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netherlands.

"AN EXQUISITE PLATFORM": UTOPIA

Eva Brann

1.

Utopias Two

Political

as

Poetry

purporting to be by the poet laureate of Utopia were More's Utopia by his Dutch friend Peter Giles, whose house is the setting for the narrative. One of them says:1 poems

prefixed to

Me Utopie Void

Now I

cleped

haunt

of

Antiquity, herborough,

and

like to Plato's city,

am

Whose fame flieth the

Yea, like, Plato's For In

naked

The

to excell

plat

Plato's

what

with

Wherefore

not

name

hath

in

as

have I

same

With laws,

My

likely

and pass.

pen

words,

thorough;

world

or rather more

a

platted

briefly

glass,

fully,

performed

men, and treasure fitly.

Utopie, but

is Eutopie:

rather

rightly

felicity [21].

a place of

I

cannot resist first quoting from the original in the Utopian language and alphabet:

Bargol he

Agrama I

baccan

shaped

for

briefly

words"

by

in Plutarch's Lives,

it is

city [19].

Utopia

The

actuality.

where

given

philosophy

a philosophical

man

its

is

soma gymnosophaon.

poems make the same point.

in

which

other,

labarem bacha bodamilomin.

gymnosophon

one of all other without

Have

Both

maglomi

of the

made

surpasses other cities

original of

for the

"platted

this claim is to be found

work of

the Spartan

Lycurgus,

polity:

...

all

those

who

have

writ'.en well on

taken Lycurgus for their model,

words;

whereas

government

Lycurgus

which

none

have treated the individual of a complete philosophic

Greece [Lycurgus,

1

was

else

edition:

S. J.,

page

the

author,

could

so

raised

in writing

not

as

copy;

and

and

mere

but while

in reality, of a men in general

unattainable, he above all

Zeno, have

projects and

by

the example

the other lawgivers of

ch. xxxi].

references

are

in the text

J. H. Hexter (New Haven

References to

much

himself high

from Ralph Robinson's translation

are

Utopia, The Complete Works

and

Plato, Diogenes

as

philosophic character as

city

Quotations from the Ulopia

but the

politics,

leaving behind them, however,

works named

and

of

1551,

to the modern annotated Latin and English

of St. Thomas

London: Yale

in the text

are

by

More, Vol. 4,

ed.

E.

University Press, 1965).

standard

divisions.

Surtz,

Interpretation

2 Now the utterly

that

observation

obvious

"actual"

Utopia is

not

in

con way Sparta was can serve to introduce the question which a utopia has being. in the way cerning The answer to the question is not hard to formulate. Utopias are communities constructed in the imagination and expressed in words; is nothing but they are word pictures, a kind of poetry. Their What Utopia shares negatively: to put it their imaginative vividness. Or, quite

the

same

"reality"

Sparta is the absence of "naked words"; just as Lycurgus "would but made Sparta to embody them, so his laws to Utopia pictures its polity. Accordingly, Sir Philip Sidney includes the book Utopia among the poetic works in his Defense of Poesie and says of the

with

writing"

never reduce

Utopian poet:

.

.

the philosopher saith should

whatsoever

.

in

by

one

some

notion with

description,

image

an

doth

which

the imagination.

done;

perfect picture

gives a perfect picture of

so

he

as

coupleth

I say, for he

philosopher

the

sight

to the

a wordish

the

of

it

general

yieldeth

bestoweth but

the

nor possess

strike, pierce,

called political

city"

of the philosopher's

Utopias

as

seen

the

or whether

city,

"without

nature

of

poetry

be

to

remains

claiming that this "feigned

2.

be done, he

was

that whereof the

of

neither

may be It

Utopias, then,

very

it

soul

so

that other doth [para. 21].

much as

of

presupposeth

the particular example. A

the mind

powers of

he

whom

poet

it is

belong to Sidney

and

whether

is

the

is

image in the

an

perhaps

rather

faculty

right

in

particular

a place

in its

philosophy."

Daydreams

The first kind of exoteric

by

of imagining that Utopias suggest is daydreaming, a sort dreaming undertaken by one man in behalf of a band unified

a common

in the

desire. In the

playful web

Utopia

by More Peter

such as

case of the

of make-believe

and

first

his international

Giles'

this aspect is

utopia

factuality

spun

circle of

friends

Utopian language,

mellifluous

about

expressed

the island of

(3-45, 249-53),

and so persuasive was

this pleasant conspiracy that a certain cleric could be reported to have longing to be sent to Utopia by the Pope as bishop (43). In just

expressed a

More wrote to Erasmus telling of a daydream in which he had himself as the chosen king of Utopia "marching along crowned with a diadem of wheat, (c. December 4, very striking in my Franciscan 1516). There is a whole class of such Utopian daydreams. Among these are the foundation of More's reader Rabelais, the community founded by Gargan-

this vein seen

garb"

tua, the of

the

commonwealth makes

More's Utopia, which is called the Abbey Wish (Gargantua and Pantagruel, I, 5), and the simple Gonzales in The Tempest, who, like More,

son-in-law of the

Theleme,

himself

traries execute ...

for

no

Abbey of

king all

of

king of

of

a state.

In his

realm

things":

kind

Would I admit;

of

traffic

no name of

magistrate;

Gonzales

would

"by

con

An Exquisite Platform": Utopia Letters And

should not

use of

be known; riches, poverty,

service, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound All things in Without

3

of

land, tilth,

vineyard, none;

.

.

.

common nature should produce

sweat or endeavor

Such Utopias, be they but not willed.

more

.

.

.

[II, 1].

witty

or more

naive,

are

as

lands

wished

But this aspect of Utopias as Lands of Cockayne, places either of effort less virtue or easy pleasure, is inadequate. In fact, More's Utopia and almost every subsequent Utopian construction is a sober and disciplined place, which, although More's contemporaries delighted in its virtuous ways (e.g., 29), induces strong misgivings in more recent readers. These misgivings concern, interestingly enough, not the obvious weakness nature for which they were Engels in the Communist Manifesto as unscien tific and ultimately reactionary (III, 3). On the contrary, the dissatisfaction comes precisely from the apprehension of Utopias as practical proposals. Utopias offend because they are felt to be "static": monotonous, regiment ed, drably uniform, barrenly restrictive. So Mumford, for instance, thinks of every utopia as a kind of human machine, to be regarded as original social evil, as "kakotopia or hell"; while another writer entitles an article on More's Utopia "A Detestable State."2

Utopias, that

of

by

castigated

3.

irresponsibly diversionary

Marx

and

More Against His Own Utopia

The

most

significant

so often unacceptable

fact, however,

is More's

in considering why Utopias are his book. I shall give an

own relation to

list of items in respect to which More expressed disapprobation his own Utopian institutions. It includes almost every feature that is fundamental. He comments in his own behalf both at the end of the first and the second of its two books, in each case after Raphael Hythloday, the dis coverer of Utopia, has finished speaking. In the second book he says: abbreviated of

.

.

.

many things

came

to my mind

which

to be instituted and founded of

seemed

their chivalry and

also, yea,

and

in their

.

.

.

manners

chiefly, in that

which

is the of

and

laws

of

that people

reason, not only in the fashion

sacrifices and religion

nances, that is to say, in the community

money

in the

no good

and

principal

in

others

foundation

their life and

living

of of

their all

without

of

laws, but

their ordi

occupying

of

[245].

More still opposed Hythloday's most forcefully expressed opinion, that is "the only way to wealth in a commonality, if equality of wealth in his last year in the Tower, when should be brought in and this

established"

2

Utopias

and

Utopian

Thought,

ed.

F. E. Manuel (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), ed. W. Nelson (Englewood

Twentieth Century Interpretations of U:opia, Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), p. 88. p.

15;

and

Interpretation

4

he

in the Dialogue of Comfort3 that if equally "it would be on the morrow after

wrote

out

the

all

wealth were portioned

than it was the

worse

For surely the rich man's substance is the wellspring of man's living"(II, 22). In fact, far from regarding communism, narrator, as Christian, More condemned it as one of the "horrible

fore.

of

.

.

be

day

the poor

.

Tyndale'

the Anabaptists in his Confutation of

Even

fundamental than the

more

his

with

heresies"

Answer. Utopians is their

s

communism of the

they think that all our actions, and in them the virtues themselves, be referred at last to pleasure as their end and and they regard religious ascetics as holy but not quite sane But More, who is reported in the Life written by his 227). (167, law Roper secretly to have worn a hair shirt next to his skin and to

love

".

of pleasure:

.

.

felicity,"

son-in-

have

that "a

from

his

punished

body

with

whips,4

considered,

perfect man should abstain not

only from

his

with

model

Pico, but

unlawful pleasures

lawful."5

Again,

Utopians

the

free

permit

of

choice

religion,

therefore

and

have no idea of heresy (221). More, on the other hand, argues in several places, for instance, in the Dialogue on Heresies (IV, 13), that heretical books should not be suffered to go abroad and that the burning of doctrinal

heretics is of the

"lawful,

sometimes

necessary, and

first Utopians to be baptized

much zeal

as to

immediately

Christianity

show

well done."6

and

preaches

Moreover,

the faith

one

with so

toleration in effect incompatible

(219). The Utopian

More

it

as

a

devilish

(Dialogue of Comfort, II, 16); condition

of

to the

priests recommend suicide

regards

the

incompatibility (191)

temptation

Utopians

More

desperately all

under

divorce

permit

opposed

sick

it

(187)

circumstances

unto

under

the

death;

the

More strenuously defends images in their worship (233) their necessity (Dialogue on Heresies, I, 3). How then did More manage to conjure up the image of an ideal commonwealth whose institutions were so thoroughly contrary to his own Utopians

use no

views?

Nicholas Harpsfield, in the first formal as follows:

biography

of

More,

speaks of

Utopia

But the book that beareth the

invention, for

profane matters,

so

as

pleasantly,

3

it

were

prick and price of all

is his Utopia. He

an exquisite

platform,

his

other

painteth me pattern

Latin books it forth

and example

of

witty

so

lively

of

a singular

and

Saint Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, ed. L. Miles and London: Indiana University Press, 1965), pp. 135, 136.

(Bloomington 4

William Roper

and

E. E. Reynolds (London 5

and

Nicholas Harpsfield, Lives of Saint Thomas More, New York: Everyman's Library, 1963), p. 25.

ed.

and

The English Works of Sir Thomas More, ed. W. E. Campbell (London: Eyre Spottiswoode, 1931), Volume the First: Early Poems, Pico della Mirandola,

Richard III, The Four Last Things, p. 378. 6 Ibid., Volume the Second: The Dialogue Concerning Heresies of Religion (= The Dialogue Concerning Tyndale), p. 301.

and

Matters

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia good

as

commonwealth,

yet, the best of

not

devising

the

and

probably

new

found lands declared

one of

the

such

the

people were

not

say

and

by

to be in one of the countries of the

state and

even of

any

Christians,

other even

that, saving in

be the

our

time.

7

answer to

More himself

while

and

found

commonwealth, I will

on what might seem to

are not

Portuguese,

a

sought out and

commonwealth

of

state

to pass any

rehearsed, but

me

his finger

put

absolute

Athenians', Prettily

the

nor

comparable.

Antwerp by Hythlodaye,

might seem

the Utopians

question

at

Americus Vespusius, that first

excellent

of the old nations

is

commonwealth

him

unto

unchristian,

Harpsfield has the

an

Romans'

said commonwealth

sea companions of

lands;

these

Lacedaemonians',

to the same neither the

others, the

all

5

was a

devout Christian. But that is not a sufficient explanation, for first of all, More's friends, for instance, the scholar Bude, thought of Utopia as life" possessing "the true wisdom of Christianity for public and private most

(11). And

be shown, his friends were deceived, have chosen to imagine "the best state of the on the one hand as pagan, but on the other, as pagan of such a sort that it might readily be mistaken for Christian. Thus, in sum, it appears that the first Utopia is not a mere dream, although it is a complex and characteristic product of the imagination as opposed to the intellect, a city which "without philosophy has shaped invention" for man a philosophical a very "witty and subtie almost uncorrupted

it does

even

if,

why More

not explain

as will

should

commonwealth"

city,"

to the point of perversity.

4.

Utopias Since

as

Products

of the

reflection on such

Imagination

a place ought

to begin

with

brief

a

inquiry

into the imagination itself, it seems justifiable to cite the treatise On the Imagination by Pico della Mirandola,8 the model of More's life, whose More had

biography

work, draws

composed

in his

Pico's treatise,

youth.

the whole tradition concerning the

on

a

faculty

Renaissance of

the

imag

Aristotle's De Anima. It is well to note ination, especially here that as a Christian work of moral intention the treatise deprecates the productive or poetic fantasy, while as a pre-Romantic summary it knows imagination as a faculty for the deliberate nothing of the form. But this will make no difficulty in the innovation of pure case of Utopian genres which will appear to be neither quite poetry, nor, on

Plato

and

"creative"

"artistic"

indeed, .

.

.

"art"

at all.

Pico

says:

the foundation-stone of the

discussion

have

we

exists a power of the soul which conceives and

serves,

to this

and

The

ministers

and

power

to, both the

has been

cursive

given the name

"phantasy"

can

product of

appeared"

(Greek:

7

Ibid.,

8

Gianfrancesco

p.

stasis

be

undertaken

...

fashions likenesses

reason

and

is that there of

things,

the contemplative

and

intellect;

phantasy or imagination [ch. IV].

called an

"arrest

of things that

phanthenton) or, as Plato says, a

have

"picture,"

110.

(New Haven: Yale

Pico della

Mirandola, On

University Press, 1930).

the

Imagination,

trans. H. Caplan

Interpretation

6 because "the

form

various appearances receive

a manner not unlike that

in

which painters

and are

depict the

fashioned

various and

will, in

at

dissimilar

things"

(ch. I). However, this deliberately constructive and com is not a power separable from the repro binatory ductive imagination that fashions a purified but particular likeness of an object of sense no longer naturally present (chs. II, IV). Men's lives are

forms

of

"phantasy"

productive

largely

by

governed

this power.

consigns, in the form

of

from without;

such

ination, acting

as a mean

for

supplies

(chs. with

between

become the

by

imag

that the

objects

sense and the rational part of

the soul,

the latter as objects of desire or ends of

action

VI).

V,

The

impressions,"

memories

sense

recognition

For it is to the imagination that the sense what it has drawn sense

"perpetual

modes of

imaginary

the imagination

communities

do indeed

seem

to be in

accord

described.

so

have the modes of pictures, although of pictures Hence they are usually accompanied by and views. Furthermore, since they are conceived in the maps, plans, power pictures of perfect and self-sufficient human as world-mirroring First

of

all,

Utopias

in

expressed

readily

wholes, they are,

speech.

or at

least the early

Utopias often

cos-

are, microcosms,

the whole world into the island or the his island of Christianopolis "a whole world in (ch. II), and Campanella's City of the Sun is in fact a cosmo logical model. The island of Utopia itself was once, to signify that it is mographic miniatures that project city.

Thus Andreae

calls

miniature"

a world unto

itself,

called

by

the occult name

highest, all-encompassing heaven. In this,

feigning A

power of

corroborative

by

offered progress

Utopias,

fantasy,

contrast

A Modern

onto

a

whole

which are

Furthermore, exhibit

the

brightly

which

Tolkien

calls

Wells fictive counter-earth, in

Utopia, in

which

styles of

life,

Utopian

projects contrast

and symbolic

usually

that

world-

"the Sub-creative

communities, because they

delineated

which signifies the

display

Utopias

to this original, premodern,

small, well-framed,

Utopian

"Abraxa,"

are

leaning

Art."9

mode

the trends to the

is of

original

place-pictures.

visually conceived, to one or the

other

form. Some Utopias, especially those celebrating Atlantis of Plato's Critias, display a somewhat

extreme of possible public

technique, hke sinister ritual

are

or

like Bacon's New Atlantis,

a mysterious

but

punctilious

magnificence; others, like Houyhnhnm Land in Gulliver's

depicted

itself,

the old

splendor,

with

is

rejoicing in sedate and sober its Franciscan monastic habits and as

rustic

Travels, decorousness; Utopia

absence of gilded ornament

fetters and chamber pots (153) furnished the first example of the latter style. And indeed, Swift [who numbered More in the unmatchable sextumvirate of statesmen that includes Socrates' name (III, 7)] said of his horses, which are falsely rumored to have "no gold

used

only to make

more existence than the

they have 9

not even

inhabitants

a name

for

Utopia"

of

(Prefatory Letter), that (IV, 12); thus they

the vice of pride

J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," Essays presented to Charles Williams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 66-67.

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia are, in their simplicity of

is,

as we shall

calls

"quasi-christalline

imagination,

static

who

social

for

conditions

necessary

Circumstantially imagination to

Secondly, their origin

because it is in the and

painted

as

two-dimensional

and

apt phrase.

regard

whose essence

nature of the

appearances,"

utopia; it is

pervade

in Harpsfield's critics

a

Utopians,

the

cousins of

absence of pride and magnificence.

structures"10

"arrested

are

fleshless. Hence

invariably

life, first

see, precisely the

7

flatly formed,

It is this in

a good

though

motionless

does

character

"exquisite

an

utopia that offends

and

almost

platform,"

those modern

opportunity for experience as Utopias are what Levi-Strauss

and

mobility

such,

society.

they may be,

Utopias, as beings

of the

arrest motion.

Utopias show modes of place and time that are appropriate to

in

the imagination. in his Confessions,

writes of his imaginative memory as containing "the fields and spacious palaces of memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of all sorts

Augustine,

by

perceived

senses."

These images

the

can

be

recalled and reconstructed

at pleasure:

All this do I within, in that huge

heaven,

the

the earth, the

whenas with mine eyes

but the images

of

sea.

the

Most

.

court of .

them only

memory.

For there have I in

not swallow

are

them into

the things themselves

me

readiness

by

seeing,

now within

me,

[X, 8], a power

Utopias appear

imagination; they

my

Yet did I

I beheld them. Nor

The imagination then is at will.

.

of unreal

places

that can be visited

to have their origin in such voyages within

are places of

the imagination

expressed as

imaginary

Therefore almost all in fact have the form of narrations of voyages of discovery. The Odyssey is the prototype, and the narrator of Utopia Odysseus' is indeed compared to Odysseus (49). In fact, last discovery, places.

Phaeacia, is of nautical

in

almost a prototypical utopia:

beings

safe and stable

disporting themselves, luxury between nature

a sea

and

Sheared-off Land, forever lost to the world penetrated it (Odyssey, XIII, 146 ff.). But ness.

Utopian voyages

For

differ from

Utopias are not pure

land

not of

as we shall see

odysseys

artifice, and as once a

in the

human

mode of

inventions but images

earthly but

the Utopians

do,

Scheria, narrator

the

has

their fictitious-

whose existence

is

ardently desired. Hence their descriptions do not have the ingenious verisimilitude appropriate to tales of adventure. For while they (such as Utopia bore, strive "to bear a good countenance of on

one

level

truth"

Harpsfield says,

by

and

as Utopian accounts are

of

desire in

unreality

of

appearing at a time in which "many strange many conclusions were discovered"), insofar ardently interested in existence, being institutions of the imagination, they intrude the fact of the

reason of

and unknown nations

the places

their place

purposefully

and

"no-place."

"utopia"

means

10

Inaugural lecture

at

the College de France.

persistently

the very

word

Interpretation

8

But

what most

intimately

is that they tamper

characterizes Utopias

with

time.

They

do

present,

because the

so

and so

is

the

stamped with

impressions"

a commemorative

power,

empty future. Hence the past tense, in the "once of

resurrector

it,

it is

and

the past, Don

one

has

that

Quixote,

much

gold or

no

and

invariably

since Utopias

appropriately

behind

end

"Idylls"). An

in Plato's

promised

in

pleasure

in

realized

rather

which

"aching idyll, a genre

Timaeus,

by

presents

cities,

and

their

animates

which

putting

Sentimental

Poetry,

prepared

planned

old

an

as

of

account

Socrates'

for

imaginatively the

primeval

its fifty-four cities, corresponding in

with

City"

Amaurotum, the "Darkling London, and its unenclosed countryside

capital

fostered in harmonious balance with merry England behind that of the fallen

and

rampaging sheep the

no

present,

characterized as

the polity of the Republic was to be

English shires, its foggy but salubrious

the

utopia:

(I, 11). But

representing one. Thus they

actual

Schiller

"festivity"

the

number to the a

a picture of

paints

the first

return,"

a

that

the

this kind of utopia is the never-written tale

a

unspoiled

is

age

golden

civic myths

past,

than before (On Naive

moving picture, Athens (st. 24). So also Utopia

built like

an otherwise

going to law

no

the degenerate

for

of

example

the past,

bringing into

longer

no

accusations against a particular

stand as

"behind"

counterpart, the

with

common

ornament,

the pristine community share the nostalgia, the the

in

are often resurrections of a particular

private

is

simplifying imagination. That

and

"thine,"

"mine"

they

time"; hence the

a

upon

present or

past; it is

the

what

the imagination are often cast in the

this purifying

of

product

by

a power of

perfection, into the

seal of

left

sense

products of

paradigm

imagination is

sole source of the

the "perpetual

stocked with

and

present.

Sometimes in the later Utopias, the past is brought not into the present News from Nowhere, which is a revival Morris'

but into the future, as in of a pastoral England in

cinquecento

garb

projected

into

a

future

Here the device used for tampering with the time sequence is the Odyssean one of translation during sleep (Odyssey, XIII, 187), which century.

the narrator, like

Rip van Winkle, into the future, having con killed the crucial time of crisis during which the world is convert veniently ed into utopia; such future Utopias are not so much "feigned common projects

wealths"

as

half-hopeful

confirming contrary type

plans

presented

of modern

suppressed and the present projected nature arise

from dissatisfaction

the past are Utopias of

with

terror, in

in

pictures.

"utopia,"

Again

there

is

a

that in which the past is

into the future. Since

which the evils

by

Utopias

the present, those that do

their

draw

not

incipient in the

on

present

are (excepting some products of an invincibly optimistic era like Bellamy's Looking Backward) projected on a magnified scale into the frightening void

of

horror,

the future and

that

and

being

there the

their terrors. Such anti-utopias

history

as

progress, but in this

depicted

nature

of

with

fascinated

the imagination

are warnings

based

and

even

even

avid

glory in

on a modern notion of

case as pejorative progress.

The best-known

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia futurist

examples of

latter,

the

understand

Huxley's Brave New World

Utopias are

Nineteen Eighty-Four,

it is

and

9

that

significant

their nightmare

realization of

Orwell's

and

both, but

particularly the to depend primarily on

the obliteration of the past.

All this is this

draws

case

specifically

5.

not

to say that as

the intellect as well

a work of

out

and

carries

Time

and

of

imagination.

Utopia a reflection on

place

it

meaning (as contrasted

adverb

is,

that

not

"no

place

having

or, to

render

actually in

the

property

of place).

"un-

or

a possible

Utopia is

the

exis

"non-place"

"me-topia,"

with

the political

employs.

"no-place,"

"ou,"

tence"

place,"

of the

primarily

"Utopia"

of the negative

much

very

the

More's book shows itself most clearly as imagination in the special modes of time and (ou-topia) is Greek and means exact

not

imagination, but that thought in to their last conclusion the principles of

appropriate to a product

The Special Place

poetry, Utopia is

political

as

a place of

the

imagination worldly in all respects but that it lacks bodily existence, the quality of being there, that is, of real location. More signifies this by having Hythloday fail to specify exact geographic coordinates, although as the counterpart of England, he places Utopia as far south of the equator as England is north (197), and as a land reached by a member of Amerigo Vespucci's expedition (51), in the new world (so that ever since the Americas have been the place for the splendidly self-contradictory enterprise of

the

place

locating

(Un-country), friends

and

engaged

in

the river much

that More's

Utopia,

a place on earth

of the

intellect

heaven"

some of

the names, especially

"Anydrus"

(Waterless) (251). More

pleasantry concerning this lack

Hythloday although

(43). This

of

about which

Socrates

contrast says

and

his

geographic

how the

of

commissions

game underscores

feigned in the

in deliberate

"Achoria"

privative, like the land

came

to inquire further of

way

region,

are

giving each other circumstantial explanations to be omitted in the account (23) and earnest

placement,

location

Utopia). In addition,

of this

names

imagination, is

the claim also

in its

to Plato's polity, a product

that "it is

a pattern

laid up in

(st. 592).

Now, curiously, vague as is Utopia's location in place, its setting in time is very precise. Three exact dates are supplied: the date of its years before Hythloday's founding, according to the annals of Utopia 1 ,760

in 1516 (121), that is, in 244 b.c. ; the arrival Egyptians 1,200 years ago (109), that is, in the

Romans

account

of some

and

beginning

of

the

fourth century a.d.; and the arrival of Hythloday's company, who were left behind during Amerigo Vespucci's last voyage which took place in

1504. Each of these dates is significant. Utopia's present founded in the first year of the rule of King Agis IV of his life in an unsuccessful attempt to revive the long-lived perpetual

constitution of

had instituted "a

common

Sparta's way

of

original life"

government

was

Sparta,

lost

who

but far

short of

lawgiver, Lycurgus. Lycurgus

not unlike that of

Utopus

except

Interpretation

10 land

that

was

the disposal

held, though equally shared out, and not within holder; this latter provision had been nullified by a

privately the

of

law that, Plutarch says, was "the ruin of the best state of the common since it permitted the accumulation of wealth (Life of Agis, ch. V). Utopia is thus marked as Sparta's purer and stabler double. arrived just before The Romans and Egyptians note, no Greeks wealth,"

Constantine

bearers

the

of

Egypt

of

inventions

and

arts

useful

sectarian wisdom

the Roman state religion,

Christianity

made

might

be

Rome

of

understood

rising Christian faith. And finally, Hythloday a clever touch of humanistic learning (which

or

arrives a

that these the

of

to have come without

(159)

the texts of the waning Greek philosophy

either

so

perhaps

and

the news of the

with

a

monkey has

light load

well chewed

into).

The

have

They

three dates is to mark the Utopians as

effect of these

of the tragedies and a

passions, the

beginning

but

no genesis

wild people to that excellent and civil

world.

they

.

are

gentleness,

rises and

wherein

perfection

they

are not

bound

action and

passion, in

Christians,

the

fall of

by

the

particular

man.

beyond

natural

but

our,

being outside human, history.

all

conditions

the people of the

in human times, term, ahistoric, that

not

use a modern

from that

Hythloday

of

Utopus simply lifts a "rude and in all good fashions, humanity,

now go

(113). Hence they live in not atemporal but they are, to

is to say, they

declines

that arise from prior human

primeval

startlingly

historical

observes of

for

event

the Utopians

that if their chronicles are to be believed "cities were there before men here"

were

Adam, in the

(107). In

since

other

words, the Utopians

him, nor, it

they Genesis, namely antedate

sense of

would

are not

follow,

descended from

are

they

creatures

such as are capable of rebellion against

their creator.

More's friend Bude was therefore right when in his prefatory letter "Udepotia" named Utopia alternately (No-when) (11), if that is taken to mean something more significant than merely "at no namely, humanity." "outside the epoch of created But he was, as we shall see, "Hagnopolis" wrong in naming it also (Holy City) (13), that is, in he

time,"

considering it the New Jerusalem. [Here Bacon's new Pacific, that is to say, peaceful, Atlantis is more in the spirit of More's secular city, as Bacon signifies by calling the Atlantic capital "Bensalem" (Good Salem), "Hierousalem"

(Holy Salem)]. The diverse treatment of place and time in Utopia rests, of course, on the fact that communities very remote from each other in place yet share the same time. So the land Utopia is sufficiently an imaginary place in being simply a New World, terra incognita, but the Utopian inhabitants must be distinguished as being imaginary natures by living through a as opposed

to

time precisely parallel

6.

More's Utopia A very

good

as

to,

and

hence vividly distinguishable

the "First

City"

of

from,

ours.

Plato's Repubhc

way further to define Utopia as a city having its place see it in the light of its ostensible source

time in the imagination is to

and and

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia

11

defeated rival, the polity that is preeminently the product of the intellect, namely that set out in Plato's Republic. Plato is the name most frequent ly in Hythloday's mouth, although he has that reduced view of the Platonic teachings that will turn out to be appropriate to his enterprise. Now when he particularly speaks of "those things that Plato feigneth in his wealpublic or that the Utopians do in he is referring to Utopia's theirs,"

communism.

In Plato's dialogue Socrates

the

raises

question

"What is

justice?"

The

answering this question assumes that justice is to be found in the relation of the parts of the human soul and that political communities are way

of

magnified

expressions

of these

relations.

He therefore

constructs

a

se

cities, each arising by the addition of a part of the soul and corresponding to the dominance of that part, proceeding in order from the most supine and common to the most superior and rare constituent

quence of three

of the soul.

Now

city in which a common way of life obtains is only the third is under the dominion of the reasonable part of the soul, that is to say, which is ruled by philosopher kings. And even in this, the "philosophical only the rulers and their warrior auxiliaries live city,

the

which

city,"

communally: of mankind.

from the

".

.

.

They

other

to

no one was were

citizens

to be

have any

warrior

instead

of

of

athletes

annual

the ordinary possessions and

guardians, receiving

payment

only their

mainte

(st. 543). This is the first principle of unity of the philosopher's city; the second, and as Socrates acknowledges, even more offensive one is "that the wives of our guardians are to be common, and their children common and no person is to know his own child, nor any child his (st. 457). Since the social foundation of Utopia is the family, or rather the extended family or household (135), it certainly does not share the human nance

.

.

parent"

Socrates'

aspect of

communism.

But

neither

does it

share

the economic

one.

The

actual

title of the book

referred

to as Utopia is On The Best State

by "common More's posthumous named the Governor, speaks of the implications of this translation, referring to those who "do suppose it so to be called for that, that everything should be to all men in common without discrepance of the

Commonwealth (47). The Latin term translated

is "res circle, in his Book

wealth"

publica."

Sir Thomas Elyot,

condition"

of an estate or

(I, 1). Hythloday

one of

more

than once alludes to

this meaning of shared wealth. And precisely here lies the distinction "republics," Utopia and the philosopher's city: The between the two communism of

tion (st. or

is

466),

the latter is

while

an ascetic communism of

Utopian

poverty

and

depriva

communism means shared or common wealth

well-being (239). If Utopia has anything to do with Plato's polity, it Giles' with its third or philosophical city as Peter poem had

not

hinted. The first Socratic city corresponds to the desiring part stages. In the beginning there arises a "city of

of the soul and

craftsmen,"

has two

a

small,

Interpretation

12

merry community based on division of labor for (st. 370). Then, as desires become

and

simple, moderate,

the purpose of satisfying basic necessities

luxurious,

more complex and

"true and healthy in his word, feverish. To the

the city of craftsmen, which Socrates calls a transformation and becomes,

city,"

the

derer,

ivory

gold and

are

undergoes

simple crafts are added

the arts of the embroi

devoted to "forms

and people

used,

introduced into the city (st. 373). This inflammation the city predatory and brings about the formation of are

institute

whose presence will

a

colors"

and

desire

of

warrior

makes

class,

the second city.

Now Utopia clearly corresponds to this first city, the "true and healthy Socrates' of craftsmen. There is a sign of this in the following. When interlocutor Glaucus first hears a description of their simple and healthy city"

banquets, he

pigs"

(st. 372), by which he does not mean that they wallow but that they hke simple and natural foods. Accordingly, the lowest official of Utopia, who sits over thirty families and whose chief function is the control of idleness, is one "which in their

that this is

exclaims

"city

a

of

language is called the Syphogrant, and by a newer name the (123). Both terms are Greek (for the Utopians are said to be descended from the Greeks); phylarch means "tribal but syphogrant old

Philarch"

ruler,"

means

elder."

