Here Dr. White begins his detailed analysis of the groups of lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by describing the different poetic forms in which Shakespeare has them speak, i,e., iambic pentameter, rhymed couplet, prose, etc. It is, he says, a play about weddings, with recurrent themes such as the moon and dreams. White points out the absurdity of young lovers who go to extremes to break the law, and he sites ones of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
In Shakespeare’s Henry V, Prince Hal, who was in effect the subject also of the preceding plays, Henry IV (parts 1 and 2), finally takes center stage in this play that chronicles the struggle of former Prince Hal to put away youthful ways and adopt the persona and integrity of a king. Dr. White, in this last of his four presentations on the Henry plays and Richard II, posits that Henry V is an epic of sorts, tracing as it does the chronological, emotional, and moral quest of the new young king Henry for greatness, maturity, nobility, justice, and mercy. Of note is the effort expended by Henry to become the opposite of the man of our age – integrated rather than alienated; a coherent whole rather than fragmented parts; a genuinely moral and stately figure, rather than a pathetically amoral and degraded vagabond.
Dr. White continues his detailed analysis of the interaction between the lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now he concentrates on the group known as the mechanicals, as they prepare to put on a play within the play. It is farce, burlesque, even slapstick, as Shakespeare makes loving fun of these characters. Dr. White reveals how they have no imagination, which he proclaims to be the meeting ground between love and art; and he goes on to explore the theme of the real play, i.e., that love is irrational. But that Shakespeare sees unity in the human condition.
In this sweeping introduction to O’Neill’s work as an American dramatist, Dr. White argues the relevance and even necessity of understanding literature, history, and Catholicism in order to appreciate the significance of O’Neill’s play. Explaining that O’Neill was the creator of a genuine American drama, White also suggests that he could not have done so without his Catholicism, nor, the doctor provocatively maintains, without losing it. This introduction to O’Neill is consequently a tour de force review of the history of the interaction between Americanism, Modernism, and Catholicism on the cultural, literary, and artistic battlefields of the beleaguered nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dr. White describes “The Temple of the Holy Ghost” as a gentle piece of work punctuated, however, with grotesque elements. He characterizes O’Connor as a great Catholic artist of our own time and extols this story as one of her few, if not only, openly Catholic works. The title, according to White, speaks to the essence of “matter” and “spirit.”
Here Dr. White makes passing reference to O’Connor’s affection for the films of W.C. Fields, as he segues into a discussion of “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” White characterizes this story as frightening, and one in which O’Connor presents an empty, dead world wherein she deals with intellectual pride and the racism of the deep South in a bygone era.
