:00:00. > :00:19.Is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?
:00:20. > :00:26.Good morning, I'm Nicky Campbell, welcome to The Big Questions.
:00:27. > :00:29.Today we're at Manor Church of England Academy in York to debate
:00:30. > :00:32.one very Big Question in honour of the great playwright and poet,
:00:33. > :00:35.William Shakespeare, who died 400 years ago this month.
:00:36. > :00:39.Is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?
:00:40. > :00:48.Welcome, everyone, to The Big Questions.
:00:49. > :00:50.Apparently, if you are ever cast away on a desert island,
:00:51. > :00:53.you will find a bible and the complete works
:00:54. > :00:58.But which will bring you greater solace, or more joy,
:00:59. > :01:02.or inspire you to ponder humanity's frailties?
:01:03. > :01:06.Which would you be saddest to see swept away by the waves?
:01:07. > :01:08.Which contains more truth - the works of Shakespeare
:01:09. > :01:14.To debate that very Big Question we've gathered together leading
:01:15. > :01:16.Shakespearean scholars, theatre directors, performers,
:01:17. > :01:19.writers, biblical scholars, clergy and people of faith and none.
:01:20. > :01:23.And you can join in too, on Twitter or online, by logging
:01:24. > :01:26.on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions and following the link
:01:27. > :01:32.Plus there'll be lots of encouragement and contributions
:01:33. > :01:40.So, is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?
:01:41. > :01:49.Richard Denton, good morning. Producer of Shakespeare Uncovered.
:01:50. > :01:55.I'm looking forward to this! Is there more truth, understanding of
:01:56. > :02:01.the human condition, for you, and what we are as human beings, a grasp
:02:02. > :02:10.of humanity, in Shakespeare or the Bible? In Shakespeare. I have to say
:02:11. > :02:12.in Shakespeare. The Bible tends to have lots of prescriptions and
:02:13. > :02:17.commandments and things like that, but it doesn't say things in ways
:02:18. > :02:22.that are recognisable to us now. Chicks be a's writing at the time of
:02:23. > :02:27.the Renaissance and humanism, and he describes human nature in a way that
:02:28. > :02:31.is absolutely recognisable, providing dilemmas, problems and
:02:32. > :02:36.solutions. Watching them play out in real time. Treating us like adults
:02:37. > :02:40.in a sense? Yes, treating us like adults. The Bible tells you what to
:02:41. > :02:46.think, and Shakespeare says, just think. Alison Milbank, a really
:02:47. > :02:51.interesting take. Would you say Shakespeare holds up a mirror to
:02:52. > :02:57.nature, as I believe is a line in Hamlet, but the Bible tends to
:02:58. > :03:03.change and constrain your nature, to tell you what your nature should be.
:03:04. > :03:09.That's taking the Bible is a list of rules. The Christian Bible sees the
:03:10. > :03:14.law fulfilled in Jesus. What the Bible teaches you to do is try to
:03:15. > :03:20.live like a person. It wants you to do a performance, to put on Christ.
:03:21. > :03:25.Plays like Shakespeare show you the Bible in action. But they reach
:03:26. > :03:28.beyond the biblical geography. They went to the Soviet Union,
:03:29. > :03:36.Shakespeare has gone to China and beyond the confines of one, if I may
:03:37. > :03:39.say so, sect. The fact you can do that, and have a Confucian
:03:40. > :03:46.Shakespeare, is because he comes from a specific time and place, and
:03:47. > :03:51.he takes that wisdom from the Christian tradition, which finds its
:03:52. > :03:58.kind of parallel in the works of Confucius, for example. If it was a
:03:59. > :04:01.bare-bones abstract work of human nature without embodiment, it
:04:02. > :04:07.wouldn't work. It doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from God. What do
:04:08. > :04:17.you make of that? Shakespeare is of his time in one sense. Born at a
:04:18. > :04:23.time when his education was normal. He was a Protestant. The interesting
:04:24. > :04:29.thing about the plays is how repeatedly they broaden out beyond
:04:30. > :04:32.that first. As Richard said, they ask questions and continually
:04:33. > :04:36.confront the audience with what they would do with moral by lemmas. You
:04:37. > :04:39.mentioned wisdom, I don't know how much wisdom there is in the
:04:40. > :04:44.Shakespeare plays. The important wisdom is, don't trust wisdom, trust
:04:45. > :04:51.yourself, how you think, and how you approach the situation. I would have
:04:52. > :04:56.said Justin yourselves gets you very little far in Shakespeare. Very
:04:57. > :05:00.often the endings come, particularly in the comedies, come from outside
:05:01. > :05:05.people. In biblical terms it would be called Grace, where Shakespeare
:05:06. > :05:09.turns it into eight brilliant theatrical device, so you end up
:05:10. > :05:16.with the gift is and reconciliation. But it isn't an -- it isn't earned.
:05:17. > :05:22.Mercy comes like the gentle rain from Heaven, even though the people
:05:23. > :05:27.in Merchant of Venice are not merciful. I think that's a rather
:05:28. > :05:33.simplistic view of Shakespeare. The idea that forgiveness is at the end
:05:34. > :05:38.of Tempest, or at the end of As You Like It, for example, it's not
:05:39. > :05:41.simple happy endings or simple grace, there are much more
:05:42. > :05:47.contradicted things than that. Superficially it's a happy ending,
:05:48. > :05:56.but it clearly isn't a happy ending. Jem Bloomfield, isn't it fair enough
:05:57. > :06:02.to say that the Bible for some is a simple message for simple people
:06:03. > :06:06.that we are in a complicated world that is full of contradiction and
:06:07. > :06:11.confusion, but Shakespeare, as Richard said, treats us as adults,
:06:12. > :06:17.and invites us to explore our own sense of morality and come to our
:06:18. > :06:26.own conclusions. As such it is far richer as literature. Discuss. I'm
:06:27. > :06:30.afraid, no. It can be portrayed as a simple message in the Bible. I think
:06:31. > :06:34.around the world we see the terrifying consequences of treating
:06:35. > :06:41.the Bible as a simple message. The Bible is full of simple genres,
:06:42. > :06:47.containing wisdom and literature. Nobody killed in As You Like It.
:06:48. > :06:51.Indeed. The Bible doesn't provide simple answers and it ask serious
:06:52. > :06:56.questions. There are contradictions even in the wisdom of the
:06:57. > :07:00.literature. Ask a fool in according to his folly, but it's contradicted
:07:01. > :07:04.as well. It stages the moral problems that are similar things to
:07:05. > :07:08.what we find in Shakespeare. People discard lots of things in the Bible.