The

"pig-sty

are called

"tranibors"

"plain [or clear] prepared dishes.

meaning I suppose,

the craftsmen of

also

limit

their crafts to

that

they

Socrates'

city

weavers, shoemakers, carpenters, smiths,

Utopians

who rule over

ten sties,

namely, "first tribal

rulers"

eaters,"

or

Furthermore,

higher officials,

next

"protophylarchs,"

or

farming,

are

eat

perspicuously

limited to farmers, (st. 370). The

and merchants which all alike

do,

and

to these

linen working, masonry and metal working, and merchandising (125). The Utopians, hke the Socratic craftsmen, have special crafts: wool and

common

banquets

of the

never

desires that is

warrior, city second

never

city is

(145). become luxurious. With them that

with converse and music

But the Utopians

arises.

called

for the

the occasion

The

part

by Socrates

of

the

desire,

on

especially

Socrates says,

element

a

is

soul

of

sophistication

the second, the

that dominates in this

"spiritedness"

certain readiness to righteous wrath and a

have seen, the warring

genesis

directiy

(st. 375), which is a disposition to honor. As we

consequent on

taste for magnificence

and

complexity

splendor

of

whence,

in cities (st. 373), although it is from this in turn that philosophy arises in Socrates' city, a good

arise all evils

spirited element

alongside evils.

Magnificence, however, is totally absent in Utopia. The sign of this is that there gold, the material of splendor and property, is debased into the metal of bonds and baubles (153). This is a consequence of "the community the which above

of their

life

only"

thing

and

living

without

any occupying

to continue More's criticism of

"all nobility, magnificence, worship,

true ornaments and wealth, utterly be

honours,

as

overthrown

the and

of money, by Utopia quoted

honour, and majesty, the is, of the common

common opinion

destroyed

.

.

(245). The Utopians

13

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia

honor. To be sure, they too make war, though only in friends' their borders or their rights, for they regard it with

prefer comfort to

defense

of

loathing

as

beastly (199),

and

they have

"chivalry";

by

mercenaries whenever possible.

but they have as

glory

no

glory

is

These

taste for gallantry,

gotten

calculation and of people

no special class of warriors and

their soldiers are the citizens of the land

no

in

(201),

by

a marked

soldiers

"count nothing

and

war"

cunning, if possible.

rewarded

citizen

always

supplemented

fight bravely,

so much against

preferring to

win

through

Among the Utopians only one display of honor the virtuous

class

dead

(225). 7.

The Utopians

as a

People Without Pride

The

next question is what More means to signify by thus truncating Republic in associating his Utopia with Plato's city of craftsmen. Plato's first city is a natural city that arises naturally and whose citizens are close to nature, if nature is taken as the given and stable

the

appearance within and without men. city.

As

a sign of

this, Utopians

Persian (181). For the description

(I, 131),

In this

are said

sense

Utopia too is

a natural

to have a language resembling

Persians in

Herodotus'

History incidentally, Hythloday brings to Utopia, shows them as nature who use no images, and who, unlike the Greeks and of the

which,

worshipers of

Christians, do not believe that the gods have the same nature as men, is, that they can be imaged or made incarnate in human form. All this holds of the Utopians, of whom some are, to be sure, radical humanists

that

pray to a man as the highest god, but of whom many are pantheists many worship the moon or one of the planets, while all agree on the worship of a sun god, who is the artificer of the universe and bears the who and

Persian

Mithras (217)

It is only

the imagination

[Nusquama,

name

a nowhere of

cannot contain

appropriate as

More

that the land that is

called

it in Latin

(xv)]

God the Creator, who according to Augustine has "no (nusquama locus) in the imaginative part of memory (X,

place"

where a

26). So

also

all

themselves

the crafts of Utopia

so

particularly

the

act as a

universal

force

of

are

close

craft,

farming.

nature,

as when

to

nature

and,

of

course,

Sometimes the Utopians King Utopus, the founder

Utopia, like a more felicitous Xerxes, cut the channel that made Utopia into an island (113), or when the chicks they artificially hatch adopt them as mothers (115), or when they transplant whole forests to have a closer of

their woollen garments, source of wood (179). And they appear natural for instance, are natural in color. So even their artifice is an intelligent and familiar adaptation of nature to their own use; Utopia represents a perfect

fusion

of artifice and nature.

Thus the nature. This

"unchristian"

Utopians

are not so much pagans as children of

be put another way. To say that the Utopians correspond to the inhabitants of Plato's first city only, is to say that they are lacking in certain principles of the soul, particularly in that which gives rise to and dominates the second or can

Interpretation

14

warrior

is,

spiritedness, that

faculty

in it magnificence, honor, and luxury Now the Christian translation of the

occasions

and

city

self-assertion.

is the

of spiritedness

vice

of

Pride, "the craving for undue of God (XIV, 13), was the origin

pride.

Augustine in his

City

exaltation,"

says of our evil

will, that

corruption of our

that causes a self-assertive craving for forbidden fruit because it is forbidden. Pride is thus the origin of perversion in the nature of man, and as More says in his Four Last Things ("Of Pride"), "the very head and root of all among which wrath and envy are the first and best known nature

sins,"

pride, but

as children of

Now

Hythloday

as

and pleasures

which

points

a sure

include

even

lechery."

"gluttony,

out, the Utopians have no such of which is in their music,

sign

perverse

indeed

no

"taste infected

by

mortals

disruption that

fear (Plato, Laws II).

the sickness of sin";

they

they do

not

natural.

This is the

and

know the inverted

therefore do

pleasure of

self-love;

They have

never prefer

treacle"

bitter to the sweet, would never "liefer eat tar than Things, "Infected Taste"); their desires are all satisfied

feelings

expresses

which

even their strongest affections without that consequent civil

the wise lawgivers of ordinary

and

sloth,

by

natural

they

the

(Four Last objects;

are never un

precisely because the Utopians were not created know that rebellion of the creature against its creator,

case

not

called the fall of man, which is the original case of perverse pleasure. Hence they, unlike our pagans, are incapable of salvation by conversion to Christianity, although they absorb easily for they are facile in absorbing those features of Christianity superficially everything profitable (109) congenial to them (219). So it is by reason of their Utopian nature that as before his coming and only Hythloday leaves them as ostensibly because there is no priest among his company. It is then merely "unchristian"

a

consequence

support their

crucial matter

moment,

of

their nature are

practice,

that their own

implicitly

in

the origin of sin. For

of

Epicureans,

and a

first dictum

teachings,

opposition to

they

of

are, as

which

simply

Christianity

on the

we

shall

see

the Epicureans is that

in

a

"nothing

nothing."

But Augustine, again in The City of God, explains fallen humanity "that it is a nature, this is because it is made by God; but that it falls away from Him, this is because it is made of (XIV, 13). The Utopians, then, not being descended from Adam, do not know the "serpent from hell," as Hythloday calls pride (243), comes out of of

nothing"

identifying

it

with

the tempter in the tree. "This

his narration, ".

is

deeply

hellhound,"

Hythloday breasts, that she so

in

concludes

cannot be Utopians alone "the chief causes of ambition and sedition with other vices be plucked up by the roots. By this is not meant that individuals do not, somewhat unaccountably, on occasion go wrong (185), but that private crime is rare and political crime absent, so that there is among them an occasional private crime (187) but no large-scale manifestation of sin they do not share the human condition. out."

plucked

.

.

so

Among

rooted

men's

the

.

They display

the

characteristic conditionless character of

.

imaginary

in the form of original sinlessness. In his youth More read a series of well-attended lectures

on

cities

Augustine's

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia

15

of God, so we may well suppose that he considered the relation his Utopia to the two cities of Augustine's work, which "have been formed by two loves: the earthly city by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God even to the contempt of (XIV, 28). He must have conceived of the Utopians as a tertium quid whose nature is nothing but absence of perversion, who have neither contempt of God nor, as we shall see, contempt of self. Conse quently they are made to inhabit an earthly paradise that displays the essential flat character of the painted city of the imagination: The is original human evil, missing dimension of the "exquisite which, as the bas relief of nonbeing, lies beyond the likeness-making imagination. For the pictorial imagination, which in civil poetry touches badness with pleasure and turns terror into magnificence, in political

City of

self"

platform"

poetry appropriately

8.

Utopia

as a

Community

But if Utopia is respect

overlooks evil. of

privative

Pleasure

with

respect

to pride, it is positive

with

to pleasure. Freedom from the vices of the will is the particular

condition

that leaves the Utopians to the enjoyment of their goods, and and center of their community. What is its

that enjoyment is the end nature?

their

All tional

To

answer

that question, we must examine their

education

and

"philosophy."

major Utopias

follow Plato's Republic in

provinces,"

transforming

being deliberately

Socrates'

essentially "educa imageless program

(st. 529) into vivid pictures of ideal institutions of instruction and inquiry. In the Republic itself, education forms both the political beginning and the philosophical end of the city. Campanella's City of the Sun is itself nothing but a large teaching model, a museum for the induction of the citizens into the secrets of the cosmos; Andreae's Christianopolis presents a vivid picture of a perfect Protestant school; and Bacon's New Atlantis is dominated by the College of the Six Days for the sake of its Works, dedicated to the "interpretation of mastery. But in the first Utopia this preoccupation takes a strange, of

learning

nature"

although

appropriate, form.

For only in the island of Utopia is which, moreover, has pleasure for its encouraged

by

the rule of Utopian

respect to work and

study,

similar

to

education reduced

life,

object a

to that

of

concern.

firm disposition of a monastic

a

pleasure,

This of

order,

view

is

time with as

found

in St. Benedict's Rule for Monasteries (for example, ch. 48, "On the Daily Manual Labor"). Under it, the life of leisure, the classical condition for liberal learning, is replaced by a life of scheduled work with time freed for the election of lecture courses, and almost all of Utopia is indeed up before dawn to indulge in this superior amusement (129). But such activity plays the central role neither in forming rulers Utopia is governed not by philosopher kings but by learned officials nor

mean

"education,"

Utopians say mainly instruction in their doctrines and letters but

in making

citizens

when

a

they do

not

rearing among

Interpretation

16 their

being

by

the

living

a

priests

expression of

expresses

cleverly

philosophy, is itself

this in his

"philosophy"

poem

Sages,"

the

worshipers of great meagerness

of

Nile,

whose

Gymnosophoi,

simplicity

thought and whose Philostratus'

have found described in 6 ff.). The liberal arts are, to be sure,

Peter Giles

it

without

making the Utopian

by

to the Egyptian sect of

refer

by

(159) supplemented by moral training Nor, finally, does it lead to some inquiry city. Utopia, which surpasses Plato's city in

(229).

is beyond the

end

whose

institutions

good

own

directed

of

life

was accompanied

More

antics

and

Giles

studied

in Utopia [the Utopians

hearing of a single one of our philosophers (159), made the discoveries in learning as the Europeans], though Hythloday never book

a

language useful

of

under

their own. Our trivium, which

dialectics, "the

art,

observed useful

for

Dorp, n

Hythloday

have

ability

no

(159),

the

ways

investigating

of

things"

emphasizes their

at all

for speculating

reflective

elsewhere, "is

and

grammar, rhetoric,

product

of

will

Life of Apollonius of Tyana (VI.

without

tions

for

word

the "Naked

logic, is

deals

with

reduced

by

have, same men

the arts of them to one

reasoning which reasoning has as More defines it in a letter to

lack

of concern with pure

any "second the intellect on

intention"

"which,"

as

logic.

They

or universal

More

says

nowhere"

(437). No-place has nothing that is nowhere,

no

intellectual beings. possess the full quadrivium, which concerns the world of nature, in it especially pursue astronomy (159), for they regard the world as spectacle made for man in fact the whole section on education appro

They

and a

priately

comes

teristically

within

regard

the section on sightseeing (145).

medicine

as

the

among

most

They

useful

charac

branches

of

philosophy.

Now all '

what characterizes

philosophy,

and

first

this education is clearly the absence of almost

of all an absence of physics understood as the

into causes; they confine themselves to engaging in desultory and inconclusive debates, inventing new theories to add to those of the ancients (161). Second, there is a notable absence of politics; inquiries are absent in the com concerning "the best state of the monwealth that is the consequence of such interests. Public political debate outside the senate of tranibors is a capital offense (125). This

inquiry

commonwealth"

is borrowed from the Laws, Plato's book on the second best but possible city, which, as one might expect, furnishes Utopia with more of its fundamental positive law than does the unrealizable Republic. More

prohibition

the

cites

relevant

passage,

significantly,

in

the

Dialogue

Concerning

Heresies: Plato,

the great philosopher, specially forbiddeth those

nor men meet

11

therefore, to

meddle much and

as

be

October 21, 1515. St. Thomas More: Selected Letters,

Haven

and

London: Yale

not admitted

thereunto,

embusy themselves in reasoning

University Press, 1967),

p.

15.

ed.

and

E. F. Rogers (New

17

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia

disputing upon the temporal laws of the city, which would not be but by folks meet therefore, and in place convenient [III, 16].

reasoned upon

And finally, as for metaphysics, that is, inquiries into being or god, they have none, but for their highest inquiry they conduct debates "in the part of which entreateth of manners and

philosophy not "the

good"

but the

replaced metaphysics

in

what

they

thing, be it

seem almost

by

one or

too

various

ethics, their

they determine And (which is more to be

delicate

an

opinion

they fetch

is:

of man consisteth.

inclined to the

either all or

opinion of

But in this

felicity to dainty and

the chiefest part of men's

at) their defense

of

this

so

from their grave, sharp, bitter

even

point

them which defend

rigorous

and

[161].

religion

Indeed they

never

have any

to religious principles often

and

chief question

marvelled

they consider body. Having thus

where

of soul

felicity

more, the

much given and

pleasure, wherein rest.

goods

virtue,"

repeated

(161),

that

contention

discussions

philosophical

thus

reason

(Dialogue

without

resorting More's

the exact converse of

employing

and

should

can

serve

religion

Concerning Heresies, I, 23) theology is the end of a liberal education (Letter to Oxford University, March 29, 1518). The religious principles that they employ are two: They believe in a wise providence that governs the world and ordains felicity for man and in and that

immortality

the

(161). In tices

of

them, but

please

soul

deny (221), for, again

Beyond

and

its

Utopians

In

see,

other

this

they have

scripture or revelation.

they

a pubhc

They

are

the

they

the

death

are

strictly forbidden to

requirements of a communal

dogma has

religious

a political

Laws (X).

ritual, but

hold their

after

choose what religious prac

as

views

as

be inspired into

nature worshipers, the best attainable

from

no

by

heaven"

(179). But this is not the case, for the Utopians have no revelation of their own, nor does Hythlodaywho plays among them the role of a Renaissance scholar, reviving for them the Greek strain of their partly Hellenic and man's reason

"unless

free to

words, their

Utopia borrows from

and punishment

reward

are

these two principles

as we shall

pursuit of pleasure.

object;

the

all other respects

godlier

partly Persian heritage by Greek tragedians (181)

Indeed, in Utopia

the

bringing them Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and the bring them a Bible or teach them Hebrew.

Hebrew

references

Utopias, like Solomon's House

of

Salama

the

the

of

Sun,

Christianopolis,

are

Now the

conspicuously

content of

what we would call

man

and

the New

characteristic

cabalistic

of

succeeding

the island Caphar

Atlantis,

background

of

the

City

of

absent.

their doctrines of pleasure

Epicurean,

such as

is,

as one might

is conveniently

set out

guess,

in Cicero's

De Finibus (I). It is the notoriously apolitical teaching of Epicurus modified to become the political philosophy of the most unlikely republic a stable community of pleasure, "a commonwealth as shall ever devised shall endure for continue and last not only wealthily, but also

ever"

.

.

.

(245). These

are

the modifications the Utopians make: The Epicureans

believe

Interpretation

18 that the gods, if there

before, it the

any, do

are

the Utopians assert divine

the

not guide

providence

natural circumstances of man would not

necessarily be

The Epicureans believe that the soul dissolves the Utopians require the immortality of the soul to is

not so

short

without

to

conducive

with

pleasure.

calculus of pleasures

mentioned

as

world

presumably because

body

the

that the

assure

term as to admit impermissible or

false pleasures. The Epicureans beheve in private property (449) the Utopians hold wealth in common for they regard all wealth as "materia voluptatis,"

the material of pleasure

(165),

though

their com

abate

they

the degree that privacy is necessary to pleasure; this is why they base their society on the family and why the only fixed punishments they have deal with the violation of its privacy (191). munism to

As far as the chief doctrine of Epicurus, that good, is concerned, they agree, but: they

think

and

honest, of

even

felicity

not

to

pleasure, but only in that

all

to

as

perfect

blessedness

only they that be

whereto

virtue,

in

rest

that hereto

and

pleasure

pleasure

is

our nature

the

of

is the highest

opinion

contrary

that is good

allured and

do

drawn

attribute

felicity. For they define virtue to be life ordered according to nature and that we be hereunto ordained by God. And that he doth follow the course of nature, which in

desiring

and

refusing things is

ruled

by

[163].

reason

Now they "of the contrary is virtue, are those

opinion"

the chief good

Utopians, who think that among us Stoics, and it is a

to the

called

saying among them that the chief good is "to live in agreement and with (De Finibus, III, 9). It follows that the Utopians find it possible to absorb the Stoic position, which means that they obviate chief

in

nature"

harmony

the question of the priority of virtue and pleasure as ends among which a choice must be made, the reflection on which choice was precisely what ennobled the pagan philosophers.

In this they simply the

follows.

followers

and

of virtue and of others

misery

the Utopians convert the

into the merry Then, if it be and

...

nature

.

.

maxim

a point of

Thus

provoke

implying by

virtue

man .

peculiarly virtue is

this that

"Now

the most earnest

of pleasure exhort you to relieve humanity."

Hence praising such deeds as Christian commandment (Mark 12:31) as

humanity for man joy, that is to say

every

virtue most

second

"Love thyself

prescribeth to us

.

say that the

haters

to restore them to

doth

nature

They

"humanity,"

realization of man's essential nature.

and painful

the lack

argue as

to human beings is

belonging

.

.

to do the

thy to

neighbor":

bring health

and comfort

to

man

.

.

.

to pleasure, why may it not be said that same

pleasure, as the

for himself?

end of all our

.

.

.

Therefore

operations

even

[163].

itself is nothing but an argument for and an instrument of however, in such a way as to become the basis for a

pleasure, understood,

theory

of private and social contracts:

But in that verily seek

she

nature

for thine

fore their

doth

thee to

own commodities,

opinion

is,

help another live merrily diligent circumspection, that thou do not

allow and provoke men one

commandeth

use

that thou

that not only

to

others'

procure

covenants

and

.

.

.,

so

incommodities. Where

bargains

made

among

private

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia to be well and

men ought

laws,

19

faithfully fulfilled, observed, and kept, but also common hath justly published, or else the people, neither tyranny, neither deceived by fraud and guile, hath by their common

which either a good prince

oppressed with

concerning the

consent constituted and ratified

the commodities of

partition of

life,

that is to say, the matter of pleasure (165).

In this way

Utopians institute

the

a

political

based,

community

not

the pursuit, but on the actual procuring, of pleasure. It is a merely community based on nature, their unhumanly natural nature, and there on

fore

since it knows community that "shall endure for no political problem. There exists a Latin epigram by More whose title is the name of the Utopian book turned into a question, that is, "What Commonwealth?" is the Best State of the In it More asks what is better, ever,"

stable

king

a

or a senate. a position

occupy

Is there

impose

Stop

anywhere either a

considering to

a need to give

himself

stops

whom you

it

at all

may

by

King Utopus,

the pleasure of

tranibors, but

the "prior

obviated

power, you

is,

prior question

in the island

kingship

question"

of

of the

and

gives

either

futility can

king.

are

whether there

duly

himself,

which pleasures are

true

or rather

institutes the

senate

of

the epigram, the question of power,

Utopians. Their first

question needs

false. To help their citizens make this discrimination is the serious object of their education. By false or only

the

[No. 182]. 12

In The Best State of the Commonwealth, More

is

be

decision,

your own

within your

The

give power.

would

and points out

yourself,

If this does lie

or a senate?

king

"would

which

senate,

while a

a people upon whom you

king

of a

bad,"

good and

latter, he

mostly the the inquiry:

of

decided in favor

Having

between

bad,

good or

is

a

to be

and which

one

discernible

"counterfeit"

of

course,

they

call

meant those that run counter to natural

every

delectation."

actually

False

body

the

and state of

motion

desire, for "pleasure

or mind wherein man

has

therefore perverse pleasures,

are

pleasures

pleasures are,

namely, those that yield no intrinsically pleasing state, but are pursued mostly for the sake of asserting oneself. First among these are the of men, beginning with pleasures that result from a "futile conspiracy"

the

mistaken

pleasure

pleasure

of

in

magnificence

dress,

and

going

on

to

the

taken in honor and in nobility derived from property. Thus the

be

prideful pleasure of conspicuous consumption would

the cardinal sin

Utopia (139).

of

Of the the

body

genuine

pleasures, the

that are attached

most

extensively described

to the natural

functions,

such

are those of

as

elimination, and, in general, health, which is not only considered a positive but the fundamental pleasure (173). Then come the aesthetic pleasures, such as the

12

perception

of

musical

consonance

The Latin Epigrams of Thomas

The University

of

Chicago

More,

Press, 1953),

ed.

p.

and

beautiful

L. Bradner

205.

and

forms

natural

C. A. Lynch (Chicago:

Interpretation

20

forms, for they

apparently have

The

pleasures of the

art; these too

no pictoral

by

are

them

body (177).

considered pleasures of the

Utopians

although the

soul,

are said

to value them

highly, are disposed of in three sentences. They consist of the use the intellect, of the sweetness arising from contemplation of the truth,

most of

life.

and of pleasant recollections of a virtuous soul about which which

is

at

the

there

Clearly

that activity of the

be worthwhile discourse, the pursuit of Plato's city and which Hythloday's reading

can

center of

being, of

the

Republic omits, is neither painless nor unspirited nor unsubversive enough for Utopia. To put it another way: Utopia knows no happiness. In sum, Utopian pleasures are reinterpretations of pleasure (voluptas) into pleasantness (jocunditas), and it is with respect to the gentle character that the Utopians can be

of their pleasures

to be

humanists, namely, in that sense cultivation by means of human studies urbanities

(135). It is in this

simplicity

by

music

of

dress

and and

his

kindly

said

the pursuit of concomitant

More paints,

the growing

own:

conversation

contempt

of

(as they sometimes are) humanism means self-

which

and

respect that

avocations and tastes close to attended

in

of

between young

ornament, the

delight,

with real

gardens, banquets and

enjoyment

of

old, the

spectacles of

nature, particularly the heavens, the pleasures of erudition, and most characteristically, the study of Greek. But these details are only the froth on the flow of the imaginative narration. 9.

The Uses

of

Utopia

Utopia, then, is a land of pleasure without pride. When Erasmus, in his biographical sketch of More, says of this book entitled On the Best State of the Commonwealth, that in it More "proposed to illustrate the source and spring of political

evil,"

he must mean just this that More in his Utopia has disclosed and eradicated the root of all evil in pride. Erasmus goes on to say that More first, at his leisure, wrote the second book (which contains Hythloday's narrative of Utopia) and "recognizing the need for hastily added the first (Letter to Hutten, 1519). Where was the need to prefix this latter book, which at first it"

sight seems to contain particular

political

merely the

evils

of

obverse of

Hythloday had found among the Macarians, peoples that he had cure in his last discovery, Utopia? cures

The

answer

term to

Utopia,

More's England together

is in this: It is

the

Polylerites,

visited

"Utopian"

in

an account of the

the

with

the

Achorians,

before he found the

specific

derogatory

and

the radical

sense of the

community from which human evil is radically removed, and it is culpably futile to do so if the plan is set out as a straight political proposal. But when Hythloday solemnly closes, saying that all the world would long ago have been brought under the laws of Utopia "were it not that one only beast, the princess and mother of

all

paint a pattern of a political

mischief, Pride doth

withstand

and

let

it,"

he is taking

a

fierce

in vitiating the book by underscoring precisely the futility of his narrative. Hence the first book was written to rehabilitate the second and contains directions for the proper use of Utopias. pleasure

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia

21

That More was intensely sensitive to the use to which political writings be put is shown by the fate of his History of King Richard III, a book written just before the Utopia and in the same year that Machia might

The Prince.

Richard III

his cohorts, especially the incarnation of tyranny presented with all the vigorous beauty of a still fresh lan guage for this history, written almost simultaneously in Latin and in the vernacular, is the first such undertaking composed in English. There is reason to think that it was intended for the instruction of the young English monarch on whose business More was when he wrote the Utopia and with whose praise it begins, Henry VIII. But as eagerly as More forwarded the publication of the Latin Utopia abroad, so carefully did he suppress the English History at home, leaving it unfinished and un published, presumably because he had begun to fear that Henry would use it, not as intended, for a horrible example, but as instruction in the perfection of wickedness, in the manner of The Prince. For in contrast to MachiaveUi, who, in a chapter inveighing against "imagined republics and (for very un-Morean reasons), threatens with ruin him

veUi

wrote

wickedly

and

well-spoken Buckingham,!3 are the perfect and vivid

principalities"

"who

is done for "to learn how not to be

done"

to be and advises (ch. XV), More thought that in counseling a king one must "ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to (Harpsfield, Life, "After his resignation"). Furthermore, More was at the time of the writing of Utopia (1516) in his own behalf intensely concerned with the problem of giving political advice. Averse as he was to court hfe, he was being urgently invited to join the king's councU an invitation he was, after working out the first book of the Utopia, bound to foUow. This first book is sometimes, appropriately, called a "dialogue on (xxxvii). For the occasion of Hythloday's relation of the evils Giles' of England is his decided refusal of Peter suggestion that he should

the

abandons what

prince

what ought

good"

do"

counsel"

king's court to instruct him with examples and help him with (55). Hythloday allows that he has learned in his travels of institutions that would cure the conditions he had so acutely observed in England, but he shows by serious and comical examples how his get

into

a

counsel

be taken seriously at court. health," name is Hebrew for "the physician of babble." and his last name is Greek for "knowing in Hythloday brings salvation, which is, first, in itself impossible, and which he, secondly, even refuses to advocate in the places that matter. He is a babbler on two solutions would never

Raphael Hythloday's first

counts.

More himself construction of

13

attacks

Hythloday, pointing

out

to him his mis

The History of King Richard III, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, ed. R. S. Sylvester (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963),

Vol. 2, pp.

now

Plato:

28 ff.

Interpretation

22 For

Plato judgeth that

whereas your

felicity,

either

if

philosophers

by

weal-publics shall

be kings,

or else

if kings

this means attain perfect themselves to the study

give

how far, I pray you, shall commonwealths then be from felicity, if will not vouchsafe to instruct kings with their good counsel? [87].

of philosophy, philosophers

Hythloday

that phUosophy can have no

objects

among kings. More

power

counters:

Indeed,

I,

quoth

this

(philosophia civilior), is the philosophy

The "Citizen councillor

to

for every

which

Sheriff

and

be,

hearts, if

her

own stage.

.

.

.

And this

[99].

Famous

the

of

City

London"(l), king's

of

England then

of

gives the

tacitly transmuting Plato's

philosophy,"

"more

evil opinions and

philosophy more civil

another

as ye would say,

future Lord Chancellor

and

citizen-like

into

most radical proposal

their

But there is

place.

knoweth,

you must use

content of this

If

philosophy (philosophia scholastica) hath not which

school

thinketh all things meet

practical wisdom:

be utterly

persuasions cannot

naughty

you cannot even as you would

remedy

and quite plucked out of

vices which use and custom

has confirmed, yet for this cause you must not leave and forsake the commonwealth. You must not forsake the ship in a tempest because you cannot rule and keep down the winds. No, nor you must not labor to drive into their heads new and strange information clear

which you

contrary

endeavor

know

But

minds.

well shall

as much as

yourself,

be nothing

you must with a

in

crafty

lieth,

you

regarded with

them that be of

wile and a subtle

train study and

to handle the matter wittily and hand

somely for the purpose, and that which you cannot turn to good, so it be not very bad. For it is not possible for all things to be well unless good,

which

I think

Many books

will not

be

yet

this

good

it that

years.

many

Erasmus'

on

order

all men were

counseling princes, such as Christian Prince and Machiavelli's Prince, were from these the Utopia differs in being a book

written

Education of a in More's age; for

of counsel

subjects

citizens, and its first advice to them is not to inject utopia into their counsels. It is an attack on radical politics among the advisors of rulers. and

It is

a condemnation

(59),

tuseness

and

of

of

conspiracy (241). But but in the land Utopia place of absent

First since even

Hythloday's impatience

his interpretation

of

is the profit,

what then

of the second

book,

with

human the

conservative

sinfulness

as

ob-

social

not in the book Utopia, ideal commonwealth, the

evils, itself? seems to me that Utopia negatively

it

(only negatively, this imagined country has no clearly identifiable polity it is not possible to say whether it is a monarchy) proposes a great political of

all

principle, true in fact

damentally converse

course,

is

are

expressions

not so much the case.

at variance with what

reconstruction of

what the Utopias,

Cabet,

and potent as a conviction:

communities

and

human

Utopia

of

that

human

appears

originally

nature

This understanding

nature through a

particularly

Bellamy,

of

and

of the

the

book is,

of

to exemplify, namely the

perfectly

planned

society

the last century, like those of

which were programs

fun

and that

seriously proposed for

and

Fourier, realiza-

23

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia

tion, did in fact intend. Utopia is study

into

of politics

the

study

of

then

a surreptitious conversion of

human

the

nature.

And secondly, in pointing to human perverseness as the spoiler of poli tics and naming it pride (in which opinion More concurs with the author of the book named after the serpent of pride and the "King of the Proud,"

the

Leviathan, II, 28)

of a prideless

delightful

painting

community, More

detail, in

by

and

what

it

shows

would mean

"exquisite

an

pattern"

platform and

positively, by means of ostensibly to live in Utopia, what the life of

from the original human condition looks like, a lesson he drives home in his deeply ironical closing words: "In the mean so must I needs time, as I cannot agree and consent to aU things he said confess and grant that many things be in the Utopian weal-public which in our cities I may rather wish for than hope (247). Utopia, he means, is no more to be wished for than hoped for. The student of Utopia will, then, become very sensitive to that in proposals for supposedly viable societies based on gratification of desire, which really implies at once an alteration of human nature and the imposition of an unexpected new discipline. Utopia is, thus, an exemplary exercise in carrying out in aU pleasure

abstraction

...

for"

vividness the

versely, in

life implied in

drawing

forth

dreams and,

certain perennial political

the abstractions

from

the

human

con

condition

that

those dreams imply. In short, it is an education in recognizing inadvertent Utopias, that is, pohtical proposals based on false views of human nature.

