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Shakespeare and power

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Power is a structure (as shown in the ‘Chain of Being’), and its influences on virtues such as love, loyalty and friendship goes a long way towards defining the trilogy (Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus) written by the most widely read, and adapted author from the Middle Ages to the present day. Shakespeare’s historical and political views, that is, his feeling of the necessity of one strong head in the state, and his distrust of the commonalty are closely paralleled by those of Plutarch, a classical historian who penned The Makers of Rome.

Shakespeare’s work welcomes Caesar’s assumption of tyrannical power, and looks on the triumph of Octavius as a desirable pledge of peace. In his treatment of historical figures in the Roman trilogy, Shakespeare reveals a tendency to show his protagonists as aloof, proud and in many ways vulnerable to vices associated with abuse of power. Shakespeare’s characters have equals and parallels throughout history from the moment they were presented on the stage of the famous Globe Theatre, and they have stayed relevant despite the era they were acted in; because Shakespeare was an explorer of the human condition, that is: his themes and plot followed the deeds of men to the tee with regard to the conditions the character is presented with in each scene of the particular play.

The Renaissance period in which Shakespeare lived in was dominated by humanists who are described by the Colliers Encyclopedia as followers of a school of thought which advocated a new curriculum which put emphasis on a group of subjects known collectively as the studia humanitas, or, the humanities. These included the study of grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and ethics, as studied in classical texts. The nature and extent of Shakespeare’s education is unknown but it can probably be assumed that he did get some primary school education where he got the humanist influence in his native Stratford-upon-Avon primary school.

Boys in his day normally went to school until they were sixteen years of age, and he could have by then gained some insight into the two major branches of Elizabethan learning, that is, trivium that included Latin grammar, rhetoric, logic as core subjects and quadrivium made of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music as its areas of study. From these, he could have gained some of the Roman and Greek influences that would later be seen in his works.

The foolish does not listen to the advice of anyone, for example, in Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar does not respect the advice of the supernatural powers that could be considered to be from God if one is to draw from the La Scala Naturae as he should, and this leads to his demise. He ignores the warnings in his dreams and the signs interpreted by the oracles and soothsayers; which leads to his assassination in the parliament. One hears of the same attitude in the leaders of the present age that are overtaken by megalomania and soon drown in their power.

The character of Antony and Coriolanus also seem to be victims of the same attitude of pride that ignores warnings that could well save them from imminent danger if they take heed. It seems Shakespeare sought to show that power corrupts in his history plays; it alienates man from the simple fact that all of us are human despite social standing. And this is seen to this day if one is to look at the megalomaniac tendencies of such figures as Napoleon Bonaparte, King Shaka Zulu, and Adolf Hitler. His history plays do not just cover the political figures, but they also show the audience the dangers of pride as a vice.

If one were to look at the original form and the design of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, one realises that the design of the theatre was based on the Roman amphitheatre, with the audience sat in the aisles of the three-tier polygonal auditorium of the playhouse. Aptly called ‘The house with the thatched roof,’ the Globe theatre where Shakespeare’s works were performed was a marvel of its time and, in a lot of ways, a masterpiece that surpasses even theatres of the modern times. It was the first modern theatre house which, as described by one theatre goer made for wondrous watching of the productions staged within its wooden auditorium walls. His description goes:

…There in the house with the thatched roof witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar with a cast of some fifteen people; when the play was over, they dance very marvellously and gracefully together as is their wont, two dressed as men and two as women… Thus daily at two in the afternoon, London has two, sometimes three plays running in different places, competing with each other, and those which play best obtain most spectators. The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform so that everyone has a good view.

This description of the Globe by the member of the audience gives one the opinion that Shakespeare’s theatre not only influenced literature, but it seems to have gone on and influenced the politics of this world (think of the campaign trails politicians use in their quest for seats in the parliaments, they are actually theatrical performances on a grand scale!). Julius Caesar’s oratory is replicated countless times in politics across the globe (the term was probably borrowed from Shakespeare as well), and the masses follow as they used to do in the Classical Greece or Rome.

Man is the primary interpreter of all of order and his role is to act as the mediator of all the steps in the laws, because his existence is in close relation with all of these elements in the chain. Being possessive of an intelligent brain that gives him the capacity to learn, to know the world and himself, man becomes the main component of the chain of being. It is said by A.C. Horan that, “Knowing oneself was the hallmark of Elizabethan striving and was considered so important that it was said to be the gateway to virtue.”