:07:09. > :07:16.In a 21st-century, if people don't like something in the Bible, like
:07:17. > :07:20.stoning adulterers is, or children who disobey and rude to their
:07:21. > :07:26.parents, if you don't like it come you get rid of it. You don't do that
:07:27. > :07:29.with Shakespeare. You do, you hardly ever see a full four our
:07:30. > :07:37.Shakespeare. Laurence Olivier is the big Hamlet that we hold up, but it
:07:38. > :07:41.only has 60% of the play in it. You can't have the whole text of
:07:42. > :07:49.Shakespeare. Yes you can, Kenneth Branagh does. Stanley has entered
:07:50. > :07:50.the fray. We must make the distinction between Shakespeare the
:07:51. > :07:54.book and Shakespeare the dramatist. distinction between Shakespeare the
:07:55. > :07:56.That is the most important distinction. On a desert island you
:07:57. > :08:02.are not getting much from Shakespeare if all you're getting is
:08:03. > :08:05.my edition of the complete works! Shakespeare is essentially a writer
:08:06. > :08:08.for performance. That's why Shakespeare has no defined meanings.
:08:09. > :08:13.The meanings come from the interaction between what he wrote,
:08:14. > :08:18.which often has strong meanings, of course, but they come between that
:08:19. > :08:22.and the performance, the actors create a good deal of the meaning
:08:23. > :08:26.themselves, which is why every Shakespeare play is different every
:08:27. > :08:30.time it's performed. We are delighted to have Professor Stanley
:08:31. > :08:35.Wells here, one of the world's leading authorities on Shakespeare.
:08:36. > :08:39.Why does so much Shakespeare resonate and why does it do so so
:08:40. > :08:47.much more than the Bible for summary people? Because it's so good! Partly
:08:48. > :08:51.because it's performed, it can be brought to a new kind of life. I'm
:08:52. > :08:55.not too happy talking about the Bible, partly because I don't know
:08:56. > :09:00.it too well, but what is the Bible? People talk about it as if it were
:09:01. > :09:05.just the Christian part of the Bible and the Gospels. But the Bible
:09:06. > :09:08.includes an awful lot of very self-contradictory material.
:09:09. > :09:13.Shakespeare to some extent does. Shakespeare is a developing concept
:09:14. > :09:18.as well. The plays are developing their attitude towards life, as he
:09:19. > :09:26.himself grows older and learns more about life, I think. When we talk
:09:27. > :09:29.about Shakespeare we need to talk about the poems as well. I think if
:09:30. > :09:33.you are to get close to Shakespeare himself, you can get more out of the
:09:34. > :09:36.sonnets and you do from the plays. In the plays always putting on an
:09:37. > :09:43.act, or getting other people to do that. For somebody at home who not
:09:44. > :09:50.really thought about Shakespeare a lot. Like my daughter 's! Despite
:09:51. > :09:54.your presence. If you were to recommend one sonnet to read today
:09:55. > :09:57.that they would perhaps be transfixed and mesmerised and
:09:58. > :10:04.transported by, which one would it be? The one most relevant to our
:10:05. > :10:08.theme today is number 146, beginning poor soul, the centre of my sinful
:10:09. > :10:12.earth. Nobody quite knows what the next two words should be because
:10:13. > :10:16.there is a gap in the text, but it's a sonnet between the battle between
:10:17. > :10:23.the spirit and body. It's Shakespeare's only really religious
:10:24. > :10:28.poem. If people want to think about our theme in relation to
:10:29. > :10:34.Shakespeare, they would do well to read 146. And that would sit very
:10:35. > :10:40.well in the Bible, Paul? It would, but other sonnets have a spiritual
:10:41. > :10:47.dimension, like Sonnet 29, when in disgrace... Sonnet 39, which ends
:10:48. > :10:53.with but if the while I think on thee, dear friend, or losses are
:10:54. > :10:59.restored and sorrows end. It's an encouraging text. It's also very
:11:00. > :11:04.subjective. It is, but one-dimensional this question is
:11:05. > :11:08.what we go to these texts for. And what we bring from ourselves? What
:11:09. > :11:11.kind of truth we look for. The deal-breaker as far as Shakespeare
:11:12. > :11:16.is concerned is that people find him much more inclusive than the Bible.
:11:17. > :11:21.They see in Shakespeare the way into a wider sense of what humanity is
:11:22. > :11:25.about, which is not defined or arbitrated by church voices or
:11:26. > :11:30.different kinds of Christianity or Judaism, for that matter, with the
:11:31. > :11:34.Hebrew Bible. Also we talk about the Bible, and we admit it's a load of
:11:35. > :11:38.different books. By different people over a long period of time. Some
:11:39. > :11:42.bits are more relevant than others. And in the Bible we have the song of
:11:43. > :11:51.songs, love poetry. It's very beautiful and sensual. It's my
:11:52. > :11:56.favourite part of the Bible, and St John's gospel. I haven't read enough
:11:57. > :11:59.of the Bible to really, to, but I've read much more Shakespeare. It
:12:00. > :12:03.speaks to be more because I know more of it. In terms of its
:12:04. > :12:09.long-term translation and how it relates to humanity, you think about
:12:10. > :12:15.Shakespeare's developed of characters like Macbeth and Hamlet
:12:16. > :12:18.and Falstaff, and I think those characters will continue to be
:12:19. > :12:22.interpreted. With the Bible there is the baggage of politics and violence
:12:23. > :12:27.and the way different religions have interacted. That makes people more
:12:28. > :12:32.sensitive. We don't have that relationship with the works of
:12:33. > :12:36.Shakespeare. But part of Shakespeare's popularity is tied to
:12:37. > :12:47.the British Empire, and also the continued Hegg emanating -- hegemony
:12:48. > :12:50.of the American empire now with the English language. What will be
:12:51. > :13:01.returning to the fore in the 21st-century question? His humanity
:13:02. > :13:05.transcends that. If he wrote in Lithuanian, but was exactly as good
:13:06. > :13:11.as he was, he wouldn't be the poet he is today. Shakespeare's works are
:13:12. > :13:20.translated into all... But he didn't do that. He wrote about humans. So
:13:21. > :13:23.did many other people in many other languages, but we can't deny the
:13:24. > :13:27.relationship between the spread of the a sandwich and English culture.
:13:28. > :13:31.Plenty of fantastic poets in every language everywhere in the world.