FinaUy, Utopia, again by the negative influence of its imaginative real ization, effects a kind of celebration of, and satisfaction in, the given human condition; it is an oblique praise of folly and fall contrasted with shallow joviality. In his last long work written in the Tower of London, and called A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, More argues that tribulation is the condition of salvation (I, 6), a truth that, even when it is not taken in its precise Christian meaning, exercises a powerful influence on the politics of those who

beheve it. The

"modern"

aspect, turns

peculiarly

social eudemonism of

out

to be

an

vividly presented to be thoughtfully declined. And last, Utopia is the convivial occasion for

More

and

kind

of civic

for

ticulars of the mode of his life

and the crucial parts of

most

I'oeil,

festivity,

statesmen making communities, Bacon. More, who resembles Socrates both in many

a game

the communal game of as

a

Utopia, its

edifying trompe

such par

the manner of his

Harpsfield calls him "our noble, new, Chris him in nothing so much as in his serene playful ness. It was said of More that he "looks sadly when he means and he said of himself in his Apology that "a man may say full soth in (letter to Tunstal, November is a The "Island of of irony. One of More's the spirit in that dissembling spirit, 1516) written

death

tian

on account of which

Socrates"

resembles

merrily,"

Utopia"

game."

favorite writers, ancient

writer

whom

of

he

comic

and

"trifle"

Erasmus had translated in his youth, was the fantastical dialogues, Lucian. Hythloday

and

brings his dialogues to the Utopians, who take special delight in him for jests." Lucian wrote two accounts, the Icarome"his many conceits and nippus and

the True

Story,

of voyages to the

moon, whence the foibles

of

Interpretation

24

facetious"

people,

sober

chamber

focus. The Utopians, that "facile and in pleasure and shallow in thought, equipped with golden and followed about by loving chicks, are just such mat,

into

earth come

pots

sharpest

in fact the first thing

reflected moon people

Hythloday

mentions about

being isolated (111) (585). Abraxa, signifying "the highest afford such jocosity, for, although like Socrates, himself a a in dialogues, he is, unlike the latter, also their author

the island is that it is

and

moon-shaped

that before

heavens"

it had More

the occult name can

participant

Socratic and writing Socrates. This effects a difference in the form of interlocutor in and Morean irony; the latter, being writer one, can by sober speech from the inside of the dialogue control what merriment

he has set afoot from the outside by inditing it. Consequently, the very form of the Utopian dialogue tends to turn it into a grand game. More's book is, therefore, an invitation to a common exercise of wit and imagination, intended to draw together a secular band in a merry and a band distinct from, and yet not without reference melancholy inquiry to, the communion of saints representing the City of God on earth, a band of those who would like to be citizens of the best commonwealth. Just this is conveyed in the full title of the book as printed in the first edition: A Truly Golden Booklet, as Salutary as it is Mirthful, on the Best State Common-Wealth and the New Island of Utopia.

10.

Utopias

as a

of

the

Genre

If, then, it is true that the book Utopia, a dialogue concerning a narra tion, contains views from which the author distances himself, that the "Utopia" land is a place of the imagination in which the roots of evil in human nature have been excised, and that the enterprise yields "utopia"

a product of

the imagination that is

philosophy,"

what must

to the "Utopian

be

tradition"

said of

a

community

pictured

"apart from

the many works commonly

assigned

that are quite different in character? In respect

to the lineage of works of

human art, as distinct from the growths of nature, it is a defensible claim that the first of a kind should be acknowl edged as the truest of that kind. More's Utopia is literally the original of the

a tradition that by now is so remote that it is quite "Utopia is dead."14 Indeed, one might argue somewhat that Utopia had but two true successors, the community of

Utopian

justly

tradition,

said that

seriously

pleasure called Theleme Houyhnhnm Land.

Nevertheless,

the

the name is alive

perfect paradigm of

14

and

community

and

without

pride

the way its matter has changed is a

the course of modernity. To summarize:

The

J. Shklar, "The Political Theory of Utopia: From Melancholy to and Utopian Thought, op. cit. Pt. II (Utopia is Dead), p. 102.

Utopias

found in

Utopian

Nostalgia,"

"An Exquisite Platform": Utopia be ironical

mode ceased to

being

of

imaginary

peculiarly

discourses,

rational

is,

that

became

and

oppositional.^

is,

products, that

instead

and

poetry, became

being

of

images

of

a

community, they became tracts

well-ordered political

small, self-sufficient, advocating theoretical societies;

instead

Utopias,

political

theory; instead

social

25

being

of

in the

exercises

understanding of human nature, they became instruments of action, pro posed for universal reahzation no-place instituted in the world (though it "utopian" is only fair to point out that the term is usually applied only from the outside, in a derogatory spirit, to such blueprints for future ideal communities).

But since even this transformed Utopian enterprise, at its height in the last century, has worn thin, a revival of the Utopian tradition has recently been proposed. A yet newer kind of utopia is demanded as a part of a

discipline sometimes cerning the future: new

The lack anxiety.

be

of

...

any

clear

images

It is time that

the

of

style

of our

uses

the art of conjectures

life

of

experts represented the

many different

by

obtained

"futurology,"

called

we

are

building is

a cause

many different outcomes and

many

increasing

con

of

which can

possibilities.

This

be in pictures, according to the Utopian tradition. Plot, as it were, the sequence of [the ordinary man's] pleasurable and unpleasurable im representation should

imagine

pressions and now

is the first step into

bring

can

Such

new

would

they

about

.

this "good

Utopias

differ

by

good

day"

.

be. Picturing this "good day" have to seek the condition which

should

utopia; then you will

day."16

be

would

a world

are assigned and

"a

what

a modern

.

to

ironical

oppositional.

They

that begins the tradition to

which

neither

from the which

work

they do, by

nor

reason of

ostensibly desirable lives, belong. It is instructive to

being

pictures of

articulate the poles

of opposition.

The

new Utopian enterprise would

the basis

experts on

of a

theory

be

a project proposed

the

of social change

for

experts

by

original utopia was

the felicitous find of a learned statesman at leisure, submitted to his friends for their delight. Hence the former is a program for making Utopian pro grams

and

the latter

former is to be 15

n.d.),

a

serious

a project of

within which

referred

shatter,

to

by

either

cannot resist

hand,

the

us

it

as

occurs.

.

.

Only

reflective

imagination,

those orientations

they

citizens.

The

the deliberate

relevant signifies

that

experiment

the effects

life"

call

also

holds

in

which

it

which

be

time."

insanity. On the

of

observed

are

would call

will

into conduct, tend to I

other

without

the possible

forth in that

composite

(I, ii, 62).

Jouvenel, "Utopia for Practical

cit., pp. 226 ff.

transcending reality

over

definition is to be found in Robert Musil's Man

alterations of an element and appearance which we

pass

wholly, the order of things prevailing at the

or

pointing out that this definition

following

B. de

.

which, when

Utopian

partially

Qualities: "Utopia

op.

for

"creative"

So K. Manheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt Brace & World, p. 192: "A state of mind is Utopian when it is incongruous with the state of

reality

16

amusement

the

Purposes,"

Utopias

and

Utopian Thought,

Interpretation

26 innovation

of

a

variety

of

"life

imaginative memory bringing up these into a unique polity based is

styles"

the latter

was

a

work

of

the

pictures of a purified past and

on settled principles.

unifying Hence the former

for the future, of ways of directing the profusion of while the latter deliberately posited the impossible. day" newest Utopias wiU assume the "good to consist of

a matrix of plans

present

And the

possibUities,

finally,

the

munity

of pleasure with

condition, his Christian elsewhere than

As a from its the

pleasure, while More, in depicting a com permanence, holds his truth concerning the human

ephemeral pursuit of private

in the

recognized

beginnings,

effort makes

faith, in

pleasures of

reserve,

implying

that the good

life hes

Utopia.

genre, Utopian writing has, then, grown very remote and thence arises an urgent question: Which form of

for

a

better

state of

the commonwealth?

27 AND PIETY IN KING LEAR

GRATITUDE, NATURE,

Laurence Berns

And they go to trial on a charge on account of which but go to trial about least, that is, ingratitude. And him to

favor, but does

return a

and

country,

about

it, they

not return

that the ungrateful would also be

friends;

seems

is shamelessness, and it is this indeed wards every baseness. all

each other

they know

who

also punish severely.

most neglectful about

and what

hate

men

to follow

gods, upon

For they think

about

parents,

ingratitude

to be the

which seems

most,

to be able

greatest

about

most

of

leader to

Xenophon, Cyropaedeia [1.2.7]

In

is

the

fourth

act of

saved and guided

by

King

Lear the cruelly blinded Duke of Gloucester disguised as a mad beggar. The strangeness

a man

beggar guiding duke is compounded by the fact that Gloucester's un known guide is his son Edgar, who had assumed this wretched disguise to escape the sentence wrongfully laid upon him by his gullible father. of

only as his father's eyes, he becomes his provider, the his broken spirit, his teacher, and the saviour of his life. He saves him from Oswald's murderous attack and from a more formidable foe, despair. He concocts what for Gloucester is a divine miracle, to arouse within him the strength to hve; and he preaches the lessons that enable Gloucester to avaU himself of that strength. Edgar fulfiUs parental offices, Edgar

serves not

nurse of

more, for his father. The

and as

it were,

tling

fathered,

and educated

is

reversal of normal stations

Small debts Does

not

every

proportionate

be

of gratitude can

recompense can

be

made

to those

by

his

as a

own son.

babe, is,

This

unset

pitiful and thought-provoking. 1

paid without much who are

fall short, is

recompense

father, helpless

once masterful

sustained,

difficulty. But

what

the very sources of one's being?

not

every

to what is owed? Since one is

simply dis in their debt, the

recompense

always

can be invoked almost "Honor thy father and thy without any reservations.2 Although this debt of gratitude is normally impossible to discharge, Edgar either did discharge it or came as close mother"

command

is

This

article

olis,

May 1969.

a revised version of a

Laurence Berns is 1

Oedipus in

a

Tutor

at

beginning

of

this scene,

4.6,

presented at

St. John's College,

way

as

a

with

assumes

his father's

father to his father Matt.

4.5-11,

position

with

and with

through violence.

perfect

Cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1161a 20

and

justice. Cp. the

Prospero's

The Tempest. 2

Annap

St. John's College, Annapolis.

a questionable

Shakespeare's Edgar behaves

lecture

1163b 12-29.

"miracles"

in

Interpretation

28

Edgar and his father seems any man could. The story of required for such a debt would be what show to designed to have been in full. paid to be debts, payments, The mercantile aspect of the language of gratitude unavoidable. Lear, raging in but is offensive, apparently vaguely owing

to

doing

so as

the storm, calls .

.

out:

Spit, fire!

.

spout, rain!

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, I tax I

you

not, you elements,

kingdom,

never gave you

You

call'd

subscription:

owe me no

are

my daughters:

with

.

.

unkindness; you children,

[3.2.14-18].

.

The hunted Edgar, consoling himself with the thought that "The lowest goes on to and most dejected thing of Fortune,/Stands still in

esperanc

say:

.

.

Welcome, then,

.

Thou The

unsubstantial air

wretch

that I embrace:

that thou hast blown unto the worst

Owes nothing to thy blasts [4.1.3-9].

Nothing good received, Although pay,

nothing

owed.s

we prosecute and punish

do

such offenses

not evoke

But

what

those who

if just

buy

"marble-hearted

a

than the

child

reckoned

fiend,

more

The

hideous

by

its

effect.

and

good?

do

not

seriousness

Kent

And ingratitude

child."

when thou

sea-monster."

roughly

borrow

the gravest condemnations. But "sharper

than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless

is

being itself is

or

speaks of

of

showest

the wrong

"how

thee in a

can

unnatural and

also

be

bemad

is the filial ingratitude that Lear suffers. When that sorrow has nearly done its work, Gloucester addresses Lear as "O ruin'd piece

ding

sorrow"

a

nature."

of

Gratitude is akin to grace and graciousness, as their etymologies indi Capacities or incapacities for gratitude seem to be direct reflections of character; the obligation when regarded as genuine is self It becomes suspect when external compulsion is in the background, when heart." it does not "come from the To pay one's biUs grudgingly is not gracious but does not violate the spirit of commerce. Can gratitude be paid grudgingly? Coming from within, it seems to be a natural movement in the sense of the Aristotelian distinction.5 In this way it is akin to love. cate.4

-incurred.

Gratitude

3

might

Cf. 2.4.179 ff.

be

and

Gloucester, "Ingrateful country:

he is

referred

thought of as

3.4.20,

.252,

fox"

being

and

between justice

and

love. Like

Regan's (!) morally indignant words to means that he is ungrateful to his

(3.7.28). She probably

to as

a

traitor twelve times. All line numbers are from the

Arden Ed., ed. Kenneth Muir, Harvard, 1959. 4 Cf. Aristotle Rhetoric 1385a 16-b 11, Cope ed., Vol. II, pp. 87-93. 5 Cf. Aristotle Physics 192b 7-23. Cf. 215a 1-5, 230a 19 ff., and 254b 12 ff.

Gratitude, Nature,

justice,

commutative and

which seeks arithmetic

equality in

involves an element to benefits or favors

gratitude

services,

be proportionate demands of commutative justice, these

should

29

Piety in King Lear

and

of

exchanges of goods

Gratitude

calculation.6

bestowed.7

obligations

are

But

unlike

the

unenforceable,

at

least

by any human court. Unlike commercial and contractual obligations, here there is no explicit promise to return an equal value for what has been received.8 What occurs depends entirely upon the grace of the bene factor. The beneficiary cannot be forced to pay this kind of debt, which is also a debt that he was in no way responsible for incurring. Whether he pays or not depends upon the kind of man he is. Is he to be held for the kind of man he is? Gratitude then, in so far as its is unenforceable, in so far as it must be rendered willingly, and in so far as it reflects the character of those engaged in it, is like love. Where benefits causing gratitude and where love depend essentially on

responsible payment

the personal merits

of the

itself

benefactor

or

beloved, distributive justice,

the

the proportionality of rewards to personal merit, comes into consideration.9 Despite their connections or parallelism,

which

concerns

love,

gratitude and

with

least

at

noble

love,

may be distinguished. Lear's failure

to appreciate this difference seems to have been an important part of what

led to his

downfaU.io

II Lear introduces

has been

what

his love test

caUed

with

the

following

words:

Tell me, my

(Since

now

Interest Which That

territory,

divest

our

nature

largest doth

us

cares of

of you shall we

we

Where

6

of

daughters,

we will

of

say doth love

bounty

may

with merit

rule,

us most?

extend

challenge11

Xenophon's Socrates defines ingratitude

Memorabilia 2.2.3. See

also

7

Cf. Aristotle NE 1163a 10-24. In

could

circumstances

in

some contexts

where

be

[1.1.48-53].

as

a

kind

certain

of

pure

injustice:

King Lear 1.1.183.

8

9

both state)

either

rejection

understood as

or

implying

acceptance

is possible,

acceptance

such a promise.

Cf. Aristotle NE 1160b 23-62a 9, 1163a 24-63b 27, 1167a 15-22, 1167b 16-68a subject abounds in difficulties. Cp., for example, 1161a 20-23 and 1162a

27. The

4-9 (where it is relation to their with

shown

kings,

1161b 18-30

parents

love

and

children

why, in

should

with

accordance

love

parents more

justice,

1167b 16-68a 27 (where it is more

than

love

children

children, like subjects in

than parents should love children), shown

why, generally speaking,

parents).

Cf.

Eudemian

1241a 35-b 11; and Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica HI, Q. 100, A. 5, Cf. also Plato Republic 330c, 457c end-458b, 462a-e, 463c-465c, 472b 3-6. 10 Cp. Kent's love for Lear with Cordelia's. The love between Kent and Lear inseparable from 11

"service."

Cf. 1.4.4-7

and

Ethics ad

4.

seems

1.4.92-93.

The last line is difficult. Nature here

could

affection; merit correspondingly could refer to good

refer

to filial

deeds,

that

is,

or

to

paternal

obedience and

Interpretation

30

He

most, he says, to that daughter that loves him most,

give

will

the implication

is,

daughter

each

bounty

wiU receive a share of

and

propor

tionate to her love for her father. If Lear intended to test or to measure daughters'

the amounts of his

till

waited

daughter had

each

compared with

speech, before

loves

have have been

their speeches, he would

by

spoken and each speech could

the others before making his distribution. But after each hearing those remaining, he disposes of a share in accord

be and is once explicitly referred to by him (1.1.37-38). Moreover, the plan, which had been discussed with, or at least presented to, his advisors and council, seems to have been a sagacious one.i2 The love test then may first have been thought of by Lear as a mere formality, staged for the sake of a public ance with what appears to as a prearranged plan

ratification of a well-thought-out succession scheme.

The

question as

to

why this form was used stiU remains. It is through Cordelia's actions that the love test becomes decisive for Lear and for the play as a whole: For

Cordelia's love

being

and

sure of

her love were,

whelmingly important for Lear. Cordelia's tant respects, prefigures Lear's.

The Duke sue

of

Burgundy

for the hand

Cordelia

and

King

the

more than

experience

of

France

in

are

he knew, over 1 , in impor

scene

in Lear's

court to

Cordelia, Lear's favorite daughter. When Lear strips her inheritance, of her dowry, and of his paternal favor,

of all

of

difference between Burgundy's and France's loves becomes plain. Burgundy wUl take Cordelia only with the portion first proposed by Lear. Lear says: the

.

.

If

.

Sir,

there

she stands:

little-seeming

aught within that

Or

substance,

displeasure piec'd, And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace, She's there, and she is yours. all of

Burgundy nation

it,

our

with

"I know

replies,

and urges

France

answer."

Cordelia's offense himself to Burgundy:

.

.

.

My Lord

What say

conformity in

Lear.

context, 12

means

to

'filial

occupy the larger and

and

he

love

the settlement Lear

nature "

means

on

p.

or

simply love

affection'

and

merit,

of

in the

6).

Lear

so long as he is alive, are to balancing Goneril and Albany on the north and south. Cf. Harry V. Jaffa, "The Limits of Politics: in Shakespeare's Politics, Allan Bloom and Harry with

center,

the

an attempt to

here proclaims,

'paternal

(Arden Ed.,

her consort,

and

King Lear, Act One, Scene V. Jaffa, Basic Books, 1964, tant respects,

have been. She replies;

affection'

strategic

Cornwall

not

"

Muir,

1.1.3-7. Cordelia

Regan

the lady? Love's

ratification of

According

could

Burgundy,

of

you to

condem

to consider his former suit. France

not even

wonders what addresses

Lear intensifies his

no

One,"

pp.

118 ff. This

develop

points

present

first

essay

stated

is, in

a number of

by Harry Jaffa.

impor

Gratitude, Nature, When it is

th'

Burgundy Peace be I

31

Lear

with

have her?

you

to Lear again for her

applies

dowry, is

rejected,

and

says:

Burgundy! fortunes

respect and

be his

shall not

France

King

dowry.

a

his suit, Cordelia

Since that

Will

entire point.

She is herself

withdraws

in

mingled with regards that stand

Aloof from

After

Piety

and

wife

are

his love,

[1.1.247-49].

speaks again:

Fairest

Cordelia,

that

art most

Most choice, forsaken; and Thee and thy virtues here I

being poor; lov'd, despis'd!

rich,

most

seize upon:

Be it lawful, I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st

My love "Inflam'd

After

should

kindle to inflam'd

neglect

respect.

might weU serve to characterize noble love.13

respect"

being

stripped of

the accoutrements of power, wealth,

and

favor,

Cordelia does learn who loves her for herself, for herself and her virtues, as France puts it, and who loves her for what she possesses, whose love "is mingled with regards that stand/ Aloof from The entire favor," dismantling of "so many folds of including the favor of gods and th'

point."

suitors'

fortune, not only reveals the qualities of her loves, but, more her reveals what she is reveals lovability. importantly, herself, France, as Kent conjectures (3.1.28-29), may have some political reasons for wanting to marry Cordelia: these, however, need not be incompatible with those manifest reasons that

lead him to love her for her

that she could have deserved the

To believe

own sake.

condemnation she received

from Lear,

France says, "Must be a faith that reason without miracle/Should never plant in Positively put, reason without miracle confirms Cordelia's virtue and her lovabUity. France's love then could be described as a kind of rational faith based on what he has learned about her character. It is not easy for a king, a princess, or anyone with large and evident powers to bestow benefits and Uls, to learn what people truly think of them. Lear finally learns who loves him and what those about him think of him, but hke Cordelia, he must be stripped and must strip himself of me."

the trappings of majesty

13

In Cordelia's

"looking

back,"

speech

first.14

(1.1.248)

comparison and calculation.

In France's

esteem, but also involves an personal worth.

respect

respectare, to something else

The

sense of

"inflam'd"

14

all

the

associated

more poignant.

Cf. 4.1.19-21,

and n. to

Cf.

suggested

also

or

or

(1.1.255)

"looking,"

distance

again"

honoring

speech

with

"looking

is,

element of

"respect"

deference usually

means

probably

beside herself, to her fortune, that of

by

makes

the word means

calculation, or estimation, of

the admiration, estimation, and the unusual

2.4.24.

1. 20, Arden Ed., K. Muir,

ed.

conjunction

with

Interpretation

32

III Private

ing

and public

love test

of a

interfere

the properly private. To

and

for Lear: The very

with each other

declarations

command public

propos

the properly pubhc

evidences a certain confusion about

testimony in

or

the execution of one's office is certainly appropriate for a judge, magis trate, or king; but Lear seems to have tried, as it were, to absorb the

into

private

However with

law

right of

is beyond

what

public, to have

the

by

enforced

and

and

naturally,

his vulnerability from his

test,16

Lear deserved

crucial.

arise

only

control.15

the Lear of the love

Cordelia is

to

be demanded

can

what

with what can

all external command or

one conceives of

respect

confused

majesty

gratitude

daughters, perhaps especially from Cordelia. And gratitude, or thank fulness, should be proportionate to how much one has to be thankful for. But Lear demands professions of love. He fails to appreciate how demean it would be for Cordelia to allow her love to seem to be proportionate

ing

to the magnitude of the fortune he bestows on her. The preciousness of her love is tied necessarily to its proud independence from mercenary influences or threats. It cannot be bought, not with fortune, power, sensual

pleasure, protection, 15

See

and

89-92. [The

Kant, 16

Cf. Immanuel

the second paragraph, p.

end of

command it"

like to do p.

above.

virtue.

Cordelia's

"The End

Kant,

84, 1.5, be,

There is

(auch more

someone

Bibliothek, read:

just to do something but

not

"love"

in

Aus-

81-84.

pp.

should

ed.,

tun soile).] Should not the

gern

pp.

"for it is

also

that he to

referred

by

strictly, gratitude?

division among the

great

82, Beck

refusal

Things,"

All

of

ed.

contradiction to

should

9

less than

else

anything

Lewis W. Beck, Library of Liberal Arts, 1963, kleine Schriften. Taschenausgaben der Philosophischen

gewahlte

a

5

notes

On History,

or

We may distinguish four

commentators.

alternatives:

1) Lear is a weak, senile, old man in his dotage. Can this be reconciled with the deep and powerful Lear of the rest of the play, with the man whose favorites had been Kent and Cordelia, who wisely favored Albany over Cornwall, who killed the man (probably a captain, 5.3.27) hanging Cordelia? 2) Lear is a sagacious, though not a wise, king. He is not altogether incognizant of

his

elder

their love

daughters'

characters and

oaths.

He

ceremony to ratify

in

relation

to

could

and

from the fixed

let thy

folly in,

hypocrisy; he

regarded

never accuses

love test

allowed

"her

being

fault"

most small

at

them

first

as

of

particularly

to wrench

violating

primarily

a

vulnerable

his "frame

of

place."

It

was

he

this vulnerability,

thy dear judgement

and

the

to sanctify the succession; but

Cordelia, he

nature

have

out."

Why

rebukes

himself, "that

then did Lear in Act 2

seem

to think that he could rely on his elder daughters?

3) Shakespeare

simply took

over

consistency here. 4) There is no inconsistency: A great

suffering

reveal

heretofore

the old story

man can

untapped

be

great

and

a

did

not concern

himself

weak, foolish dotard

depths

of

passion

and

and

with

under

powers

of

insight. The natives.

argument

of

this essay is

most

compatible

with

the second of these alter

Gratitude, Nature, to participate in

and

in

Piety

King

Lear

33

Lear's ceremony, her disobedience (and Kent's also), is by Lear as rooted in pride.17 Lear, however, fails

correctly diagnosed

how that pride with its occasionally offensive honesty, necessarily along with the love for which he craves. In its critical pride such a love reflects the lover's estimate of the intrinsic merits of the beloved.^ If Lear had succeeded in humbling Cordelia, he might have destroyed what he loved most. Lear never accuses Cordelia, as he does his other daughters, of ingrat

to see goes

itude. Her

love, or certain evidence of her love, is what he wants. He loved her most, he says, as if this gave him the right to command her to love him most. But even if love, or noble love, could be deserved, it cannot be commanded. There does not seem to be any court competent to grant compensation for the "pangs of dispriz'd love."19 Lear, it seems, needs Cordelia's love because it would be evidence for himself (and for others) of his own exceUence. If he were a wise man or a philosopher, he would himseU" "know and perhaps not need such confirmation.20 But Lear is Regan is

not a phUosopher.

wrong

self"

(1.1.294,

where

he

1.4.238

cf.

could

not the

and

only rightly

simply disclaim

.260).

expect

"Propinquity kingship, after having

honors of Lear presumes

and

gratitude, in of

property

thinking

blood,"

that he

could

in expecting full

relinquished power

intrinsic authority

upon an

and perhaps no man

not,

best witness, but she is not entirely ever but slenderly known him In commanding, or expecting love

Lear, "He hath

when she says of

and

and responsibility, self-sufficiency that he does

possess.21

could,

IV

"In

none of

the

fifty

or

sixty

versions

before Shakespeare's play does the Lear

suffer

Gloucester

most

says

Better I So

should

And

woes

in this

were

by

sever'd

of

man

can

of

the

and

king,

from my griefs,

themselves.

"small"

58,

ch.

Gloucester

madness

wrong imaginations lose

It may be that her fault is only Don Quixote says, "There are those who

sins

mad."22

distract:

my thoughts be

17

as

the Lear story in existence

to himself:

The knowledge

p.

play.

of

king go Reflecting on the old

commit

Putnam trans.,

when compared with will

ingratitude, for,

tell you that one of the greatest

is pride, but I maintain that ingratitude is p. 889. See also Ulrici, in Variorum Ed.,

worse."

Viking,

ed.

Part 2, Furness,

456. 19

Cf. Aristotle NE 1159a 22-25, 1167a 11 21, 1170b 8-14, 1172a 10 14.

19

Cf. Don Quixote, Part 1, ch. 14. Aristotle NE 1177a 12-79a 32; and Jaffa,

20 21

Jaffa

butive

suggests

justice,"

op.

cit., pp. 133

ff.

that "In proclaiming love of himself as the principle of distri

Lear

divinity,"

op. cit., pp. 132 "pretending to the attributes of and 133. Cf. George Anastaplo, The Constitutionalist: Notes on the First Amend ment, Southern Methodist University Press, 1971, p. 791; and 2.4.252. 22 Kenneth Muir, Arden Ed., Introduction, p. xliii, n. 1. was

Interpretation

34

And

yet the contrast

between the two

shows rather

how

much more

Lear's suffering in the mind is:23 The loss of eyes the wayfinders for physical movement, the conditions for independent action is not so pathetic as losing the hght of reason, the inteUectual guide that

pathetic

things.24

lets

us grasp the general meanings of There is a connection* it has been observed, between pride and madness.25 Proud men do not like to justify and explain themselves. Their rectitude, they feel, should be taken for granted. They balk at the inferiority, or equahty, implicit in being required to explain themselves, for example, Lear before Albany, Kent before Cornwall, Gloucester and Regan, and Cordelia before the court (1.4.248 ff., 2.2.61 ff., and 1.1.87

ff.). The

proud see or

They They

order.

itself.

feel themselves to be

prize their place within are most sensitive to

desire to

a

the desire to

within a

order

insult

and

definite hierarchical

and, accordingly, the order most prone to the passion

Anger, unlike grief, contains within back. And, most importantly for our argument,

insult,

most consequent upon

itself

the

strike

anger.

back for most men, if not for aU men, exists even when is nothing to strike back against. Men derive relief from cursing the table or bench they have knocked against. When loved ones suffer some grave and irremediable illness or misfortune, men can speak, not of strike

there

misfortune, but

"affliction,"

of

thus,

as

it were, striking back in

speech

the causes of the suffering. AU the affections of what is poetically caUed the "heart"26 may tend to personify, and thus obscure, the differ against

ence

between the

to personification. men

desire

what

living and the dead, but anger seems peculiarly prone Something sinular often happens in love. It seems that

they love, or what they think they love, to love them in love is capable of being returned or not. Hope rises

whether such

return,

from desire. Hope

and

desire find fulfillment in fact

23

Cf. 3.4.6-25.

24

Cf. 4.1.27-28.

25

Cf. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan,

or

in fantasy.

ch. 8, Everyman's Library Ed., p. 59, and 10.9-11; and G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklopddie d.p.W., Ill, Die Philosophie des Geistes, Cf. inter alia, 408, Zusatz, /?/?), "die eigentliche

Elements of Law,

ch.

Narrheit."

Sophocles Ajax; 28

The

general

Euripides Herakles.

heart

word

it

passions,

and

seems

desires,

occurs

to refer to

thoughts

rather

and

is

often

in

King Lear (about fifty

times).

In

for coordinating men's appetites, wills, their loves and hates. Cp. Dante's

what

responsible

"animo"

in Purgatorio, Canto 17. The word heart enters into Thomas Aquinas' discussion in the Summa Theologica, usually when citations from the Bible or Church authorities need explication.

Sometimes he interprets it

as practical reason or conscience

(e.g.,

IH Q. 94, A.6. Cf. A.5 ad 1, A.2, and I, Q. 24, A.l) and frequently as will (e.g., IH, Q. 4, A.4; Q. 6, A.4 ad 1; Q. 19, A.8 ad 1, A. 10 ad 1 sed con; Q. 24, A.3). Nonmetaphorically he speaks of the heart as that organ that initiates all

bodily, A.1

ad

all

vital

movement, the "instrument of the

1; IH, Q.

Q. 44, A.l

439e-442d;

ad and

soul's

passions"

(e.g., I, Q. 20,

17, A.9 ad 2; Q. 37, A.4; Q. 38, A.5 ad 3; Q. 40, A.6; 1; Q 48, A.2-4). Cf. Plato Republic, the discussion of 0up,65 Timaeus 69d end-72c 1.

Gratitude, Nature, In

and

Piety in King

35

Lear

of its extreme forms this personification is what is called Lear insists that it must have been the unkindness of Poor Tom's nonexistent daughters that brought him to such lowness (3.4.48 ff.). He will take a joint-stool for his daughter and Poor Tom and the Fool for some

madness.

Justices, if

that is the only way he has to bring his daughters before the justice (3.6.20 ff.). Lear's pride, his self-respect, his sense of where he belongs in the hierarchical order of things, is, so to speak, the point of origin for his orientation in the world. As his self-respect is assailed, he finds it increasingly difficult to be objective, as Edgar says to Gloucester, to "Bear free and patient that is, thoughts free from the pre

bar

of

thoughts,"

sumption

directed

that everything that happens in the world has been personally to its effect upon himseU. His pride and his love of

with a view

justice lead him to refuse to accept the existence of the world where his worth is denied. He wiU try to see the world as it is only if the world makes place for his pride. And yet one of the measures of his worth is the inten sity with which he struggles to save his sanity. If his pride did not have some basis in truth, even his own love of truth and justice, his madness could not be as significant as it is. V In the early and calls

the play Lear swears

of

acts

the sun, the night,

Hecate, Apollo, He

nature goddess.

part of one grand natural and

and

seems

by

Jupiter; he

those

to see himself

divine order,

a

specific

also calls on and

divinities,

the heavens

his kingdom

just hierarchical order,

as

with

the gods, especially Jupiter, at the summit of the himself correspondingly at the summit of that sub ordinate order, his kingdom. When his daughters, his fool, and his shame, the correlate of his pride, destroy his self-respect,

the

heavenly powers, hierarchy and

cosmic

"abuse,"

"subdue,"

"bemad"

"ruin,"

his nature, what is bemadding is that at the same time they are destroying the basis of his orientation in the world, driving his soul into a storm of questions, doubts, and partial in bear.27 sights too heavy for his patience and judgment to The disorder in the moral and political world is associated in Act 3 "oppress,"

with

and

tumult in the

cosmic

order, the

rage

in Lear's

soul with

the raging

Cf. Robert B. Heilman, This Great Stage, Image and Structure in King Lear, University of Washington, 1963, pp. 72-74. Cf. also Laurence Berns, "Aristotle's 27

Poetics"

Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey, Basic Books, 1964, p. 82. In that

in Ancients

in Honor of Leo essay the division

and

should be marked "Epilogue"; part II begins on p. 72 should read 70, last line, first paragraph, should read "their"; p. 72, eighth line from bottom,

on p.

