Tag Archives: Shakespeare

“penetrable stuff”

Hamlet, here speaking to his mother:

Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;(40)
If damned custom have not braz’d it so
That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

Hamlet felt he could not communicate with his mother, that she was unreachable, because her heart was not made of “penetrable stuff”. He then explained why, blaming “damned custom” for having “braz’d” (or, “bronzed”) her heart so that it be “proof and bulwark against sense” (or feeling). Hamlet lamented that his mother had been so enculturated with the thought-forms and ideologies of the historical moment that there was nothing else there, there was not any “feeling” which is necessary if there is to be any communication.

“Damned custom” insulates us from feeling, from our bodies, and thus from experience. In fact, it is “proof and bulwark against” feeling. “Damned custom” is an internalized world view, an “introject” (if I might borrow a term from psychoanalysis) which serves a useful purpose in that it allows us to function in the “real” world. The problem lies only in failing to mature at some point and realizing…and feeling…that there is another dimension to life that is being missed.

If I might make a bit of a leap, let me quote e e cummings:

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

Or, a further leap, to the words of Jesus:

“What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

the “glib and oily art”

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In his play, King Lear, Shakespeare noted the “glib and oily art, to speak and purpose not.” Words are usually trotted out….yes, glibly…and that is fine. Words are the currency of any particular culture. If we had to sit down and ponder re the meaning of what we were about to say, then our culture would quickly disintegrate into a morass of self-contemplation, “navel gazing.” But the problem is that often people never into their entire life get beyond “the glib speech of habit, well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness.” (Conrad Aiken). We are often verbal auto-matons, offering the appropriate “words and phrases” for the various circumstances in our life. We then fail to ever offer an authentic word, a word spoken from the heart. We fail to acknowledge the wisdom of Shakespeare in the concluding lines of King Lear, “The weight of this sad time we must obey, speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” It is sad to realize that many people…..most people…never speak an authentic “feeling” word. Even more so it is so sad to realize that our culture is set up to prevent authenticity, it depends on people trotting out those “well worn words and ready phrases.” We are fortunate to live in a culture where there is some freedom to individual expression, in spite of the weight of socio-economic pressure, in spite of social regimentation.

shakespeare sonnet

SONNET 146 by William Shakespeare

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
(Thrall to) These rebel powers that thee array;
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

Shakespeare said it all. No one has grasped the human psyche like that man. Here he echoed the words of Jesus, who once posed the question, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” Shakespeare recognized that there is a center, a quiet place, which often goes without notice. It is a place which is largely not recognized by our current culture. We are busy compulsively “painting our outward walls so costly gay”, ignoring the admonishment to, “Within be fed, without be rich no more.” We are guilty of the sin of misplaced concreteness, taking for real what is only ephemeral. And the price tag for this is a loss of perspective, a missing connection with the spiritual dimension which alone gives life meaning. John Masefield noted, “We chase the shade, and let the real be.”

Here is the Masefield sonnet:

Man has his unseen friend, his unseen twin,

His straitened spirit’s possibility,

The palace unexplored he thinks an inn,

The glorious garden which he wanders by.

It is beside us while we clutch at clay

To daub ourselves that we may never see.

Like the lame donkey lured by moving hay

We chase the shade but let the real be.

Yet, when confusion in our heaven brings stress,

We thrust on that unseen, get stature from it,

Cast to the devil’s challenge the man’s yes,

And stream our fiery hour like a comet,

And know for that fierce hour a friend behind,

With sword and shield, the second to the mind.

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