:13:32. > :13:35.Shakespeare is 1000 times more famous than them, but it's not
:13:36. > :13:39.because is 1000 times better, it's because culture, art and politics
:13:40. > :13:48.interact. There was the time when Arabic was the lingua franca of
:13:49. > :13:52.science and mathematics. Shakespeare is amazing in the same way that
:13:53. > :14:00.other historical writers, even recent ones like Tolstoy and Chekhov
:14:01. > :14:04.and Bert Brecht. Writers can transcends time and place. You could
:14:05. > :14:08.perform Shakespeare in Japanese. I saw a production by a South Sudanese
:14:09. > :14:11.Theatre company, performing six beer in their own language, and I still
:14:12. > :14:16.understood everything that was happening. -- performing
:14:17. > :14:23.Shakespeare. It was that dilemma, that you mull -- that human frailty,
:14:24. > :14:32.that we don't get that from the Bible, it's more died act it. -- is
:14:33. > :14:40.more didactic. It's not so much fun! Who said that? I did. There's not as
:14:41. > :14:45.much comedy in the Bible. Is the Bible a bit bleak and grim? I'm
:14:46. > :14:50.making not an entirely facetious point. The greatness of Shakespeare
:14:51. > :14:54.depends partly on the wit and breadth of the vision, which
:14:55. > :15:06.includes the down to earth. There is that in the Bible as well, but there
:15:07. > :15:10.is the comedy we respond to as well. Andy mentioned Falstaff, for
:15:11. > :15:17.example. There is a character who is very dubious morally. But the fact
:15:18. > :15:25.people do tend to warm to him is itself a moral point, I think, that
:15:26. > :15:27.we can easily relate humanely, in human terms, to someone we could
:15:28. > :15:36.disapprove of. Tell us about the morally ambiguous
:15:37. > :15:43.characters in the Bible that give us a touch of Shakespeare. A touch of
:15:44. > :15:47.Breaking Bad, that moral ambiguity, that Long John Silver lad, is there
:15:48. > :15:54.any of that in the Bible? There is, but I would like to say that Sir
:15:55. > :16:01.John Falstaff is a great biblical critic. In fact in Henry IV part I,
:16:02. > :16:04.he is interested in the prodigal son, in St Paul's epistles,
:16:05. > :16:09.interested in the story of the rich man and the poor man, and there is
:16:10. > :16:14.some evidence he is conceived as a kind of anti-puritan, a sort of
:16:15. > :16:18.joke. Those were the commonly understood references of the age,
:16:19. > :16:25.the context of the time. Well, it is not as simple as that. I'm reassured
:16:26. > :16:29.to hear that. He is using them positively and critically, using the
:16:30. > :16:34.Bible to critique people. You are presenting the Bible as if it is
:16:35. > :16:39.this boring... It is a wonder anybody reads it the way you are
:16:40. > :16:45.talking about it. Who? Agent provocateur. Are there nuanced
:16:46. > :16:51.characters like we were hearing in Falstaff and others? Well, the
:16:52. > :16:56.disciples are very nuanced and they play it all ways. Obviously St
:16:57. > :17:01.Peter, Judas himself is a very nuanced character. But this is not a
:17:02. > :17:06.novel. We were not writing in the modern period. We are talking about
:17:07. > :17:10.ancient texts. And they have to be interred. What Shakespeare does
:17:11. > :17:18.brilliantly is use them as modes of critique. For example he takes the
:17:19. > :17:25.story of Christ and he sets up the story of Julius Caesar. He sets up
:17:26. > :17:30.brute us like Christ, who has his agony in the garden. He isn't
:17:31. > :17:36.applying it in a lumpen way, but says, these are the texts that reads
:17:37. > :17:40.us. So to take the Bible out of Shakespeare would be to diminish it.
:17:41. > :17:42.You may not be aware of it but it is adding to the complexity, not taking
:17:43. > :17:50.away from it. APPLAUSE. That's right, the Bible is
:17:51. > :17:54.a huge source for Shakespeare, as it would have been for any generation.
:17:55. > :18:02.It is surrounding him, he is hearing it every week or month in church. He
:18:03. > :18:10.has digested large parts of it during his education. The obvious
:18:11. > :18:14.play here is Measure for Measure, which is Matthew 7. What Shakespeare
:18:15. > :18:18.is doing in that play, the main story is the woman whose brother is
:18:19. > :18:24.sentenced to death and the judge comes to her and says, if you sleep
:18:25. > :18:26.with me I will get your brother off. Shakespeare so sharpens that
:18:27. > :18:28.with me I will get your brother off. and makes us think, well
:18:29. > :18:32.with me I will get your brother off. does mercy look like? It
:18:33. > :18:41.a religious question but it is continually asking questions
:18:42. > :18:42.a religious question but it is intensifying the dilemma. There is
:18:43. > :18:48.no happy ending in that play. It intensifying the dilemma. There is
:18:49. > :18:54.tortured and difficult and intensifying the dilemma. There is
:18:55. > :18:57.shady that nobody ends it clean. It intensifying the dilemma. There is
:18:58. > :19:02.is a play about sexual harassment apart from anything else. You
:19:03. > :19:07.imagine any writer would be proud to write, I will let him off if you
:19:08. > :19:11.have sex on me, and she says, I will blow the whistle on you, and he
:19:12. > :19:15.turns and says, well who will believe you? That's a chilling,
:19:16. > :19:19.modern sense built. It is an understanding of human beings and
:19:20. > :19:24.humanity. I don't think there's a line like that in any particular
:19:25. > :19:30.story in the Bible, but I bow to... Any humour in the Bible? Any laughs?
:19:31. > :19:37.Life is full of laughs. I don't think there's a case for supposing
:19:38. > :19:42.that Genesis has some humour in it. It is so utterly strangely
:19:43. > :19:48.incongrus. You have a series of events, people behaving badly, or
:19:49. > :19:54.Jacob telling huge, whopper, lies and yet being blessed of Abraham.
:19:55. > :19:56.More or less denying he is married to his wife in order to circumvent
:19:57. > :20:01.danger. And again he is to his wife in order to circumvent
:20:02. > :20:08.this. It is this strange... It is not laugh out loud. It's not, but a
:20:09. > :20:16.strangen congruity, I hope this makes sense. Sur reality It makes
:20:17. > :20:21.you think and coming back to that idea of whether the Bible tells us
:20:22. > :20:26.what to think or makes us think, I don't think it does. I think there's
:20:27. > :20:32.any number of books in the Bible that are so strange, whose morality
:20:33. > :20:40.is so inexpublishable, like Job for instance. Or Revelations. But Job in
:20:41. > :20:44.particular. We have this utterly pained experience, the immense
:20:45. > :20:50.suffering of this figure of Job begging God for an answer. And God
:20:51. > :20:55.just resolutely refuses even to engage with the question. It is just
:20:56. > :21:01.like King Lear isn't it? Just like King Lear. And King Lear on the
:21:02. > :21:09.heath begging for an answer of the absent gods. Is Job like King Lear?
:21:10. > :21:16.Without a doubt when Shakespeare is penning this mental breakdown of
:21:17. > :21:18.King Lear, he has Job in mind. In so many of Shakespeare's plays it
:21:19. > :21:22.King Lear, he has Job in mind. In so simply the air that they breathe,
:21:23. > :21:26.and the echoes and the half echoes are everybody where. For me one of
:21:27. > :21:36.the most impressive lines in King Lear is why should a dog, a horse, a
:21:37. > :21:41.rat have life, and thou no breath at all, as he looks into the face of
:21:42. > :21:45.his dead daughter. This is suffering brought to fully dramatic life isn't
:21:46. > :21:51.it? Did he address perhaps life being the end? Does he not posit
:21:52. > :21:59.that at the end of everything? To lie in cold obstruction and to rot.
:22:00. > :22:05.Andrew, was it to be to die, to sleep, perchance to dream. Give me
:22:06. > :22:10.the rest of it. I have to hand over. We are in that sleep of death what
:22:11. > :22:18.dreams may come, shuffle off this mortal coil to pause, to die, to
:22:19. > :22:21.sleep, though more. As it progresses, the questions multiply.