82

"men"

"man"

and part

III

on

p.

79;

p.

"Book"

"his"

and

should

read

"chapter"; p. 80, 11.7 p. 85, n. 16, 1.6,

and

"flow"

should

23

be inserted between "Poetics."

should read

should each

should read

have

"flaw";

"civilizing"

a comma after

"for the

most

86, 1.14, in n. 16, "what lies "politics"; p. 86, n. 23, 1.2

part";

benea'.h"

p.

and

"Politics"

Interpretation

36 of

The

the heavens.

meets

who

gentleman

rage"

"impetuous blasts

with eyeless

But for Lear lightnings are addressed as

faU

your

Kent

Lear's

and

speaks

white

fires,"

"thought-executing

are

seeing

horrible

catch

of

how the

hair in their fury. and the

elements

thinking beings. At first he bids them, "Let They owe him no subscription. However, that

pleasure."

soon changes:

I

But

yet

That

will with

servile

you

call

two

ministers,

pernicious

daughters join

Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst

So

His

old and white as

to turn toward the gods themselves.

seems

outrage

head

a

O, ho! 'tis foul.

this.

But his faith

is not yet entirely destroyed. He realizes that patience is what he needs. Perhaps his suffering is some divine affliction, later to be redeemed? He caUs out as if the storm were herald to a day of judgment when justice and

honesty

will prevaU and

he

be

wiU

revealed

as a man more sinned

against than sinning.

Let the

keep

Find

out

this dreadful pudder o'er our

their

That hast

enemies now.

within

Unwhipp'd

of

Tremble,

and

thou

art

That

under covert and convenient

incestuous;

your

More

he has

after

divinities.29

poor, the

than

agreed

sleep."

He directs his

naked

to

shake,

seeming

pent-up guilts, and

I

sinning88

cry

am a man

[3.2.49-59].

enter

But he does

a

not

words not

wretched and the

Poor

close

summoners grace.

sinn'd against

then 111

life;

pieces

concealing continents,

These dreadful

Later,

caitiff, to

practis'd on man's

Rive

bloody hand,

thou

simular of virtue

That Has

heads,

thou wretch,

thee undivulged crimes,

Justice; hide thee,

Thou perjur'd,

and

Gods,

great

That

nearby

hovel, he

says, "I'll pray

pray, if praying means addressing to the high, to the gods, but to the

low:

wretches, whereso'er

you

are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you

From

seasons such as

Too little

care of

these? O! I have ta'en

this. Take physic,

Expose thyself to feel That thou

And

28

Cf. Kent's

mayst shake

the

the Heavens

superflux

more

to

them,

just [3.4.27-36].

speech preceding and Mark, 13, esp. 13.12; see Variorum Ed., 339; cf. Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus, 11.266-67. Cf. 1.5.47-48, 2.4.192, and 2.4.273-80.

Furness, 29

show

Pomp; feel,

what wretches

p.

ed.

Gratitude, Nature,

in

Piety

and

Like thoughts are expressed later by Gloucester, to the man he believes to be Poor Tom: Here,

take this purse, thou

Have humbled to

the

whom

I

all strokes: that

heav'ns'

37

Lear

King

he

as

gives

a

purse

the heavens is

called

plagues

am wretched

Makes thee the happier: Heavens, deal so still! and lust-dieted man, That slaves your ordinance, that will not see Let the superfluous

Because he does

your power

should undo

excess,

And

have

[4.1.64-71].

Lear's into

feel, feel

not

So distribution each man

enough

quickly;

further: The very justice

statement goes

of

question.30

The decisive royal

in this

point

is

process

he has

Lear

reached when

his

strips off

Poor

Tom, the exemplar of human wretchedness in the Gratitude, its bonds, its cosmic and divine implications, have proved snares and delusions for Lear. Here, with Poor Tom as his model, undeceived by a groundless reliance on after

garments,

encountered

extreme.31

gratitude and the

the Is

flattery

truly fundamental no

hide,

the sheep

unaccommodated man art.

Off,

Tom

off you

is

no

"natural

more

lendings! Come;

because he has the

wool, the

no

the worm no

owes

and

pomp

than this? Consider him

man no more

beast

of

majesty, he thinks that he

Thou

well.

cat no perfume.

but

such

a

poor,

because he has

silk

.

commit

o'

not

th'

Lear takes Tom, But does Tom have

foul fiend. Obey thy parents;

with

man's

sworn

set

spouse;

Thou

.

art

bare, forked

silk, the

no

the

thing itself;

animal

no

silk, the sheep

thou

as

thy

man,

He has his life

nothing?

keep thy

not

no wool

the unaccommodated

he has his misery; and as gratitude is one of the piety, so fear and wretchedness can theologize and has his catechism: Take heed

the worm

ow'st .

[3.4.105-12].32

here

unbutton

no wool.

man."

can see

situation of man.

as

and

chief roots of natural

moralize as well.

word's

sweet

justice;

heart

on

Tom

swear

proud

not;

array

[3.4.80-83].

Each

of these six commandments corresponds to one of the Bible's Ten Commandments: the last most tenuously to the Bible's Tenth, Tom's fifth to the Bible's Seventh, his fourth to the Bible's Third, his third to the Bible's Ninth, and his second to the Bible's Fifth.33 Lear has proclaimed

30

"And

show

overcomes

the Heavens more

31

Berns,

The

op.

occurs

32

Cf. 2.3.7-9.

33

Tom's

by

in

King Lear;

cit., n. 27 above,

extreme must

mother"

is the last line Lear

speaks

him. See 3.4.48. In Aristotelian terms this is the

reversal, or peripety, rence

just"

include

replacement of "Obey"

pp.

75

and

madness

at which

Poetics 1452a 21 -52b 13. Cf.

also

the

Lau

82.

madness.

the Fifth Commandment's "Honor

corresponds

before

point

to a replacement of gratitude

thy father

by fear.

and

thy

Interpretation

38

If nothing from nothing, everything that does come to be must come from something, something which itself does not come to be, that is, is un changing. It is not altogether unreasonable for Poor Tom and anyone who twice in this play that

"nothing

can

be

made out of

nothing."34

comes

would

take him as the man himself to regard what most men call

God,

his misery, as a foul fiend. Tom's first commandment corresponds to the Bible's First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."35 The question about filial gratitude, about what children owe to their parents, to the sources of their being, is here extended

the ultimate

source of

to the limit:

What is owed,

due,

or

to the guiding principle, or principles,

life as a whole, to the sources, or source, of aU being? he When Lear strips himself of his royal garments, those tries to strip himself of every vestige of royalty. When Kent asks him, Grace?" "How fares your he does not even acknowledge that the term he?" His divestment of his royal could be meaningful and replies, "What's garments is the outer sign of his soul's divestment of its former protec

of

"lendings,"

those beliefs and convictions that heretofore had his activity in the world. He thinks that now he is in a position to come to know man, to know himself, to philosophize (1.4.238 and But the conditions required to make him want to philosophize are those that he declared earlier would make a truly human

tions

and

supports,

of

sustained and guided

.259).

life impossible. "O! reason not the questioning his need for attendants of his

need,"

to

replies

his

daughters'

own:

basest beggars

our

Are in the

Allow

poorest

not nature

thing more

Man's life is cheap If only to go warm

Why,

he

as

superfluous:

than

were

needs, art a

lady;

gorgeous,

nature needs not what

Which scarcely keeps thee

You Heavens,

nature

beast's. Thou

thou gorgeous wear'st,

warm.

But, for

true need,

give me that patience, patience

I

need!

36

[2.4.266-73].

Not only does Poor Tom become the representative of humanity for Lear, but because he of all men is least likely to have been blinded by gratitude or flattery, he becomes after Lear's divestment the philosopher "First," before accepting fire, food, and shelter, "let me talk for Lear. 34

See

1.4.134-39,

"Angstphanomen,"

1.1.90,

and

Lear's "eye

1.2.31-35. anguish"

of

Shakespeare's

(4.4.15),

seems to

presentation

have been

of

the

unnoticed

by Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Niemeyer, 1957, p. 190; cf. n. on 199. 35 Exodus 20.1-17, Deuteronomy 5.6-21, and King Lear, 3.4.80-83. The statement following the Second Commandment tells of God visiting the iniquity of fathers upon their children; Shakespeare, less mysteriously with a view to considerations of justice, visits the iniquity of children upon fathers. See 3.4.74-75. Cf. A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, 36

Macmillan, London, 1961,

Cf. 3.6.4-5. Edith Sitwell

influence millan,

of

1965,

suggests

that

these

Plato's Phaedo 64d-e 1; A Notebook pp.

75-76.

pp.

222 ff.

lines on

were

William

written

under

the

Shakespeare, Mac

Gratitude, Nature, philosopher,"

this

with

thunder?"

he

His first question is: "What is the he apparently had no doubts is, Jupiter.

the cause of thunder, that not

by

thee to

of

During

word nature

times in what

The

("Gods,"

Jove [2.4.229-30].

He

open.

has

4.6.128) only

and words

once.

with

nature

to be the generally

come

a god

never addresses

the time of his madness he speaks

all

Lear

seems now

to see deeper into the nature of things than he

position

The

high-judging

have become

now such questions

a personal name again.

the divinities

of

cause about

bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales

But

says.

Shortly before divesting,

of

I do

39

Piety in King Lear

and

as

to be in

fifty

their root are used

accepted

text of

a

before.

ever was

King

Lear.

seven times, more than twice as often as it Shakespeare. Lear uses words with nature as often as any other character in the play.37 These

word unnatural occurs

in any

occurs

other

play

than twice as

root more

of

be classified under five, not always clearly distinguishable, headings. Nature sometimes means (1) the general order of the social, usages could

and cosmic whole within which the activity of any one person group can only be a part; (2) the constitution, or character, of an individual as a whole, that is, the unity arising from both endowment and habit; (3) the original endowment of an individual with the powers

political, or

directed,

though not necessarily compelled, toward definite ends, or pur

poses.

This is the meaning

means

(4)

the

by

most often

expressed

individual

original endowment of an

Lear. Nature

also

with powers supplied

used howsoever their possessor wills. This is the meaning expressed powerfully by Edmund. (5) Nature is twice personified as goddess: once by Lear conflating meanings 1 and 3, and once by Edmund con flating meanings 1 and 4. The play has often been understood as present

to be most

ing

the

world

as

of

arena where the principles

a great

for dominion

ethical nature contest

the commentators are just one more

has been far

speare

37

the

over

reflection of

more explicit about

Nineteen times. Gloucester is

and un

The disagreements the fact that Shake

raising the

next with nine

of ethical

whole.38

question of

nature,

times. (Unnaturalness occurs once.)

Cf. G. Wilson Knight, The Wheel of Fire, Meridian, p. 179; E. K. Chambers, Shakespeare: A Survey, Hill and Wang, pp. 240 ff. and esp. pp. 215-16; D. A. 38

Traversi, An Approach

Shakespeare, Sands,

to

revised

and

enlarged

John F. Danby, Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature, A Study of Faber, 1949, pp. 15-19; and esp. Robert B. Heilman, op. cit., and

5,

and pp.

Heilman's

for any

careful

serious

the

relating Shakespeare's generally

115, 133-34, work

study of

and

is

a

philosophy

shared

by

fundamental

speak

critics

of

27 above,

n.

185;

Faber & chs.

4

179-81.

King Lear. By

amazingly intricate

ed., p.

King Lear,

book,

perhaps

the

fundamental book,

carefully and searchingly

patterns

of

for itself.

imagery in The

book's

pre-nineteenth-century

the

tracing

play,

out and

Heilman lets

deficiencies, deficiencies literature, stem from an

insufficient understanding of certain key notions of classical philosophy, especially the notion of natural right (see Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, Chicago, 1953, chs.

3

and

4)

and

the

notion

of

"intuitive

reason,"

that

is,

nous

(see Jacob Klein,

Interpretation

40

raising the question about the relation between nature and morahty, than he has been about presenting any definite solution. There is more clarity, however, about who is wrong: The transgressions of

Edmund, Goneril, Regan,

destruction. Nature Lear

Gloucester in Act

and

scene 6: "What has developed

4,

transcendent issues Shakespeare the

CornwaU lead ultimately to their own And about the meeting of

and

simple viciousness.

repels

.

his eyes, with the Royal Lear's understanding

sensual man robbed of

mind put

out."39

within nature

is certainly

not adequate.

He

.

could .

point the

man, the hght

wilful of

better

than this encounter of

how morality is

his

of

effected

the relation be

conceives of

it is (3.4.14-16); he being overestimates the power of law; he is insufficiently attentive to the limits set by nature to what authority and law can command. He relies overmuch more organic than

tween morality and nature as

on

divine

of the

directives,

enforcement of nature's

and

consequentiy is

to chance and, on the basis of the conditions provided

chance, to human

intervention for

chance

leads to

experience

nature

and

divine

of

the possibUities for

an underestimation of

for

by

substitution

Lear's faith in by bis suffering.

prudence.

is shattered open him to?

and natural order

does his shattering

what

words, the

other

awareness of the need

the Tightness of the divine

But

In

prudence.

insufficient

evil and an

unaware

to which the accomplishment of nature's purposes is left

extent

VI In his

he

Lear becomes estranged, not only from the divinities before, but from nature as a whole, especiaUy from nature

madness

by

swore

as the source of of

generation.4^

generation, gratitude,

From the justice

and

storm scene

he bids the thunder,

power over

nature, to:

if it

as

outset

are

were a

Strike flat the thick rotundity world! Crack Nature's moulds, all germens spill at o'

That

Destroy

makes

the

ingrateful

world's

producing man,

Ancients

and the perception of

to

a

"non-rational"

"value,"

divinity

with

great

authority

and

once

that

is,

Destroy

nature's

appreciate

rightly

means

for

the sources

Moderns, Essays on the Tradition of Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey, Basic Books, and

identify

imaginative

cries:

bis faUure to

by

in Honor of Leo

1964). Thus Heilman tends to

the themes

th'

pregnancy, he

Introduction,"

"Aristotle, An Political Philosophy

mind

[3.2.7-9].

man!

who shows

in Lear's

intertwined. In his first

"reason"

with

calculation,

so

that insight

the good according to nature, are attributed

awareness.

See

n. 13, and pp. 30-31 above. 4.6.132-33, 39 H. Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare,

pp.

161,

170,

and

King Lear,

.177,

n.

36 above,

p.

47. In later

less aptly in our view, 40 Cf. 4.6.115-16.

editions

"despot"

quoted

in Edith Sitwell,

op.

cit.,

Granville-Barker has apparently substituted,

for "wilful

man."

Gratitude, Nature, his

of

how undeserving he is "the lusty stealth of

being

speak of as

.

.

King

Lear

41

the gift of life. What Edmund can

of

nature"

hell

in

Piety

and

is, for Lear,

associated with:

darkness,

.

the sulphurous

pit burning, scalding, Stench, consumption; fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! ...

Give To

me

an ounce of

Mad Lear

good

civet,

apothecary,

imagination [4.6.129-33].

sweeten my

comes to

a view

of

nature

somewhat similar

to

Edmund's,

the primitive, undeveloped

nature as

beginnings of things. But his anguish and revulsion indicate how much more he originally expected from nature: He feels and suffers the absence of what he can no longer believe in. Like Jesus he speaks against the Old Testament sentence for adultery.41 He

goes to extremes

declares: "Let

if

as

and,

all

thrive."

copulation

possibility of Jesus was more

the adulteress from condemnation, his last words more"

no

(John, 8.1-11). Lear, however,

After delivering to her were "go and sin

condemns

women

confounding sex with Biblical, mostly New Testament, images In his condemnation of the world's justice, Lear cries: Thou Thou

For

Again

That

thou lash that

lusts to

hotly

are

looketh

without sin

thoughts

by

a

There thou The

great

A dog's

deliberate

might'st

image

obey'd

Through tatter'd

Robes

and

in

and

.233-35.

[4.6.162-65].

(Matt.

of

after

her hath

unto

you,

committed

and "He that is (John 8.7).

5.27-28)

cast a stone at

her"

requires

that

the punishers be pure

offenses

or not.

be

Should

If in the New

Testament,

exaggerations, Lear

rhetorical

as some would seems

to have

required qualifications.

beggar, Lear

says:

Authority

office.

clothes

small

gowns

And the strong lance

33

cozener

behold

of

furred

Lev. 20.10. He

lust

failing, decency

intentions

lost the capacity to make the In a farmer's dog chasing a

41

woman to

nor acted upon?

are

hangs the

and

thoughts

claim, these

back;

own

be equally punishable? Do men have as much control desires as they do over their actions? Are others directed against themselves when those thoughts are

and actions

divulged

thine

the New Testament: "But I say

on

sainthood

their thoughts

neither

usurer

heart"

universal

harmed

her. The

her already in his among you, let him first

punished whether the

over

Strip

whore?

with

adultery

hell.

her in that kind

reminded of

whosoever

Yet

use

which thou whipp'st

we

generally, of

beadle, hold thy bloody hand!

rascal

Why dost

lost,

redemption were sober:

of

"pardons"

hide

vices

all.

do appear;

Plate

sin

with

gold,

justice hurtless breaks;

an adulterer rather

than an adulteress. Cf. 2.4.129-

Interpretation

42 Arm it in rags,

a pygmy's

does

straw

pierce

None does offend, none, I say, none;

If

none

does offend,

and

consequently

.

.

it.

.

none can

at

rightly accuse,

least

none could ever

are not themselves spotless, rightly "Judge not, that ye be not judged."42 Edgar's commentary on this An speech is: "O! matter and impertinency mix'd; / Reason in attempt should be made to separate some of the reason from the madness.

perhaps

none who accuse:

madness."

The farmer's

does

dog

away the thief, but

often chase

unfortunately, distinguish between

and

vUlainous

the

innocent,

dog

cannot, to speak

not

undeserved, lowness.

of

Authority

law

more rigorous with the poor and

weak, protecting themselves, and partly partly because they are less for less simple reasons. Wealth, power, and authority usually go together. And just as the unsuccessful can exaggerate the part played by chance and accident in human affairs, so the successful can flatter themselves and

are

usually

capable of

by

exaggerating the

allow

to

extent

which

unfortunate, smothering charity in

"that

man

A

act asks

callous

the

pregnant

sufferings

art

to their can

to the miseries of the rigor.43

self-complacent .

of

to good

of

owed

others, they

Such is the

When Gloucester / Because he does not feel the disguised Edgar who he is, Edgar replies:

most poor man made

Who, by Am

fortune is

misfortunes of

will not see

in the fourth

The

their good

By

reasoning obversely about the themselves to become obtuse and

merits.

tame to Fortune's

known

and

feeling

.

blows;

sorrows,

pity.

Lear, Gloucester,

and

Edgar

would

seem

to be the

remedy for this, the occupational disease of greatness.44 Yet if suffering of such magnitude is required, the price of sufficiently educating authority in mercy or equity is hopelessly high. Few can do as much, perhaps, as the

Shakespeare, who by his iences, has made it possible for

educator

art, his some

presentations of

to

feel,

without

feigned

fully

exper

suffering,

they might need to feel in order to see. Lear's suffering, however, and the perspective he has come to adopt, have not prepared him for governing more responsibly, but rather for a what

"world."

His suffering has completely destroyed him Perhaps the most poignant expression of Lear's death as a political man is his reception of Kent in the last scene. Kent's affection for Lear is never severed from a political context. He always approaches Lear, even in defiance and in death, as servant to master, never simply as man to man.45 At the end, although other explanations are possible, Lear's

renunciation of the as a political man.

42

the

Romans 3.1-18; cp. 3.10-12 with Psalms 14; and Matt. 7.1-5. Lear is the Apostle Paul said was made against himself, loc. cit. 3.8.

43

Cf. Laurence Berns,

44

For

another

Cf.

n.

10

op. cit., n.

approach

Henry V, 4.1. 45

open to

charge

above.

to

the

27 above,

pp.

75-77.

problem

see

/

Henry IV, 1.2

and

3.2;

and

Gratitude, Nature, cold reception of

faded into of

kill!"

Kent indicates that Kent and what he stands for have insignificance for Lear. Yet his renunciation

almost complete

is

the world

when

43

Piety in King Lear

and

I have

The desire for

not complete.

vengeance remains:

"And

/ Then, kill, kill, kUl, kUl, kill,

these son-in-laws,

stol'n upon

(4.6.188-89). VII

When Lear

awakes after

his

sleep, "Our foster-nurse of

long

rage,"

(4.4.12), "the

doctor reports, ". garments, the images Lear

great

(4.7.78-79). Clad in

the

new

.

.

Nature"

is kill'd in

him"

uses are resurrection

entry into a new hfe, a life characterized by the interchange of blessing (from Lear) and forgiveness (from Cordelia) and mutual love.46 After the battle and their capture, Lear is given over

from

the grave

almost

and

entirely to

love,

Come, let's away We two

alone

will

When thou dost

And

ask

of

And pray, As if Talk

As if In

ebb

Upon

such

so

we'll

live,

old

tales,

and

who's

wins;

's the mystery

God's flow

cage:

spies: and we'll wear

by

in,

of

with

down, laugh

out, them

who's

things,

and sects

out,

of great ones

the moon.

sacrifices, my

Cordelia,

The Gods themselves throw incense. Have I He that

parts us shall

And fire

us

too,

out;

and we'll wear

spies:

prison, pacts

and

th'

I'll kneel

blessing,

me

news; and we'll talk

upon

a wall'd

That

Gods

and who

we were

i'

sing like birds

ask

sing, and tell

and

of court

And take

to prison;

thee forgiveness:

we were

Who loses

the love of Cordelia.

bring

a

caught

thee?

brand from heaven,

hence like foxes [5.3.8-23].

to be perfectly fuUilled. He has no lingering regrets. The being reconciled in love with Cordelia is beyond price: It cannot be measured by any of the measures Lear used in the first scene. No sacrifice, be it rule, extent of territory, honor, even freedom itself, seems

Lear

seems

worth of

Lear has gained. And with his love's joy that he holds before himself has come patience. His patience and his love go together with his renunciation of the world. His desire for revenge is as dead as his pride. When Cordeha too great, or

love

and

proudly

even comparable with what

the prospect of

says:

For thee, Myself Shall

oppressed

King, I

could else out-frown

we not see these

Cf.

also

4.6.33-80.

down;

false Fortune's frown.

daughters

Lear answers, "No, no, no, 43

am cast

no!

and

these sisters?

Come, let's away

And

prison."

to

at

the

Interpretation

44

his death, with the dead Cordeha before him, it is clear that no longer in the world where even these last hopes are dashed. He dies in a vision of reunion with Cordelia living once again. There has been extensive debate about whether these scenes are to be understood in a Christian sense or not.47 Was Lear's moment of joy at his death "based on an illusion"?48 Or, was it the triumphal culmination of his purgatorial, his redemptive suffering, a loving glimpse into that better moment of

Lear

live

can

hopes wiU be fulfiUed? have been describing is the development of attitudes and a that Shakespeare has presented in terms that are recognizably

world to come where aU righteous

What

we

perspective Christianas

This development in King Lear, however, is presented as a natural development. What was Shakespeare's perspective, as distinct from Lear's? The dramatic poet does not speak in his own name. His perspective can be inferred only from the play as I were a god, to teU of aU these as

"Hard

a whole.

things,"

it for me,

were

says Homer.50

The

as

if

poet stands

of his play, but a god limited to what nature to chance: For nature, or the poet's understanding

the world

a god over

leaves to possibihty

and

nature, provides the framework. "Is there any cause in hearts?" asks, "that makes these hard (3.6.78-79). Shakespeare

of

nature,"

Lear

seems

to have asked: "Is there any cause in nature that makes these Christian Nature, or the problem of nature, as articulated by classical

hearts?"

philosophy,

The

we

suggest,

major classical

provides the

framework for King

philosophers, Plato

and

elaborated an answer to what we suppose was

be due to historical

could

Shakespeare's

serious

course,

never

question.

question

This

is: Are the

framework they first articulated adequate to compre Must not the rise and triumph of Christianity be

principles and the

hend

The

accident.

Aristotle,

Lear.^i of

such an account?

Can the decision about the best way of life be compelling fundamental alternatives have been examined? It is incumbent

explained?

unless all

upon classical

philosophy to try to see whether the revealed religions and by them can be rendered inteUigible to natural reason.

the souls formed

Shakespeare

seems

King Lear. Yet, it could be

to have been exploring this possibihty, especiaUy in

argued, nature has its place

also within

47

the Christian

Lear,"

See K. Muir, Arden Ed., pp. Iv ff.; Barbara Everett, "The New King in King Lear, Casebook Series, ed. F. Kermode, 1969, pp. 184 ff.; G. W. Knight, op. cit., pp. 187 ff.; and Susan Snyder, "King Lear and the Prodigal Son," Shakespeare Quarterly, Autumn 1966. Shakespeare:

48 49

51

K. Muir, loc. cit., p. lix. Cf. Heilman, op. cit., p. 78; Iliad XII, 1.176. Aristotle NE

Kuzari,"

Bloom,

1134b

Persecution op.

cit., n.

and

n.

11,

p.

309;

and esp. n.

1,

p.

331.

18-35. Cf. Leo Strauss, "The Law of Reason in the of Writing, Free Press, 1952, pp. 95-98; Allan

the Art

12 above, Introduction;

and

Howard B. White, Copp'd Hills

Towards Heaven: Shakespeare's Classical Polity, Nijhoff, 1970.

Gratitude, Nature,

and

Piety

in

King

45

Lear

Could not Shakespeare have been showing rather how God's invisible law might, "from the creation of the have been written by nature in men's hearts? Might he not have been showing what would have to be endured by a "natural that is, a man with no knowledge

cosmos.

world,"

man,"

Jesus Christ

of

and

the

Bible, for

that

law to begin to become

visible

to him?52

If the issue love

as

were to

be

compared with

in terms

put

the

of

the primacy

of compassionate

insight, Shakespeare may have primacy opinion in Act 4 of King Lear. An unnamed of

to his own describes Cordelia's tears whUe she reads of her father's suf ferings as "pearls from diamonds "Tears of compassion are Tears of compassion are compared to pearls; eyes are diamonds rare and precious stones, but eyes, that is, insight, are more precious provided a clue

gentleman

dropped."

.

.

.":

stUl.53

"Hath

God,"

Apostle Paul, "made foolish the wisdom of faith possess a wisdom far deeper than anything accessible to natural reason. Is this what Shake speare suggests by echoing this language about wisdom and folly in his articulation of the problem of morality and justice in King Lear? The of this

not

world?"54

wrote the

"foolish"

For Paul

the

Fool teUs Kent: That

for gain,

sir which serves and seeks

And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the But I

will

storm.

tarry; the Fool

And let the

wise man

The knave turns Fool that The Fool

no

knave,

will

stay,

fly: runs

away;

perdy [2.4.78-85].

In this play the word fool moves through a range of meanings. "foolish," The official Fool in motley is funny, and privileged because he seems, or is licensed to pretend, not to know the most ordinary con ventions.

In general, a fool is a man who does not know what every man is to know. Somewhat less generally, assuming that in everything man chooses to do, some benefit to himself is intended, a fool is a man

expected a

does things that harm himself, who lacks judgment about what benefits himself. This is the elementary meaning of the word in the play that is presupposed by the four meanings following. The honest fools, best exemplified by Gloucester and by Edgar of the who

52 53

54

Cf. Romans 1.20, 2.14-15; and / Cor. 2.14. Heilman, op. cit., pp. 155-56. Cf. King Lear, 5.3.189-90 and 1.1.56. / Cor. 2.20 and ibid. chs. 1-4. But cp. A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, / Cor. 2.9: ibid. 1.2.22-99

and cf. ibid., 4.1.218-21 with 1.2.8,15; 3.1.1-81; 4.2.30-end with Galatians 2:11 ff.:

26:

and

360-62.

also

with

ibid.

4.1.10-

/ Cor. 9.22: ibid.

5.1.195-96, 311,

Interpretation

46 are

early scenes,

heavenly

about

people unlike gulled

by

overtrusting and, as in Gloucester's case, overcredulous influences on human actions. They fail to understand

themselves, to

those

understand vice and malice.

clever and unscrupulous enough

to

They are easily betray their

exploit and

trust. fools."

So Albany is regarded by same could be said of the The by servant who mortally wounds CornwaU and is kiUed by Regan. Lear in acting on the expectation that his elder daughters would be bound by filial The moral fools tend gratitude and duty is another kind of "moral

The loyal and dutiful Goneril and Kent spoken

"moral

are

the Fool.

of

fool."

to act as if moral laws were as inviolable as natural laws, as if moral laws were natural laws. They are regarded as fools by the "worldly for not appreciating sufficiently the arbitrary and conventional factors in morality, the bestial elements in human nature, and for not appreciating

wise"

sufficiently how self-seeking usually masks itself in moral guises. For the worldly wise self-seeking is the only kind of seeking sanctioned by nature.

What the

fool

moral

senses or sees and

humanity

the extent to which the

larger moral, social, only be a part. Examples

of

any

and political orders of which

those capable of

respect."55

and

"noble

of what we might call the

Edgar, Cordelia, and Lear: noble love, by "inflam'd selves

the worldly wise are blind to is

one man's

everything that

could

By

be

life is

fool"

are

being

a

function

of the

that individual life can

France,

the

Fool,

touched and moved

by

their willingness to risk them

subject

to calculations of worldly

success, they exhibit their own conviction, and rouse admiration and hopes, in those capable of appreciating them, that mankind is capable of attaining states of being that are simply good in themselves. The

worldly wise are blind to this possibility. In the light of what the moral fool and the noble fool see, the knavery of the worldly wise reveals itself as the final folly. By their blindness to

beasts,

"wise"

knaves finally bring them down with those whose justice they violate. By their blindness to what directs men toward the divine, to what is good in itseU, they are deprived of nature's graces, the love and friendship of the noble. But do the love and insight that Lear and Gloucester attain fuUy what raises man above

the

the

selves

redeem what proportion

they have

between

"We glory in

knowing

suffered?

tribulations,"

wrote the

terrible

suffering?

Apostle Paul,

that tribulation worketh patience; and patience experience; and experience,

hope. And hope

maketh

not

ashamed; because the love of God is

hearts by the Holy Ghost

our

What is to be inferred from the dis

and their

their sins

which

is

given unto us.

shed

abroad

in

[Romans 5.3-5].

And from the Apostle James: Be

patient

waiteth

56

Cf.

therefore

for the

section

brethren,

precious

II

fruit

above.

unto of

the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman

the earth, and hath

long

patience

for it,

until

he

Gratitude, Nature, the earlier and the

receive

for the coming

latter

and

Be

rain.

ye

also

Cordelia, her love, "The holy water from (4.3.31), that near the end sustain Lear's patience. how Ay,

she read

sir;

And

stablish

patient;

your

hearts:

the Lord draweth nigh.

of

It is

cribes

47

Piety in King Lear

Kent's letters recounting Lear's

her

heavenly

The

eyes"

gentleman

des

ordeal:

took them, read them in my presence;

she

then an ample tear trill'd down Her delicate cheek; it seem'd she was a queen Over her passion; who, most rebel-like, now

and

Sought to be

"O! then it

a

As

Kent

her

express

and

Were like, That play'd What

her. asks.

rage; patience and

should

Sunshine

o'er

her?"

mov'd

Not to Who

king

rain

at

sorrow

goodliest.

once; her

strove

You have

smile

and

seen

tears

better way; those happy smilets her ripe lip seem'd not to know

a

on

guests

were

in her eyes;

which

parted

thence,

from diamonds dropp'd. In brief, Sorrow would be a rarity most belov'd,

If

pearls

all could so

Later Cordeha

become it [4.3.12-24].

prays:

All bless'd secrets, All

you unpublish'd virtues

Spring In the

In the

my tears! be

with

good man's

reconcUiation

himself, "Yes, "King Lear is Sunshine smiles and

the earth,

of

aidant

and

remediate

distress! [4.4.15-18].

scene, Lear asks, "Be

your

wet?"

