Harold Bloom on Shakespeare, Bob, and maybe even RMD
N.A. Trants
Shakespeare. But it's also interesting to consider another approach
to what's "Shakespearean" (or "Shakespeare-like" -- there's a
difference) about Bob, his work, and maybe even RMD. We can take our
clues from Harold Bloom's "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human,"
published in 1998. (BTW, this is the same Bloom who contends, as a
recent poster has noted, that God "is literary.")
Part 1. Exposition -- From Bard to Bob
On the first of his 745+ pages, Bloom confesses to "Bardolatry" ("the
worship of Shakespeare"), adding without apology that Bardolatry
"ought to be even more a secular religion than it is." And he's not
kidding. Shakespeare's plays, according to Bloom, "remain the outward
limit of human achievement: aesthetically, cognitively, in certain
ways morally, even spiritually." This from somebody who used to teach
at Yale!
Bloom immediately identifies what it is that led him and many earlier
critics -- including many who were not educated among the
English-speaking peoples -- to conclude that Shakespeare is uniquely
eminent within world literature. Are you ready? Here it is: "No
other writer, before or since Shakespeare, has accomplished so well
the virtual miracle of creating utterly different yet self-consistent
voices for his more than one hundred major characters and many
hundreds of highly distinctive minor personages."
I also heard him on the radio (I won't say the call letters on the
air) claiming that the Bard's nearest rival (Chaucer, IIRC) created at
most 15-20 "real" characters, none of whom ranks up there with
Shakespeare's top 100. As Bloom says, "No one, before or since
Shakespeare, made so many separate selves."
Borges suggested, presumably in jest, that Shakespeare was able to
create so many characters, many of whom seem more "real" than the
people we actually know, because Shakespeare had no self -- from
moment ot moment he *was* his characters. This is a bit like the
claim that Bob isn't hiding anything, because Bob *is* his songs.
It's also reminiscent of Bob's "take" on acting: "The director would
say 'Just be yourself.' Then I'd have to think, 'Which one?'"
But let's put Bob's protean personality aside for a moment. Yeah,
over there will be fine. Can we say that Bob, through his hundreds of
*songs*, has produced something like those hundreds of Shakespearean
*selves* -- the musical and lyrical analogues of those "utterly
different yet self-consistent voices" that inspire Bloom to awe and
worship? Even if we admit that Bob is not Shakespeare (or even
Shakespeare in the alley), can we nevertheless claim that Bob's
creative faculty is "Shakespeare-like"? Remember, just being
prolific, distinctive, or even just plain great is *not* enough. We
have to find in Bob's music something that corresponds to the
heightened reality and individuality that Bloom (and just about
everybody else) finds in Shakespeare's characters. If we look, will
we find it?
O.K., let's go back to Bob's protean personality. Christopher
Rollason (a sometime RMD'er) talks about "onion-like layers of
multiple selves." This may be accurate, but it doesn't distinguish
Bob from any number of whack jobs running around out there. We need
something that captures the critical element of self-invention that we
associate with Bob.
Where's the tie-in to Shakespeare? Well, consider Bloom's
observation, which he borrows from Hegel, that Shakespeare's
characters are "free artists of themselves." Is Bob "Shakespearean"
in the sense of being like one of Shakespeare's *characters*? If we
think he is, is it because we believe he's a "free artist of himself"?
My two cents is that Bob's an artist of himself all right, but not a
very free one ("while my conscience explodes," etc.)
Part 2. Bringing it all back to RMD -- and on beyond Bloom
Harold Bloom again: "Of all critics, Dr. [not "Doc" - N.A.T.] Johnson
best conveys the singularity of Shakespear. Dr. Johnson first saw and
said where Shakespeare's eminence was located: in a diversity of
persons. No one, before or since Shakespeare, make so many separate
selves."
Now I admit that RMD spends a *lot* of time on concert tickets,
concert boots, Bob's boots, and other matters of lasting significance.
There's an awful lot of hawking and hacking and God knows what else.
And certainly no shortage of Bobolatry(c).