:22:22. > :22:25.What is the most famous line in Shakespeare? It is to be or not to
:22:26. > :22:28.be. It is a question, and there is no answer. Hamlet spends the
:22:29. > :22:33.entirety of the play trying the find some answer to that question,
:22:34. > :22:39.perhaps, but Shakespeare doesn't resolve it for us or for him. And in
:22:40. > :22:43.that speech is that not a example of him suggesting that death is the end
:22:44. > :22:47.of everything? Hamlet knows that it isn't, because he has just seen his
:22:48. > :22:51.father's ghost, who has told him to avenge his murder. Was it not a mere
:22:52. > :22:56.apparition? He knows that ghost has come from somewhere. It has
:22:57. > :23:02.terrified the life out of Horatio and the other people on the
:23:03. > :23:08.battlements. The number of resurrection references are, Hero in
:23:09. > :23:13.Much Ado About Nothing. Claudio, the twins Violet and Sebastian are res
:23:14. > :23:18.rented for each other in Twelfth Night or What You Will. He is
:23:19. > :23:23.re-using this motif throughout the work. Shakespeare uses the Bible as
:23:24. > :23:29.a kind of colour on his palate of many colours. He is never using the
:23:30. > :23:40.Bible to preach with as far as I can tell. It is a linguistic resource.
:23:41. > :23:46.Falstaff has been mentioned. Alison, you spoke well of Falstaff. But this
:23:47. > :23:51.horrible drunkard is mentioned as a character, and that is interested.
:23:52. > :23:54.We need to acknowledge that Shakespeare is writing on the edge
:23:55. > :24:00.when most religious people saw the theatre as something to be very
:24:01. > :24:04.suspicious of. Including his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. And
:24:05. > :24:11.there he was owning the largest house, New. In place, from 1597. The
:24:12. > :24:15.council became increasingly shrill and banned playing for the next
:24:16. > :24:18.couple of decades. So it wasn't that he was having a comfortable time,
:24:19. > :24:21.that the Globe on the edge of London, out of the jurisdiction of
:24:22. > :24:27.the City fathers, people frowning on it from the a religious perspective,
:24:28. > :24:31.he had to be careful. So is taking his human drama beyond the scope of
:24:32. > :24:36.the Bible into classical literature, looking at ways in which people can
:24:37. > :24:40.interact. There's a freedom there and a daring there to ask questions,
:24:41. > :24:47.which has been touched on very much with King Lear just now, and Hamlet.
:24:48. > :24:50.It is writ large in Shakespeare. You can ask a question dramatically, to
:24:51. > :24:54.be or not to be, that is the question. You may never get an
:24:55. > :24:57.answer. Shakespeare is saying that's fine, the you can live with that.
:24:58. > :25:03.That's life, but the Bible says we will get an answer doesn't it?
:25:04. > :25:08.Shakespeare is not a moralist, putting it simply. He discusses
:25:09. > :25:11.moral questions and is fascinated with moral questions but he doesn't
:25:12. > :25:17.come up with the answers. He invites us to come to our own conclusions
:25:18. > :25:21.does he? Yes, I think a so. I haven't heard from you for a while.
:25:22. > :25:25.The last time it was magnificent. You touched on the issue of
:25:26. > :25:32.censorship at the time and the attempt to ban many books that
:25:33. > :25:36.contradicted religious doctrine. No-one is denying the Bible's place
:25:37. > :25:42.in English literature or its influence on Shakespeare but we are
:25:43. > :25:45.retro speare but we are retro pocketsively colouring --
:25:46. > :25:51.retrospectively colouring our intertakes of that reference. So you
:25:52. > :25:56.have the banning of certain books that restricts people. The way
:25:57. > :26:01.people can quote passages to the Bible in Shakespeare, they can't
:26:02. > :26:07.quote the Ovid, or whatever Shakespeare was reading. There is
:26:08. > :26:11.all of those factors at work. I think with Shakespeare, I don't
:26:12. > :26:18.know. It is that he doesn't tell you what to do. It is a bit disgusting,
:26:19. > :26:23.a bit hideous. We see ourselves. I think sometimes not just the best of
:26:24. > :26:27.ourselves, in the Bible we are encouraged to paint ourselves as
:26:28. > :26:34.being particularly moral. Often when you read Shakespeare it is like a
:26:35. > :26:36.Quentin Tarantino movie. It is disgusting, violent, sexy, jokes
:26:37. > :26:41.everywhere and I'm kind of enjoying it and that's OK. I feel that it is
:26:42. > :26:47.that lack of morality actually that is kind of moral in its own way.
:26:48. > :26:52.Holding a mirror up to nature. We can address our own frailty. When we
:26:53. > :26:57.pretend we are good and moral, the Nazis pretended they were good and
:26:58. > :27:02.moral. Moral. I'm not saying that's religion's fault but it is dangerous
:27:03. > :27:08.to say, I'm moral and you're not. When I read Shakespeare I think,
:27:09. > :27:15.this is horrible, but there is probably a bit of that in me. Of
:27:16. > :27:20.course. You touched on a phrase, we retrospectively paint. Talking about
:27:21. > :27:26.his opinions, whether it is race or gender or sexuality, do you think
:27:27. > :27:28.there's a danger of retrospectively painting Shakespeare with
:27:29. > :27:34.contemporary colours? Of course there is. Post the Holocaust,
:27:35. > :27:39.reading The Merchant of Venice, which some argued at the time was a
:27:40. > :27:45.comedy, which post 1945, how can it be read as a comedy. Post
:27:46. > :27:50.transatlantic slavery, Othello becomes a different character. When
:27:51. > :27:53.the Ottomans were more powerful than Britain, those place become
:27:54. > :28:03.different plays, which is when Shakespeare was writing. Are you
:28:04. > :28:08.uncomfortable watching Othello? No, it's one of Shakespeare's better
:28:09. > :28:15.characters. But Jago is the vile racist, the bad guy. But we know
:28:16. > :28:20.know why. There is the hint he thinks Othello might have slept with
:28:21. > :28:25.his wife, which is never addressed properly. But he's a Moore. Without
:28:26. > :28:30.the understanding of the scientific racism that would come two centuries
:28:31. > :28:35.after Shakespeare's death, we are reading back all of the events
:28:36. > :28:41.that's happened since and saying his depiction of that character through
:28:42. > :28:46.our modern eyes. We don't live in Elizabeth than England, so we can't
:28:47. > :28:50.grasp with way those stories were written.
:28:51. > :28:56.APPLAUSE. I want to nudge this on to what about was he a liberal, what
:28:57. > :29:03.was his views on women and race? Anyone in the audience want to say
:29:04. > :29:11.anything, put your hand up. Sir, good morro. I am neither a scholar
:29:12. > :29:15.or a Shakespearean, but according to my belief all the religions are one
:29:16. > :29:18.and the same and all of the religious texts may resemble the
:29:19. > :29:25.Bible. But the difference is from the Bible and what it says in there,
:29:26. > :29:29.we have a power behind those words. Which Christ and other religious
:29:30. > :29:34.leaders claim to be divinely inspired. And which enables
:29:35. > :29:44.individuals and societies to transform and act on it. I have not
:29:45. > :29:47.yet seen anyone living their lives for families and everything,
:29:48. > :29:54.destitute, going elsewhere as a missionary to promote Shakespeare.