He

tears

faith."

a

These scenes too are often taken Christian play about a Pagan world.

and

tears

.

rain,

however,

suggest natural

answers

as argument that .

growth, that Cordelia's

for curing Lear's abused heart. It Christianlike use of nature. But, unlike

were nature's means

does seem, however, to be

a most

Lear, Cordelia,

whose patience is so movingly described, is proud to the She never asks for forgiveness. She is prepared to "outfrown false frown." Fortune's Is she prepared to live out her life "in a walled prison"? She has not renounced political life: She calls Lear king and queenlike puts down her rebel passions. She is ready to confront her sisters: "Shall Yet what is perhaps most we not see these daughters and these

end.

sisters?"

significant, though obvious, for the

question of

Christianity

in

King

Lear

Lord."

is that there is no promise or expectation "for the coming of the The word patience is ambiguous. In the Christian sense it seems to mean bearing tribulations in the loving faith that their promised miraculous reversals wiU surely come to pass. In the classical, or stoic, sense of the

J. C. Maxwell,

quoted

in Muir,

op.

cit., p. lvi.

Interpretation

48 word

it

to mean

seems

miraculous

itself only deserves loyalty

The

innocent too for

respect

receives

with

often

for its

the guUty, in

It is

absence.

the

at

providence

the

with

just

the

and

the

engender

view, that

time

incompatible

not

down

bring

classical

same

reward or not.

other

any

mischances of the world that

particular

evidence

that does not anticipate

endurance

loyalty

that

whether

unforeseen

wish

endurance:

that bases change, that accepts evil in the world as a necessity, on rational hopes and the conviction that what is itself good

they

constitute

the love of truth to

the love of justice that is the father to that wish.

VIII Who is the paradigm of virtue in this addressing himseh to absent Lear: Thou hast Who

from the

nature

general

Which twain have brought her

Why

says,

curse

to.57

honesty, her proud refusal demeaning hypocrisy, precipitated the catas

Cordelia killed? Cordelia's

then was

to join her

gentleman

daughter,

one

redeems

The

play?

sisters

in their

trophe of this play. Her death raises the question about what the moral

limits

in

honesty

of proud

Cornelius in Cymbeline the

bad) in

order

imperfect

an

avert

might be.58

world

tragedy by,

as

they

put

Pisanio

and

it, being false (to

to be true (to the good) (1.5.43-44 and 4.3.42). In Sonnet

94 those "who rightly do inherit heaven's graces / And husband nature's riches from are also those "that have pow'r to hurt and wiU do expense"

/ That do

show."

do the thing they most do never apply to Cordelia. Edgar is the character in King Lear who most none,

thing he most does show. He successfully in the play. During the play from a

This last line

not

of aU

assumes

not

do the

different

guises

does

six

could

brother noble,

Whose

nature

That he

is

so

suspects

far from doing harms on whose foolish honesty

none;

the practices of a confirmed viUain ride easily,

he develops into

a model

of virtue armed and resourceful.

Edgar

Their

seems

opinions

to be a about

opposite extremes.

57

pp.

between his father

influences

for the "general

curse"?

Cf. Ulrici, Variorum Ed.,

459-60,

question of

1970,

pp.

on

the

and

over

his bastard brother.

human

The father is overcredulous, Edmund

Does this indicate that ingratitude

responsible 58

mean

heavenly

her death. Cf. H. and

17

Furness,

at

than prideful disobedience is chiefly

more n.

are

above.

456 57. See

also Gervinus, ibid., invading army for the Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Shakespeare, Botsford,

significance

23-24 (277-78)

See

affairs

undercredulous.

51

ed.

of

her

(305)

on

pp.

leadership Cordelia's

of

the

silence.

Gratitude, Nature, Both

clearly

heavenly theme

boys,

son's.59

influence

to his

speech

on

human

dying brother

rarely comes to much good. Edgar's last word of the play on the adultery well to Gloucester's "As flies to wanton

affairs

gives the

and constitutes an answer as th'

to

are we

The Gods

Gods; / They kill just,

are

plague

eyes

for their

sport."

us;

and vicious place where

Cost him his

us

and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to The dark

49

Piety in King Lear

equally at fault intellectually, but the moral fault is In Shakespeare's world he who scorns all idea of

are perhaps more the

and

thee he got

[5.3.170-73].

"Th'

Edmund replies, hast spoken right, 'tis true. / The wheel is come full here." Edgar spoke of the gods, but Edmund speaks of circle; I am fortune's wheel. Lear preaches to Gloucester, drawing lessons from man's beginnings: Thou

be patient:

must

we came

crying hither:

Thou know'st the first time that We

wawl and cry.

When

.

we

his

the air

we smell

.

cry that

fools60 great stage of

preaches to

Men

This

born,

we are

To this

Edgar

.

suicidal

we are come

[4.6.180-85].

father

on

the

same

theme:

must endure

Their going

hence,

Ripeness is

all

sermon

is

their coming hither:

even as

[5.2.9-11].

more

adequate

because it is

more

comprehensive.

It

well.61 only the beginnings but the middle and the end as Man's chief concern, the image suggests, should be not with what happens

considers not

beginnings, but

the fruit falls and dies, nor especially the coming to fullest maturity in the world.

when with

rather

LX

King story.

Lear is based

Critics have

on

long

two stories, the Lear story and the Gloucester concerned by the apparent lack of complete

been

them.62 The unity unity between level of reflection, reflection on the

stories,

of

which

both

stories

are

of

King

Lear

comes

one philosophic

necessary

and

to

sight

on

the

theme underlying both

complementary

parts:

Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B 857 58. world's a stage in Shakespeare for him who, like Lear, Jaques, and Macbeth (5.5.25) Antonio, is coming to feel himself to be an "exile in 59

60

All the

'this'

is

world."

a special case.

indebted for this

61

I

62

Cf. Bradley,

and

am

"The

Unity

observation

op. cit., pp. of

King

118

Lear"

to Hilail Gildin of Queens

ff.; Heilman,

in

op.

cit., ed.

op.

College, N.Y. 28, pp. 298-99;

cit., p. 32 and n.

Kermode,

n.

47 above,

pp.

169 ff.

Interpretation

50 namely, that nature, and

law,

law

and political

legal

of

and

the

by ity.

laws,

base love

Being

love and

and

gratitude

gratitude

the

and

the same

fails to

its

that the

see

beyond the

are

control of

coin:

power of

passion,

conceived outside

need

The Gloucester

observed.63

how

Lear's

of

stories

daughters

elder

certain natural passions and

procreation,

need

Ordinary love

authority.64

and

and

rightly

not

are

manifestly the

conventions,

speak of

limits

other side of

most

powers,

love

adultery theme,

illustrate the

of convention

The Lear story Ulustrates the natural limits authority and the tensions that arise between nature

those

when

limits

authority.

and pohtical

law

story,

command

of noble

growths

ground and

the cooperation of law and convention for

man

fulfillment. Lear in trying to natural

constituting the

whUe

in

requires

be

to

and

controlled not

passion,

to

to be controlled

by law and author (1.1.19), Edmund was

law"

the "order of

"unnaturaUy,"

banished from the family circle. He is, not altogether devoid of family feeling. As the bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in, the dying Edmund exclaims, "Yet Edmund was belov'd: / The one herseh." the other poison'd for my sake, / And after slew Goneril and Regan as well as Lear seem to have died for "love."

How

would nature and

harmoniously? Nature powers,

and

ordains,

ends would perfect

convention,

provides

or manifests

of the conditions provided

the materials

accordance with those

and

ends

constituted as to require

bare, forked

is left to

disguises,

is left to

sound

man,

but

and

does

men

man,

not silence

whose

his

as

heart does

how his

sense of nature that means

Cf. Jaffa, The

outward

includes

op. cit., p.

to men: On the basis

Human

himself, heart

is so laws for its

nature

and

not

as the

his

mind and

and mind remain

trappings change. He is the

fulfillment,

only

poor,

the man of many

not enslave

heart,66 whose

matter

64

and

in this play,

he is in

in that

63

and

what purposes

of conventions

no

"nature"

cooperating

materials

themselves through custom,

not

where

human

chance, the responsibility for powers so as to function in

education.65

art, the formation

Lear saw, but

the educable

whose mind

chance and

represent the natural man

animal

related when

to natural reason,

by nature and developing the

habituation, training, law, fulfillment. Edgar does

law, be

the materials and fulfill the powers. But the accom

plishment of nature's purposes

forming

or

the materials, the

primitive

natural

beginnings,

"ripeness."67

131.

is, of course, guided by other natural powers, such as reason and judgment. France, the king, acknowledges the law's authority even over his noble control

love for Cordelia (1.1.253). 65

Cf. Plato Meno, esp. beginning; and Aristotle NE Book ii, ch. 1. Cf. Leo Strauss, in Jason Marvin Aronson, Three Funeral Addresses, Chicago, University College, December 6, 1961, p. 8.

68

of

67

Cf. Aristotle Physics Book ii.

University

Gratitude, Nature, The

may be

at work

the most

This is

in the play Cf.

n.

51

irony that led him, correctly, but for the wrong "the thing itself," that is, the natural man, by Lear also in his being called "phUosopher."6s Edgar, though

called

tragic,

nor the most

true hero of patience in

68

Piety in King Lear

same consummate

reasons, to be not

and

1,

not who

above.

King

contradicted never uses

by

pathetic,

character

in the play, is the

Lear.

the fact that Edgar is the only major character

the word nature or any

word

with nature

as

its

root.

52 SHREW ON THE INDUCTION OF THE TAMING OF THE

Hiram Caton Australian National University

Although The Shrew is it anything

not thought

theatre

long-standing

a

than good farce. I

more

favorite,

shaU

by suggesting that the play also has a serious, even a My purpose is to discuss the main acknowledged difficulty

philosophical

laughter side.

have

critics

risk adding to the of

the

play, the relation of the Induction to the body. The action begins with the drunken Sly being cast out of an inn. He is lord abducted by a lord who deludes him into the behef that he is a derangement and iUness. The taming play is a from long recovering But presented to him as part of the cure prescribed by bis physicians.

Sly

and

that the abetted

by

are

company

dropped

at

the

end of

Sly episode is left by the bad condition

of the folio, has led to patching and tinkering The division between Induction and body was

editors and producers.

introduced

Pope

by

Although it has

independence understand

no

parts

fit together,

did); taming

doubt

"play

play Induction to the

within

into

a

the

play

the

original about

given a novel and

play;

Sly

the

to correct the apparently defective

that

is that the play within is, play initiaUy Sly is transformed conventional the Moreover, taming idea is about

a

puzzling twist

when the express audience of the

Sly, is shown sleeping through the play. It is improbable striking feature, however odd it might seem, is not ultimately Our task, then, is to find the Induction to be integral to the sense of

the coherence of the work.

1

Pope

gave

no

servants

reason

The

sound.

merely foUows the convention of Shakespeare used successfuUy on

problem of coherence

the shrew.

The lord tells his

episode

denouement is invented

that the trick on

for his emendation,

Sly

which

an

the

taming

that such a

play,

shows

editors.1

body

which

But the

sometimes omit

than its dramatic quality, which is

rather

the

several occasions.

replaces

subsequent

play.2

meant

play,"

the

ah

and sometimes a

end of the

measures are no

from

by

basis in the foho, the division in effect asserts the Induction. Directors, at a loss to

movie version

coherence of the

ratified

the play from the

of

and placed at the

transition

has been

and

how the two

(as Burton's Such

Act I, scene 1, with the result This incongruous feature,

without a conclusion.

essential

to

interpretation that

taming

is merely for Theobald

play.

amusement.

accepted

without

comment. 2

For

a

summary of these

"The Dreaming 55-56.

of

The

practices

Shrew,"

in

recent

Shakespeare

American theatre,

see

Sears Jayne,

Quarterly, XVII (1966),

pp.

42-43,

On the Induction of The

Taming

of

53

the Shrew

Sly is told by the lord and his servants (who speak and act entirely accord ing to the lord's instructions) that he is a lord who has forgotten his (Ind. ii.13-16). identity owing to a delirium provoked by some "foul spirit"

This

leads to the presentation of the taming play as part of Since the explanation is an aspect of the hoax, it is not trust But is the explanation given to the servants trustworthy? Apart

explanation

the cure. worthy.

from the

deviousness of the lord, there are two specific reasons Since it. the lord's pastime is fox hunting, the name doubting hints at some underlying appropriateness in the relation between them. It is just visible in the circumstance that corresponding to the joke about his being possessed by a foul spirit is Sly's genuine weakness for alcohol. Perhaps in his playful way the lord is serious about Sly's not being himis intended to have some real effect. By consider seU; perhaps the the matter in this way, a marked parallel between the Induction and ing body comes into view. The lord is to Sly as Petruchio is to Kate, because both are tamers who undertake to reduce persons of violent dispositions evident

"Sly"

for

"cure"

to manageable docUity. What then

The

page

comedy is the

that

supposed to

his

is Sly's malady? feeds upon melancholy,

"frenzy"

remedy (Ind.

u.

131-32). In

view of

which

the

the theme of

ought in some way involve failure with is confirmed; the Induction opens with Sly being by the hostess. His humiliation is paraUeled in

play, the melancholy

taming

women.

says

This

anticipation

driven from an alehouse Lucentio's humUiation by Bianca. Since the taming play presents two ways of wooing, one of which ends in failure and the other in success, presumably it would teach Sly how to distinguish the right from the wrong way to woo. It would thus appear that the lord contrives to make Sly recognize

his faults

by

presenting them in Lucentio, the

cure

taking

effect

the moment he realizes this. But such an interpretation is rendered

at

doubtful

ity,

by

whereas

would

the

fact that Lucentio's wooing is inseparable from his gentil surely no gentleman. Besides since Sly falls asleep, it

Sly is

be inappropriate to imagine

a cure

for him that involves instruction

and therefore wakefulness.

Sly

resists with great vehemence

the

attempt

to foist the

new

identity

"lordship"

and him. He rails at the servants for addressing him as "honour." He refuses elegant food, drink, and attire as unsuited to him self. To refute the claim that he is a lord, he asserts that he is a menial of the lowest sort: "by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by

upon

transmutation

a

bear-herd,

and now

by

tinker."

present profession a

apparently thinks of himself as a humble but honest or claim on the world, which he is content to "let

He

man without ambition

slide."

self-appraisal is any indication as to why he is both indifferent to the world, yet defiant, as he is toward aU those he encounters. His defiance, and indeed intransigence, makes its appear

Missing

from Sly's

abject and

ance

in the opening lines

of the play:

Sly: I'll feeze you, in faith. Hostess: A

pair of

stocks, you

rogue!

Interpretation

54 Sly: Y'are

a

the Slys are no rogues.

baggage,

Look in the chronicals,

Conqueror. Hostess: You Sly: No,

.

.

with

.

.

.

Richard

.

will not

not a

in

we came

pay for the

denier.

.

.

have burst?

glasses you

.

surly, and unjust in refusing to mend the damage he in short, a rogue without doubt.3 This tinker, who later rejects the least suggestion of his nobility, now introduces as confused evidence of his quality the association of his famUy with "Richard Con

is

Sly

has

belligerent,

caused

queror,"

that

is, William

out some pride

This is

the Conqueror

famed for

of whom were

hence,

and,

deeds

pious

and

Richard

not without some

perhaps most evident when

he "will

the

Lion Heart, both Sly is not with

of great magnitude.

he

belief in his the

answers

budge

own goodness.

hostess'

inch"

threat to caU

but

will answer by saying stupor he drunken A that his servant reports "by during even threatened to bring the hostess to court (Ind. ii.87). Sly talks like an innocent man. He also uses the formulas of piety, swearing twice by

the police

that

saints

and

once.

praying of

things

given

name,

In his brief

connected

Christopher,

number of

simplicity.

He is

another world.

titles

His

confused

altogether

whereas

none

of

six

the

any but pagan deities. Indeed, hint at the missing element of his Christian of fanatical Puritan persuasion? place upon this

and refinements answers

content to

there are

mention

Might he be a disparate details fall into

violent rejection of

speeches

Christianity,

seems to

self-identification:

A

with

the Induction

other characters of

Sly's

an

law."

the charge

mentions4

not

let the

world

genealogy

slide

argues

interpretation. His

to fanatical

humUity

and

because he beheves in

less his

esteem

than for crusading and reforming zeal. And it provides

a

for royalty connection

between Sly's beUigerence and his stout belief in his own innocence. Since Sly believes that the hostess is at fault, to him his anger is not bluster and menace but anger in service of justice, or indignation. When indigna tion goes unchecked, it easily transforms itself into fanatical zeal. The "foul that caused his distemper would thus appear to be the frenzy spirit"

the zealot. Let us consider whether these conjectures correspond to

of

the lord's diagnosis

and

treatment.

On first inspection it is easier to characterize the healthy state, lordship, to which the lord wishes to bring Sly than the diagnosis. Since the lord does not prevent Sly drinking, but on the contrary has his servants offer him sack, it is reasonable to assume that the alcoholism is a figure of his frenzy. There are indications that the lord diagnoses Sly's condition as beggary. This makes some sense. Beggars entreat, while lords command; the transformation from beggar to lord 3

The Elizabethan

audience would

who were common at

the time and

thus be a

probably have identified

who

Vagabonds"

would

"transmutation"

Sly

as

a

vagabond,

usually followed Sly's professions. Charles

in Shakespeare's England (Oxford: Oxford Whibley, "Rogues and University Press, 1917), II, pp. 484-510. 4 Ind. i.9; ii.l, 24, 98, 137.

On the Induction of The

Taming

of the

55

Shrew

The treatment would perforce arouse in Sly a desire for contempt for his base conditions. The exhibition of Petruchio's successful campaign against Kate is well suited to that purpose. Once more, however, we note a theme struck in the Induction and continued in the body, but which is not applicable to Sly because he sleeps. Furthermore, the treatment administered to Sly in the Induction has no obvious connection with transforming him into a lord. The treatment does not instruct but arouses a passion; and the passion is not love of glory, but erotic desire. The whole treatment of Sly is geared to this purpose. It begins when to an opposite. command

and

lord directs that Sly be quartered in his most voluptuous bedroom. The cure, including the taming play, is staged here. (This setting is complemented in the taming play by the conclusion, which sends brides and grooms off to the marriage bed.) The treatment entices Sly to indulge in various pleasures; he is especially exposed to some "wanton which prepare him for the more lifelike image of the page disguised as his lady. The efficacy of the treatment is apparent when, immediately upon being persuaded that he is a lord, Sly calls for his wife. Throughout the remainder of the episode his one desire is to make love to her. Interest in women is a volte face for Sly. His indifference to sex is so great that he calls the hostess and teUs her to warm herself on her "cold while he himself sleeps on a cold hearth. He is so unaccus the

pictures,"

"boy"

bed,"

tomed to women that he does not know the

does he

proper

form

of address to

disguise even though they sit together. The lord explains the way in which Sly's treatment proceeds: He is to "recaU" the "ancient that lie submerged in his alcohol-frenzied mind (Ind. ii.31). The wanton pictures all depict characters, namely, pagan gods and heroes. The lord's use of pagan divinities, to gether with Sly's frequent mention of Christian pieties, all point to "novelty" that has obscured Sly's original nature. If Christianity as the Sly's malady is rehgious fanaticism, we need but grasp how loosening wives,

nor

suspect

the page's

thoughts"

"ancient"

Sly's desire

Sly

would restore

vacUlates

peculiar

to

between

righteous

his health.

setf-abasement

("beggary")

and

the intransigence

indignation. (Notice that Sly's list

of

occupations

his instability.) His appeal to law and justice show that he under stands himself as subject to the law; exaggerated or fanatical submission to law tends toward servility. The conviction of his own righteousness will grow in Sly to the extent that he is conscious of his submission to law. argues

And to the degree that his submission is greater than that of other men, he will come to believe in his superior piety. Hence, Sly is both defiant and abject. Of all the virtues, justice is the most severe; it upholds Shylock's contract with Antonio and sends soldiers to face death in the field. Justice is ranged against the natural appetites insofar as it divides them into those that are lawful and those that are not, whereas desire as desire recognizes no such distinction. The natural ally of justice in its struggle

with

desire is

spiritedness

or

anger.

But if

spiritedness grows

Interpretation

56 beyond

what

is

needed

for the

support of

justice, if, like desire, it becomes

from reason, it will produce its own injustice the injustice of the righteous. Such is perhaps the root of the combination of piety and ferocity in Sly. The right treatment of that condition would attempt to emancipated

justice

restore

his

by tempering

spiritedness.

The taming

"recalling"

accordingly be accomplished by retreated before the surging floods of anger.

would

Love, in

Sly's virulence desire that has

of

the

short, softens the

heart. II

We

Sly

to confront the

are now prepared

after

during

aU nods

the

taming

frequently

play.

fact that

mentioned

Shakespeare

goes

out of

his

way to call this incident to our attention. It is apparent that his sleep is induced by boredom (I.i. 25 1-52). What is there in the opening scene that

be tedious to Sly? It

would

opens with

long

two

speeches on

Lucentio's

to study philosophy. If from the almost universal silence of critics about this striking passage it may be inferred that even they doze through

plan

it, how what

much more a man of

Shakespeare

ence with

again.

We

Sly's

Lucentio's man Tranio utters be the displeasure of the audi

stripe?5

perhaps thought would

Lucentio's musings, for the

is dropped

subject

is

nevertheless suggest that the speech

but the true

Lucentio

beginning says

the

of

taming

that he has

come

and

is

not

heard

idle, faulty

start,

play.

to Padua to study

philosophy / Will I apply that treats His choice of cities is specially to be

part

not an

of

of

"Virtue,

and

happiness / By

that

virtue

achiev'd."

his

by

opinion

compared to the which

Padua

deliberate, being

that the wisdom of his native Pisa is

depth

of

Paduan

wisdom

a

(I.i.21-24). The

then renowned was the so-called "Latin

was

governed

"shallow

splash"

wisdom

for

Averroism,"

which asserted, contrary to the dominant view in the Middle Ages, the independence of philosophy from theology. Lucentio apparently antic ipates a secular wisdom.

Certainly is

he has

underscored

deal to learn. The changeability of his opinions on Tranio's advice. It is typical of him his plans for study when he falls in love, at first sight, a good

by his dependence

that he abandons

Bianca. Yet Lucentio continues to be a student. His humiliating bet Petruchio teaches him that he has misjudged Bianca's character; that beneath her mild exterior there lies a nature as refractory as Kate's (V.ii. 182, 189). The play concludes with Lucentio resolving to attend Petruchio's taming school. The opening theme of the taming play is therefore dropped only in appearance. It is continued, so to speak, on another level, a level invisible to Sly. This bifocal character of the play is anticipated and prepared by the Induction. The lord applied a twofold with with

5

The

only

incongruity of Sly as the audience for Lucentio's speech has been by William Hazlitt (Complete Works, IV, pp. 342, 344) and E.

["Shakespeare's Purpose in Dropping neither offers an

interpretation

of

it.

Sly,"

MLN

XXXVI (1921),

p.

remarked

P. Kuhl

326], but

On the Induction of The remedy for Sly's

desire,

his

and

malady.

His

abjectness cured

Taming

of

57

the Shrew

ferocity is to be tamed by arousing his by transforming him into a lord. In order

different cures, the taming play must present an action taming play is called both a comedy and a history (Ind. ii.129, 140). As a comedy it is a salty piece appropriate to dispelling Sly's melancholy and virulence; it addresses the same passions that the lord treats in the Induction. Viewed as history, the taming play is about lordship. We suggest that Sly's nodding and his sham transforma tion into a lord indicate his inattention to this theme, since its effectiveness to effect these appropriate

presupposes

to each. Now the

teachable

a

"patient."

At the level

Sly as the addressee of the play. As history, Lucentio's courtship of Bianca,

of

history,

Lucentio

replaces

is the

whom

he

"Minerva,"

calls

He conducts his courtship in the disguise of a The disguise reveals Lucentio's understanding of the pursuit of wisdom. In changing places with his man Tranio, he becomes, by his own pursuit of wisdom.

pedant.

"slave"

description,

a

Tranio

his

and

(I.i.218),

quite

suppliant approach

in

keeping

his dependence

with

to Bianca. As befits his

literary

on

edu

cation, he woos with poetry and music rather than by deeds. Wisdom for Lucentio is something hke the life of the ideal courtier as portrayed by Castiglione, that is, a mixture of classical and Christian notions. From

Petruchio's perspective, Lucentio's modesty, compliance,

and

civility

must

"beggary."

appear as

Petruchio's understanding of wooing as taming is hkewise consistent his education, which was war (I.ii. 197-208). He pays court to Kate like a general fated to conquer an enemy. Yet his subtlety is missed if one with

his rough, boisterous, whimsical manner as the vulgarity of the which is to kill fortune seeker.6 His conduct is controlled by Kate in her own humour; he adopts Kate's character as the means of taming her.7 The genuine center of Petruchio's character, which is also his genuine ruthlessness, is an inflexible determination to succeed at what ever he undertakes. That enables him to appropriate a certain kind of rationality, the calculation of means. He does not woo Kate for her beauty but for her dowry.8 When Lucentio discovers that his beautiful Bianca mistakes

"policy,"

is no less refractory than Kate, he learns Petruchio's lesson that fine feelings ought to be replaced by calculation. Shakespeare seems Petruchio reminds one of a Machiavellian "captain."

to be experimenting with the Florentine's teaching, perhaps in order to determine the extent to which it might be useful as a corrective for certain

defects in

8

men

hke Lucentio.

This has been clearly

seen

By

that

das Leben

es

ist,

ohne

The

7 8

95)

who

Petruchio's suggests

long

commentary

that he thinks of

"Minerva."

Bianca

as

on

her

p.

why Katherina as

Fate,

that the play exhibits the

wrote

Taming

Niemeyer, 1904), See II.i.131-37, 170-80; IV.ii.178-201.

Shakespeare's Kunst (Halle:

zu

mean

by Schomberg,

Illusionen."

wie

I

which

that Petruchio "erfasst

of the Shrew: Eine Studie

99.

must

be

parallels

called

"Kate"

Lucentio's

(II.i.185-

regard

for

Interpretation

58

desirability

of a

structure.

play,

is

and

muted

kind

Machiavellianism

of controlled or muted

doctrine. The difference is Petruchio makes his appearance

Machiavelli's

own

hence in

by

the

service of ends

visible

as

determined

a

by

in the

rather than

play's

character

the lord. The

un-Machiavellian restraint with which

it is

dramatic

in the lord's

teaching

communicated.

Indeed, the settings of the Induction and play (Burtonheath, a few mUes Stratford, and Padua) seem to indicate that the dramatic relationship

from

an image of Shakespeare's own under Whereas Petruchio, despite his flamboyance, standing is at bottom unpoetic, the lord, as author of the taming play, knows how to combine poetry with calculation. Whereas Petruchio acts exclusively for his own advantage, and claims that in so doing he benefits his feUows (IV.ii.200-01), the lord's playfulness bespeaks a mind free from the contraints of needs, which enables him to minister, in very different ways, to

between the lord of

Sly

and

Petruchio is

MachiaveUi.9

Lucentio. Perhaps Shakespeare thought that poetic play is a of lordship than Machiavellian mastery, not because its results

and

higher form are more

9

that

The

certain, but because

verisimilitude of the

Shakespeare

of William

setting

portrayed the

Shakespeare, 2nd

they

ed.

are more

humane.

and personae of the

Induction strongly

lord in likeness to himself. See (New York: Macmillan, 1916),

Sidney Lee, pp.

236-37.

suggest

A Life

59 "AND IN ITS WAKE WE

The Pohtical Wisdom Catherine

and

of

FOLLOWED'

Mark Twain

Michael Zuckert

I Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in political book in which the Yankee

King Arthur's Court is the knight of progress

obviously

an and

democracy

challenges the superstitions and cruel injustices of feudal England. Since this encounter is, at least initiaUy, as obviously humorous as it is political, questions are apt to arise when critics begin to treat this novel seriously. Nevertheless, A Connecticut Yankee has become the focus of serious Twain criticism in recent years, because according to these critics, A Connecticut Yankee is the first major work in which Twain's humor gives way to his final despair and, thus, this novel reveals the final inadequacy of Twain's art and/or understanding.! A Connecticut Yankee, the critics assert, is an essentiaUy flawed work because the initial lighthearted humor of the first part gives way to the horror of the second.

We, on the contrary, wish to show that this shift from humor to horror is by no means an accidental product of Twain's confusion or despair but is central to Twain's meaning and that once the reader comes to

1

Cf. Henry Nash Smith, Mark Twain's Fable of Progress (New Brunswick, N. J.:

Rutgers University Press, 1964); James M. Cox, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Self-Preservation," Arthur's Court: The Machinery of reprinted in H. N. Smith, Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Hall, 1963), pp. 117-129; Robert A. Wiggins, Mark Twain Jackleg

(Seattle: University

Prentice-

Novelist

Press, 1964), pp. 77-82; Henry Seidel Canby, Turn West, Turn East (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951), pp. 161-173; Gladys Carmen Bellamy, Mark Twain as Literary Artist (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1950), pp. 311-316; Thomas Blues, Mark Twain and the Com munity (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970). Ever since Van Wyck watershed study of the Ordeal of Mark Twain, critics have tended to view Washington

of

Brooks'

Twain in light

Yankee

of

represent,

"character"

character

fact that

gave

such

so

essentially,

everyone

and that

"defects,"

his

mere

was

a

We suggest,

distinctively American

that Brooks

reversed

to study Mark Twain merely as a

also

at

sought

character

was

the

reflection

a

literary

criticism

was

a

study

It is precisely this

Twain

seemed

proper relation when

of

Connecticut

Twain

in fact Samuel Clemens

phenomenon.

of

of

seemed so

inappropriate. he proceeded

the American cultural situation.

indicates that he had identified something distinctively least he knew how to appeal to Americans. We hope to show that he

Twain's tremendous

American;

theme."

school

that a purely

interpretations on

Twain"

impetus to the Brooks

however,

current

"variations

knew that "Mark

a cultural phenomenon

obviously

that

success

to improve them. That

but intentionally

sought

is, Twain

to form it.

not

merely

reflected the

American

Interpretation

60

why the humorous becomes horrible, he will have acquired insight into the character and problems of modern politics. the Despite the near universal condemnation of Twain's

understand

some

"confusion,"

clearly defined structure: a preface by the author, a Twain receives the manuscript from the Yankee,

has

novel

"frame"

a

and the in which Yankee's tale itself, which comprises the greatest part of the novel. That tale is, further, divided into five major parts: the Yankee's first visit at Camelot (chapters 1-10), his first journey with Sandy (chapters 11-20), his sojourn at the Holy Fountain (chapters 21-26), his second journey with Arthur (chapters 27-38), and his return to Camelot (chapters 39-44).2 As this general outline suggests, there are distinct parallels between the

of the Yankee's tale and the second. For example, the central incident in the Yankee's initial stay at Camelot is his "saving of the through which he comes to power and commences his Enlightenment civi lization, whereas the turning point in the Yankee's fortune during his final

first half

sun,"

Camelot

at

stay

lights

electric

comes

and with

with

the Church's interdict that

shuts

off

the

them the Yankee's civilization; where the Yankee

learns to don armor, King Arthur dons a commoner's pack; where the Yankee tells the freemen of the evils of monarchy, the woman in the small hut documents the misery of common life in Arthurdom; where the Yankee and Sandy visit Morgan, Hank Morgan and Arthur visit Marco; who are in fact pigs, by where the Yankee saves the "noble pox

ladies,"

purchasing them, the knights on bicycles rescue the king and Boss, who were but a moment before slaves condemned to die. And so on. The parallels are indeed numerous, because Twain wrote a tightly constructed In

novel.

each

parallel, moreover,

is

what

funny

in the first

version

is

Where the Yankee subdues knights, who mistake him for a dragon as a result of his puffing smoke from his pipe through his visor on his first journey, he blows to bits with a bomb the first knights he and Arthur encounter during his horrible in the

most often

journey

second

In

to

order

horrible, it metaphor:

and so

second.

