In the character of Portia, Dr. White discerns a beautiful example of Catholic femininity. He discusses how Portia takes on the role of intercessor and peacemaker between the conflicting characters of the play, the theme of risking all for a beloved continued in her daring disguise and intervention in Antonio’s court case. Dr. White extends this theme to the deep friendship between Antonio and Bassiano, a friendship which makes Antonio willing even to die for his friend. Portia’s justly famous speech on “the quality of mercy” is explained clearly and in detail, and the third plot of Portia’s ring analyzed. Dr. White ends this lecture on the Christian comedy of The Merchant of Venice by tying it into to the spiritual world of a Christian, viewing the play’s ending as a vision of the Biblical Marriage Feast of Cana. His insight and clear explanation of the themes and elements of The Merchant of Venice are invaluable to a proper understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s genius.
In “The False Tragedy of Shylock” the modern view of Shylock as a tragic hero is skillfully refuted and Shylock’s character and fate examined. Dr. White explains the play’s themes of the Old Testament idea of justice vs. the Christian idea of mercy and tackles the difficult subjects of usury and anti-Semitism fairly and from a truly Catholic viewpoint. He shows that Shylock, while not a good character, is not a two-dimensional, stereotypical scoundrel, but a rounded, lifelike villain with emotions and affections. Dr. White shows how deep his hate for Antonio runs, how the basis of his conflict is the bare fact of his being an outsider, not specifically that he is a Jew, and how he brings his fate upon himself by his demand for justice.
The most famous speech in the play, perhaps in all of English literature, appears in Act Three. The question is about suicide. Hamlet’s pattern of thought now brings him to this. In the first act when he speaks of suicide, he decides not, it is against God’s law. Now he considers the act. Now dealing with an abstract question. There is nothing that is good or bad but only thinking makes it so. There is no pattern to life, only fortune, whimsy, and change. Hamlet cannot act because he believes in nothing. Hamlet gives voice to the turmoil in Shakespeare’s own life. He himself was overwhelmed, full of doubt, was not sure what to believe. He was on the verge of loosing balance. This is the playwright working it out in art. When Hamlet rebukes Ophelia, he severs his last link with sanity. Shakespeare used virtuous women in his tragedies for the spiritual health of the men. Hamlet’s treatment of her is the mark of how far he has fallen. This act is the center of the play, where the climax takes place. For the fist half of the play, there is thought without action. Now there is action without thought.
In this enlightening lecture, Dr. White comments on how the modern adaptations of The Merchant of Venice turn a beautiful comedy into a tragedy of Shylock, thus ruining the play’s comedic purpose and message. He sets about refuting this false view and showing the audience what Shylock’s real place in the play is, disclosing his true role as the villain or problem of the play, and how he comes to be in that position to begin with. He discusses the role of outsiders in Shakespeare’s great comedies in relation to Shylock, and refutes the charge of racism leveled against the playwright, pointing out among other things that there were hardly enough Jews in England in Shakespeare’s time for him to conceive a driving hatred of them. An exposition of Shylock’s intense hate of Antonio and all he stands for leads into a brilliant discussion of the problem of usury within the context of the play and the fundamental disorderedness of usury in general.
The link between Hamlet and Ophelia is central to understanding the play. Beginning, with his letters to her while studying at Wittenberg University, everything revolves around her. As he slowly looses his mind, Ophelia is the barometer of Hamlet’s mental health. At the end of his soliloquy in Act Four, Hamlet is training all his thoughts on blood to act blood. In the very next scene, Ophelia has gone mad, just as Hamlet has gone mad. Her innocence is affected by those around her, and she in turn, affects them. Even through Ophelia’s madness Gertrude confesses her own guilt. Hamlet is the one play where Shakespeare is in danger of loosing his balance. He has so much uncertainty he himself could have toppled. If he had not written anything past Hamlet, that would be it. What saved Shakespeare (and Hamlet) from loosing it completely? Shakespeare can still comprehend the balance of innocence, virtuousness, something slightly sacrificial that restores a glimmer of the good in Denmark. It is the creation of Ophelia that saves him, the innocent heroine. In Othello, the innocent heroine takes a more active role in the form of Desdemona. Shakespeare further explores this saving grace in his next play.
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is the second of the four great tragedies of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.) These are the first great tragedies since the Greeks. Only a man faced with conflict and doubt with the skill to write could write them. Shakespeare was in his dark and troubled time of life when he wrote these plays. Tragedy is a drama in which the principle conflict is between the hero and the metaphysical powers, the universe itself. The metaphysical forces win. The hero is broken, crushed, destroyed, through his own doing. The fall of the hero is not just a personal loss: when the hero falls, many fall with him. The tragedy of the individual becomes large. The warnings are these: if a great man can fall, so can we. We can also be crushed by someone else’s bad choice. Othello is a love tragedy. It is a story about disorder destroying order, about abject evil and its ravages in the world, the misuse of free will. Othello is the hero and Iago the villain. Both are destroyed. The essential thing to understand the play: a man and women in marriage become one flesh.