:29:55. > :29:58.Let's put that point. There are missionaries going all over the
:29:59. > :30:02.planet performing Shakespeare and the teaching of Shakespeare to
:30:03. > :30:05.countries all over the world. It is probably the most successful
:30:06. > :30:11.international playwright and artist in the world today. Good morning.
:30:12. > :30:16.Good morning. It is incredible to make a comparison between the impact
:30:17. > :30:22.of the Bible and the readership and the distribution and the depth of
:30:23. > :30:26.influence. Across many artistic spheres with one author who was
:30:27. > :30:31.inspired by the Bible. I think it is very narrow. Inspired by the Bible
:30:32. > :30:36.or what he saw in the context of the time? He was enthused with biblical
:30:37. > :30:44.literature. Not everyone was learned at the time. Not at all. But it was
:30:45. > :30:51.compulsory to go to church. It was the only show in town.
:30:52. > :30:58.The fascinating thing about Shakespeare is how he exists in Sony
:30:59. > :31:03.parts of the world outside a Christian context. Where does the
:31:04. > :31:10.Bible not exist? Soviet Russia. China. The way Shakespeare's roots
:31:11. > :31:14.entwine with all these local cultures and entwine themselves in
:31:15. > :31:19.Bollywood movies or 1920s adaptations of Merchant of Venice in
:31:20. > :31:22.Shanghai. It reaches beyond the understanding of the Bible in terms
:31:23. > :31:28.of humanity. I don't know how to do this, but try to plot the global
:31:29. > :31:30.influence, surely Shakespeare has to have a more extensive and lively
:31:31. > :31:40.presence these days around the world than the Bible. Was Shakespeare
:31:41. > :31:45.liberal? We will come to Alison first, was he liberal for his times,
:31:46. > :31:56.in relative terms. He had strong women in his plays, powerful women.
:31:57. > :32:04.The famous speech by Amelia in Othello. Then you have the Taming of
:32:05. > :32:12.the Shrew, which is perhaps not so good in terms of the way the women
:32:13. > :32:18.are treated, and the way she has to kowtow at the end. We have all been
:32:19. > :32:22.saying that in the sense there isn't actually a message, so it's hard to
:32:23. > :32:27.say we can turn around and go the other away. Can we find out anything
:32:28. > :32:38.about what he thought? I don't know if we can know what he thought. But
:32:39. > :32:44.when you have people like Polina, who orchestrates the rescue in the
:32:45. > :32:49.Winter's Tale. There are wonderful female characters. The Victorians
:32:50. > :32:54.were the first to hit. There were whole books about Shakespeare's
:32:55. > :32:58.heroines. It's not that they were being Victorian, they were seeing
:32:59. > :33:02.latent potential of women to be moral agents. That was important to
:33:03. > :33:07.the Reformation because we lost a lot with the Reformation. Before the
:33:08. > :33:14.Reformation there were sisterhood is, mystics, women in Catholicism
:33:15. > :33:20.had, I would argue, quite powerful roles, and there is increasing
:33:21. > :33:25.patriarchal control under Protestantism. In that context, I
:33:26. > :33:30.would argue that the female characters in the plays of
:33:31. > :33:41.Shakespeare are liberated. Appropriate to differ at this point!
:33:42. > :33:44.Thank you. It's important to recognise comedy cross dressing
:33:45. > :33:48.women have active roles, when a dress as men and act as men, they
:33:49. > :33:54.are incredibly important in driving the story and action. Their can
:33:55. > :34:04.usually be seen as part of them playing the role of the men. Like
:34:05. > :34:08.Portia in Merchant of Venice, when she's dressed as the lawyer, she is
:34:09. > :34:15.more important, arguably, than when she's a woman. Shakespeare still has
:34:16. > :34:19.wonderful female characters. She still had a female brain. She did,
:34:20. > :34:24.but was presented to the audience and the characters in the play as a
:34:25. > :34:28.man. We have to appreciate that. Talking about Taming of the Shrew,
:34:29. > :34:32.it's an early play, and probably the last play, and I will defer to
:34:33. > :34:37.Stanley, it's probably the last play in terms of a comedy where a woman
:34:38. > :34:42.is silenced. From that moment on, women have their voices, but in
:34:43. > :34:48.tragedies they are silenced, Desdemona is silenced, in Hamlet, of
:34:49. > :34:56.Ely is silenced. I think that's astonishing. What about Lady
:34:57. > :35:02.Macbeth? The Scottish play? I would rather prefer. We are going to have
:35:03. > :35:05.the lights go out! She is not a silenced woman. She is front and
:35:06. > :35:13.centre but has a tragic end. Arguably deserves it. Can I just
:35:14. > :35:24.mention again, the contemporary situation six Shakespeare was in, we
:35:25. > :35:26.had Queen Elizabeth the first, it was an Elizabethan settlement,
:35:27. > :35:31.Protestantism, everyone had to go to church and everybody knew the new
:35:32. > :35:37.English Bible, which had been produced for the first time in
:35:38. > :35:43.English, and the people, ordinary peasants who couldn't read,
:35:44. > :35:47.probably, they had lost these plays and the catholic idea, and were
:35:48. > :35:51.beginning to wake up. All of these issues, as you rightly said,
:35:52. > :35:55.Shakespeare has got all of this that he puts into his plays, and the
:35:56. > :36:02.dilemmas they are in. I think every single play gives people, reap what
:36:03. > :36:08.you sow. You can see justice coming through at the end. If you do that,
:36:09. > :36:16.it will not have a happy outcome. In a sense they are morale details. In
:36:17. > :36:19.a way. In King Lear when the fool says, I will have you whipped when
:36:20. > :36:24.you have grown old but not grown wise. You can see he's turning
:36:25. > :36:30.everything about his head, and saying, yeah, what the Bible is
:36:31. > :36:37.saying to you is what I'm saying in the play, you will reap what you
:36:38. > :36:42.sow. Back to these points as well, coming on from that, was he liberal
:36:43. > :36:51.for his times? Andrew, some of the way that women were portrayed, are
:36:52. > :36:55.we seeing, the fact that Othello is the synthetic character, Iago is the
:36:56. > :37:01.racist. Shylock in Merchant of Venice, there is sympathy to him as
:37:02. > :37:09.well. Are we seeing the seedlings of modern human rights or is it that
:37:10. > :37:13.reading too much into it? It's so hard to say. But it's a fascinating
:37:14. > :37:17.question. Shakespeare contains so much and you can see so many things
:37:18. > :37:22.in it. You could make an argument that Othello is a racist play and
:37:23. > :37:25.people have made that argument. It's difficult to sustain, but you could
:37:26. > :37:29.make the same point about Merchant of Venice, being anti-Jewish and
:37:30. > :37:35.people do make that argument. Nevertheless, Shakespeare makes it
:37:36. > :37:39.more compensated. -- more complicated. What does Shakespeare
:37:40. > :37:43.think about this? They are all plays. As Stanley said at the
:37:44. > :37:45.beginning, he is creating characters. One thing we think we
:37:46. > :37:54.know about Shakespeare is that he got he his start as a writer because
:37:55. > :37:58.he was an actor. Sometimes I think, these parts are really underwritten.