Julius Caesar contains elements of both Shakespeare’s histories and tragedies, and has been classified as a “problem play” by some scholars. The play describes a senatorial conspiracy to murder the emperor Caesar and the political turmoil that ensues in the aftermath of the assassination. The emperor’s demise, however, is not the primary concern for critics of Julius Caesar; rather, most critics are interested in the events surrounding the act and the organisation of the conspiracy against Caesar and the personal and political repercussions of the murder.

Shakespeare’s tragedies often feature the death of the titular (lead) character at the play’s end. Many scholars are interested in the play’s unconventional structure and its treatment of political conflict, as well as Shakespeare’s depiction of Rome and the struggles the central characters face in balancing personal ambition, civic duty, and familial obligation. Modern critics also study the numerous historical, social and religious affinities that Shakespeare’s Rome shares with Elizabethan England. These perspectives are what makes the core of this discussion on the author’s treatment of history in his tragedies and whether they are relevant to the realities one sees in modern governance that has its roots in Roman times.

Shakespeare added salient details to the Caesar he found in his source, Plutarch’s Lives; by humanising the leader and inventing physical defects that the historical figure did not have: deafness and poor swimming. He also ascribed to Caesar a concern with superstition in his last days, stressing an intellectual corruption produced by power (which is seen also in other non-Roman plays like Macbeth), in preparation for the audience’s sympathetic response to the assassins when the murder is committed.

However, he did omit a number of anecdotes from Plutarch that would have portrayed Caesar too negatively, leaving less room for doubt about the killing. For instance, Caesar is said to have looted a famous temple and to have acquiesced in dishonouring an earlier wife in order to divorce her. This deliberate omission could have been done by the author to strengthen the exploration of the plot and to appeal to the audience.
Shakespeare followed Plutarch in exaggerating Caesar’s real threat to the privileges of the Roman aristocracy that spurred the assassins historically.

In fact, modern scholars find Caesar’s policies were surely not directed towards creating a monarchy, as the conspirators and Plutarch believed. They were to some extent not directed at all, being largely driven by events. This is the simple case if one is to look at the histories of famous figures in the history of the world. Many of these figures’ lives are marked not by decisions but by events; it is as if some kind of fate is at work, some kind of fate meant only for them.

After his well-known conquests in Gaul and Britain, Caesar had, at the time of the play, recently won a civil war against another Roman political and military leader Pompey the Great as shown by Legatt. Julius Caesar still goes on to be murdered (assassinated). The assassination is either spurred by jealousy or is simply a result of the historical fate present throughout the passage of time. It is reminiscent of the quote ‘progress is watered by the blood of patriots’. Maybe Caesar’s blood is what will see Rome advance into the future and progress.

As the head of a faction intent on admitting new members to Rome’s small ruling class, Caesar had fought a group of conservatives and had more nearly represented the republican ideals later associated with Brutus in part because of Shakespeare’s presentation than Brutus himself did. He was in no sense a revolutionary in the sense of today’s politics, but he however comes across as a man of the people (as is seen in his will which bequeaths his entire estate on the people of Rome). In the course of his conflict with Pompey, Caesar had assumed the dictatorship, a legitimate office of the Roman government that carried extensive powers and was temporarily awarded to leading military commanders in times of crisis.

Caesar had been dictator briefly in 49 B.C., but this time he had held the dictatorship for several years, using its powers to protect his gains in the civil war. In early 44 B.C. the Senate which Caesar had greatly enlarged and filled with his followers declared him dictator for life. This event sealed the conspirators’ determination to kill him, and whether it was out of jealousy or fear of his supposed megalomania rising one cannot exactly say.

The orations at his funeral reveal only snippets of the true motive behind his murder but, when it comes to its relevance to the treatment of history, this aspect of the play proves true to the events in the history of mankind.
There have been many a military leader and revolutionary who have been assassinated by their apparent comrades after their assumption of power due to unclear motives (think of Thomas Sankara and Blaise Compaoré). Shakespeare may have realised this one fact about the human condition; the greatness of man and the amount of his achievements for the common good of the state does not count. What counts is what history remembers, and history remembers what its writer remembers or chooses to remember.

