The Implicit Critique of Love

As Bloom tells us in 'Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human', "The implicit critique of love, by Shakespeare, hardly can be termed a mere skepticism." (487) As we read play after play, the "mere skepticism" of love becomes an overwhelmingly apparent idea. Without having read Bloom's text I wouldn't have been able to tangibly identify this idea, but NOW there's a literary world waiting to be uncovered. Ultimately we must face the question, what is Shakespeare trying to tell us?

In King Lear, the overbearingly love-starved Lear tortures himself and the audience with his paternal desire to be loved and appreciated by his family. To borrow from Bloom, "Love is no healer in 'The Tragedy of King Lear', indeed it starts all the trouble, and is a tragedy in itself." As King of Britain and father of three daughters Lear has the sense of entitlement one might expect from someone in his position. His notion of love is nearly inseparable from that of ownership, and with the bequeathment of his kingdom to his daughters, he assumed he could spend the remainder of his days surviving simply off of the love of his family. As we fast forward to Lear's demise his loss of ownership over his kingdom has left him with nothing as he realizes the possession of his daughters' love was always imaginary and he now has nothing left.

Similarly in 'The Winter's Tale' love harasses, poisons, and ultimately leaves the audience with a vacuous sense of 'nothingness'. Leontes's speech in act 1, when his jealousy is about to lead him down a dark road, exemplifies this idea.

Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? A note infallible
Of breaking honesty! horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
that would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.
(1.2.283-95)
Since we know that everything he claims to have seen between Polyxenes and Hermione was false, the only tangible thought we can take from this speech is that it all means nothing. He says, "Is this nothing? Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing, the covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing, my wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings, if this be nothing."

The more Shakespeare I read the more I believe he and Samuel Beckett would have got along disgustingly well together. If we break down Shakespeare's plays to their central ideas, we can easily interpret that all of this suffering caused by love and the loss of ownership can be avoided by avoiding the matter all together. But clearly that's easier said than done, and what Shakespeare has done is hold up a mirror to show us how truly ridiculous we really are. But unless we are willing to remove ourselves from this cycle of suffering and attain a boddhisatva sense of enlightenment, we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. Beckett knew this and used it as dramatic inspiration in plays like 'Waiting for Godot' and 'Endgame'.


As Beckett says in his novella titled Worstward Ho, "Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."