:37:59. > :38:00.Wouldn't it be fascinating if Claudius in Hamlet was an
:38:01. > :38:06.interesting character instead of just the bad guy. Wouldn't it be
:38:07. > :38:12.interesting to write a play about a black man who isn't a villain, and a
:38:13. > :38:18.white racist Italian as the villain. That is reading modern tea into the
:38:19. > :38:25.past again. A good book out the moment, Africans in Tudor England. A
:38:26. > :38:33.merchant working for Queen Elizabeth asked for the Moors to be dispelled
:38:34. > :38:37.from England, he said there were too many in this realm. It didn't
:38:38. > :38:45.happen. Were they Moors from Spain, where they men of power? The ideas
:38:46. > :38:50.of blackness that consolidated post the 17 and 1800s, they were nascent
:38:51. > :38:56.in Shakespeare's time, that you had African German Saints in this time.
:38:57. > :39:01.The idea that blackness is innately bad and criminal, was there in an
:39:02. > :39:07.east at Eric sense, but hadn't been consecrated in the same way. --
:39:08. > :39:12.esoteric sense. It's not clear that Caliban is black comedy could be
:39:13. > :39:16.indigenous American. Caliban is the archetypal savage, I think there is
:39:17. > :39:18.no doubt about that, it's an accurate interpretation. I don't
:39:19. > :39:22.know if Shakespeare would consciously say, I would make the
:39:23. > :39:30.white man that bad guy and black man the good guy. Scholars have taken to
:39:31. > :39:38.calling the passage of sonnets 127 to one 50 for the black lady, but
:39:39. > :39:44.there have been interpretations over those characters. Scholars have
:39:45. > :39:50.called for the dark Lady even know Shakespeare calls of the black lady.
:39:51. > :39:56.At that period, Howley black people would Shakespeare have met? There
:39:57. > :40:02.were a few in London. -- how many. He was doing a daring thing still
:40:03. > :40:05.when he made Othello a hero. If you look at Titus Andronicus, the
:40:06. > :40:09.audience would have been very surprised to see a black man
:40:10. > :40:18.portrayed sympathetically, as Othello is. It's one of the ways
:40:19. > :40:23.that Shakespeare is forward looking. I will come back to you, Paul?
:40:24. > :40:28.Shakespeare's liberal mind is ripped so large in the place. Against his
:40:29. > :40:31.contemporaries in the period and also since. That's one of the things
:40:32. > :40:36.he's most admired for. A line that pops into my head from not a
:40:37. > :40:43.well-known play, All's Well That Ends Well, simply the thing I am
:40:44. > :40:48.shall make me live. If ever you needed a kind of plea for a sense of
:40:49. > :40:54.common humanity, it's simply the thing I am shall make me live. These
:40:55. > :40:57.sorts of moments are all over Shakespeare's plays. His
:40:58. > :41:01.contemporaries saw him doing things as being a mould breaker in the art,
:41:02. > :41:06.and it comes back to daring to be free and say what you really think,
:41:07. > :41:12.speak what you feel, not what we ought to say, we here at the end of
:41:13. > :41:15.King Lear. It's that freedom that centuries afterwards have come to
:41:16. > :41:20.value about Shakespeare, yes we have read back into it, but we have done
:41:21. > :41:27.that with all texts. All texts will try to make them contemporary. We
:41:28. > :41:31.mentioned boys playing women, women dressing up as men, it's gender
:41:32. > :41:35.fluid, but we can't look back at those times in the context of modern
:41:36. > :41:43.Western Europe in contexts of sexuality either. Homosexuality, it
:41:44. > :41:46.was rather like parts of the Middle East and Arab world, there is plenty
:41:47. > :41:50.of homosexuality, but no gay culture. It's possibly like that.
:41:51. > :41:55.of homosexuality, but no gay you think he was bisexual? These are
:41:56. > :42:00.modern labels, and I do reject them, but did he have an absolutely clear
:42:01. > :42:05.and empathetic understanding of passionate relationships between
:42:06. > :42:09.men? He demonstrably did. Half the sonnets are to men. Shall I compare
:42:10. > :42:15.thee to a summer's day, thou art more lovely and contemporary, I
:42:16. > :42:25.think it's to a man. I think. But a lot of them are. He has Antonio in
:42:26. > :42:30.Merchant of Venice, his love for Bassanio is by a modern context
:42:31. > :42:35.homosexual. Would his audience have understand that? I don't think that
:42:36. > :42:39.kind of relationship was viewed in that context, even the word
:42:40. > :42:45.homosexual didn't exist. I don't know if they would have seen it in
:42:46. > :42:49.those terms. So they did, but didn't express it? I will defer to Stanley.
:42:50. > :42:54.I think it was so common and ordinary that people didn't think
:42:55. > :42:58.about it. He certainly portrayed loving relationships, like Merchant
:42:59. > :43:06.of Venice, and the relationship in Coriolanus between Coriolanus and
:43:07. > :43:12.the Warriors, who at my and love each other, it's one of
:43:13. > :43:16.Shakespeare's most profound and psychological portrayals, in my
:43:17. > :43:21.opinion. It has been brought out wonderfully in certain productions,
:43:22. > :43:26.the things I think is interesting, the things I think is interesting,
:43:27. > :43:31.we are looking at the plays as if we can
:43:32. > :43:37.way Shakespeare has been used to reflect on moral issues. You
:43:38. > :43:42.way Shakespeare has been used to say that on the Bible itself. The
:43:43. > :43:46.Genesis, for example, people say, what they really meant was this, and
:43:47. > :43:51.others say, no, they really meant this. You get it with Shakespeare
:43:52. > :43:55.and plenty of other literature. You do, but also where you might have
:43:56. > :44:00.Shakespeare used in place of the Bible. There is a debate in the
:44:01. > :44:03.House of Lords about the age of consent for gay relationships, and a
:44:04. > :44:09.Lord says that we are dealing with moral issues, and I understand you
:44:10. > :44:15.have moral principles you have held for a long time. He says, I'm an old
:44:16. > :44:19.man, and I saw Merchant of Venice, and I thought, good, they should put
:44:20. > :44:22.the man down. I watched Taming of the Shrew, and thought it was very
:44:23. > :44:30.funny, shutting up the woman, that's very good! And I now horrified. The
:44:31. > :44:34.Taming of the Shrew, it depicts a terrible act of violence against
:44:35. > :44:38.women, and the Merchant of Venice has a terrible crime at the end. He
:44:39. > :44:41.says he used to watch Hamlet, and he used to laugh at seeing Peter
:44:42. > :44:48.Cushing played an effeminate, over the top, clear coded as gay
:44:49. > :44:52.character, and he looks back and winces. My Lords, think that you
:44:53. > :44:58.might be wrong. Think on the way you have watched Shakespeare over the
:44:59. > :45:02.years. There's something about the performances that so long and rich,
:45:03. > :45:06.people say, Shakespeare might not agree with us, but we might not
:45:07. > :45:10.agree with us. It could be a moral reflection.