But I ask you: Can anyone read RMD and not be struck by its
extraordinary "diversity of persons"? Whether it's jovial Mary J or
acerbic Martin Blank (to name just two of RMD's "characters"), can
anyone point to another newsgroup that is blessed with "so many
separate selves"? I mean, when you actually think about it, it's kind
of amazing. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, try reading
the Paul Simon group.) How can we explain RMD's "eminence" in this
regard?
Bloom would probably say there's somebody out there making all this
stuff up. You know, the "creation" of "literature" by an "author"
using his "imagination." But can you even conceive of somebody with
enough imagination, energy, and dedication (year in, year out -- even
on vacation!) to invent RMD with its almost uncanny richness? How
about to invent, say, 20% of RMD? Especially if that includes most of
the funny parts? Yeah, right, tell me another one.
So I think we will all agree that "authoro-centric" explanations
(Kenneth, what is the frequency?) a la Bloom are preposterous. Where
does that leave us. I think we should focus on RMD -- or rather the
*communal process* that is RMD. Bloom can help us here. He tells us
that Shakespeare's characters are able to develop and hence emerge as
themselves "because they *overhear* themselves talking, whether to
themselves or to others." This "self-overhearing," sayeth Bloom, "is
the royal road to individuation" -- and thus the key to the "virtual
miracle of creating [hundreds of] utterly different yet
self-consistent voices."
Why not apply this analysis to RMD? I would argue that we have been
able to develop and grow into "so many separate selves" because we
listen, really listen to each other. Even when we disagree. For
aren't we, as a newsgroup, engaged in communal "self-overhearing" with
an intensity, and on a scale, that has no precedent on or off the
Internet?
When you think of it this way, the existence of so many different but
self-consistent voices on RMD stops being a miracle -- virtual or
otherwise -- that requires us to posit some creativeminded "author."
Instead, it's downright inevitable -- as long as we keep listening to
each other as hard as we can.
Of course, I could be totally off base.
Regards to the whole gang,
N.A. Trants
"Twice cursed are they that cleave the Budhha statue, but thrice
blessed are they that cleave to the Budhha statutes." -- Lexus Sutra.
Dino
> critics -- including many who were not educated among the
> English-speaking peoples -- to conclude that Shakespeare is uniquely
> eminent within world literature. Are you ready? Here it is: "No
> other writer, before or since Shakespeare, has accomplished so well
> the virtual miracle of creating utterly different yet self-consistent
> voices for his more than one hundred major characters and many
> hundreds of highly distinctive minor personages."
Bullshit. Bloom hasn't an ear for speech, or for poetry, if he's going
to stand up and preach that sort of baldfaced nonsense. It's precisely
because all of Shakespeare's characters speak with the same contorted
voice that we should step back and look at some of the other poets who
wrote for the stage during that era. Thomas Middleton and George
Chapman blow the Bard out of the water when it comes to the words their
characters speak. And Middleton doesn't pussy-foot around and force the
critics to praise his "ambiguity" when sensitive social topics come up.
Middleton had the balls, and the skill, to tackle awesome questions
head-on while Shakespeare was peeking through the curtains and hoping
the problems would go away.
And don't get me started on the mindless twaddle that is Shakespeare's
narrative poems. The sonnets, at least, are very good--though I much
prefer Wyatt's more forthright, muscular, style and Sidney's radically
imaginative vision.
The real question here is whether or not BD is making fun of Shakespeare
when the Bard and his infinitely interchangeable characters show up in
the songs.
Dino
Howard Mirowitz
N.A. Trants <blind_com...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2a5ae059.01110...@posting.google.com...
The thing that Dylan and Shakespeare have most in common is their incredible
facility at creating idioms and popular phrases. Dylan has done for XXth
Century English idiom what Shakespeare did for the XLIth Century. They,
and the translators and redactors of the King James Bible, have had a
greater impact on colloquial English than probably the sum total of all
other writers in the language.
<snip>
> Part 2. Bringing it all back to RMD -- and on beyond Bloom
<balance of excellent discussion snipped>
Your comments in Part 2 are among the most thought-provoking I've ever seen
on rmd. Perhaps the age of rmd also is a factor; I think it might have
been one of the first groups on usenet, and as such its "traditions"
probably were greatly influenced by the open and volunteering spirit of the
early Internet pioneers.
