Much Ado About Nothing but MacBeth

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It's tempting to become an Oxfordian, ignore inconvenient dates altogether
and say the title of Much Ado About Nothing is obviously a direct reference
to MacBeth's claim that

Life's but a ...a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

In any case, the two works are obviously inverted twins of each other.  
Beatrice with her desire to be a man and her offers to eat any soldiers 
Benedict killed at war has the potential to become a second Lady MacBeth,
and Benedict like MacBeth himself is often in danger of falling into
ineffectiveness without his woman's stiffening influence.   Both women
order their men to kill.   Both men accept the charge.  Only one becomes
a murderer.

One of the most maddening tendencies in the orthodox Shakespearean 
literary criticism is to view Twelfth Night as a great comedy while viewing 
Much Ado About Nothing as a bit of fluff whose insignificance Shakespeare 
clearly trumpets in the title - as if there were anything more terrifying than 
nothingness.    Perhaps critics are thrown off by Benedict's bit of moralizing
at the end where he seems comfortable accepting all that has happened 
under the justification that "Man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion,"
as if that washes away all the suffering we have just witnessed.  The point-
lessness of the suffering makes it more troubling, not less so.  The energy with
which Claudio inflicts it, leaves a bad taste in the mouth and soul even after
the supposed happy ending.

Nothing makes the seriousness of Much Ado About Nothing so clear as its
clear kinship with MacBeth.   Lady MacBeth and Beatrice are both only 
unhappily consigned to the female sex.  Both express a fervent desire to be
a man and free to work within the realm of violence which is socially
open only to men.   Both get swept up in the speed with which events 
unfold,  and each tries to harness that momentum to her own ends.   

In each case, the woman must work through the man and push him to 
act, but while MacBeth gives himself over as fully as he is capable of 
to his wfe's bloody vision, Benedict complies with reluctance.  Both
plays are about speed, the rush of events with no pause to think.  

Benedict is the one exception to the rule, the one character who doesn't
automatically react.  (There is a hint he can take this caution  
sometimes too far.  Perhaps this reluctance to act is what keeps him
from committing to Beatrice and makes her so resentful of him.)  In
any case, despite the fact that Beatrice is definitely smarter than he
is - anyone denying this refuses to accept the evidence of the play that
she wins every battle of wits into which they enter - he is a more 
independent thinker.  In an early scene at a mask ball she sees the 
dance go by and says, "We must follow the leaders."  Even in this
trivial instance he can't help but qualify her statement with "In all
good things."  He is circumspection personified.  His humor is a
delaying tactic.   

Of course the other great delayer in Shakespeare is Hamlet, with
tragic results; but in the Bard's work, it's usually speed which leads
to disaster:  characters as disparate as Romeo and Hotspur both
die from the onrush of events.  

And of course so do the MacBeths, who never take a breath 
and ask themselves what the witches might be up to - as if any
answer can be given to that question beyond obviously 
nothing good.  In the end all that serparates the violence of
MacBeth from the comic ending of Much Ado is Benedict's
capacity for delay.   As for the nihilism at the heart of both
plays; laughter is all Shakespeare can offer to fend it off:
as Benedict says, "Man is a giddy thing, and that is my 
conclusion."     

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Celebrating The New Year

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New Year's Eve celebrations are a paradox.
It's deeply counter intuitive to try to take
advantage of a new year as an opportunity
for a new start by indulging the night before
in behavior which insures your new start
starts with a hangover guaranteed to rob you
of the initiative needed for change.

The problem is that the new year comes in
the midst of winter.  Balanced against our
desire for a fresh start lies the role the
holidays play in getting us through the winter.

The winter is the toughest part of the year
for an animal such as a human being.  There
is too little light.  The sun falls early, often
pulling our spirits down too.  The cold
numbs our capacity for sensual enjoyment,
and our physical natures can't forget that
which - given modern heating systems - we
intellectually forget: against the cold,
survival is a struggle.

But before the holidays, winter is enlivened
by the prospect of their coming.  Magic's
in the air.  Snow's romantic when tied
to Christmas.  People brave the cold to
keep wearing clothing with a bit of
erotic charm; holiday lights enchant the
darkness; and the coming celebrations
generally enliven the growing gloom of the
natural world.

After the holidays, winter's long and dreary. 
It must just be gotten through until Spring
returns, mixing memory with desire to bring
us the cruel joys of April.

The passing of the holidays can be very
depressing indeed, and so

Excess is the whole point of New Year's Eve.
Yes, excess!  Its purpose is to give us too much
of the holidays, and so cut the pain of watching
them disappear with the old year into the great
vanished with nothing to look forward to but
two or three more dreary months of winter.

Yes, New Year's Eve is at war with New Years.
So use the contradiction to fit  your own needs.
If you want a new start, get to bed early and
rise and shine and go for a bracing swim at
dawn on New Year's Day.  Make your new
start.  If you're sad to see the holidays go,
party until you can barely lift your painful
head from its hung over pillow and say with
someone or the other from Shakespeare:

"If all the year were sporting holidays,
To play would be as tedious as to work."

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Should Writers Twitter?

I am facing the question, because I made a mistake
and decided to follow on Twitter an English novelist
and actor whom I respect.  It took me less than a day
to realize that his posts were, if not ruining his other
work for me, at least seriously diminishing the respect
I felt for him as an artist.

It led me to wonder if it's not usually the case that the
more real the artist is, the less real their work.  Is it
coincidence that greatest author of the English language,
Shakespeare, is one of the least known biographically?
Once the work becomes simply an extension of biography -
something to which many critics eagerly try to reduce an
artist's body of work - does it not lose its status as a
world onto itself with the power to transform our experience
of reality and ourselves?

Must the artist withdraw to let his world come fully to life?
Should she be everywhere present but nowhere apparent,
as Flaubert suggested and the great MacIntosh agreed?
If the artist is not at least somewhat  remote, is he then
not too much with us late and soon?