:45:11. > :45:18.APPLAUSE Aldridge when playing in Russia changed Merchant of Venice.
:45:19. > :45:23.He thought Shylock was a racist character. Being an African-American
:45:24. > :45:27.character expelled from Britain he performed it differently. In terms
:45:28. > :45:32.of Shakespeare's supposed liberalism, or not, we can look at
:45:33. > :45:37.the man. One, he was possibly the only, Stanley can correct me if I'm
:45:38. > :45:44.wrong, playwright who didn't go to prison for his beliefs in the
:45:45. > :45:49.period. And someone be that close to two monarchs be so liberal? Most of
:45:50. > :45:55.his characters come out on top. When you look at the usurpers in
:45:56. > :45:59.Shakespeare, and they are the bad guys. There's a place he couldn't
:46:00. > :46:04.step beyond if he was that close to the two rulers at the time. But he
:46:05. > :46:09.pushed it as far as he could. Kevin? I have a sense that we can be
:46:10. > :46:13.anachronistic about Shakespeare's liberalism. The thing that's
:46:14. > :46:17.consummately modern about Shakespeare, the thing that makes
:46:18. > :46:23.him last through the centuries is his ability to have sympathy with
:46:24. > :46:30.the villains of his play, and his ability to put himself into the mind
:46:31. > :46:37.of characters who are utterly despicable, morally speaking. He
:46:38. > :46:41.manages to create a Lady Macbeth, an Iago, so tellingly such that the
:46:42. > :46:46.audience can't help but go along with him. Do you get that in the
:46:47. > :46:50.Bible, that we can sympathise, I suppose it is Judas... I don't think
:46:51. > :46:55.the Bible is particularly character driven in the same way. I don't
:46:56. > :46:59.think we do, no. There are incredible characters in the Bible
:47:00. > :47:04.though aren't there? I would like to suggest that Iago is in fact the
:47:05. > :47:07.embodiment of pure evil and is an example of Shakespeare telling us
:47:08. > :47:13.that sometimes we have to face up to evil. What you make of that in terms
:47:14. > :47:18.of the Bible I don't know, but I think he is. Is. There are very few
:47:19. > :47:24.really evil characters this Shakespeare but Iago I think is one
:47:25. > :47:29.of them. His implaquability in the end is I think Shakespeare's way of
:47:30. > :47:40.telling us that. But he is also great fun to watch. Great fun to be
:47:41. > :47:46.with. It is the same with Richard III. We see in ourselves the danger
:47:47. > :47:50.we might also be a bit like that, so there is an amusing side to that
:47:51. > :47:55.certainly. I think it is absolutely crucial. I think he had this
:47:56. > :48:00.extraordinary ability to channel any character he came up with. Often at
:48:01. > :48:03.the expense of his plays perhaps. There was an argument that The
:48:04. > :48:07.Merchant of Venice was written at a time when he needed a play with a
:48:08. > :48:12.villainous Jew. He creates the Jew and he gets into the character of
:48:13. > :48:18.the Jew and he writes, prick us and do we not bleed? He can't help
:48:19. > :48:21.himself but to find a logic, an emotional logic, in any character.
:48:22. > :48:25.He is like the world's greatest actor writing. But the barrister
:48:26. > :48:30.defending the criminal. He says it to the bottom of his soul. Anyone
:48:31. > :48:35.else who wants to make a quick one? I want to go back to that point you
:48:36. > :48:38.made about human rights this Shakespeare, because I think what
:48:39. > :48:43.Shakespeare does better than the Bible and other moral texts for that
:48:44. > :48:51.matter is the fact that it appeals to moral intuition. What seems to be
:48:52. > :48:57.underlying debates on philosophy is it moral intuition that we share, or
:48:58. > :49:03.is it the culture of our upbringing or religion. Shakespeare's message
:49:04. > :49:05.proliferates around the world. He can appeal to everyone, different
:49:06. > :49:11.cultures and people. As a result perhaps it is a foundation of human
:49:12. > :49:17.rights, human rights depends on is there something that's universal,
:49:18. > :49:23.something that appeals to everyone. Are certain people good, or are some
:49:24. > :49:29.people bad? But telling it like axioms in the the Bible is not as
:49:30. > :49:35.nuanced as Shakespeare. It is the It is the mirror up to nature - we are
:49:36. > :49:39.good, we are bad, we are horrendous, we are beautiful, marvellous,
:49:40. > :49:43.malicious. All of that and it is all in us. I've been like that, I've
:49:44. > :49:49.felt like that, I've intertarnished those thoughts. That's the problem.
:49:50. > :49:54.Obviously the question was set up to diametrically oppose people, but
:49:55. > :49:58.that's the problem when a book tells you that you must do this, you must
:49:59. > :50:02.be moral, because deep down you know you are not those things. Sometimes
:50:03. > :50:07.you are this guy. If you are lucky you might be good six days out of
:50:08. > :50:13.the ten. Kevin, you said the Bible isn't so much character driven where
:50:14. > :50:18.these place are very much character driven. Are you saying that some of
:50:19. > :50:25.the characters in the Bible are one did dimensional? Certainly some of
:50:26. > :50:30.them are. Some of them are, some of the situations in the books allow
:50:31. > :50:35.for a wonderful multi-dimensionality and in particular I think one of the
:50:36. > :50:43.things that hasn't been mentioned is that how self critical the Bible is.
:50:44. > :50:47.The Bible is constructed book after book out of prophets who
:50:48. > :50:54.relentlessly attack the religious morals, the political morals of the
:50:55. > :51:01.society that they live in. It is relentlessly self critical as a
:51:02. > :51:07.work. And they are ferocious and also wonderful characters. Elijah is
:51:08. > :51:11.utterly crazed, deranged but politically dynamite. In the
:51:12. > :51:17.prophetic books, similarly... Can you see a human being coming through
:51:18. > :51:26.from the mists of Elijah in the same way you can Othello? With Elijah you
:51:27. > :51:31.can. He's chased out of, by Ahab and Jezebel. He's a character in flight.
:51:32. > :51:37.He's a character in exile. This again is something that pervasive in
:51:38. > :51:42.the Bible. It is a book of exile. A book of statelessness, a become of
:51:43. > :51:46.those who are put upon, who are relentlessly outside of society. So
:51:47. > :51:49.many different books from different eras and times, over thousands of
:51:50. > :51:55.years, and so many different authors. Fascinating. Is Shakespeare
:51:56. > :52:03.now in our day and age more relevant than the Bible? Here we are in 2016.