A final

foreshadows the

understand

this

may be helpful to

the circus. When Sir

Kay

the novel.

conclusion of

repeated

consider

example:

shift

from the

first

accosts

him,

the

to the

comic

the Yankee's initial

and repeated

Yankee

con

circus, if not a lunatic asylum. But Kay the Yankee quickly discovers that it is he and not the knight who is, so to speak, the freak in Arthurdom. The Arthurians, he states, wondered cludes that

at

him

of a

Sir

as people

natural.

2

do

be from

at an elephant

freak is that he is both

funny because

and

must

Each after

of

of

in (or

funny

the exaggerated

And that is precisely the

a

a zoo.

Now the

particular character

least curious) and horrible; he is proportions, yet horrible because un at

character of

the

shift

these five parts, in turn, divides roughly in two:

the

eclipse

through

which

the

Yankee

comes

to

in the tone

at

of the

Camelot, before

power;

on

his first

journey, before and after he visits Morgan; at the Holy Fountain, before and after Arthur joins him; during the second journey, before and after Marco; and during his final visit, before and after his journey to France.

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We

61

The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

book. The comedy of the first half often consists in exaggeration because it arises from an implicit contrast of pretension with nature; and because it deals primarily with pretensions, the humor deals primarily with illusions or unrealities. The Yankee does not really save the sun, he is not really a knight or a dragon, the ladies are not ladies but pigs, and so on. By means of the parallels between incidents in the first and in the second half of the tale, Twain shows the often harsh reality underlying the humor. Thus he reveals in the structure the character of his humor in general: The jokes are jokes and most often very funny, but at the same time these jokes point to a not-so-funny reality beneath the humor. In the second half of this novel we see the misery inflicted upon the common people

by

the

nobles'

in the first half. Yet,

pretensions, the same

at

which

time,

the Yankee so often ridicules

we

true nobUity and excellence of Arthur

are

and

forced to

Lancelot.

recognize the

Contrary

to

the

Yankee's initial assertions, the nobles possess a factual superiority on which to base their claim to rule. While Twain partially rehabilitates the legitimacy of aristocratic rule, he also reveals the Yankee's own very crude pretensions.

for

More fundamentally, he exposes the true Yankee's nobler dream institution

the realization of the

within

his

own

lifetime

in

the total war at the end.

requirements of a republic

Exaggeration is the

appropriate form of humor for the Yankee, we finally see, because the Yankee is characterized by his lack of restraint, that is, his immoderation. Is the Yankee's dream of a republican manliness then merely that a dream? Is the destruction of humanity by its own technological power an

begun? That is the conclusion represented by the deathbed appeals to his Arthurian wife Sandy to save his Yankee, him from those horrible dreams including not only the culmination of sixth-century revolution but his modern life as a whole. But are we justified in identifying Twain and his narrator? It is precisely this iden tification that has led the critics to conclude that A Connecticut Yankee finaUy represents a confused product of Twain's semiconscious despair, because the Yankee is somewhat confused and does not completely under stand the grounds and/or implications of his democratic theory and

inexorable

process once

who on

revolutionary project. Identification of Twain

ignoring reader

two

the introduction

in his

sections

voice; it

own

that

we now

and and

his Yankee in

"frame"3

is, therefore,

turn. Once

to

narrator which

is

possible

Twain

only

speaks

a careful examination of

one ceases

simply to

identify

by

to the

these

Twain

and his Yankee narrator, one is able to see the Yankee as the vehicle of Twain's strenuous, if deeply sympathetic, critique of America. In the Preface Twain appears as the author of all that is to follow. He begins with a statement that seems to shed light on the intention of

3

By

"frame"

we

mean

"A Word

Explanation"

of

Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in Mark York: Modern Library, 1917), pp. 1-9, 448. Twain,"

Mark

"Final Post Script by King Arthur's Court (New

and

Interpretation

62 the novel:

"The

are historical."4

touched upon in

America. Twain It is

but

not

and

those

also

touched upon

in this tale

Yankee's

the

of

nineteenth-century

however:

to clarify the ambiguity in the sequel,

seems

that these laws and

pretended

customs

ambiguity since the "laws and customs include those not only of Arthur's sixth-

a certain

tale"

this

England

century

laws

ungentle

There is

customs

in England in the

existed

sixth

century; no, it is only pretended that inasmuch as they existed in the English and other civilizations of far later times it is safe to consider that it is no libel upon the

century to

sixth

suppose

them to have been in practice in that

justified in inferring that whatever one of these laws that remote time, its place was competently filled by a quite

The implication those

customs

are

principle

Twain

is

past

other

words,

states

the

he

that

ungentle

also.

worse

one.5

bad laws

even

or

One is

lacking in

and

We may infer this from the a more distant in writing his tale

century.

sixth

than a more

worse

The

clear:

seems of

day,

or customs was

used

recent past.

seems to agree with

History is

progressive.

the Yankee of his

Twain, in

story.6

Twain continues, however: "The question as to whether there is such a question a3 divine right of kings is not settled in this book"7 most strange to be raised in light of the preceding affirmation of progress and with it of the nineteenth century. Moreover, though not settled in this book, Twain claims that "it ought to be settled"; that is, it remains a question of importance.8 Therefore, we cannot conclude Twain is committed to progress and shares the Yankee's view of political things. This is corroborated by the Yankee himself who asserts that the Roman Catholic Church "invented 'divine right of "; that is, the Yankee believes the question is easily settled in the negative.9 Not only does Twain raise the issue of divine right, he presents an argument for it which, he a

thing

things'

tentatively,

claims

it

makes

an

"unavoidable

deduction."

That

argument

key to understanding his curious procedure in the Preface. Twain supports the divine right of kings with an argument for divine prov provides

the

an argument with the following features: (a) An assertion that man knows the good, but (b) is unable to effectuate it. However, (c) what ought to be is, and (d) therefore God (the effectively ruling principle of the

idence,

whole) guarantees

4

Ibid.,

5

Ibid.

8

Ibid., Ibid.,

7

8

effectuates

p.

and 9

where

says

he

will

return

"go into training

to it in his

massive

and

the

the

question

and

the

settle

enlightened readers.

Edition; New York: Harper

Connecticut Yankee,

p.

65.

whole

in

another

Personal Recollections of Joan of

he has Joan tell the Dauphin that he is

be less inclined to dismiss the

his

"is"

of

330.

Arc [(29 vols.; Author's National

might

conjunction

n.p.

Since he does

I, 166]

this

n.p.

Ibid. Twain

book."

or

business

king

and

Brothers, 1912), by God, we

appointed

as a mere

joke between Twain

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain "ought."

divine

This

63

differs both from the traditional from the traditional conceptions differs from the traditional conceptions

argument

Twain's argument in that it affirms of

evidence

God

scrutable

imperfect

an

Castlemaine,

a

and

therefore

for

arguments

right of kingsi and

of providence. of providence

necessity falls to

of

for example, "the Pompadour, Lady heads of that kind."n It is not merely patently ineffective and inappropriate one.

world

and other executive

a strange argument then, but a At this point, Twain apparently of providence

in

holding

the

retreats to the more traditional conception

question

unsettled.12

open,

Twain indicates his intention here by claiming "to take the other on divine right in this book, that is, to make the assumption that the

tack"

from divine

argument uphold

for

right or

is

providence

the claims of the Arthurian

regime.

By

itself

of

not

to

sufficient

extension, the

same

holds

Thus he lays the foundation for the political comparison between Arthurdom and Yankeedom, a comparison that is only possible progress also.

if

on political grounds

least

at the

outset,

assumptions

of progress

and

providence

at

are,

put aside.

Twain's raising the issue of divine right is not a merely arbitrary way to signal his readers about his relation to his Yankee. Twain is led almost necessarily from the

affirmation

form

providence as the peculiar

of

to

progress

of the argument

the

to providence in search of the grounds for that progress

he

affirms.

Prog

the necessary conjunction, in this case over time, of the "ought," that is, the effective realization of the good.13 But the

ress, too,

entails

"is"

and

the

whence comes makes

of

consideration

indicates. Twain is led

Twain for

argument

commitment

Twain's their easy

not

necessity?

to

progress

that his Yankee

and

to progress, make a

his

audience

deep-going

faith in the beneficent ordering

an act of great

disposed toward, the him to undercut his

favorably thus leads

itself.

suggests

commitment

that problem is what

consideration of

IronicaUy, it

providence.

irony

The

only take up, but be

of

perhaps, in

assumption,

the whole,

even

an assumption

faith they are not only not quite aware of, but even opposed to, or disposed to ridicule after all, the argument for divine right is a joke. In the order of his considerations in the Preface, Twain simply raises to self-consciousness in a comic way what remains implicit in the opinions of the Yankee and his audience. In the final analysis, it is this duality of

10

Cf. John Neville Figgis, Divine Right of Kings (New York:

Brothers, 11

Connecticut

12

The fact that Twain leaves the

Yankee,

complete

teaching is

recognize

what

Twain's

and

should

n.p.

not

That

be

political character of

is,

question

contained

open means,

in this book. This

be obvious; this essay does

thought and must

eminently 13

Harper

1965).

supplemented

this

progress as a principle

by

work makes

legitimizing

not

analyses

it

of

course, that Twain's

is

merely

deal of

with

his

a good place

explicitly to

the

totality

other works.

to

of

The

begin, however.

a particular political regime.

Interpretation

64 of progress and

providence, and their underlying affinities, that lies beneath

the conflicting regimes. Twain's indication in the Preface that he is not an

Twain's of

the

presentation of

is

present

himself

presents

that constitutes

Arms

during

After the Yankee leaves

castle.

(probably

which

he

character, the person who acquires the manuscript the main part of the novel, rather than as the author of

the Yankee meet

and

in

of

as a

the novel itself. Twain here appears to

He

unabashed partisan

Explanation"

his "Word

by

strengthened

hotel in the

a

be

goes

to

medieval style

room, he sits "steeped in a dream

the

of

the

of

past.

tour through an old English

Twain

him,

lover

an unabashed

a guided

olden

to his room at Warwick the castle). In his

match

time.

.

.

From time to

.

time [he] dip[s] into old Sir Thomas Malory's enchanting book, and [feeds] at its rich feast of prodigies and adventures, breathe[s] in the fragrance of We meet, in fact, two Mark its obsolete names, and dreamfs] again."14

Twains: the Twain

ist

and

of

and

skeptic,

the Preface

who

is

the Twain of the

most

familiar to

"frame"

who

is

humor

us as a

a reader

and

a

dreamer. Just

Word

Explanation."

lover

of

after

his

he, too,

Twains,

we encounter two

as

the

adventure can

be

meets

American, he in Arthur's kingdom; he

Though

past.

meet two

also

we

The Yankee Twain

of

never

an

the

near relics of

past.

Yankees in "A also

appears

returns

remains

He tours the

to be a

to America

in England

where

old castles and

looks

the old armor. He appears to hunger for the opportunity to tell of what he has done, but at the same time he is reluctant and ashamed, or too at

terrified of reliving his experience in speech, to do so. He comes close to telling Twain in the castle when the cicerone points out the bullet hole in the armor:

did it

"

'Wit

ye

"15

myself.'

well, /

The

saw

order

of

it

done.'

his

Then,

speech

after a pause, added:

is telling; so his admission

*

the

'I

pause.

And so is the Yankee's disappearance after of the deed. The Yankee's desire to confess is great, however; so great that he troubles to find Twain's room and finally, after midnight, brings himself to call on Twain. Twain knows the power of whiskey to loosen men's tongues, and after four drinks the Yankee tells his tale. He begins, but is inter rupted by sleepiness. He is relaxed, his soul is relieved. He can complete his confession by letting Twain read the rest of the The sources story.16

his

of

It

anguish now seem

was awful

to have been dreams:

awfuller than you can

imagine.

again; death is nothing, let it come, but those

of

14

Connecticut Yankee,

15

Ibid.,

18

We

his so

hideous dreams

p.

should note

17

appears

Ibid.,

p.

cannot endure that

pp.

.

.

Don't let those

me go out of

dreams,

not with

my

mind

the torture

again.17

2-3.

2. that the Yankee has probably

He is

able

that he has

read

own experience.

it

I

.

not with

449.

to

it,

recite

the first

perhaps

spent much

part of

"worked on

his it,"

time mulling over

narrative

often.

from memory,

"And in Its Wake We Followed" The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

65

The Yankee has been released, and with that release he commits him totally to that past he has left; even his origin in modern times seems part of his awful dreams.18 self

Although the story the Yankee tells hardly appears Twain Explanation" clearly suggests in "A Word of that the story, too, repre sents at least a twofold dream: What the Yankee sees as the result of a stiff "dreamlike,"

blow to

head, Twain

the

envisions as a result of

his reading

of Malory.19

Twain, it

seems, even dreams in manuscript form. In any case, the utter un reality of a twofold dream is clearly in line with the historical inaccuracy

Twain

warned his readers about in his Preface. Only by suggesting that the Yankee's tale is a dream can he make the juxtaposition of historical details from different periods plausible.

Certainly,

the effect of the Yankee's story goes

"mere

expected of a

dream."

As

well beyond that to be his experience, the Yankee From the hardheaded entre

a result of

undergoes a complete change of character.

"civilization"

who seeks to introduce into nineteenth-century Arthur's realm, he becomes the nostalgic wanderer we meet in the who is driven by his bad dream to seek comfort by surrounding himself with relics of his beloved past. Upon hearing (reading) the Yankee's tale, Twain, on the other hand, awakens from his romantic slumber to become the skeptical author of this volume, whom we meet in the Preface. The two transformations are related, because the Yankee's initial stance as an preneur

"frame"

18

This is

reflected

Twain: "Wit He of

speaks

a

ye

as

in his

even

Malory Arthurian. This

a

the Yankee

comment

once

"Sir Marhaus, the King's Son him a brogue, or at least a recognize

him

as soon as

literary device a man's of

Arthurian 19

He

made

authors."

speech

is

suggests even

an

an

acquires

Sandy

to

characteristic

he spoke,

speaking is

speaking.

you good

Ireland talks like

with great

of

way

of

of

manner

well"; la'.er he says, "Give

(Ibid.,

indication

of

pp.

special

(Ibid.,

said

pp.

to

2, 8.)

in the light

significance

her

about

all

point, he

sir."

technique:

narrative

the rest; you ought to give

by this means one would being named. It is a common 124-125.) The Yankee believes that ever

his identity. Thus the Yankee's

indication that he

that the Yankee's

one

expletive;

his

without

At

den, fair

now

identifies himself

midnight visit

is

a

dream;

adoption

the past.

with

and

he

reminds

later in the story of its dreamlike character by occasionally reproducing whole sections from Malory. The most important case is perhaps "Sandy's during which the Yankee dreams as well. Further, the story as a whole follows the tale us

tale,"

Twain

quotes

in his

"Word."

Cf. ibid.,

pp.

2-5, 10, 34, 47, 60, 115, 408, 417, 430, d'

Arthur's dream in Thomas Malory, Le Morte Arthur, I, xix. The overall structure of A Connecticut Yankee reminds one very much of

449. See

also

Man

and

depicts of

Twain

a series of

reading

romances

another

[Cf. Delancey Ferguson, Mark Twain: Legend (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1942), p. 26.] Don Quixote also

classic of which

and

who

both harsh

dreaming

through

it is Twain

was a

known

and

and

admirer.

humorous

conveys

a

adventures produced

caustic

critique

of

by

a combination

the chivalry of the

its ridicule. In Connecticut Yankee the characters reads

Twain's burlesque is the

the romances,

knight,

that

is,

not

the

are

his Yankee knight. The first

Yankee,

not

King Arthur's

reversed; object

court.

of

Interpretation

66 entrepreneur

his later

and

romantic

are

nostalgia

essentiaUy

related

away from present deprivations to a future of plenty when technology will have enabled men to overcome physical restrictions, whereas the romantic, doubting first phenomena.

As

the Yankee looks

entrepreneur

an

that technology can most important case,

overcome

death)

physical

all

and second

limitations

on

men

(in the

that all deprivations are physical

in essence, looks back from the Yankee's present to a stripped of all immediacy. Both

past stripped of aU

to escape the present, when what is

needed

look

in

and

its harshness because order

the

its

to

identify

the

character

modernistic prejudices

most

common

appropriate

the

of

source

present

and

a

fantasy

manifold of

dreams, for

our

as

dreams

constitute attempts at the present

its defects. Thus both

of

the romanticism that was

Twain's humor. It is

of

one cannot

challenge all the opinions of one's readers

story is a hidden by

a critical

become targets

alternative

that the book is

is

openly

it is

and

seriously

appropriate

make manifest

that the

the truths

our opinions.

The Yankee's tale induces Twain to attempt to play an active role in determining future history. In the very conception of the Yankee's tale, we see Twain at least threaten to alter the course of history, first in fiction by juxtaposing factual details from different periods in a comic and fantastic manner but second and ultimately in fact by reforming his Yankee audience's conception of history both the reality of the past and the direction of the future.20 He can do this, however, only in the context set by his Preface, because the precondition for man's taking an active role in determining history is that there is no necessary course of history, either of progress or providence. And Twain at least comically asserts this possibility at the very beginning of his novel. II. The Yankee The Yankee begins his tale I

am an

American. I

anyway, just and

was

practical; yes,

born

and reared

river in the

over the and

by introducing

himself:

in Hartford, in the state of Connecticut So I am a Yankee of the Yankees

country.

nearly barren

of

sentiment, I

suppose

or

poetry, in

other

words.21

The Yankee stands for modern America; he is a type. So little is he an individual that he fails to tell us his name until much later, and in fact he

book. Only once is his fuU name The fact that the Yankee is a type is responsible for

goes unnamed throughout most of the even

mentioned.22

much of the

humor

a reflection upon

The Yankee 20

Malory, too,

of

the story, as well as the source

proclaims

put

22

Connecticut Yankee, p. 383.

Ibid.,

himself

something

intent into his tale. 21

of

its importance

as

the American character.

p.

5.

of

his

an

American,

present

with

a

practical

rather

and

unsen-

different immediate

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain timental. His chief

he first

67

to us is his The only thing that he tells us occupations, and he does this in a context that suggests that he holds them in something like contempt. He draws our attention to the fact that he has risen from the positions of his father and uncle and thus implies that he is superior to his parents. His career is, in fact, the ideal American career: The Yankee is the American self-made man. He has transcended his lowly family origins to become the head superintendent of the arms factory. He embodies the highest ideals of America, the successive rise of each generation over the occupation

previous

The

appears

indicates that America is founded

doing

so

on

preservation of ancestral ways, of the old, the

revered, is explicitly

and the

as

wanted."23

in

and

one,

concern

only

"anything a body family concerns their

making about his

24

impiety.

and

would seem of a piece with

The Yankee's highest

rejected

his

by

traditional, his America. This

the Yankee and

rejection of the sentimental and

is his

concern

own

the poetic.

and economic

personal, social,

rise.

It is striking, in fact, how lacking in explicitly political subject matter book is for the first eight chapters. After an initial

this most pohtical

disbelief and his future course

period of

despondency,

about

of action:

I

made

up my

the

reason

boss the

away, I would presently boss that

and couldn't get and

why;

if,

the other

on

country inside

whole

the best

start on

to two things: if it was still the nineteenth century and I was

mind

among lunatics

the Yankee reaches a conclusion

hand, it

by

a matter of

asylum or

century, I

sixth

for I judged I

three months;

of

in the kingdom

educated

really the

was

know would

would

have the

thirteen hundred

years and

upwards.25

He

sees

greater

present

position

aa

merely job

previous

an

a

far

superintendent of

the

extension

head

as

"dream,"

time, I used to wake up, mornings, and smile at my the Colt's factory whistle; but that sort of thing played itself at

a

last I

was

After that, I

fully

and grow

own;

not

century?

a

I

that I was actually

living in

and out

the

listen for

gradually,

and

sixth century.

.

.

.

home in that century as I could have been in any for preference, I wouldn't have traded it for the twentieth. Look at

just

was

and as

other,

able to realize as much at

the opportunities here for

in

and

of,

factory.

arms

For

his

opportunity than, his

up

competitor;

should

be

a man of

knowledge, brains,

the country. The

with

a

.

.

.

whereas,

foreman in

a

grandest

what

factory,

pluck

field there

would

I

and enterprise ever was

to

amount

that is about all.

.

and

to

sail

all

my

in the twentieth

.

23

Ibid., p. 5. as follows: "In Eric Goldman, for example, characterizes "the day's worn-out, king-ridden Europe, men must stay where they are born. But in America credo"

24

a man

is

father's

accounted a

station

in

25

Connecticut

28

Ibid.,

pp.

failure

life."

Yankee,

60-61.

and

certainly

Rendezvous p.

16.

with

ought

to

be,

who

has

not risen above

Destiny (New York: Vintage, 1955),

p.

8.

his

Interpretation

68

His

have He does

the broad significant

not

aims

acquire.

to

not want

political

interests they later "boss"

the country, but to

rule

it;

and

the

Boss."

At this point the he finally takes in Arthur's realm is "The Yankee does not question the legitimacy of the present regime; nor does he concern himself with the public good that might accrue should he justice.27 When the Yankee gains gain power. He shows no concern for character of his venture as he the indicates he the power during eclipse, sees it: He is concerned with the rise in revenue he could produce and the title

in his own income that would The Yankee appears first as the preeminently private man; yet he appears to be singularly unable to participate in the satisfactions of a private life. In his initial speech, where he recounts those things he con siders most important about himself, he faUs to mention a fiancee, Puss Flannigan, he left back in the nineteenth century. Later he informs us that that initial this Miss Flannigan is fifteen years old. AU the evidence says of her and what the Yankee her lady's the name, age, omission, young result.28

rise

indicates the

satisfaction

might enjoy.

He tells

nor

for that

in the

pleasures of

the

soul

matter of

Nor does the

prudish.29

that a private man

explicitly that he lacks poetry: and his comments further confirmation of his lack of love for the beautiful.30

on art are a

Other

in

is,

Yankee find

us

for the primacy

grounds

possible

famUy,

flesh, fact, downright

that this was no romance of the

The Yankee

soul.

religion

are most conspicuous

the Yankee's pohticization has to do

of the private

by

life

philosophy,

their absence. One aspect of

with

his

bankruptcy

as

a private

man.

The

claims

But

pleasure.

Rather, 27

private

Yankee is

the

the Yankee

The first

will

to the just?"

ye

life have usually been cast in terms of the freedom the private gives for the pursuit of not

primarily interested in pleasure per se. Early in his tale he comments

to avoid pain.

seeks

words said

"Fair sir,

were:

for the

of pleasure and the

primacy

Yankee, by Sir Kay, on his arrival in Arthur's realm (Ibid., p. 6.) The Yankee does not understand the

Perhaps the play on joust-just here makes that misunderstanding more important than it immediately seems. 28 See also his remark prior to the eclipse: "Besides in a business way I knew it question.

would 29

be the making

The Yankee is

me."

of offended

(Ibid.,

by

43.)

p.

dinner

all

conversation

Cf. ibid., pp. 32, 69, 88, 100, 138, 183, 192-198. 30 "There was not a chromo. I had been used to that without my suspecting it

being.

...

It

made

me

heartless barrenness pretending

as

even

in my

except

darned

(Ibid.,

a

a

remember

you couldn't go

the

size

in it), 51-52.)

places

art

that

into

had

around

in

our

a room

chromos

got worked

over

this

that

of

and

state, there a

bedquilt,

nothing in it

wasn't which

was

Marco's.

proud

gaudy but

and

house in East Hartford, all un but you would find an insurance

anything in the was

at

for years, and I saw into the fabric of my

three-color God-Bless-Our-Home over the door.

grand room of

thing

pp.

least

for

homesick to look

and

it was,

chromo, or al

a passion

except

nature

either woven

or

.

.

.

of

But here, a picture

knitted (it had

the right color or the right shape.

.

.

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We

69

The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain life

Camelot:

"As for conveniences, properly speaking, there little conveniences, it is the little conveniences that make the real comfort of life."31 The comfort the Yankee seeks is not so much positive pleasure as it is freedom from inconveniences. Yet the man who seeks comfort must exert and so inconvenience him self; he must keep himself busy working for change in an environment in which comfort is lacking. Ending his catalog of missing conveniences, the Yankee concludes:

on

at

I

weren't any.

I

saw

mean

that I was just another Robinson Crusoe

with no

society but

bearable I

do

must

hand to work,

and

as

he did

and

keep

invent,

comfort

or

and

thus

comfort

doet

reform

But

cization.33

First,

political reform.

cast

on an uninhabited

away

island,

animals, and if I wanted to make

contrive, create,

things;

reorganize

set

life

brain

them busy.32

The Yankee's change

less tame

some more or

seeking itself

in itself

not

forever

comfort

cuts

in

accounts

very far in the direction

for the Yankee's

part

of

pohti

satisfactory end of by its seekers; its

constitute a

eludes attainment

forces the pursuer to deny himself the very thing he seeks. Second, comfort is not so much a positive pleasure as an absence of pain or incon venience; that is, its attractiveness in and of itself is weak. The Yankee's pohticization occurs in a chapter that begins with his reflections on the summit of power he has reached: pursuit

I was no shadow of a king; My power was colossal; and been, it was the genuine

I it

the substance; the

was

was not a mere

king himself

name, as

such

the

was

shadow.

things generally have

article.34

He finds his position totally unique in the annals of world history. He compares himself with others who have wielded such great powers and finds them aU inferior to him in some respect.35 Yet the Yankee is

31

Ibid.

32

Ibid.,

33

The Yankee here displays the

An

53.

p.

avoidance of pain as

the 34

Connecticut Yankee,

35

"There

Joseph's to the

king,

whereas

by

that

reason

the

as

Joseph's

of

it."

me

that

approached

splendid

general public must

I had done my

reason

Cf. John Locke,

61.

Joseph's only

case and

psychology.

order. p.

nothing back of

was

bourgeois

Human

the bourgeois

origin of

essence of

Understanding, II, 21-22, for the emergence of the primary motive force, and the whole of Locke's works for

Essay Concerning

approach

equal

financial ingenuities

have

entire public a

(Ibid.) The Yankee

could

it, it didn't

regarded

him

it, it

to

establish

might

For it

advantaged

with a good

kindness in sparing the sun,

strains

it

unless quite.

deal

be

stands

nobody but of

disfavor,

and was popular

the importance

and

satis-

His understanding of Joseph's activities, and the popularity that accrued to Joseph, is at the least distorted. Joseph did not, in fact, benefit prudent provision of store for the present nobody but the king, but through his

factoriness

famine

of

and

his

position.

future

ones

as

well, he benefited all. The explicit

testimony

of

the

Interpretation

70

his

not quite so satisfied with

The

exphcit

Yes, in that

piercing

power

I

.

those

.

fact,

people

all and

great

gifts

natural

looked

upon was

regard

the elephant in the menagerie.

do

a

hundred

But does that

wanted

they had

odd, but it

him

time there

us

believe.

was another power

the Church. I do

was

to.36

.

one

.

title

without

or

acquirements

many animals, bugs.

They

.

far

.

.

away beyond their

the

raggedest

and

long

a

hadn't,

were

The way I

.

and

was

the public

the fact that he

speak with pride of

and

No;

them?

of

men

You know how the keeper

was natural.

marvels which are

make

have

would

admits:

creatures of no more consideration than so

can

same

had inherited the idea that

whether

he

immediately:

together. That

us put

I couldn't, if I

the Yankee

Moreover, .

to the king. At the

was equal

to disguise that

pedigree,

own position as

reveries comes

trifle stronger than both of

was a

not wish

his

of

own powers.

tramps would

.

smile

.

.

at

Well, to the king, the nobles, and all the nation, down to the very Well, to the king, the nobles, and all the nation, down to the very admired, also feared; but it was as an animal is admired and feared. The animal is not reverenced, neither was I; I was not even respected. I had no pedigree, no inherited title; so in the king's and eyes I was mere dirt; the people regarded

the idea

.

the idea.

.

.

.

.

.

nobles'

me with wonder and

From

awe, but there was

no reverence mixed with

it.

.

.

"colossal,"

"enormous"

the and he told us was Yankee now admits that there is one power equal to his and another more than twice as great. Not only is his power circumscribed, but he also does not receive the respect and reverence he wants.

having

power

that

boss"

the country in order to make but now make money because "where it appears that he wanted to money; from" he comes differentiated that men; is, money was the source money of respect. This is not true in Arthurian England; and when the Yankee

Initially,

Yankee

the

"to

wanted

discovers this, he becomes dissatisfied inward

by

or activities

aims

look to his job (foreman) Bible (Genesis 48

Yankee's

proves

moreover, on

a

:

25, 50

(p. 61)

heights

of

at

the hands of

of

his

are

"upstart"

and

not

return

fraud

their

short

externally defined

Joseph's popularity also, whereas the conception of his greatness, his

close

time;

had

"saving"

of the sun.

no

relations

with

their

and all suffered rather

The Yankee's

shares a certain

"foreigner"

an

any

the Yankee must

Likewise,

the

De Montfort, Gaveston, Mortimer, Villiers, and especially apt for his purpose. All did in truth

through

political rivals.

fate. He

own

barons. In

power

was a

cites

their power only a

maintained

an

Yankee

(boss); he is

confirms

Lacking

position.

himself,

The Yankee bases his

deed he knows

unnamed others

to

20, 26)

his

with

to define

or position

questionable.

other adventurers the

rise

:

which

choice of examples

irreverence

and

imprudence

is

kings, but

a

foreshadowing Gaveston,

with one.

prudence, for he gave nicknames to the

he lost his life. [George

Macaulay Trevelyan,

all

untimely deaths

A Shortened

of England

leading History

(Hamondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1959), p. 158.] The Yankee calls and Sir Sagramor le Desirous, "Sir although never to either knight's face. (Connecticut Yankee, pp. 72, 384.) 36 Ibid., p. 62. 37 Ibid., pp. 63-64. Sir

Gareth,

"Garry,"

Sag,"

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain man whose

an

merely

depends very largely on what other men think in Arthurian England that the Yankee becomes In order to become a man, he must overthrow the

self-esteem

him. That

of

means

elephant.38

He is forced to

regime.

71

examine the nature and grounds of the present

regime, because something

him from

about that regime prevents

the respect and reverence he

he is forced to

desires. In questioning

finding

the present regime,

consider all regimes. By raising the specifically political questions, the Yankee makes possible the contrast and comparison of laws and customs. In this sense, the Yankee's pohticization represents a

beginning

new

is

for

One

the novel.

it the

might even caU

for it

beginning,

the question of regime that political thought begins.39

with

After his pohticization the Yankee hardly again speaks openly of his rule for his own sake. That does not mean that his ambitions disappear. Late in the book he announces his long-range plans: own

I had two

in my head

schemes

to overthrow the Catholic Church

not

as

an

to

was

and set

Established Church, but a go-as-you-please one; and the other project a decree issued by and by, commanding that upon Arthur's death suffrage should be introduced. Arthur was good for thirty years yet,

get

unlimited

he

vastest of all my projects. The one up the Protestant faith on its ruins

the

which were

was

being

.

about

own age

my

.