H.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> N.A. Trants <blind_com...@hotmail.com> wrote in message:
> > Part 2. Bringing it all back to RMD -- and on beyond Bloom
>
> <balance of excellent discussion snipped>
>
> Your comments in Part 2 are among the most thought-provoking I've ever seen
> on rmd. Perhaps the age of rmd also is a factor; I think it might have
> been one of the first groups on usenet, and as such its "traditions"
> probably were greatly influenced by the open and volunteering spirit of the
> early Internet pioneers.
I think it's just that if enough people throw in their two cents, you end up
with a Million Dollar Bash.
Alex
I'm a fan of Bloom, by the way, and refer to his material frequently when teaching Shakespeare. However, on an entirely separate note, I am reading Lord of the Rings at the moment (for a class I am teaching, believe it or not) for the first time in many years. I am astonished at the number of distinctive characters he creates (in fact, he creates entire races, religions, languages; a new realm of mythology). This, on a purely creative, literary level, easily compares to Shakes. In fact, Shakespeare did not create many of the characters who inhabit his plays. Rather, they are often borrowed from other legends or historical moments. What Shakespeare creates is the tremendous depth of character which is of course why so many actors love to play in his creations.
Chris Rollason
above all for the hypothesis that as Shakespeare (cf. Bloom) created
innumerable extraordinary characters
on the stage, so Bob Dylan has done so too, only the characters BD has
created are - his own fans!
(do I detect the ghost of Jorge Luis Borges floating around somewhere?).
I think, though, you could expand your analysis to consider the characters
BD has created *in
the songs* too. Your own alias, the Blind Commissioner from 'Desolation
Row', reapperas as the blind man in 'Dignity'.
Shakespeare's own figures - Romeo (twice, in 'Desolation Row' and now in
'Floater'), Juliet, Othello,
Ophelia, are themselves rehandled by Dylan - etc, etc.
Incidentally I am not a 'sometime rmd'er' - I do still post (if less often
than I used to) on the group,
and you'll find me there even today, on Dylan and Rushdie.
Best,
Chris Rollason
blind_com...@hotmail.com (N.A. Trants) wrote in message news:<2a5ae059.01110...@posting.google.com>...
> We're all familiar with the link between Bob's *lyrics* and
> Shakespeare. But it's also interesting to consider another approach
> to what's "Shakespearean" (or "Shakespeare-like" -- there's a
> difference) about Bob, his work, and maybe even RMD. We can take our
> clues from Harold Bloom's "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human,"
> published in 1998. (BTW, this is the same Bloom who contends, as a
> recent poster has noted, that God "is literary.")
>
( ***)>
Tricia J
wrote:
>I think, though, you could expand your analysis to consider the characters
>BD has created *in
>the songs* too. Your own alias, the Blind Commissioner from 'Desolation
>Row', reapperas as the blind man in 'Dignity'.
>Shakespeare's own figures - Romeo (twice, in 'Desolation Row' and now in
>'Floater'), Juliet, Othello,
>Ophelia, are themselves rehandled by Dylan - etc, etc.
and of course, Shakes himself, loitering in the alley with his pointed
shoes and his bells... the eternal jester
Thachanumy Wen
Thanks for your frank statement of your views. But how do you account
for the enduring popularity of Shakespeare's plays after nearly 600
years? Why new movie versions of Hamlet, etc., if we (critics,
Hollywood insiders, the public) aren't fascinated by the characters?
And if we're facinated by the characters, doesn't that prove that they
*don't* all sound the same? If you won't concede this, what *is* your
explanation of Shakespeare's (and his character's) continuing
popularity, while your superior authors (Middleton, Chapman) are
mostly forgotten? Something must have been going on at a fairly deep
level for several hundred years. What do you think it is?
Incidentally, are you implying that everybody on RMD sounds the same?
N.A. Trants
Dino <dinom...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<3BEC8D...@hotmail.com>...