:52:04. > :52:07.Richard? Well, I think inevitably he would, because he is 2,000 years
:52:08. > :52:11.younger and that therefore he is easier for us to see our lives
:52:12. > :52:12.reflected in his books. So easier for us to see our lives
:52:13. > :52:19.think he is more relevant. easier for us to see our lives
:52:20. > :52:26.point of view the Bible seems easier for us to see our lives
:52:27. > :52:28.should behave. It may cause you a lot of suffering but
:52:29. > :52:33.should behave. It may cause you a alright when you are dead. For me I
:52:34. > :52:38.need someone to help me when I'm alive and Shakespeare helps me when
:52:39. > :52:42.I'm alive. One of the most striking, we've been talking about narrative
:52:43. > :52:45.and finding ourselves in quite unpleasant stories, one of the
:52:46. > :52:49.things we see in the Bible is the prophet Nathan coming to King David
:52:50. > :52:54.and saying, there was a man who had sheep and within had only one lamb,
:52:55. > :52:58.and he wanted a feast. We took this man's lamb and slaughtered it. What
:52:59. > :53:03.should be done? David says, he should be killed and then fined,
:53:04. > :53:08.kill him and take some of his taxes. Nathan says, thou art the man. The
:53:09. > :53:12.Bible itself contains that, oh, you think you are on one side of this
:53:13. > :53:18.narrative. You should pause. There's a richness in a narrative sense writ
:53:19. > :53:22.warns us against exactly that kind of reading and we think, Hhzzah, we
:53:23. > :53:29.are on that side of history, of reading and we think, Hhzzah, we
:53:30. > :53:32.may be mistaken. What about Deuteronomy chapter 7. It contains
:53:33. > :53:37.criticism of the religious establishment. The main reason to go
:53:38. > :53:42.to Shakespeare is not because he is relevant but because we enjoy him.
:53:43. > :53:46.There is no moral obligation to enjoy Shakespeare at all. It is
:53:47. > :53:50.great when people do. We've had just had Shakespeare Week. 1.5 million
:53:51. > :53:54.primary school children took part and got really excited and enjoyed
:53:55. > :53:58.it. It is putting forward that sense of passion and feeling which is
:53:59. > :54:05.going to ignite a spark. What should we read? We are told it is relevant,
:54:06. > :54:13.oh my heart sinks when I'm told it is relevant. What should we see now?
:54:14. > :54:17.Go and see Hamlet in Stratford. As You Like It, that will tell you what
:54:18. > :54:21.it is like to be in love. Romeo and Juliet will tell you what it is like
:54:22. > :54:25.to be in love with somebody you shouldn't be in love with. Nobody
:54:26. > :54:30.has a moral duty to likes Shakespeare. We shouldn't be
:54:31. > :54:34.overemphatic I think. Shakespeare does have his difficulties
:54:35. > :54:34.overemphatic I think. Shakespeare problems for modern readers and
:54:35. > :54:41.theatre goers. While we are problems for modern readers and
:54:42. > :54:44.enthusiastically in favour of Shakespeare, nobody should feel
:54:45. > :54:50.inferior if they don't respond to Shakespeare. Much as people don't
:54:51. > :54:54.respond to with Beethoven or the Rolling Stones.
:54:55. > :54:59.APPLAUSE. Rebecca, what would inspire people? If you had one work
:55:00. > :55:02.by Shakespeare, whether a Sonnet of a play. A tricky question. It is a
:55:03. > :55:07.horrible question. It's the big question. Yeah, that's true. I think
:55:08. > :55:13.you could pick any play. Any play? Any play. You can get so much out of
:55:14. > :55:17.it. Any Sonnet. If you enjoy it, if it speaks to you, it is worth
:55:18. > :55:25.reading, watching, listening to, engaging with in some way. I love
:55:26. > :55:31.that you were talking about the Klingon version of Hamlet. They have
:55:32. > :55:33.the emote were talking about the Klingon version of Hamlet. They have
:55:34. > :55:39.the emote cot version of -- the emote conversion of Romeo and
:55:40. > :55:45.Juliet. It is heart, heart, dagger. Very eloquent. Meh. Exactly. If that
:55:46. > :55:50.speaks to you, that's the version for you to go to. You will probably
:55:51. > :55:58.read that and think, the you will see a different version of this and
:55:59. > :55:59.go back. Romeo and Juliet, the back. Romeo and Juliet, the because
:56:00. > :56:04.Luhrmann version -- Romeo and Juliet, the because
:56:05. > :56:10.version, my teenage children liked that. A lot of people don't like
:56:11. > :56:16.Shakespeare, and that's fine. But that film came out and it wasn't
:56:17. > :56:23.received as a film by a 400-year-old author. It was a great film. Full
:56:24. > :56:28.stop. At school that film came on and wasn't punishment. I grew up in
:56:29. > :56:31.a theatre, so I always felt that sense of accessibility which many in
:56:32. > :56:45.my class did not. We didn't even question it. It was 1950s styling in
:56:46. > :56:48.late 1990s LA, it seemed, with 14th and 15th century with Elizabethan
:56:49. > :56:54.characters... It was great storytelling. Do you like the modern
:56:55. > :56:58.versions? Is it a valuable and vital exercise? I think it is valuable and
:56:59. > :57:02.vital if Shakespeare is to remain a living text. And a living text that
:57:03. > :57:06.iving text that gives us living virtues - faith, hope and love.
:57:07. > :57:09.That's what the Bible is about. Could the Bible learn something from
:57:10. > :57:14.the way Shakespeare is reinvented all the time? Well, we do. The Bible
:57:15. > :57:18.is only inspired when there's a group of people to read it and be
:57:19. > :57:25.inspired by it and go out to change the world.
:57:26. > :57:31.APPLAUSE. When you see Charlton Heston doing his thing. That doesn't
:57:32. > :57:40.do it for me. The great biblical epics. Heston playing the Middle
:57:41. > :57:45.Eastern guy. I preferred the Life of Brian. Always look on the bright
:57:46. > :57:52.side of life, black humour but deeply religious. Stanley, a last
:57:53. > :57:56.word. It is extraordinary, 400 years on, we have no moral obligation to,
:57:57. > :58:00.but we still celebrate and stand in awe of this extraordinary talent
:58:01. > :58:05.don't we? Yes, we do, because he is the most humane of writers and the
:58:06. > :58:09.most humane of communicators, and he teaches us, if that's the word, he
:58:10. > :58:15.shows us perhaps, helps us to understand ourselves. To understand
:58:16. > :58:20.and to respond to human emotion and the fundamental things of human
:58:21. > :58:26.life. While never insisting that there are answers to any of it. He
:58:27. > :58:30.is always one big question mark. And the big question from you, one word,
:58:31. > :58:35.which play? To my mind the greatest of the plays is King Lear. It is not
:58:36. > :58:40.the easiest of them but it is the one which he faces up most
:58:41. > :58:43.profoundly. We'll give it a go. Thank you everyone.
:58:44. > :58:45.As ever, the debate will continue on Twitter and online.
:58:46. > :58:49.For now it's goodbye from everyone here in York.
:58:50. > :59:06.Make the most of your weekend, wherever you are.
:59:07. > :59:12.Use the BBC Weather App to stay one step ahead of the weather.