The Winter’s Tale is rich in messages to the Catholic audiences of Shakespeare’s time, but did not threaten his role as a public playwright in the company of the king, James I. Shakespeare was forced to do two things simultaneously throughout his career: remain a loyal subject, and write Catholic plays. The Winter’s Tale contains coded messages that gave hope to Catholics who suffered persecution. The king accuses his wife of infidelity and condemns the accused father to death. The king’s loyal servant, Camillo, warns the accused father and together they flee to Bohemia. Bohemia, at that time offered refuge to Catholics fleeing persecution. Pope Paul V (1605–1621) was born Camillo Borghese and was the reigning pope at the time of the production of this play. This is code but it is obvious. Camillo is the good servant working behind the scenes. This play is saying indirectly that the pope is in charge, trust him, he is doing what he can. Paulina, who defends the innocence of the queen, is based on Maudlin Brown who spoke out in defense of the Faith. The conflict at the start of the play concludes with reunion of all those who were separated.
Dr. White describes the comic novel Don Quixote as a great Catholic work, in fact the best-known Spanish novel ever. He proceeds with a dramatic reading of G. K. Chesterton’s poem, Lepanto, dealing with the great naval battle in which Cervantes, a devout Catholic, took part. Following Lepanto, Cervantes became, in essence, the lonely knight riding through Spain, always failing but never giving up. Out of this came Don Quixote, the first of a new literary genre: the modern novel. Dr. White closes his commentary by noting that Cervantes died on the same date as another of his literary heroes, William Shakespeare.
Dr. White opens by drawing a parallel between Don Quixote (part one) and King Lear, both of which he sees as great counter-reformation works. He describes the independent assertion of man as a strictly Protestant notion and goes on to detail how Lear and Don Quixote both go mad in their own ways. With his dramatic readings from several sections of the novel, and while introducing Sancho Panza, he demonstrates its episodic nature and the absence of a narrative plot line. Dr. White points out that though it’s a comedy, there is something sorrowful in the story. He closes with a brief Q and A session.
In this lecture, Dr. White examines Shakespeare’s early comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost, unique because it does not give the ending expected of a comedy. The significance of language in the play is explained, with Dr. White demonstrating its obsession with language’s power and noting that the art of speaking is practically disappearing in the modern world. The beginning conflict between intellectualism and love is explained, but it is shown that the young men are doing it for the wrong reasons, simply in order to gain fame. Dr. White shows the contrast between women and men in the play: the women are sensible and practical, while the men are idealistic and rather foolish. He touches on the innocence and wisdom of Shakespeare’s women, and how these qualities make them hard to depict on modern stages. Finally, he explains how certain characters like Don Adriano de Armado are overdrawn to show what the rest of them could become if they do not reform themselves.
Dr. White’s deep love of Emily Dickinson is apparent in the very beginning of this lecture as he contrasts her humility and “littleness” with contemporary poet Walt Whitman’s overwhelming ego and sweeping lines. He covers the poet’s family as depicted in her letters, her isolation, the sheer volume of her poetry, and the harsh criticism she received from the publisher to which she submitted some of her poems. Dr. White explains and analyses several of her poems, both the popular and the little-known, including “Success is Counted Sweetest” and “I’m Nobody, Who Are You?.” The originality and peculiarities of her style, such as her use of dashes, unusual capitalization, and off rhymes, are pointed out and discussed. Finally, Dr. White speaks of the two gentleman whom she was close to and wrote to frequently, though her relationship with both progressed no further than exchanging letters.
A curious aspect of Oedipus Rex is the audience knows the truth of the play because they know the myth of Oedipus. The hero is blind to the truth and must have is own pride crushed before he will admit to it. The audience must suffer with his struggle as he cites excuse after excuse to reject the truth. There is disorder throughout. His pride keeps him blind. The price he pays for his blindness is blindness. There must be blood to appease the gods. The Greeks had a measure of wisdom in their culture. They developed a sense of logic and reason. And in that sense they sought universal truth. The question that perplexed them was what was the use of the greatness of man if it all comes to death. This is the question that must be answered. Their gods hated death but were powerless against it. Great suffering must take placed before wisdom is acquired. Sophocles must have had a special grace when writing this play, for in it he comes close to profound truths. That is why this play remains timeless. It would not be until the Incarnation that man would know these answers.