Facts are obscured, events are omitted, for the sake of a good history, the story of the hero in the play on stage or the hero in real political life. After all history can loosely be defined as ‘his’ story, that is, the story of the hero who just happens to be human; fallible and vulnerable to the conditions of humanity like pride, jealousy, greed and other vices.

The human condition comes with its conditions that can or cannot be changed, and the literature of the age if good enough sets out to define them. This helps the audience that gets to read or watch them to realise one fact: all of us are somehow fallible, all of us are changeable. Sometimes, it takes a look through the leaves of a well-penned tale to make sense of the world. This is one of the basic intentions of literature; to prepare the student thereof for the realities they shall encounter out there in the real world.

Shakespeare is often dismissed as too hard, but the audiences have over the ages sympathised with Romeo and Juliet, and fawned at the countenance of Shylock the money lender in The Merchant of Venice (because they hate his cruel demeanour but love his money perhaps!). This occurs after over 400 years of reading Shakespeare, one of the most quintessential writers in the writing of literature, a man for all seasons of sorts when it comes to the understanding of what literature is for. This is the power of his literature, proven by its timelessness and relevance regardless of the era and the age it is read in.

Tšepiso S. Mothibi

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Insight

Shining Like Stars: Part One

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Last week, in a piece titled “Hope Springs Eternal”, I wrote about the relative values of (leftist) political commitment and Christian faith in a world that is beset with violence, poverty and oppression. Now I’m offering a review of a book by Lindsay Brown titled Shining Like Stars: The power of the gospel in the world’s universities, which explores the work of evangelical students in propagating the Christian faith in some of the world’s most dangerous countries, such as Columbia, China, Russia, Sudan and the DRC. Countries where despair seems to be a pretty rational response to the lives that huge numbers of people are forced to lead. I shall concentrate on cases where that effort to spread the Christian faith is allied to a commitment to agitate for better political and social conditions.

As an aside, I begin by quoting Will Shoki, editor of the invaluable online opinion journal Africa is a Country. I know I’ve mentioned him at least once in previous weeks, but that is because they are so good. In a piece Shoki wrote for the edition of March 4th this year, he records the Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s reference to “the courage of hopelessness”, whereby “it is only when we despair and don’t know anymore what to do that change can be enacted.” Shoki adds: “I have never been quite sure what this means — in fact, I have never been quite sure what Zizek means about anything.” Which is to say, Zizek is a pretty difficult read, but his work is a nut it’s well worth cracking.

Be that as it may. Let us turn again to the question how, in a harsh world largely run by greedy, selfish, murderous brutes, a dedication to the message of the gospels and a commitment to political and social transformation can be a joint life-saver.

Lindsay Brown, the author of the book I’m reviewing, was for many years General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). Towards the end of his book there is an Appendix in which he lists around 150 student organisations worldwide that are affiliated to IFES. Many countries where IFES-allied groups have a strong presence are only nominally Christian, many others (for example, China and the Gulf States) are hostile to the gospel. In Lesotho — where neither of these impediments holds — the relevant body is called the Scripture Union of Lesotho, Tertiary Ministry (SULTM); as Brown’s book doesn’t touch on Lesotho, I’d be very interested to hear from my readers about the activities of SULTM.

The first chapter of Shining Like Stars is titled “Never Underestimate What Students Can Do.” This begins by recounting the story of Daniel and his three fellow captives in Babylon under the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, the story that ends with three of the young Jews being saved by their faith when they are cast into the burning fiery furnace. Then there are reminders of the long history of evangelism in western Europe, followed by the observation: “world mission is less and less about westerners going elsewhere to serve Christ, but about believers from everywhere going everywhere . . . for example, during the twenty years of civil war in Chad its displaced students, sent by the government to study in other countries, founded IFES movements in Niger, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Burkina Faso.”

One of the first of many testimonies the book contains is, however, from a female British student of Russian, identified simply as Elizabeth, who travelled as an evangelist to one of the -stan countries, former Soviet republics of Central Asia (which of the former -stans this was isn’t specified). It was a perilous but highly successful mission. Elizabeth records: “My birthday was fun. I had five cakes and three parties. They really know how to make cakes here!” Not much peril involved in that, you might say. But then Lindsay Brown notes that many sensitive words in Elizabeth’s testimony have the letter “x” inserted in them and explains that this was to escape electronic surveillance.

