Tragedy is a drama between a hero and metaphysical forces. Through a tragic flaw in their character they make a fatal mistake from which they never recover. They are destroyed, they are crushed. The hero is always someone of authority, of power. Part of the fear in watching their fall is that if they can fall, we all can fall. The mistake is suffered by many. When one falls, many fall. Oedipus is the first murder mystery. He is both the protagonist and the antagonist. He is the murder, the detective, the judge, the jury and the executioner. He wants the truth; he does not want the truth. He rejects the truth when he first learns of it and then slowly accepts it, until he has to make the final decision to mete out justice. He killed his father the king and married his mother and had children with her. He has broken natural law. Aristotle said that Oedipus Rex is the highest form of tragedy because it is so well constructed and so intelligently designed. The fact that it is sill produced on modern stages is testament to its durability, to its timeliness. It was first performed n 427 BC!
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.
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.
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 refutes the the charges made against Emily Dickinson in recent years that she was a manic-depressive with deep mental issues, explaining that she simply knew the extremes of joy and sorrow and expressed them in her poetry and that she could never have kept house for her father so efficiently if she had had severe psychological issues. The inspiration of her verse from Protestant hymns, nursery rhymes, and folk songs is demonstrated, and specific poems read and analyzed, including “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” and “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed.” Dr. White demonstrates Dickinson’s grasp of nature’s place and criticism of the transcendentalism popular in her time, and discusses her struggle with religion as evident in the religious poetry that she wrote. Finally, he examines her attitude towards death and analyzes her famous poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” These lectures are a beautiful tribute to one of America’s greatest and most humble poets.
Dr. White discusses the importance of charity as illustrated by the characters in Love’s Labour’s Lost, who show that love without charity is simply love of oneself and that intellect without charity is simply pedantry. The characters are all self-centered, and Dr. White points out that they fall in love with the women simply because they are women, not even being able to identify them except by the things they have given them. Dr. White examines the unkindness of their mocking and jokes, and notes that they do not at first learn their lesson – the play takes a somewhat bitter turn, and they are separated from the ladies and made to wait until they have become worthy suitors. Dr. White explains how, in this way, the play can be seen as a Lenten play, for the young men must do penance and undergo trials before they can come to joy, just as during Lent one must mortify oneself before one can be worthy to come to the great joy and celebration of Easter.
