{"id":3181,"date":"2016-10-09T09:28:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T13:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/?p=3181"},"modified":"2016-10-09T09:32:37","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T13:32:37","slug":"shakespeare-explains-the-2016-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/2016\/10\/09\/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2016\/10\/09greenblatt-blog427.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3182\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2016\/10\/09greenblatt-blog427-291x300.jpg\" alt=\"09greenblatt-blog427\" width=\"291\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2016\/10\/09greenblatt-blog427-291x300.jpg 291w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2016\/10\/09greenblatt-blog427.jpg 427w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 291px) 100vw, 291px\" \/><\/a>For many years, I pondered the need for the humanities. And Keats provided the answer when he wrote about negative capability: &#8220;Several things dovetailed in my mind, &amp; at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature &amp; which Shakespeare possessed so enormously \u2014 I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact &amp; reason.&#8221; And, after reading Stephen Greenblatt on how Shakespeare explains the 2016 elections, I feel more sure than ever that we need what Shakespeare possessed so enormously.<br \/>\n<iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/svc\/oembed\/html\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F10%2F09%2Fopinion%2Fsunday%2Fshakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html#?secret=BXwBLdu5cH\" data-secret=\"BXwBLdu5cH\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\"><em>For his theatrical test case, Shakespeare chose an example closer to home: the brief, unhappy reign in 15th-century England of King Richard III. Richard, as Shakespeare conceived him, was inwardly tormented by insecurity and rage, the consequences of a miserable, unloved childhood and a twisted spine that made people recoil at the sight of him. Haunted by self-loathing and a sense of his own ugliness \u2014 he is repeatedly likened to a boar or rooting hog \u2014 he found refuge in a feeling of entitlement, blustering overconfidence, misogyny and a merciless penchant for bullying.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\"><em>From this psychopathology, the play suggests, emerged the character\u2019s weird, obsessive determination to reach a goal that looked impossibly far off, a position for which he had no reasonable expectation, no proper qualification and absolutely no aptitude.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many years, I pondered the need for the humanities. And Keats provided the answer when he wrote about negative capability: &#8220;Several things dovetailed in my mind, &amp; at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature &amp; which Shakespeare possessed so enormously \u2014 I mean Negative [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3181"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3187,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3181\/revisions\/3187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}