.

and

.

.

.

I believed that in that time I

the active part of the population of that should

be the first

of

its kind in the

bloodshed. The

governmental revolution without as well

may to

have

a

day ready and history of the world

confess, though I do feel

base

hankering

The Yankee's

ashamed when

to be its first

reluctance

result

could

for

eager

an

easily have event which

a rounded and complete

to be a republic.

I think

of

it: I

was

Well, I beginning

myself.40

president

here to admit personal ambition stands in frankness with which he expressed his

marked contrast to the unabashed

That most casual readers are not taken aback by this is testimony to the extent to which the Yankee's personal am bition has been submerged. Yet in seeming most open, the Yankee is, in fact, dishonest with both his readers and himself. If he and Arthur are the ambitions earlier.

contrast

same age, any change taking effect after Arthur's death would be unlikely to allow the Yankee to become president. Either the Yankee must give

up his ambition or the revolution for a gradual transition.

It and

38

would

his

be

a

mistake,

It

to the incident in

Fable"

was a

ticut

49

by his

p.

67.)

The Yankee is

Yankee,

pp.

one.

There is

no

beginning. The title, "The a new name in Arthur's

new

the Yankee acquires

lips

renamed

blacksmith father.

Connecticut

bloody

time

in The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

title "which fell casually from the

Yankee,

named

which

a

to conclude that the

(New York: Bantam, 1958), pp. 600-602. 39 The title of Chapter 8 points to a refers

be

Yankee's ambition incompatible. The Yankee does not thoroughly

however,

public program are

Cf. Mark Twain, "A

must

399-400.

of a

by

a

blacksmith, blacksmith

one

as

he

Boss,"

realm.

day."

(Connec

was

originally

Interpretation

72

merely to

want

to have a

rule or

receives such a position accept a

recognized position

from the

king following

in

kingdom; he

the

the eclipse, but he wUl

title only from the people. He wants to be loved, respected, rever the people the more, the better. If that love and reverence are

by

enced

him, they must come from beings whose respect he not value the honor of a "race of In he could value, order to satisfy his desire for love and honor, he has to raise the people to be his equals, and thus transform the regime.41 Thus the Yankee speaks upon occasion of the manliness of classical republicanism. Yet, if the to mean anything to

rabbits."

can

and

people

for

truly become

ical

the Yankee's equals, there

honor him.

them to

founder, but

education makes

(They

might

the democratic

be

grateful

and

will no

longer be

reason

to their teacher and polit character

revolutionary

their

of

this unlikely.) This irreconcilable contradiction in the

Yankee's goal, which makes the satisfaction of his desire impossible, produces his dishonesty and a severe problem in his political project.42 The Yankee comes to power by "saving the Through his historical sun."

and

kingdom

he

knowledge, he is able to predict an eclipse and then to life, but for half the pohtical power in the

scientific

bargain, uses

merely for his

not

during the relatively brief period his knowledge to play upon the

in

of darkness.43

superstitions

In

other

words,

the Arthurian

of

Twain implicitly questions, not only the but the accuracy of that knowledge. The knowledge, exact timing of the eclipse is crucial; but it is precisely the question of time that becomes most vexed at this point in the novel.44 If, as the people

Yankee's

41

order to gain power.

his

use of

Thus the Yankee

doctrine;

it is

not

shows

merely

a

all

why matter

of

demagoguery is essentially egalitarian in flattering the masses or breaking down

distinctions. 42

On the Yankee's

43

This may be

to "face

unwillingness

a metaphor

for the

facts,"

see

commencement

ibid., of

p.

171. Ages"

the "Dark

in the

sixth century. 44

The

There luck"

whole

knew

incident

least the

are at

about

the

when

total eclipses

great

definiteness

there were, in

the eclipse is

are visible

on

fact,

of

difficult to

and

confusing

following curiosities: (a) "only total eclipse of the

sun

in the

court

Yankee's

the

especially

(b) What is the point of the 21, 528, when it is known that in England in the sixth century, in 528, 540, and at certain places?

only

the time of the eclipse, June

three eclipses

that

execution

it is June

19, 528 (p.

for June 21

(p.

31).

to

next

morning,

execution on

to

a monk

of

the

eclipse

sentencing

Arthur

coming the

to the dates. But this does

of

the execution for June 21 and

not

dispel the

to

day

all,

including Arthur,

the Yankee discovers

that it is really June 21 after all and that Clarence had been in

as

sets

according

the basis of Clarence's

Arthur, is taken to his execution on what appears to be one day early. When the eclipse does, in fact, occur,

from

of

At that time

15).

The

Clarence June 20, the Yankee and Clarence talk of the after. But then by noon of that second day, the Yankee "lie"

by

century,"

sixth

594? (c) A curiosity more internal to the story concerns the timing within the novel. The Yankee is informed by Clarence on his day

in Arthur's

understand.

How is it that the Yankee "just

error

Arthur's setting the date then executing the Yankee on what turns out to problem

of

"And in Its Wake We Followed" The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain confusion

in the time

to suggest, the Yankee did not in fact predict

seems

accurately, he both

the eclipse

tially by chance; to the

claims

saved his life and came to power essen that means that the foundation of both the Yankee's

and

respect

and

reverence

the people and his right to rule

of of

the

and

gratitude

of

democracy

regimes

are

versus

to power

introduces and in with the Yankee.

to sympathize

he

love

the

even

shaky indeed. The dubious aspects Yankee's behavior tend to become lost, however, in the larger

question ascent

73

that the Yankee's

aristocracy

which

Twain's

The Yankee does not claim the right to rule in his claims the right to rule in the name of the people

principle of

naturally tend

readers

Rather

own name. on the

basis

the

of

he attacks the justice of rule by the king and nobility. But the Arthurian people believe that the rule of the titled nobUity is both natural and just. The Church, that power twice as great as Arthur and the Yankee combined, is responsible, accord ing to the Yankee, for this opinion: Before the day their heads up, greatness

of the

than

more

a man's

and position a person

But then the Church one

and propped

it up

to make them

came

way to .

.

pride, and spirit

got, he

got

to the front

skin a cat

or a

an evil

worship

The Yankee is which he

Church, I

and

of

by

she

men were

achievement,

was

and

knew

things"

good purpose

(to the commoner) humility, obe and she introduced heritable .

.

Christian

.

populations of

the

earth

to bow

them.45

explicitly anti-Christian; he only opposes in purely political terms:

not

by birth.

not

right of

wrenching them from their

self-sacrifice

and what of

wise, subtle,

invented "divine

she

held

and

men,

independence;

and

mainly

.

nation;

ranks and aristocracies and taught all the and

.

she preached

one;

dience to superiors, the beauty down to them

.

the Beatitudes

with

.

fortify

ground

Church's supremacy in the world,

had

and

that

and on

equality;

a united

understands

Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, by gets into selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it human liberty and paralysis to human thought.46

was afraid of a united

and

then

means

when

it

death to

by

be June 21 but is every and

respect

and

still

thought

by

Arthur to be

there is something wrong

with

one

day

earlier than scheduled.

the times involved in the eclipse

this adds to the dreamlike quality of the whole. One

explanation that

timing

the eclipse is

of

writer than consider:

Twain

Twain

"Twain

erred so

would

most

in writing this

central

to the

be unlikely to

probably knew

plot

section

here that

commit

about

the

such

the very

cannot whole

just

errors

popular

accept

question

even a much

In

incident,

less

of

the

the

careful

unintentionally.

Also

King Solomon's Mines

further publicity from an argument over whether an eclipse that [Louis Budd, the way Hank did was astronomically on Mark Twain: Social Philosopher (Bloomington, Ind.: University of Indiana, 1962),

(1885)

which

its heroes

p.

134.] Ibid., 43 Ibid., 45

got

time."

exploited

p.

65.

p.

77.

Interpretation

74

If the Yankee is to free the and

found

republic, he

a

must

consist

in the beginnings

the

Yankee founds his

civilization"

"beginnings

of

After establishing

a patent

office,

and communications systems

I

my hand

stood with

from their bondage to the nobility educate them. Thus for the Yankee the

people

light

that sudden way

The

.

.

.

the cock,

on

midnight world with

in

at

any

people

of

enlightenment.

industries,

schools,

secret.

to speak, ready to turn it on

so

But I

moment. not

could

have

was not

it;

stood

have had the Established Roman Catholic Church

flood the

thing in

and, moreover, I should

my back in

on

and

going to do the

a

minute.47

Again the Yankee brags of his power only to retract. He has laid the foundations but only that. He must temporize in order to let his civilization "sink before he comes out into the open. So he accedes to court pres sure and embarks upon a journey of knight-errantry in the company of in"

Demoiselle Alisande la Carteloise. The Yankee's first trip in search adventures provides the occasion for the most happy and open humor

Nevertheless,

the novel.

this

"fact-finding"

more serious

"frivolous"

His breakfast

trip king, because incidents

tour with the

to

him,

superiority

this demonstrated

of a republic

secret

was

inability

admits

the

need

his military academy.) Second account for the resistance

the Yankee is forced to "popular"

teaching.

less than men,

Up

the

upon

persuade

to the

present

to persuade has two conse

for

the nobles will not relinquish their power voluntarUy.

deepest

on

assumptions

his abUity to

challenges

obvious

the

of

some

"freemen"

the

For the first time the Yankee

quences.

terror;

the,

and

monarchy;

with

of

gives rise to the second much

first trip force the Yankee to question which his projected reform rests. the people of

of

more

and of

violence and

(The Yankee's

important,

the people to his

to this point, he had looked at the Arthurians as

"white

Indians,"

"worms,"

"rabbits,"

in a word, as lack thirteen hundred years because the They they of education the Yankee possesses, but they are not incapable of learning. Thus if he presents them with the modern understanding of things, they as

or

"stupid,"

stupid.

of

will,

are

course,

listen to run.

reason.

At the

immediately This

castle of

see

its

proves not to

Morgan le

Fay

advantages.

be the

case

the Yankee

They at

learns,

and wiU

men

are

least

over

the

short

moreover, that

an

obviously degenerate member of the nobility can be extremely attractive, can even evoke his compassion. Morgan is beautiful and chatters gaily along. She evokes the Yankee's admiration, especially after she flatters him. As a result he attempts to explain her resistance to his and thus far to excuse her depravity: "sense"

Training

training is everything; training is

nature, it is name

folly; there is no such thing is merely heredity and training.48

47

Ibid.

48

Ibid.,

p.

150.

as

all

there is to a person. We

nature;

what we call

by

speak of

that misleading

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

Thus the Yankee

moves

romantic, revolutionary

from the

politics

Rousseau. (The Yankee

75

states

politics of the Enlightenment to the originating in the writings of Jean Jacques his intention to hang Morgan anyway two

later.) Reason is not natural. On the contrary, men are complete ly maUeable, which means, however, that they are equal potentiaUy and

paragraphs

can, therefore, be made equal again. His task is much more difficult than he first imagined, since it requires eradicating "inherited and habits. Once achieved, his feat (and so his renown) will be so much greater, for he wiU have changed not merely men's opinions but the men opinions"

themselves.

As

his first journey, the Yankee decides that he must see himself, so he and Sandy join a group of pUgrims. In this manner we are introduced to the group of chapters concerning the Yankee's activities in the Valley of Holiness, which form the center of the novel. Here he gives his second great performance as a magician.49 The Yankee again uses his practical knowledge of the principles of nature to fix the weU (he had used a lightning rod to detonate the explosion of Merlin's domicUe); but he "dresses his performance by means of his knowledge of the art (technology) of war with flares and ex plosions to make the natural look supernatural.50 Again he com petes with and vanquishes Merlin. This renewed competition would seem to be a product of petty spite on the part of the Yankee did we not see his power almost immediately chaUenged by another, unnamed magician, whose word is preferred to that of the Yankee by the monks and others, despite the Yankee's so recent demonstration of power. Neither he nor his power can make a lasting impression on the Arthurians, so the Yankee has to prove himself again and again. Incidents in the Holy VaUey thus point back to the problem the Yankee posed in Chapter 8. In repairing the fountain, the Yankee demonstrates both superior force and superior knowledge, but he cannot maintain his preeminence; and as a result, he cannot maintain himseh in power. The impression the Yankee's power makes on the people is so fleeting because a result of

the country for

up"

they

cannot understand

source; that

an evU

is,

it. For the Arthurians,

the abbot warns the Yankee: "And

be holy, for

49

If

one

test of his of

rumors

Church

the

disregards the

power was

see

eclipse

over which

the

either a good or neutral."

Thus

thou do it with enchantments that

enduring

in her

cause

be done

the Yankee had no control, the first

up Merlin's tower in

upon

has

"morally

wiU not endure that work

blowing

casting doubt

power

there is no power that is

response

character

of

to Merlin's spreading

the Yankee's

magical

abilities. 50

race,

Cf. ibid.,

pp.

you want

properties

worth.

212-213: "When

you are

to get in every detail that

impressive to the

I know the

value

throw too much style

into

public

of

these

eye

.

.

and

count; you want to make all the

play

your effects

things, for I know human

miracle."

a

.

going to do a miracle for an ignorant will

for

all

nature.

they

You

are

can't

Interpretation

76 devil's

by

but he

magic."51

The Yankee

pronounce the name of and

work

war

and

the ineffable. To the

only with God's creations, destruction as well as to

Yankee,

all power

is

natural

thus morally neutral.

Arthur

king

the

of

worship

and nobihty as a product invented "divine right of

of

things"

Church,

the machinations of the order

the Yankee does not. The Yankee

reverence where

awakens

explains the people's

in

to

agrees

to use techniques of

proceeds

which

hereditary

to support the rule of a

aristocracy.

To the

Yankee,

Although the he does not understand it or its source: he has never truly revered anything himself.53 To him religious belief con sists of mere superstition. But he sees in Arthur's realm, for example in the "king's that this belief has very real effects. As a result of his Church merely Yankee desires

the

constitutes

a

"political

machine."52

"reverence,"

evil,"

experience

"superstitions"

the

with

Arthurians, he

the

of

in

comes

creasingly to believe that it is necessary in politics to deceive, to "dress It is the only way, the Yankee surmises, that the Arthurian people up."

him; but,

of

understand

it

will understand work when

they

not really understand his Thus the Yankee moves decisively

they do

course,

as magic.

"Enlightenment"

position with which he explicitly began. The move is, nevertheless, somewhat natural. Early in his narrative, the of his nature, which stands in tension Yankee refers to the "circus and urges a different kind of pohtics: with his calculating

away from the

side"

"sense"

The thing that would have best suited the circus side of my nature been to resign the Boss-ship and get up an insurrection and turn it into but I knew that the Jack Cade first educating his to get

the Wat Tyler

or

up to

materials

tries

who

grade

revolution

is

such

almost

would a

thing

a

have

revolution;

absolutely

without certain

left.54

is connected in his mind with the Arthurian regime; he supposes Sir Kay to be a fellow from the circus at their first encounter; and the longer the Yankee remains in King Arthur's court, the stronger this side of his nature becomes. We see him endure the cruelty and harshness of slavery months longer than What the Yankee

necessary for the 51 52

calls the

of

making

Ibid., p. 195. Cf. ibid., p. 149: "Concentration .

The Yankee's frame

invasion

of

side of

political

of power

1964), 64

p.

in

a political machine

is bad;

then

and an

machine; it was invented for that; it is nursed,

has been

technique desacralizes the

technized."

and

escape,

.

of mind

bring everything to light, and Technique denies mystery a been

nature"

a

by

well expressed

in

world

For technique nothing is sacred, there is worships nothing, respects nothing. It has

yet

his

"picturesque"

sake

Established Church is only a cradled, preserved for that. 53

"circus

rational use

no a

which

mystery,

single

in

man

role:

no

a recent study:

is

called

taboo.

to strip

upon .

off

.

.

"The

to live.

Technique

externals, to

to transform everything into means.

.

.

.

is merely that which has not [Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Vintage, priori.

142.]

Connecticut Yankee,

p.

108.

The

mysterious

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

because he

recaptured

"picturesque"

chose a

evading the

of

way

77

officer

character."55 than a simple one. "[I]t is the crying defect of my If reason is not natural and if men are therefore completely products of their training, the Yankee as that product of thirteen hundred years more

rather

is certainly

education entitled

to

superior

the Arthurians

all

to rule them. After his performance

and so definitely Holy Fountain, he

the

at

concludes:

When I to make

I

and

started a

was.

to the chapel, the

way for me,

wide

I

was aware of

The Yankee

himself;

and

as

comes to regard the

.

to the

expose

.

some

and

kind

Arthurians less

them very

view of

fell back reverently of

superior

King Arthur's

only my trimmed

world

public opinions and conceal

less as men like determines his later

and

largely

Court

and perfumed

and

carefully, cautiously, wisely my

A Connecticut Yankee

reminds one of

nothing

carefully barbered

private

so much as

ones.57

TocquevUle's

Democracy in America. The paraUels between the two works ous and deep; they range from the general themes of each democratic

parison of

and aristocratic pohtical orders

the books. In the one

aristocrat

an

mirrors the other even to

less

ironical,

to

such

progress

details

or

as

are numer

the

com

to the formats of

the democratic country par itself"; in the other

visits

exceUence, seeking there "the image of democracy the American democrat visits the feudal aristocracy or

being

them.

of

III.

.

uncovered

that.58

his inhuman

inhumane treatment

I

populace

if I had been

an

providence.

One

par exceUence.

opening invocation, more More particularly to our

immediate point,

the two books use an identical technique in revealing their respective, though differing, evaluation of aristocracy. According to a recent

study

French

of the

aristocracy is only gradually disclosed in the Democracy.

Tocqueville's judgment

of

In the introduction he

observes

the people,

55

Ibid.,

Yankee but great

deal

grown

that "the nobles, placed high as

376. This "circus

seems

of truth

up (op. cit.,

circus, the showy;

to

belong

and

side"

seems

Connecticut

57

Samuel

suggestion

137, 220). Tom, too, the Yankee's

Yankee,

Clemens,

p.

The

(New York: Washington

above

which

the

to be not merely a peculiarity of the

that the Yankee is Tom Sawyer

assimilates

"picturesque

the feudal

escape"

calls

in Huckleberry Finn where Tom devises cluding sequence to free the already free Jim. 58

were

to his world, as we see in Tom Sawyer. There is a

in James M. Cox's pp.

they

benevolent interest in their fate

take that calm and

could

p.

thinker:

an

to

past

mind

elaborate

and

the

the con

scheme

218.

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Charles Nieder, Square Press), pp. 386-387.

ed.

Interpretation

78 feels toward his flock

shepherd

.

This highly favorable judgment is

.

qualified

later: "When

by

aristocracy governs, those who conduct the affairs of state are exempted, station in society, from any want; content with their lot, power and

an

their very

renown

the only objects for

are

crowd,

they do

people

will

not always

the poor; but

themselves partakers

interests

feel those

cannot

people appear

improving

to

the mass of the

indeed,

miseries as

acutely

are

to their

submit

to the

callous

if they

as

condition.

have

aristocracies

to "work for themselves

and

lot,"

were

"natural

a

defect",

the

promote

"capital fault",

a

With this judgment

people."

for the

not

the nobles take no further

Democracies tend to

subjects'

their

the people, but

of

tending

of

they

of

not,

They

them.

of

"Provided that the interest in

how the well-being

perceive

to their own grandeur.

redound

sufferings of

strive; placed far above the obscure

they

which

clearly

Tocqueville actually reverses his initial assessment; now, aristocratic shepherds are simply indifferent toward their charges, and incapable of perceiving the true con dition the

the

of

"The

people:

they scarcely believe

thoroughly

Feudal institutions but

none at all

what

a

lively

miseries of

not

aristocratic

caste] do not resemble

think or feel in the same manner, and

to the

feel

others

awakened

for the

they do

they belong

that

understand

[an

men who compose

their fellow citizens;

mass of

nor

race.

same

judge

of

sympathy for the

They cannot, therefore, by themselves.

others

.

sufferings

of certain

.

.

men,

mankind."58

Tocqueville's presentation is germane to Twain's in a dual sense both as to the method of revealing his judgment on the aristocracy and as to the substance of his argument. Twain's reversal is, of course, the Tocqueville's. Whereas Tocqueville primarUy addresses aristocratic traditions, Twain speaks to "the image

of

contrary

nation with

itself."

democracy

a of

strong

deal

after a great

Each

deep

opposes the

of preparation

prejudices of

then

and even

his

audience

only

with reluctance and some

obliqueness.

The

most obvious

teaching

complete court

is

is

reason,

however, for

presented

neither a sympathetic nor perhaps a

Nor is he

58

without motives of

59

One

example

of

the

who was anxious

disagreeable not

difficulty

priests

of

extracting

and

pp.

The Problem of

Democracy (Stanford,

24-25.

selective

In Morgan's

understanding commentator. Arthurian Britain

reporting

dungeon,

and

turning up every

were

frauds

and

now and

how

it

colors

the Yankee came upon a

"Something

then. I mean, episodes that

self-seekers, but that many,

even

suffering.

it,

right-hearted, and devoted to Well, it was a thing which could

and

and never

sort

of

thing

many to

minutes at a time.

keep

.

.

.

the

priest

of this showed

the

majority, of those that were down on the ground among the common people, sincere

a

reporting.59

to report the overzealousness of the torturer.

sort was

all

Yankee's

fuUy

in his

own

University Press, 1967),

presentation of the regimes:

that

his

Marvin Zetterbaum, Tocqueville

Cal.: Stanford

the

the aristocracy consists in the fact that King Arthur's to us only through the Yankee's tale, and the Yankee

on

the alleviation of human troubles

great were and

be helped, so I seldom fretted about But I did not like it, for it was just the not

people reconciled to an

Established

Church"

(ibid.,

p.

148).

"And in Its Wake We

Followed"

79

The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

itself has

direct spokesman,

no

nor

could

it, for

Arthurians

the

by a very low level of self-consciousness. The Enlightenment, that is, the injection of philosophy into

characterized

the

reflects

hfe in

contrast to

the more

untheoretical pohtical

the Arthurians. This difference accounts for difficulties of the book. By using the Yankee to achieve unity in the novel and

able

his

but it

readers.

political

"natural"

of

prejudices of

are

Yankee

The Yankee

the

major artistic

narrator, Twain was the same time to exploit the

at

as

one of

understanding

as

narrator

thus presented

great

difficulties for the proper completion of the comparison through a non- Yankee presentation of Arthur's court. To achieve this non- Yankee presentation, insofar as it is achieved, Twain had to rely heavUy on action and had to leave much to the reader. Yet gains

also created great

the asymmetry of the book is consistent with Twain's ultimate aims, to of

say nothing

his prudence, for

in

completeness

presentation

of

those aims

the

do

Arthurians

not

call

for the

is necessary

as

same

of

the

Yankee. On the one occasion when Arthur is moved to speak to the nature of his regime, he proves himself a theoretical ignoramus. "All places of belong," honor and profit do claims the king, "by natural right, to them blood."60 that be of noble Arthur, at least, accepts the condition set by Twain in the Preface of "taking the other that is, abstracting from the claims of the divine. But the absurdity of his response, if not of his whole position, is manifest from the context. The Yankee has provoked Arthur's defense by chaUenging a "rule requiring four generations of nobUity, or else the candidate is not eligible. "6X The rule recognizes something for which Arthur's claim does not provide. "Them that be of birth" noble are not naturaUy so. Noble lines fail somewhere. How then do those who are not of noble blood become noble? The examiner's next tack,"

question supplies the obvious answer:

By

what

founder

illustrious

achievement

of your great

for the honor

line lift himself to the

of

the

sacred

throne and

dignity

did the

state

British

of the

nobil

ity?*2

For

service

they have Likewise, excellence.

Arthur

the

Arthur's

Yankee,

contract.

king's

Never

style

apparently

innocently,

mind the

a

slave's

details

it

style

ac-

suppresses evidence of

effects of

and

Yankee

by force

will save me

Arthur's

moral

the slave master's efforts to make

therefore more salable, the

to

king whom by blood

the

original claim of natural right

For example, recounting the

more slavish and

reduce the

by

to throne and state, men are ennobled

served.

says:

go

"to

to! it

trouble to let

you

undertake

was

a

imagine

to

stately them"

(pp. 274-275). To

omit

the

"details"

one. 80

Ibid.,

p.

81

Ibid., Ibid.,

p.

82

p.

244. 243.

245.

will perhaps

"save the Yankee

trouble"

in

more ways

than

Interpretation

80

tually

in two directions

points

the

Arthur

power of

the practice of the regime on the other. The the

power of

But there

must also

king's

the

the

and

hand,

the one

and

the nobles rest on

to elevate men above their fellows. The question

king

the

of the origin of the

on

claims of

nobility is ultimately the question be a first king whose father was explicit

aristocracy's

origin.

not a king.63

to

claim

king's

of the

rule

rests

Since their

on

this ancestry must eventuaUy fail them, the king and aristocrats must keep their origins unknown. At best the origins can be

ancestry,

and since

traced back to a race of gods, divine an

appointment, direct

or

indirect, by

heroes,

or

God.64

the truth about the origins is destructive to

first kings generally their

rule

The first kings may be by nature, but they are

power

is,

our

aristocrats

for his

origin

we are reminded at

origins.

As his

in the

beginning

people

in

a

the

way

past and

to rule

cannot.

otherwise much

tradition, recurrently Arthur

aristocracy.67

so

is he

a

the

There is

loyalty

cannot

defective legitimate

that he has no Arthur's regime, the

novel

of

and maintain

Yankee

assumptions, fraud.65

is defective,

the end of the

to arouse

able

assumptions,

heredity. The

and perpetuate

Thus the Yankee,

heir. Despite the defective foundation nevertheless,

on

force

means of

the origins of the

account

Christian regime, to natural

a sense and so perhaps entitled

not legitimate.66

to

attention

by

a

based

rule

given naturalistic

in

superior

less interested than the calls

into

came

through religion, that

in

Given

king is,

and respect of

his

some wisdom and/or power

in tradition. Arthur and his knights recognize the importance and need for a legitimate use of force, where the Yankee does not. For Arthur and his knights, the Yankee's competitive examination for entry into the army replaces an

63

eminently

Twain does

not

practical

explicitly

test

refer

to

of their

Arthur's

skills, the

origins

tournament.68

The

in A Connecticut Yankee

implicitly to incorporate Malory's account through Merlin's tales and pre dictions; and in Malory, Arthur's legitimacy in several senses is questioned. 84 Given Twain's abstraction from the divine, the argument raised by, for example, Robert Filmer, Patriarch, ed. Peter Laslett (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1949), on the

except

basis 85

of

Genesis is

not available

Cf. Machiavelli's

Nietzsche, Use

and

Abuse of

here to Arthur.

Romulus and Numa, Discorsi 1:10-15; Friedrich History (New York: Liberal Arts, 1949), p. 21.

account

of

66

Thus for the Yankee, kings and nobles are no more than frauds and thieves; but precisely for that reason, they exert an attraction similar to that of a circus side show. (Frauds might be considered exceedingly clever businessmen.) The comic equivalent of

Yankee

this is to be seen in the Duke

admits

Americans

that

are

Yankee, pp. 65-66). 67 Ibid., pp. 62, 103, 237. 68 Here again, by abstracting from regime, Twain

makes

that

regime

and

particularly

the Dauphin of Huck Finn. The attracted

the divine or

even

by

pious element

harsher: God

was

(Connecticut

titles

in the Arthurian

supposed

to guarantee

justice triumphed in trials by battle. The Yankee's desire to substitute compe tence in military science, that is, a strictly rationalized criterion, for Arthur's that

concern

reflects

for individual not

only

an

merit

as

irrational

shown

in the tournaments

application

of

an

and

other

irrelevant technique

war on

games,

the

part

"And in Its Wake We

Followed"

81

The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain rules

the

of

by

tournament, for honor

competition

Christian faith

the

put

moreover,

in

and prestige

limitations

conventional

to the restrictions

addition

its knights. The difference in the

upon

upon placed

modes of

difference between Arthur and the Yankee politically. Where Arthur looks to the four-generation rule, a tradition, as a source of consent and legitimacy, the Yankee looks to nature, in particular the natural right and ability of each man to rule to

competition points

a more general

himself. The Yankee

undertakes his second journey to show Arthur the true his subjects, to extend Arthur's sentiments and sympathies, further the democratic revolution, perhaps to foster a "revo

situation of

thus to

and

above."

lution from the

of natural regime.

Arthur indeed is touched

lesson

chief

trip

of the

equahty, slavery

A

king

conventional character of

a slave

momentarUy.

On the

Yet

grounds

the Arthurian

of

better way to show the merely nobihty. The Yankee summarizes

what

and

slavery

least

at

greatness.

the worst abuse

constitutes

becomes

who

Arthur's

concerns

the results of the test: I had found it style,

reduce

will

and

he

the king's

contract.

I

sufficiently difficult job to

a

when

even

Never

a

the details

it

reduce

anxious

the king's style to

by force

and

a

peasant's

then, to undertake to go to! it was a stately

now

pupil;

will save me trouble to

let

imagine them.

you

that at the end of a week there was plenty of evidence that lash

had done their

club

weep over; but his

and

willing

to a slave's style

style

mind

remark

only

was

work

spirit?

well; the king's

why, it

wasn't even

body

was

a

to

sight

and

see

to

phased.89

At the smallpox hut the Yankee and Arthur confront the harsh reality the hfe of the commoners that the Yankee criticized in his breakfast conversation with the freemen. Yet the same incident proves Arthur's true nobility. Hank, who has had smallpox and thus has nothing to fear, urges Arthur, who has not, to leave. Arthur refuses: "[I]t were shame that a king should know fear, and shame that belted knight should withhold his of

hand

Yankee's Here

heroism

was

no

challenger,

the

at

in

death

cloth-of gold

reward

to

gaze

Yankee, but

meaning

be

such as need succor.

admiration reaches

challenging

of

there

where

methods

is

different

concept

not

the set and

also

and

war

of

its last

of

loftiest possibility, its field

unarmed,

the contest,

applaud;

introduces

and

yet

a whole

the

a

product

purpose

of

the

no

Ibid.,

p.

355.

Ibid.,

p.

282. In contrast, the Yankee pp.

utmost

all

the

admiring

king's

summit; this odds

world

bearing

or

not

use

against

in

was

other understanding of

stupidity

89

ibid.,

The

silks

as

backwardness

as

the and

serenely

the nature

rationalized

was

and

military

of

a

very

of war.