And so it seems being an IFES evangelist can be a bit like being James Bond, except more graceful. The second chapter in Brown’s book is titled “Our Sovereign God and Human Courage” and that’s where I’ll pick up the story next week, as well as detailing the activities IFES evangelists organize to attract students to the gospel. And then — after all, the chief focus of this piece — how they strategise evangelical work in relation to the advocacy of political and social transformation.

To be concluded

Chris Dunton

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Hope springs eternal

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Given the abysmal state of the world today, what is it that keeps one going? I mean, just look at the mess we’re in. The cowardice of world leaders faced with the challenge of climate change —world leaders most of whom are, of course, in thrall to capitalism (for when it comes to our mismanagement, that’s what really rules the roost). The appalling violence in Ukraine and the Middle East. The apparently endless misgovernance of countries as diverse as Lesotho and Nigeria. How does one not give into despair?

Me, I have an interim resource and a vastly more profound one. The former is my commitment to left-wing socialism, a conviction that life on earth can be vastly improved by following the principles of Marxist-Leninism (not — an important qualification — the corrupt form of those principles that moulded dictatorships such as the Soviet Union). The second resource is faith in the message of the Gospels, the embracing of our Lord Jesus Christ. For with this, the ills of the world pale into insignificance. Which is not — I absolutely insist — to refuse the responsibility of political commitment to ease the suffering of millions on earth, a duty we have while we’re still stuck on the bloody place.

Of those two resources, one allows a limited, constrained kind of hope, the other a hope that is boundless.

To expand on the notion of hope, recently in these pages Bishop David Ramela quoted the great Czech author and political leader Vaclav Havel, who became President of his country after resisting Soviet oppression in acts of dissidence for which he was imprisoned. Havel, as quoted by Bishop Ramela, wrote: “I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart . . . I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.”

Hope as distinct from optimism? Well, a couple of references here. First, the great Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (like Havel, imprisoned for his beliefs, in his case by Mussolini’s Fascists) wrote of the need to maintain “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” In other words, any reasonably intelligent person knows that things are going to screw up, but must act as if this were not the case. And another Marxist, the British critical theorist Terry Eagleton (the mentor of your columnist, incidentally, when he was an undergraduate — and ever since) has written a fine book, Hope Without Optimism. I shan’t go into that here, but shall review it in this column in a few weeks’ time.

Turning to the relationship between political commitment and the Christian faith, the evangelist preacher Robert Sheehan once commented: “Many Christians put more weight on political programmes and economic packages than on the power of the gospel in the nation. Do you?” The answer, I would hope, is “no”, but “quite a lot of weight all the same.” And I’m going to sign off this week with a lengthy quotation from the New Testament—namely, Ephesians 2: 14-22—which has to do with the relationship, in the time of Paul’s evangelism, between Jews and Gentiles. It is a passage — to refer to my piece some weeks ago on the Gaza crisis — that one would like to read to the Hamas leaders in Palestine and to Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu before banging their heads together.

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordnances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. And that he might reconcile them both to God in one body, through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place in God in the Spirit.”

Joining, harmony, hope.

Chris Dunton

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Reading and emotion

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What does a good piece of writing do? How does a piece of writing evoke emotions in you? Well, reading is a good art that can stimulate and sharpen our sensibilities. In this instalment we focus on the emotional journey triggered and enabled by good literature. While other books may educate us and sharpen our cognitive abilities, that is the abilities to think and solve problems, reading literature of fiction does more; it stirs our emotions and sharpens our affective capacities.

By affective capabilities, we refer to the abilities to feel and tune in to our emotions and sensibilities. Life, after all, is not only about heart facts and reason. Life is about feeling and experiencing and the ability to put ourselves into other people’s shoes. Reading literature is so liberating and humanistic! Reading art in all its many genres grounds us in the varieties of human experiences and engenders in us tolerance, understanding and empathy.


