakespeare is safe. The 
prudish Mrs. Grundy of yesteryear has been replaced by 
the even more censorious Ms. Grundy of today.

     Living in an age of heavy censorship, Shakespeare 
was still free of certain social oppressions with which 
we, First Amendment or no, have become all too familiar. 
He didn't have to worry, every time he endowed a female 
or minority character with an unpleasant trait, that he'd 
be accused of having the Wrong Attitude toward a whole 
sex or race. Nobody was keeping score in those days. So 
he was free to create individuals instead of 
representatives.

     Are we quite as free? Doesn't a writer today -- 
especially a white male writer -- feel, as he dips the 
quill into the old inkwell, a certain haunting anxiety 
that he may run afoul of the bigotry patrol if his women 
and minority characters don't, so to speak, meet federal 
guidelines? It can't be good for the imagination to work 
under such conditions.

     Think of all the authors of the past who have been 
brought up on sexism and bigotry raps lately: The list 
includes Chaucer, Milton, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Twain, 
Kipling, G.K. Chesterton, Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, and 
Raymond Chandler, not to mention St. Paul.

     It's perfectly legitimate to note moral failings and 
even ugliness in old authors, however great. But too 
often they are not being judged by valid universal 
standards, but being arraigned on ex post facto charges 
that reveal our own parochial mentality, not theirs.

     Shakespeare obviously knew what it was to adore a 
woman. But he wasn't idiotic enough to adore them all, or 
=like= them all. He was deeply interested in them, 
remarkably observant about them and often sympathetic to 
them. He had a humorous sense of how women feel about 
men, as witness Emilia's earthy remark about husbands: 
"'Tis not a year or two shows us a man: / They are all 
but stomachs, and we all but food; / They eat us 
hungerly, and when they are full, / They belch us."

     A surefire crack like that loses its essence if it's 
turned into a manifesto or a "universal truth." Like most 
jokes (not that Emilia is joking!), it's both a 
recognizable experience and an exaggeration.

     If the male sex ever gets into organized touchiness, 
it will have far more complaints with Shakespeare than 
the feminists do. The tragedies always result chiefly 
from male flaws, with the woman a contributory factor at 
most, and more often the victim of male jealousy, 
self-absorption, or sheer pig-headedness.

     Come to think of it, is KING LEAR fair to senior 
citizens? But let's leave it at that. I don't want to 
give anyone ideas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read this column on-line at 
"http://www.sobran.com/columns/2006/060601.shtml".

Copyright (c) 2006 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate, 
www.griffnews.com. This column may not be published in 
print or Internet publications without express permission 
of Griffin Internet Syndicate. You may forward it to 
interested individuals if you use this entire page, 
including the following disclaimer:

"SOBRAN'S and Joe Sobran's columns are available 
by subscription. For details and samples, see 
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml, write 
PR@griffnews.com, or call 800-513-5053."