Dr. White opens this discussion of Shakespeare’s As You Like It with a quick review of the filmed versions of the play. Then he characterizes it as a romantic comedy that is Catholic in a profound way in that it portrays conflict and envy between individuals and society but ends with compromise and renewal. As You Like It, according to White, represents a notion of free will and he describes it as a simple pastoral comedy in a woodsy setting. Spiced by dramatic readings, Dr. White explains the characters in some detail before opening his presentation to questions from his audience.
Here Dr. White introduces the concept of comedy, with a special emphasis on what are known as Shakespeare’s three golden comedies: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. It is White’s premise that Shakespeare’s career as a playwright parallels the Mysteries of the Rosary, further solidifying the professor’s contention that the poet was, indeed, a Catholic. Comedy, in White’s view, pits the individual against society wherein the conflict is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. This play, according to Dr. White, is about maintaining social order.
In this, part two of Dr. White’s commentary on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, he outlines the plot: built around eavesdropping and gossiping. It is a comedy, according to White, which contains two of the greatest comic scenes ever written. Interspersed with selected readings, Dr. White emphasizes the huge importance of words, and how language in this play is used as weaponry. It is what White calls a “serious” comedy. And he points out how the play evokes the image of the Virgin Mary, the model for all women; and he describes the parallels between this Shakespeare work and Dante’s Divine Comedy.
This last part of the brilliant conference on Moby Dick begins with a continuation of the discourse on materialism in the American way of life. Dr. White discusses how materialism stunts personality and how, in our culture, even rebels against the bland comfort of common life all rebel the exact same way. The point is made that true, healthy diversity and individualism can come only from the Catholic Faith. Dr. White then makes a thorough investigation of the Calvinistic conception of God against which Melville protests in Moby Dick through the character of Captain Ahab. He shows that Ahab’s fury against this Calvinist God is justified, going through three aspects of the Calvinist religion which alienate men from God. The natural responses to this alienation, worship of nature and destruction of nature, are then discussed and Captain Ahab’s adherence to the latter response analyzed. Dr. White explains the nature of Ahab’s madness; he has a “great madness,” stemming from a very legitimate cause. The end of the novel and of the lecture is reached as Dr. White discusses Ahab’s last words and the death of him and his crew.
Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation” is, according to Dr. White, not just a great Catholic story but a great piece of literature. He likens it to old fashioned Catholic art, i.e., stories taken from scripture and presented in dramatic form. Interspersed with his impassioned readings, Revelation is what Dr. White considers to be to be a Catholic truth; derived from the Gospel of St. Luke, presented directly and openly; and the first representation of purgatory in literature since Dante.
In this talk Dr. White discusses O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” within the context of the four stages of violent charity; which like Christ’s suffering is a charity that wounds. He opines that it is O’Connor’s vision that the modern world is mad, sealed off from God’s grace. Dr. White discusses what he describes as the comic first half of the story along with the shocking second half.
