One of the greatest plays ever written, Hamlet, begins with this provoking question. It is asked by Barnardo and his friend Francisco answers, “Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.”
Who’s there? When a man named Bernard talks to a man named Francis in Shakespeare’s most Catholic play about identity, life, and death, then one cannot help but think of the great Saints Bernard and Francis. Bernardo and Francisco are not the great monastics, but they remind us of them . . . they are like those holy men in name . . . and they may be just the thing to capture the conscience of the audience by reminding them of old English ideas they have almost forgotten about the Church, the state, and man in both.
Who’s there? Something that reminds us of older men, but something different as well.
This play reminds us of old ideas, puts them in a new context, and then forces the viewer to new synthesis of both if he wishes to avoid the disaster in which the play ends.
In the uncut version of Hamlet we have today, the next four hours (!) is spent trying to answer the question: Who’s there? It is not only the famously Hamlet-y Hamlet who struggles with knowing who he is. Ophelia cannot decide and so cannot be revived. The evil regicide and usurper Claudius is called uncle, father, king, husband, brother, and even mother.
Who’s there? When the young man playing Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother speaks (all the parts in Shakespeare’s days were played by men), his character is both man, woman, mother, queen, auntie, and lover.
Polonius, who would fit in nicely in the bromide driven Hilary (!) campaign, thinks he knows who he is, but is mistaken and dies for the error.
n fact, everyone dies, as everyone must, and the play points out their bodies become food for worms . . . and it would be nice it that were surely all. One could used to the democracy of this kind of death.
The university educated Hamlet would like to believe that the rest of man (the soul) vanishes or sleeps, but ghosts and true philosophy suggest to him that that the undiscovered country of death will not be so convenient and safe. There may be heaven and hell after all and hierarchy may exist, though a different one on the other side . . . where a King like his father is in torment and lowly men (like a Saint Francis!) may rule.
Shakespeare has no time for the comforting cowardice of atheism, the universe is too complicated for that!
Since it is a play, it is a question that could be directed at the audience as well. Who’s there? Just the length of the play, and the fact that minds will wonder, will live us asking about self. Are we reminded of ourselves when we see Hamlet? Claudius? Laertes? The unnamed priest? Who’s there?
It is commonplace to note that the play ends with three action words (go! bid! shoot!) from a man of action Fortinbras, who will be the new king when those who can never answer the question have destroyed themselves.
Shakespeare lived in a time (like all times!) when progress was allegedly destroying old truths. (How many of those old truths endure to this day . . . how few of the new and up to date ideas endured!) Progress was no less appealing then, than now, but much good was being lost. Shakespeare more than any other writer helped England (in his day) answer the question of it meant to be English . . . soon to be part of a United Kingdom. He helped carry forward the best of the past, like every progressive conservative should do, while embracing the best of the new.
Then as now, the best of the new was scientific and technological and the worst was the philosophy men tried to drag from it. It seems ludicrous now to think that some men thought Francis Bacon and his philosophy showed Christianity would soon by on the ropes, but so it was.
Changes in the details of how we understand the world have led every generation to hope (in our dark hearts) that at long last sin will pay.
New ships, new worlds, and new discoveries did not have to lead to colonialism and imperialism, but they did because the best of little England was forgotten by all but a few (such as Shakespeare and the evangelical Gladstone) in the rush to be up to date.
This never ends . . . as Victorians got the “survival of the fittest” from the marvels of the Industrial Revolution and used it to justify immorality. Factories did not have to be horrible, but bad philosophy allowed them to be so.
Modern people want either to fear the Internet and dream of its destruction (reactionary folly) or bow to prophets who decree (somehow!) that new technology changes moral truths . . . that families must change, personal relationships are passe, and that “doing what feels good” will (at long last!) actually makes us happy.
England did not totally forget “Who’s there?” due to Wesley, Newman, Disreali, and Gladstone who each got somethings wrong (often very wrong), but refused to follow the French and utterly forget the soul of Christian England. When the French forgot “Who’s there?” and tried to start anew they destroyed themselves in Revolution and tyranny.
As a result of Shakespeare (and others!), the English have always been exceptional at finding a Churchill when they needed him. They have lived, until recently, the near escape of another great Shakespeare play As You Like It which begins with death (three actually!), usurpation, threats of fratricide, exile, and confusion of identities.
It ends remarkably in weddings, forgiveness, monastic vows, and joy!
Why? The characters of the great comedy learn “Who’s there?” They forgive rather than seeking revenge (such a needed Christian idea!). They love (if only Hamlet could see Ophelia as Orlando, despite his goofiness, sees Rosalind!) and reject the worldly-wisdom of the Hamlet-y Jaques (who should be a post-modern English professor at a Christian college with his wearisome “All the World’s a Stage” speech . . . repeated in his cynicism to the point of being sans power on the rest of the cast). Orlando is willing to be just a man, a Christian married man, and so is saved from the pretentious monologuing of a Hamlet.
We can pity Hamlet, but only a fool would want to be Hamlet. At the very end, he sees what he has done and how he has harmed his name. He sees so clearly that he can act as a prophet . . . and God ever watchful is there to receive him with angels, but how much better if he could have seen more earlier!
We can laugh at Orlando, but then we realize that it might save us (and Hamlet!) if (like Orlando) we could learn to laugh at our position and at self. Hamlet cannot escape the “story” into which he was thrust by “fate” . . . but the characters in As You Like It not only escape, but transform the court and reclaim it by refusing to take it too seriously.
Americans are facing a “Who’s there?” moment just now. We are fighting a war of civilizations. Technological change is once again used to justify wrenching age-old institutions and destroying our ability to survive morally. Shakespeare reminds us that we need not despair . . . theater was a “low brow” art form that rose (as if from no place!) in all the changes of English society to save the best of old English society.
In the same way, I suspect that to the shock of all that there is somewhere (and some place) some lonely blogger who is beginning to write (young and obscure) posts he does not take too seriously himself. At first, it will be the more shocking, the left-of-center, the pandering writers (like so many of Shakespeare’s time) who will get the attention and the Technorati hits. But he will be found . . . and even like Shakespeare will probably prosper in his day as a result. . . but then in later times we see ever more clearly that he has helped us remember the Christian answer that we either men and women in tragic circumstances who will die tragically as in Hamlet or men and women in tragic circumstances who end their story happy, because we recognized the pattern of the Divine Comedy!
We learn at long last He is there and He is a lover . . . waiting to give us bliss!
