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8 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW XII What better time to focus on these matters than Lent? In fact, if you begin a midweek series on Ash Wednesday and go through to Wednesday of Holy Week, you will find exactly seven evenings in which to develop this line of spiritual inquiry. If only six evenings are available, merely omit the particular sin to which you yourself are prone. If you find you want to omit all seven, it is time to visit your father confessor. Each homily can be developed in a number of ways. For example, you might simply go through the plot of the play in some detail as an exemplum of the sin. Another tack might be to focus on the topic, bringing in Shakespeare as supporting material. Here follows a series of notes on seven plays, mostly tragedies, along with applicable verses from Proverbs. But lo, I hold before you a blessing and a curse: blessing to him who doth his homework, a curse upon him who readeth not the plays. 1. Pride “Pride goes before destruction.” (Prov. 16:18) Coriolanus This tragedy is about a noble Roman general whose pride leads to his downfall. In the opening scene, a group of citizens discusses Coriolanus’ deeds, done “to be partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue” (I.i.39). Coriolanus enters and says haughtily, “Hang ’em!” (I.i.190). Aghast, the citizens ask, “Was ever man so proud as this?” (I.i.252). But Rome needs the able Coriolanus, as events soon prove. The Volsces, led by Tullus, attack Rome, but Coriolanus single-handedly turns the tide of battle. He is accorded a Hero’s welcome but refuses to display his wounds, requisite to being acclaimed consul. “He’s vengeance proud,” the people complain, “and loves not the common people” (II.i.5). Meanwhile the Volscian army is regrouping while the unbending Coriolanus, taunted by his political enemies, is banished from Rome. In disdain he exclaims, “I banish you!” (III.iii.123). Then he leaves. In all this there is still something sympathetic in this nobleman. One character says, “His nature is too noble for this world” (III.i.254). As internal strife erupts in Rome, Coriolanus goes over to the Volsces and befriends Tullus, his former enemy. Even there suspicions arise, and an officer describes Coriolanus as “insolent, / O’ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking” (IV.vi.29-30). The Romans now have real reason to fear a Volscian army led by Coriolanus, even as Tullus begins to suspect and fear his new general. Before the battle, Rome in desperation sends Coriolanus’ mother, wife, and child to plead with him for mercy. “I melt,” he concedes, “and am not / Of stronger earth than others” (V.iii.28-29). He retreats, and an enraged Tullus vows revenge and meets with conspirators and kills
BAUE: REDEMPTIVE THEMES IN SHAKESPEARE 9 Coriolanus. His pride drove him to his enemies, where ironically he was killed because of his mercy. With the sin established, it is easy to move to the Gospel by turning the sin over and examining the contrasting virtue as represented in Jesus Christ. If Coriolanus was proud, Jesus is humble. “He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). 2. Envy “Envy rots the bones.” (Prov. 14:30) Richard III This is one of two history plays termed a “tragedy” in the title. It is about the culmination of the Wars of the Roses, that struggle over legitimate succession to the throne which kept England in turmoil for almost a hundred years. According to Herschel Baker, Richard is “a man so driven by his lust for power that despite his wit and charm and intellect … he becomes the agent of his own destruction.” 4 As in the classic Alec Guiness comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Richard is at the end of the line for the crown, and goes about systematically bumping off everyone who stands in his way. Nothing funny about this play, though. Richard is a hunchback, deformed in both body and soul, “determined to prove a villain” in order to become King of England (I.i.30). In the previous play of this historical series, Richard kills King Henry VI. Now Richard, with a dazzling display of verbal ingenuity, successfully woos and weds Lady Anne, whose husband he had also killed, and who heretofore had hated Richard in her grief. In a soliloquy, he plans to “clothe my naked villainy / With odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ / And seem a saint, when most I play the devil” (I.iii.335-37). Richard has his elder brother killed. Edward IV, the current king, dies. Richard gains the protectorate of the heir apparent and has him thrown into the Tower and assassinated. Finally, Richard is crowned, and gives orders to have his wife killed. An armed uprising against Richard ensues, led by the future King Henry VII. The night before the Battle of Bosworth field, the ghosts of those slain by Richard visit him in his sleep and say, “Despair and die!” (V.iii.127). Then they cross the stage and whisper to Henry, “Live and flourish!” (V.iii.130). Richard makes a feeble attempt at penitence, saying, “I rather hate myself / For deeds committed by myself” (V.iii.189-90). But there is no true change of heart. Envious and ambitious to the core, even before his death he is only sorry he has to pay the consequences of his evil, 4 G. Blakemore Evans, ed., The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974) 709. All Shakespeare quotations are taken from this edition, also cited as RS for critic’s remarks.
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