79

relating to sex. Cf.

and

with

fighting. That feudalism did

much

so

upon

go."70

wiU not

a peak:

and

open

Peace, I

seems

to feel

shame

32, 69, 88, 100, 138, 183, 197-198.

only

about

things

Interpretation

82 brave

in

so

it had

as

equal

fight

been in those

always

and clothed

Just

as

they

prove

incidents

on

cheaper contests

He

in protecting

steel.

the

journey

second

reveal

the Yankee's

inadequacy depicting the Yankee's

the

of

knight

where

was great

meets

now, sublimely

knight great.71

Arthur's true nobility, The

political understanding.

visit with Marco parallel those de Morgan. Again there is a meal followed by conversation. Where the Yankee (or Sandy for him) first impressed and then subdued Morgan with his name (his reputation) and subsequently that of Arthur, here he uses only money. Unlike a name, money is neither personal nor intimately related to individual behavior. Since it is alien able and the right to its possession is often unclear, it easily becomes a

three chapters

scribing his

encounter with

of envy and resentment. It does not give its possessor inherent superiority or authority over otherwise equal men. When the Yankee fails to convince the small company of the superiority of his economy with reason, he resorts to force and fraud in the form of a threat. The threat source

backfires. The Yankee becomes

themselves of when the

force, he

Yankee

attacks the

threats to its existence

the

the

and

as a result, come into hunts them down as danger them as slaves in exchange for

existing order, they,

a state of nature vis-a-vis that ous

to have authority on the basis of his

claim

a possession of

a matter of

power of the

can

few, but when the confrontation king must eventually cede to the many. Traveling incognito, the Yankee and king deprive both name and position in society. They are strangers, and

knowledge,

superior

society, and

which

sells

lives.72 sparing their

Twain

here that the Yankee and the Arthurian commoners are, in both their character and their concerns. The Yankee has difficulty persuading them of his position not so much because "training" of their as the fact that men do not always and immediately listen to reason; and one reason that they do not is that they are not only accustomed to but also take pride in their own way of doing things. The Yankee misunderstands the lesson of his encounter with Morgan, because he overestimates the power of reason, and as a result he does in

fact,

shows

very

not recognize

much alike

the

not understand

role of either

the role

of

law

law

force in

or

and/or

political society.

tradition because

his

of

He does

theoretical

position, which, as expressed in the Connecticut Constitution, for exam ple, appeals to nature against convention. But the appeal to nature that

Twain indicates in the Marco 71

Ibid.,

Basic

p.

note

and

the irrational

courage and

and

could

have brought the

an

appeal

Reading

to the force

of Hegel (New York:

245. In understanding and the Yankee's admiration of it, it is important

Tocqueville,

aspects of

king

op.

Arthur's

IL,

cit.

He

act.

p.

endangers

his

own

life

that of the

thus the stability of the regime completely unnecessarily. The Yankee sick men

down

without

"courage"

Cf. Aristotle, Ethics III, where and its place as, in a sense, "threshold 72

constitutes

284. Cf. A. Kojeve, Introduction to the

Books, 1969),

evaluating both Arthur's to

scenes

of

is

the

endangering

presented as

anyone.

the lowest of the

virtues"

elucidated.

John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, IV.

virtues

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

83

the multitude standing behind the

consent. (In order to retain their Arthurian nobles have forbidden the commoners learn, to bear arms.) The Yankee's unwillingness to recognize the violence in human nature and the need, therefore, to restrain men with force at times is related, obviously, to his easy conclusion (particularly in the of

we

privUeges,

the

Morgan)

about the malleability of nature. But there are deeper for the Yankee's lack of any substantive understanding of what human nature might be. If one can speak of a substantively defined human nature, it becomes very difficult to believe in continual progress case of

grounds

or, for that matter, to

maintain

the absolute

degeneracy

of

the past

with

to the present. And if one question progress, one must question the legitimacy and viability of the Yankee's project, especially in light respect

his

of

understanding of the grounds and revolutionary im To be sure, the Yankee does receive support about the importance of heredity (heredity here under

faulty

own

plications of that project.

for his

conclusion

in

stood

Lamarckian

an almost

inherited

sense of

opinions and place

in

training during his second journey in the person of Arthur, who proves his nobility as a slave. There is, however, a decisive difference between recognizing the importance of education and concluding that society)

and

education is everything. After the knights rescue Arthur and the Yankee from the hangman's noose and the commoners go down on their knees before the ragged king they had hooted and jeered but a moment before, even the Yankee thinks to himself that "there is something peculiarly

the gait

grand about

ance

as

a

slave

bearing of a king, after finally forces the Yankee

Arthur's

all."73

and

thus

perform

to retract his

earher

and one man as good as

another,

endorsement of a commoner's statement:

He

said

barring

he believed that

and send

doctor,

He

clothes.

men were about all

said

stranger through

a

duke from

nor a

a

by

"Arthur's

people

he finds this poor

a

Connecticut

74

Ibid., Ibid.,

79

p.

157.

p.

237.

stand

kingdom do

couldn't

to

out

p.

strip the

nation

king from

tell the

a

naked quack

course

of

the

poor

the

superiority

inferiority

material

for

neither

of

a

of

Arthur is

the commoners. republic."75

by accident; they long by

But are

monarchy."76

382.

expands on

this theme

while

trying

to teach Arthur to bear

"Your soldierly stride, your lordly portthese will not do. too straight, your looks are too high, too confident. The cares of a a peasant.

not

the high level

hang

Yankee,

Ibid. The Yankee

himself like You

awareness

to be

were

necessary nor material, "because they have been debased so condition

73

75

of

you

clerk.74

awareness of

growing were

the crowd, he

hotel

The Yankee's growing paralleled

alike,

he believed that if

the

stoop the shoulders, they do

of

the eye-glance,

signs of

they do

them in slouching

not

droop

not put

body

they do not depress fear in the heart and

the chin,

doubt

and

and unsure step.

It is the

sordid cares

Interpretation

84

they are (and they are factually inferior), not by but because nature, they have been trained, by the circumstances of their lives if nothing else, to be so. Above aU else, the Yankee's reforms aim at instilling this missing manliness; in his factories the Yankee intends to turn "groping and grub bing automata into men."11 All the other education of a more technical sort is subordinated to this aim. There is the following difficulty, however. The Yankee himself and those he has trained in his Man-Factory have in The

commoners are as

fact been

raised

just

the Yankee wished. Neither he

as

The Yankee

they have

nor

Arthur

the

most

highly

because the Yankee-narrator lacks precisely that Like the commoners of Arthur's realm, the Yankee builds his life

virtue.

the

manliness of

for his

aristocracy.78

praises

courage

ground of comfort

The Yankee

and thus

seeking,

fundamentaUy

on

the

on

the fear of death.

Arthur because Arthur is free from that burden that

admires

of the fear of death. What more it may require, and how courage is related to other virtues, is not, or only imperfectly, presented in the novel, for the Yankee cannot help but be dazzled by the courage of the Arthurian nobles and thus sees little further. Arthurians' The Yankee is never able to understand the virtue, and most especially he is never able to understand the relation between their

rules

the Yankee's life. Manliness requires the overcoming

"manliness"

"heroism"

or

that

a regime

and

might

be

man

and

the rights of

raise the question of aristocratic virtue

As

equality,

why the

another

and

proper

and

approved

subject

points to the need to

is necessary to

produce

of

that do these things.

inhumanities that sap the

of

the basis of the rigid

than on

raising the question of the limits of nobility, the Yankee both sees the question

the trademarks of poverty, misery, common

foundation

on the

aristocracy

aristocratic regime

way

the nature of

with

lowly born

of the

rather

Arthurdom. The Yankee's faUure

class system of

politics.

their political regime. He wishes to institute

called a universal

You

must

oppression,

learn the trick:

insults,

you must

the other

and

manliness out of a man and make a

and

his

to

satisfaction

imitate

several

and

him a loyal

masters"

(ibid.,

pp.

274-275). 77

Ibid.,

p.

147. There is

a

delightful

this statement with respect to

damnation in

eternal 78

like

For a

he is

instance,

peasant, more

order

the

Hugo,

to spare his

Yankee,

like the

wife

Both in

commoners than

the fact that the Yankee makes

has just braved

not

only the

rack

but

and child.

Arthur, had

unlike

or a proper slave.

irony in

who

word

difficulty

no

and

carrying himself

deed the Yankee

the nobility. His difficulties

shows that

his armor,

with

for example, led him to distinguish himself from the knights in respect: "but as for me, give me comfort first, and style

important

an

afterward."

Even aboard,

more and

explicitly,

then,

at

dulled down to drowsiness drifted into of

course"

Marco's the Yankee

the talk not

p.

323).

upon

and went off

matters near and

(ibid.,

turning

to take

King

got

his

conquest, or iron-clad

a nap.

dear to the hearts

"The

states:

battle,

.

.

.

And the

of our sort

cargo

duel, he

rest of us soon

business

and

wages,

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain and

its

answer

and

ethical, that

certain

example, he easily feelings"

One

is,

he doesn't. The Yankee is certainly correlates

character,

relates the nobility's

but to hear

recognize

an

the very air

...

aristocrat

the

of

the

of

speak

that

classes

the slaveholder's spirit, the slaveholder's blunted feeling. the same cause in both cases: the possessor's

himself

as a

The Yankee does themselves as

Aristocrats

cruelty.

not see

superior

how that "old

beings"

require

or at

especiaUy, common

is

were shame

least

below him to

behind these the

are

custom

are

result

of

of regarding

initially,

them

their

most show

differentiate the drive

of

seeking and the fear of death. Training can, Twain shows, achieve a great

baseness

a

embodying

for belted knight to

must

regarding

virtue as well as

Arthur, in his

the negation of the strongest

custom of

nobles'

beneath

a class

inbred

and

produces the

to which they cannot stoop. Thus

revelation, said, "It

They

inbred

old and

are

and

79

being.

superior

For

"blunted

and

pohtical order.

tone of the actual slaveholder;

and

blind to

not

political regime.

insensitivity,

cruelty,

toward the commoners to the

need

85

self-

eloquent

fear.

What

.

.

exceptional

from the

the many, the overcoming

of comfort

extinguish

human

to produce the

That

nature.

for

contempt

deal; but training does

nobles'

courage

also

produces

not

human life necessary

mere

They

their cruelty.

treat

"swine"

because they do not perceive that the com moners are men like themselves. Aristocrats think they are superior by nature when they are, in fact, superior as a result of an essentiaUy con the commoners

as

Insofar

ventional class structure.

as

aristocrats'

the

manliness rests upon

this class structure, the Yankee's dream of creating a universal aristocracy is illusory. But insofar as this class distinction rests on convention rather

it is

than nature, class

through

tage

fundamentally

differentiation

comes

to

of the rigid class system

real virtue of

is,

Twain is

first

the natural

a contraction of

expectations; that that seeks to raise

unjust.

sight

source of compassion.

aU men.

But the

effect of upon

fearful

The Yankee

79

Ibid.,

p.

the

manner and

seeks

to

aristocracy:

mass of

they

caution

One

cruelty advan

"politics

of

hope"

the Yankee's recognition of the

his

political ambition

imposed

is precisely his am

restraint upon

by

his calculating

and

reason. replace what

234. Emphasis

account of the resemble

If low

the moderating,

somewhat

as

puts upon political

such an order wUl not generate a

the reverse. It frees him from the only remaining

bitions,

massively

lies in the limitations it

the Arthurian knights

Arthurian

no romantic.

and most

added.

"The

he

sees

to be arbitrary distinctions

The Yankee here

men who

their fellow citizens;

scarcely believe that

compose

they do

[an not

echoes

Tocqueville's final

aristocratic caste]

do

not

think or feel in the same

they belong to the same race. They cannot, nor judge of others by

therefore, thoroughly understand what others feel, (Alexis de Tocqueville, op. cit. II, pp. 172-173).

themselves"

Interpretation

86 the

men with

among

human

general principle of

compassion.

is

But in the

Morgan le Fay's, where evident, Twain indicates the difficulties with compassion as a principle of political society. To relieve suffering, the Yankee freed from the queen's dungeons at least one guilty man and many others whose guilt was quite possible. When Sandy reveals the Yankee's identity in order to save the old grand the theme of

scene at

mother of

the poor queen

...

the composer

that

was

scared

was so

without

she

was

most

the Yankee observes that: and

first consulting

have been, for

would

boy,

the slain page

compassion

humbled that

me.

/

she was

even

very sorry for her

was

so

really suffering;

I

to

afraid

indeed,

hang

anyone

willing to do anything

was

reasonable; and had no desire to carry things to wanton extremities. I there

fore

considered

into

our presence

saw

that

the

she was

matter

thoughtfully,

right,

and gave

her

by having

and ended

to play that Sweet Bye

and

Bye again,

permission

to

hang

the musicians ordered

which

the

they did. Then I

whole

band.89

Dedicated to the relief of suffering as suffering, compassion does not distinguish among the sources of that suffering. The Yankee's compassion depends as much upon his own identification with one group of men as against another as does the injustice he attributes to Arthur. For example, the Yankee leaves one prisoner locked in

Morgan's dungeons

a noble

At the beginning of his tale he attempts to explain away the ability of the Arthurian nobles to bear extreme pain stoically by calling them "White Indians."8! Finally, he can justify his slaughter of the entire Arthurian nobility only by denying them membership in the British nation. The Yankee's compassion is, moreover, very much related to his comfort seeking. He frees Hugo from the rack, not because Hugo is innocent man.

he is

but because the Yankee

not

stand

admits that

he,

the

Yankee,

to hear Hugo's groans and so even vicariously bear the

cannot pain

of

The Yankee's compassion, and by extension the compassion inspiring a great deal of modern politics, Twain indicates, is the product not of the strength but of the weakness of modern man.82 Ultimately the

torture.

Yankee's

attempt

ment to the

The

to replace justice

most

pain and so

most modern and scientific nobility.

humanity,

In

a

wages

his

the

war

can ever

Clarence

end of

waged

professedly the Yankee leads us to wonder

cruelty

pupil

at

be

the novel.

weapons, the Yankee kills the

that takes its bearings specifically whether

on a commit

his technology.

extreme

nothing imposed on the horrible war the Yankee feudal

depends

with compassion

of

overcoming instance of cruelty we see in the entire novel is the people by the Arthurian characters. Rather it is

possibility

against

exorcised

from

against

Using

the

of

the

whole

barbarism

and

in

whether even a political cause

cruelty

can avoid

political

being

cruel,

life. The Yankee

commit an even graver crime against

humanity

and

in the

80

Connecticut Yankee,

81

Ibid.,

82

Cf. Mark Twain, What is Man? in Complete Works of Mark Twain (New and Brothers, 1917), pp. 14-15.

p.

York: Harper

p.

140.

20.

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain in

spirit

killing

which

they

in terms

time

an efficient

manner.83

consequences

cowardice.

absolute

from

substantive

he

to men,

value

toward mass murder is a product,

equahty as the only pohtical principle, that distinctions. Where he once attributed

adoption of

stated, "I

now

stood with

attributes

my hand

on

none

finally

fifty flooding

and set

electric

precipice"

of one

first

button

a

as a prelude to

with water and then with

corpses.84

While he

whatsoever.

the cock, so to speak, ready to

turn it on and flood the midnight world with light at any

"touched

primarUy

particular arrangement while

in the fact that this killing can be done in such This technique enables the Yankee to avoid facing his deeds; it thus feeds his moral and physical attitude

his

an abstraction

initiaUy

of

contemplate mass

the subject

exult

"detached"

His of

moreover,

is,

they

They

they discuss

the technical efficiencies of their

of

at the same

the

final battle.

undertake the

with such matter-of-factness that

87

So

suns

he

moment,"

aflame on

the

top

his

the

now artificially lit world dream becomes nightmare.

IV. Mark Twain

Through the conclusion of the novel, Twain forces his readers to ques tion the very possibility of progress.85 Upon his return to the nineteenth century, the Yankee renounces his whole attempt, not merely the timing of

it. His forces

are

destroyed

not

by

their

feudal

enemies

but

by the rotting

their weapons had created; they were kiUed (as he, too, would have been) by their own wastes. The Yankee's enterprise does not carnage

faU

they

as a

83

mind

on the road

step

new order

their

and

is

The ending potential

to a better life. His project simply

Connecticut Yankee foreshadows

of

for destruction but

even more

found in the Nazi "final

as

not

only

nuclear weapons and

strikingly the technological frame

of

Cf. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in

solution."

Jerusalem (New York: Vintage, 1964), 84 Connecticut Yankee, p. 443. 85

faUs; his

not a viable political condition.

and

Jacques Ellul,

op.

cit.

Miss Gladys Carmen Bellamy, op. cit., the one critic who has tried to view as an integral part of the novel, finds that "the outcome of the book

the ending

'progress'

shows that so-called

that, it must

shows

keep

that if

pace with

technical

the popular interpretation

may conceivably be civilization

breeds

the book. She sees,

further

his

own

against

is to be made,

but, beyond

superstition;

another

(p. 314). She

advancement"

sort

of

advancement

continues:

"Instead

of

American progress, the book fictional working out of the idea that a too-quick a celebration

of

Miss Bellamy is properly impressed with the ending of do not, that in writing a conclusion in which enterprise fail, Twain meant that ending to bear some

as most other critics whole

and recognize

mindless

no real chance

solely

viewed as a

to the Yankee

questions

as

disaster."

the Yankee and his relation

has

progress

real

and

his

scheme

that the book

the very possibility of superstition or

technology.

for

progress

"too-quick

reform.

speaks not

But

only

she refuses

of the

"rate

itself. The Yankee is but only

civilization"

by

the

to go one step progress"

of not

destroyed

wastes

created

but

by by

Interpretation

88

The

the Yankee's project at the end

coUapse of

by

no means

leaves

Arthur's intact. Twain incorporated, by directly quoting, the tale of the concluding battles from Malory. Arthurian England collapses as a result of its own defects without the direct interference of the Yankee. Arthur's easily be

rule can

of their

be in

a certain sense

is

Arthur's

super-, if

a

her

from

earth altogether.

Lancelot,

and

Arthur himself is Ulegitimate

from

and child

bereft

as the Yankee states, hke that of a others, the father is in heaven, if not Both aristocratic households that the Yankee

sister's

abode, the

legitimacy Beginning with

incest.

the

father,

we

view

affair

between Guinevere

Morgan

wife

the

rules

his only

and

of questionable

product of

the contrary,

on

and

In Camelot there is the

in his

is, by

which

if,

spouse; and

is,

nation

own children

visits are out of order:

In

the nobles rule on the

Church,"

"Mother

the

of

not un-natural

to his

relation

mother to absent

in the form

except

definition,

girl

family;

The Arthurian regime would seem, therefore, to But if Arthur's rule is paternal, the mother

"natural."

absent

and

to that of a

compared

"blood."

basis

King

Uriens.

"heir"

is the

separation of the slave of

a series

and

mothers

babes

of paternal care as a result of a combination of superstition and

built

the regime

upon

the

famUy

famUy

structure, the

law.

is disordered.

leave their families to go in search of adventure, and the regime stands on a them, Galahad, is chaste. This supernatural or unnatural foundation. Behind its reflection in the knight Knights

must

"natural"

purest

of

monk.86

stands the

Generative nature does not provide a sufficient foundation for King Arthur rules not as the father of the family but as

rule.

resentative of

the divine Father. Arthur's is the

political

the

rep

government about which

the Yankee reflects: Unlimited

the

is the ideal thing

power

heaven is the absolutely

one

absolutely

perfect

namely, the despot the perpetual.

hands of

But

when

perfect

earthly perfectest

it is in

hands. The despotism

safe

An earthly despotism

government.

if

individual

the human race, and his lease of life

of

as a perishable perfect man must

the

die,

conditions

and

Arthur's hence

is

regime

modeled on

and so

Nature does

same,

not

merely

a

bad form

the divine. Arthur's rule is perhaps the

individual"

"perfectest

the

were

leave his despotism in the

an

rule of the

of

be

government,

imperfect successor, an earthly despotism is government, it is the worst form that is possible. 87 of

would

just; but Arthur is

stiU a

man,

have good it does not guarantee that have at sons aU. Because kings do sons; they not necessarily have acceptable heirs, the succession comes into question, and war is the almost inevitable result. Things may occur according to divine dispensation, but the human

88

Cf. Matthew 10

to the seek 87

perishable.

general

:

34-40; Mark 3:31; Luke

tendency

to transcend human

Connecticut

not guarantee

of

aristocracies

political

Yankee,

p.

78.

or

14

:

that good men

26-27;

aristocrats

also cf. supra with regard

both

limitations in imitation

ancient and modern

of the

divine.

to

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We

89

The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain beings involved

therefore,

know the intention of their Father and cannot, Given a belief in providence, success becomes political right. That is, in human terms the foundation

cannot

act accordingly.

the only criterion

of

Arthurdom becomes tension between divine of

force;

mere

the injustice in the

and

(or the

origins

imperfect human nature) produces the regime. This corruption emerges

perfection and

a necessary corruption at the heart of first through a necessary confusion between the prerequisite of virtue and virtue itself. The Arthurians claim an excellence by nature that is, in fact, an excellence resulting from a certain kind of training; but that very

training depends paradoxically better

are

by

nature.

tends to

nature

rule.

belief that

erroneous

aristocrats are

aristocrats

simply better

by

their striving to live up to any of the extrinsic hence to undermine the justice of their claim to

destroy

standards of virtue

the

upon

Yet the belief that

and

When the superiority

of the nobles

is

no

longer evident, the Arthurian a guarantee for the

regime must

finally

conflation of

the natural aristocracy and the conventional aristocracy, of a rule of providence that in fact comes the perfected

the given closer

posit the rule of providence as

and

to the crude doctrine

of providence ridiculed

in Twain's Preface

than to the more sophisticated doctrines of theology. The Arthurian regime

ignores the defective character of nature depreciates the role of politics. When the Yankee compares the justice

distributing

mother

over, to

is

condition and

kind

a second

of

try

and as a result aU will

a

few

if

one

men can

If

to that of a

rule

The

regime.88

the

more

natural

distributes the

scarcity,

nation's wealth evenly be depressed economically, from others by force or fraud,

all will

to seize goods

sternly imposes

live

one

Arthur's

"natural"

defect in

conditions of

of

in time of famine, he points,

children

one of scarcity.

equally in

whereas

to

milk

thus, like the Yankee,

and

order and regulates economic

well and through

production,

their magnificence relieve the harsh

human condition. The cruelty and injustice of conditions of scarcity; a mother would, the from inequality arise partially Yankee suggests, distribute milk equally in times of plenty. The Yankee's

bleakness

the

of

general

democracy depends, As scarcity regime,

so

his training, his

judgeship starving rest"

the 89

We

as

would

children

(ibid.,

it,

be the

p.

to

backways"

alleviating

harshest

some of the

Arthurian

aspects of the

the necessary condition for the worst abuses

wrought

and

scarcity.89

of

conditions

frequent

unalterable

average

mother

injustices, but it sympathies.

for the

He

position

own children would

was

was

merely the fault as

unfitted

for

of milk-distributor

fare

a shade

a

to

better than

234).

official

toowas

upon

in famine-time; her in this

respect

start a patent

(ibid.,

the Yankee's first action after gaining power:

thing I did, in my

office and good patent or

for

natural

should note

"the very first of

accounts

technology provides

"The king's judgments

88

of

therefore,

p.

law is just 68).

administration

office, for I know that

and

a

it

was on

country

a crab, and couldn't travel

the first

day

without a patent

any way but

sideways

Interpretation

90

rule his tyrannical use of both his physical and pohtical The Yankee does not explicitly model his rule on that of God, but he does believe that he can overcome nature with his science and that There is, in fact, a tension at this science makes him a "superior the core of the Yankee's political project between the natural rights and technological equality of men he hopes to institute and his power to transform nature (and the ambition to which that power gives rise) similar to that between the divine and natural foundations of Arthur

Yankee's

of the

power.

being."

"supranatural"

dom. If

of men would no

for

standard

or

declares

finaUy

be completely transformed by technology, the natural longer seem to provide a source of a moral restraint upon the Yankee's action. (When the Yankee

nature can

equahty

the repubhc,

it is, in

the context,

merely

declaration

a

of

war.)

primary for the Yankee. He I

was a was

and arts of

for the Yankee's

ground

I

"magic"

(both his

Technology

champion, it

was

true, but

not

destroy knight-errantry

they

what

determined

by

or

be its

the regime the

have

inevitable;

come anyway.

by; by luck, it happened

Because the Yankee and

their

a good conscience. consists

I

was

entering

he has learned,

men

to

It

come

still

Guenevere, it have

would on

Conflict between Clarence tells the Yankee:

are equal.

and thus

wouldn't

have

come

so

come on your own account

early,

by

and

Queen's.91

the

believes in the fundamental equahty

of

men

reasonableness, he cannot use force against them with He knows, as the Arthurians do not, that his "superior

potential

ity"

thinks

Yankee beheves they

there hadn't been any Queen

would

sense and reason. victim.90

from birth; and these opinions are politically in power. The Arthurians as firmly believe that

the two regimes becomes

Well, if

a means

end:

are taught

men are unequal as

but it

very

the champion of the frivolous black arts.

Force is necessary because, the Yankee believe

become the

seems to

remains champion of reason to the

the champion of hard unsentimental common

the lists to either

war)

But technology is only

action.

in technical knowledge in

principle available to all men.

Thus,

the novel, when his public project seems nearest com pletion, he seems to draw back. For example, he never admits any inten toward the

tion

end of

unseating Arthur, even to himself, although that is required in his own ambition to become president of the repubhc. Although prepared for war, he wages it only when forced to defend his of

order

to fulfiU

"civilization"

about the when

all

from

the

interdict

of

the

Church. Despite his

statements

opinions,"

malleability of nature and "inherited but fifty-two boys desert him at the

he is

end.

Clarence

surprised

asks

boss: "Did

you think you

had

"I certainly did think

90

91

Ibid., Ibid.,

p.

386.

p.

398.

educated

it."

the

superstition

out

of

these

people?"

his

Followed"

"A nd in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

"Well, then, stition

you

thought

so

unthink

may

and reared

in it.

too; the Interdict

it

.

.

.

[they]

were

We imagined

...

them up.

woke

.

born in

had

we

91

an atmosphere

educated

it

out

of

of super

them; they

.

To the very end, the Yankee overestimates! the human nature as well as his own abilities of persuasion.

"reasonableness"

of

Just as his public project seems nearest success, moreover, the Yankee discovers for the first time a private life that might satisfy him. He becomes a devoted husband and father and, as a result, virtually retires

temporarily from

public life into the confines of domesticity. Yet this be held responsible for the failure at least the particular form of faUure of the Yankee's pubUc project.93 The Yankee's new-found domesticity represents in part a response to his lessons about Arthurian retreat could

the discovery of a dimension of life he had heretofore Fundamentally, it reveals his bad conscience. Technology

as weU as

nobUity

totaUy

missed.

is only

a

and when

means,

the means destroys the very

it has to be abandoned. Unlike both the Yankee and the

end

it is to

serve

humanity hmits

human

of

nature.

Arthurians, Twain

Both the Yankee

and the

recognizes

the

Arthurians favor their

things, naturally, since they have no other, but neither set opinions, Twain reveals, is simply true or rational. Both parties compete for status, whether defined in terms of money or honor the terms are own view of of

by

set

with

The

the opinions.

the

and yet

conjunction of

faulty understanding limited in its possibUities. Most

this

drive for precedence life necessary

natural

of most men makes political

be private. Twain Yankee and in his

affirms

satisfaction

the goodness of

critique of the

for

most men must

life both through his

family

Arthurian regime,

which

destroys the

family by attempting to make it the foundation for political rule. Only in the famUy does the Yankee satisfy the desire for love and respect that initially propelled him into politics. Yet, as Twain shows in his critical presentation of the Arthurian regime, the family is not in itself sufficient. Because men are not perfect, they cannot simply love each other. The necessary underlay of force cannot be overcome by any regime, though both regimes presented here strive to do so. The danger is more serious with the modern regime, however, both because its political aspirations are more likely to lead it to desperate ventures and because its technological powers make those ventures destructive without prece

dent. Twain is thus less than

within

Ibid.,

93

The illness

pp.

of

climactic events

favor

with

an

adjudication

of

the regimes

420-422.

92

the

concerned

using his understanding of political life to improve the regime which he lives by reminding his readers of the limits human nature

with

of

domestic

Hello-Central

and

in the Yankee's

ones.

the

trip

to France for the child's health are

withdrawal of attention

His inattention

and absence pave

from

political affairs

the way

for his

in

undoing.

Interpretation

92 ought

tion

to set on their political

of

humor

and

contrasting the

The

horror

claim to

be

what

in the

they

are pretentious and

nobles what

they

Indeed,

from Twain's

the facts of human nature.

the Arthurian regime, because the nobles

case of

deserving

the oft-decried conjunc

the novel comes

with

regimes

superior

are not

The horrible

them.

upon

both

of

claims

comical arises

aspirations.

so characteristic of

the

of

arises

nature.

In this respect, they and Twain heap

the Yankee

because that injustice that the

are also makes

by

ridicule

they

peasants what

are.

makes

the

Conversely,

comedy insofar as he, too, is pretentious. His is precisely his leveling or denial of excellence, and thus, much of what appears to be burlesque reflecting on the knights in fact reflects upon the Yankee and reflects comicaUy precisely because the the Yankee is

a source of

pretentiousness

Yankee believes that he is

Similarly,

deflating

the horrible side of the

tale, has its

source

in his denial

other pomposities and

Yankee, in of

nature,

is thus

superior.

the ending of his leads him to believe

particular

which

that anything is possible.

Yet, Twain indicates,

by his Merlin, the

deadly

own

only

a great

deal is

possible.

power, but he is

The Yankee is

conquered.

He is

conquered

saved

only

by

him to sleep and sends him back to the nineteenth century. Merlin, through his art, does the same thing he overcomes that Twain does through his art in structuring this novel magician of

words,

who puts

the limits of both space and time. In words and only in words is there, perhaps, hope. If the words of Malory and other romancers can make Twain and his Yankee dream, the words of Twain can perhaps awaken

Yankees

real

by

showing them

where

their civilization leads and thus

giving them cause to reflect critically upon their enterprise, and by remind ing them of the nature and conditions of human excellence. Technology

has

provided modern men with more power and more

than

ever

contemplated

particularly

force

that

of others).

they

earlier;

can

now

freedom to

exercise

for precedence, virtually without problem: Those things

This is the

use

it

their passions,

restraint

(except the

faith, honor (word

that formerly restrained reputation), and scarce natural conditions longer operate effectively; and the modern substitute, law, does serve, because to a man such as the Yankee, the law is always ques

and/or

men no not

tionable. Compassion is too arbitrary

and

indistinct

a criterion

for

pohtics.

The only hope for self-control seems then to he in self-criticism, which Twain may have furthered by presenting this gross image of the American Yankee.

Twain's problem. How can a novelist his self-satisfaction? In his Preface, that he abstracts from the question of the divine Twain states explicitly governance of the world. There is, however, another force abstracted from the tale as presented by the Yankee: This is the force of poetry or fiction. At the very beginning the Yankee announces that he is a man "without There is little in the Yankee to which a poet sentiment, i.e., may appeal with much hope of success if we, like the Yankee, identify poetry with romantic poetry. But where romantic poetry has no appeal But here

we confront

the heart

reach such a man and shake

poetry."

him

of

out of

Followed"

"And in Its Wake We The Political Wisdom of Mark Twain

Yankee, humor does. His Dinadan forces him to meet the to the

extreme reaction to the old

93

joke

of

Sir

Sir Sagramor; and his first act of tyrannical power following his victory in the tournament is to hang Sir Dinadan for publishing the same joke. Humor appeals to the Yankee through its novelty; like his own ever new

devices to

maintain

its

challenge of

"practicality"

and

effect.

It

technology, it requires to his democratic

appeals also

not only because of its novelty, but because humor debunks. If humor is to debunk pretensions, is not one of the greatest pretensions

instincts,

of modern man

Twain

also

the very view that he can or does live without pretensions? the Yankee, and thereby perhaps moderates him.

ridicules

importance of humor as a debunker and soberer We suggest, however, that this is not a sufficiently deep understanding of Twain's humor. Humor, especially Twain's humor, depends on contrast, in particular contrast between the Twain's

sentiments on the

are well-known and often cited.

high

is

and the

meant

their

low. Rather than

being

to restore the restraints

nature

popularity,

both its heights

succeeded at

on

and

a

debunking humor, Twain's humor passion by reminding men of

human

its depths. Whether Twain, despite his

this is a question indeed.

AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES VOLUME 39/NUMBER 2 SUMMER 1972 A Publication of the Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research GERMANY: 1919-1932 THE WEIMAR CULTURE George K. Romoser

Introduction

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Walter Laqueur

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The Social Dimensions Remarks

of

Apocalypse in German Literature

on the

of

Validity

Geoffrey

Crisis

of

Barraclough

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