🚀 go-pugleaf

> > If there is a subtext in the play The Two Gentlemen
> > of Verona, it may concern the relation between art
> > and power, Julia symbolizing art, Silvia power,
> > Proteus the poet and playwright, and Valentine
> > the one destined by virtue to exert power, Latin
> > valere meaning 'to be worthy, having value, virtue'
> > being present in the name Valentine. Proteus would
> > then symbolize de Vere. Homer tells us about
> > Proteus in book 4 of the Odyssey: an old man
> > (de Vere began writing tragedies at a relatively high
> > age), honest (the bard's motto pronounced in
> > sonnet 105 is "Fair, kind, and true," being true an
> > equivalent of being honest), of infallible lips (the
> > bards claims the same in the sonnets), he sees
> > and knows everything (and so does the playwright
> > in his god-like position as the creator of his plays),
> > he metamorphs into everything that walks on earth,
> > but also into water and divine blazing fire, becomes
> > a lion with a mane, a snake, a panther, liquid water,
> > a tree of a towering crown (while the playwright
> > can assume every guise in his plays), he knows
> > the depths of all seas (he knows the depths of the
> > human nature), his daughter is Eidothea, literally
> > the goddess of pictures (and the bard creates
> > living pictures on the illuminated stage), he knows
> > what happens in the palace (and de Vere knew
> > the court, having been raised in the care of the
> > queen),  good or bad (the achievements and
> > crimes of five-hundred years of history of the
> > empire). De Vere matches Valentine with Silvia,
> > and Proteus with Julia, not without pointing out
> > a temporary aberration of Proteus who was
> > seduced by power. De Vere elevates William
> > Shakespeare in the guise of valiant Paris into
> > the rank of a count. And the opening lines of
> > the gory first play Titus Andronicus pose the
> > question of who acceeds the throne directly.
> > Saturninus
>
> >   Plead my successive title with your swords
> >   I am his (the late emperor's) first-born son
>
> > Whereupon Bassianus
>
> >   And suffer not dishonour to approach
> >   Th' imperial seat, to virtue consecrate
>
> > My claim: Titus Andronicus might be an allegory
> > on five hundred years of British history, naming
> > injustices that were the consequence of unworthy
> > rulers who climbed the throne either by birth-right
> > or by the help of protection. In later plays de Vere
> > learned to convey his message in subtler and more
> > pleasing ways, but he could only do so after he had
> > made his point in all clarity.
>
> Titus Andronicus might be a surrealist play avant la lettre,
> a tragic satire, methodical insanity used in describing
> a mad time, the natural order of the human cosmos
> dissolving, held together for appearances by a stern
> logic of violence, five hundred years ending in doom
>
> 1086 Domesday Book or Doomsday Book
> 1588 ? Titus Andronicus "This is our doom"
>
> Titus Andronicus --- 'builder' of the English empire,
> William the Conquerer and others including Henry VIII
> as military leader
>
> Bassianus --- Henry VIII as humanist
>
> Saturninus --- Henry VIII as king
>
> Lavinia --- Anne Boleyn
>
> Lucius --- Elizabeth
>
> Young Lucius --- Edward de Vere
>
> Marcus Andronicus --- Arthur Golding / Lord Burghley
>
> Tamoria, queen of Goths --- Mathilde, widow of the German
> Keiser Heinrich V, imposed as queen of England by her father,
> Saxon king Henry I, in 1127, her arrival in England in 1139
> the begin of the age of anarchy (civil wars) / Mary Tudor
> "Bloody Mary" supporting the German Keiser Karl V and
> marrying Philipp II of Spain
>
> Aaron the Moor --- Black Prince, waged war on France in
> 1369 / Philipp II of Spain, prosecutor of the Moriscos 'Moors'
> and Maranos 'pigs' Jews, turned into a Moor of a Jewish
> name in the fiction of the play, perhaps wearing a sign of
> the Spanish king on the stage
>
> The play, an allegory condensing five hundred years of
> English history and focusing on then recent events, was real
> enough to ban the audience and unreal enough to avoid
> censorship. In all the mess of lost reality and upturned human
> relations one thing becomes apparent: Edward de Vere's
> political position. He welcomes the collapse of Karl's Reich,
> indicated by the initial speech of Young Lucius demanding
> the sacrifice of a Goth who must be dismembered before
> being placed on the pyre, symbolizing the breaking apart
> of Karl's empire. He supported the English empire,
> indicated by the final speech of Young Lucius honoring
> Titus Andronicus. And he welcomed the breaking up of
> the Spanish hegemony, indicated by Lucius condemning
> the Moor of a Jewish name, Philipp II as one of his own
> victims ... What appeared to be racism before is now
> a sharp satire used as weapon in defending the Moors
> and Jews against the 'Christian' monster Philipp II,
> bow and arrow of his biting wit, indicated by the two lines
> of Horace written down in Act 4 Scene 2
>
>   Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
>   Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.
>
> by Young Lucius and handed over as weapon. A literary
> weapon, the play itself. The promise of a new  order is
> made in the two last lines of the play, delivered by
> Queen Elizabeth in the guise of Lucius
>
>   Then, afterwards, to order well the state,
>   That like events never it ruinate.

What about Shylock? Isn't he evidence for a latent
antisemitism in the bard?

Bassianus in the play Titus Andronicus represented
Henry VIII as humanist, while we have the Italian
version of Bassianus, namely Bassiano, in the play
The Merchant of Venice, and accordingly Bassiano
proposes a humanist view, for example when he
speaks about the law and religion in Act 3 Scene 2

  In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
  But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
  Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
  What damned error, but some sober brow
  Will bless it, and approve it with a beat,
  Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?

When I read the convoluted second sentence I was
baffled by a grammatical pun

  religion, what damned error

If the sentence is parsed correctly it contains a humanist
view, so I believe that 'Christian' in the play, when used
in a positive sense, means Humanist. Jessica, daughter
of Shylock, converts to Christianism, but really she
remains a Jew, a humanist one. Shylock is sentenced
to loose all his money, but he keeps it and reinstalls
Jessica as his heir; he is also sentenced to become
a Christ, but, we may infer, he remains a Jew, now
a humane one, a humanist ... In the bard's opinion
a truly humanist society has to give equal rights to
women. In the play a woman, Portia, wife of Bassiano
- the two married on their word, no priest and church
involved - turns the play around and solves the dire
conflict by telling Shylock that he is not allowed to shed
one single drop of Christian blood. Now Christian blood
is a nonsense term, Christians and Jews having the
very same blood, human blood, so the word Christian
has the meaning of human, humane, humanist ...
I see a variety of humanist messages enfolded in
the play, in the dialectical way this bard loved so much.