Stories have a way of taking us on journeys real and imagined which stories transform us from the inside. These stories allow us to visit far-flung places and meet new people and feel their environment. Art has a way of mending bridges because through stories we come to understand people who may seem different from us. And at times we may have felt hatred and dislike for them and their way of doing things. But through reading about them, we hear their stories. We experience that which they are experiencing. We begin to see them from the inside out, and we get to know what lies underneath their skin, so to speak. That’s why they say that we can only begin to make sense of the world once we have reduced the whole world to stories. Let’s write a small story together and ascertain how it would move us. Let’s go.


“He trudged on thinking how he would approach Mwandionesa. Her warm and coy smile flashed before his eye.


Slowly mustering up a morsel of self-belief, Themba trudged along the battered, winding road in the heart of a thicket of musasa trees in the Musirizwi enclaves in Chipinge, south-eastern Zimbabwe. Like a heavy burden, a gnawing sense of failure nibbled at his conscience and a sense of uselessness clung on the air with unrelenting defiance. The stain of failure, the feeling that his people and he were inconsequential had taken lodging in his entire being. That is why he found a sense of solace only from isolating himself in his flimsy cocoon of loneliness like the proverbial ostrich which buried its head in the sand. He would have an occasional home-brewed beer called chikeke and thereafter lock himself within the labyrinth and sordid visceral being.


A gaunt bird flew overhead and he heard its flapping feathers amidst the thickening doom and darkness. “Bird”, he retorted to its presence, “what would you do if you were ever crushed by the label of failure.” A soft, warm tear tricked down the rugged terrain of his face. “Makauyo went to Egoli and returned without a name to himself, Khuyumani, too, lies buried in the bowels of the soil with nothing to show” he said as if he were speaking to the bird.


As he touched the cold handle of the door to his heart clutching a small, whimpering puppy in a cardboard box, he could hear the breathing of Mwandionesa and her stabbing, moist eyes asking him without a word where he has been for the last three days. He stood for a moment which seemed like an eternity. With false bravado, he mustered a not-so-convincing, frail knock. Mwandionesa, heavy with child, slowly made for the door and slid it open. Themba did not know what to do. He loved her but he did not know how to express it, like a person bereft of a language. Mwandionesa rummaged her pots on the dying embers of a hearth and gave him respectfully a plate with sadza and a small portion of chicken. A tear escaped-one, two, and another! She broke down, a downpour of tears streaming down her lips. “Themba, ngendaa yei weidaro mwamuna wangu? Indaa yei ndiripe Dube? Indaa yei weiita mukuba wekunzerereka kungaitei imbudzi irikumakaba isina unousha?” (Themba, why do you treat me in a manner? Why do you behave as if you are a stray goat without a shepherd? If I have wronged you I am prepared to appease you”).


“Look at me, Themba,” she demanded as a visibly pregnant and swollen stomach bulged through her threadbare blouse. The puppy whimpered plaintively. With hesitation Themba went to where Mwandionesa stood. With his furrowed labour-weary hands he touched her waist and led her to their mat of reeds made of “umhlanga” as she was fond of referring to reeds. She did not protest. A glow, a faint glow burnt in her eyes as she eased comfortably on his lanky chest. She fumbled for his hand and shepherded it to the lower regions of her belly and said, “He was kicking all these days you were away.” Themba was engulfed in a flurry of emotions; guilt as well as pride. With deliberateness, Mwandionesa said, “this boy will be called Thando. Yes Thando. He will build this homestead and more should you feel that you don’t have a home.” Themba nodded in agreement.
Themba began to feel the warmth of her presence as her succulent breasts pressed against his lanky chest and slowly closed his eyes…”

What a gripping tapestry which evokes a lot of emotions! It’s a story that stirs a lot of emotions; from empathy, sadness and an inner glow in the heart at the end. As the story begins, we feel Temba’s struggles, fear and hopelessness. He seems to be carrying a huge emotional burden and a crushing sense of defeat. I hope you have also seen Temba’s bid to reassert his sense of being and purpose through his desire of caring for a puppy – we could actually feel it whimpering. And the new hope ignited at the end of the story and affirmations of hope and new beginnings! The birth of a child always brings with it new beginnings – hope springs eternal!
So here we are! Stories are so humanising. Learning to read art in all its genres evokes emotions in us. It sharpens our affective side and warms our hearts.

Vuso Mhlanga teaches at the University of Zimbabwe. For almost a decade and half he taught English language and Literature in English at high school. Send your comments and questions to: mhlangavuso85@gmail.com

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