hundred and twenty-six out of a total of one hundred and fifty-four, is addressed to a young man, and express a tenderness, which is probably without parallel in the recorded expressions of emotional attachment of one man to another. At the same time there occurs in this very set the following reference to woman:
The second set of sonnets, comprising only twenty-eight, as against one hundred and twenty-six in the first set, is probably the most painful for Shakespeare admirers to read, of all that “Shakespeare” has written. It is the expression of an intensely passionate love for some woman; but love of a kind which cannot be accurately described otherwise than as morbid emotion; a combination of affection and bitterness; tenderness, without a touch of faith or of true admiration.
Whether this mistrust was constitutional or the outcome of unfortunate experiences is irrelevant to our present purpose. The fact of its existence is what matters. Whilst, then, we have comparatively so little bearing on the subject, and that little of such a nature, we shall not be guilty of over-statement if we say that though he was capable of great affection, and had a high sense of the ideal in womanhood, his faith in the women with whom he was directly associated was weak, and his relationship towards them far from perfect.
To deduce the dramatist’s religious point of view from his plays is perhaps the most difficult task of all. Taking the general religious conditions of his time into consideration there are only two broad currents to be reckoned with. Puritanism had no doubt already assumed appreciable proportions as a further development of the Protestant idea; but, for our present purpose, the broader currents of Catholicism and Protestantism are all that need be considered. In view of the fact that Protestantism was at that time in the ascendant, whilst Catholicism was under a cloud, a writer of plays intended for immediate representation whose leanings were Protestant would be quite at liberty to expose his personal leanings, whilst a pronounced Roman Catholic would need to exercise greater personal restraint. Now it is impossible to detect in “Shakespeare” any Protestant bias or any support of those principles of individualism in which Protestantism has its roots. On the other hand, he seems as catholic as the circumstances of his times and the conditions under which he worked would allow him to be. Macaulay has the following interesting passage on the point:
The partiality of Shakespeare for Friars is well known. In “Hamlet” the ghost complains that he died without extreme unction, and, in defiance of the article which condemns the doctrine of purgatory, declares that he is “Confined to fast in fires,/Till the foul crimes, done in his days of nature, Are burnt and purged away.” These lines, we suspect, would have raised a tremendous storm in the theatre at any time during the reign of Charles the Second. They were clearly not written by a zealous Protestant for zealous Protestants.
We may leave his attitude towards Catholicism at that; except to add that, if he was really a Catholic, the higher calls of his religion to devotion and to discipline probably met with only an indifferent response. It is necessary, moreover, to point out that Auguste Comte in his “Positive Polity” refers to “Shakespeare” as a sceptic.
To the nine points enumerated at the end of the last chapter we may therefore add the following:
1) A man with Feudal connections.
2) A member of the higher aristocracy.
3) Connected with Lancastrian supporters.
4) An enthusiast for Italy.
5) A follower of sport (including falconry).
6) A lover of music.
7) Loose and improvident in money matters.
8) Doubtful and somewhat conflicting in his attitude to woman.
9) Of probable Catholic leanings, but touched with scepticism.
THE SHRINERS
Less well known as the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, the Shriners are a group of Freemasons fond of a drink. Seriously: the order was founded in New York City in 1871 by Doctor Walter Fleming as a club for Freemasons who liked to wine and dine at the Knickerbocker Cottage, a popular eaterie.
Numbers remained small until Fleming decided to give the Shriners an exotic makeover, and invented a long and completely specious pedigree which stretched all the way back to Arabia in the Middle Ages. He also devised a salutation (
Money was no object for Shriners, who tended to be well-off businessmen, willing to pay for the local Shriner Temple’s country club-like facilities, in addition to giving handsome donations to the order’s charitable projects. Unfortunately for the Shriners they, like other Masonic Orders composed primarily of WASPs, found themselves out of step with society by about 1972, and membership began to decline. To make joining easier, in 2000 the order dropped the long-standing requirement that Shriners must hold either the York Rite or high Scottish Rite degrees of Freemasonry. Still the membership dwindles.
The oddity is that the more the Shriners have lessened in real numbers, the more their role in conspiracy theory has grown. Aside from the small matter of being the
Outsiders may consider this less embarrassing than the clowning around in small cars that Shriners do on parades across America, usually likened in horror to watching dads dance at weddings.
