Episode 13 The Big Questions

Is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?

Good morning, I'm Nicky Campbell, welcome to The Big Questions.

Today we're at Manor Church of England Academy in York to debate

one very Big Question in honour of the great playwright and poet,

William Shakespeare, who died 400 years ago this month.

Is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?

Welcome, everyone, to The Big Questions.

Apparently, if you are ever cast away on a desert island,

you will find a bible and the complete works

But which will bring you greater solace, or more joy,

or inspire you to ponder humanity's frailties?

Which would you be saddest to see swept away by the waves?

Which contains more truth - the works of Shakespeare

To debate that very Big Question we've gathered together leading

Shakespearean scholars, theatre directors, performers,

writers, biblical scholars, clergy and people of faith and none.

And you can join in too, on Twitter or online, by logging

on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions and following the link

Plus there'll be lots of encouragement and contributions

So, is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible?

Richard Denton, good morning. Producer of Shakespeare Uncovered.

I'm looking forward to this! Is there more truth, understanding of

the human condition, for you, and what we are as human beings, a grasp

of humanity, in Shakespeare or the Bible? In Shakespeare. I have to say

in Shakespeare. The Bible tends to have lots of prescriptions and

commandments and things like that, but it doesn't say things in ways

that are recognisable to us now. Chicks be a's writing at the time of

the Renaissance and humanism, and he describes human nature in a way that

is absolutely recognisable, providing dilemmas, problems and

solutions. Watching them play out in real time. Treating us like adults

in a sense? Yes, treating us like adults. The Bible tells you what to

think, and Shakespeare says, just think. Alison Milbank, a really

interesting take. Would you say Shakespeare holds up a mirror to

nature, as I believe is a line in Hamlet, but the Bible tends to

change and constrain your nature, to tell you what your nature should be.

That's taking the Bible is a list of rules. The Christian Bible sees the

law fulfilled in Jesus. What the Bible teaches you to do is try to

live like a person. It wants you to do a performance, to put on Christ.

Plays like Shakespeare show you the Bible in action. But they reach

beyond the biblical geography. They went to the Soviet Union,

Shakespeare has gone to China and beyond the confines of one, if I may

say so, sect. The fact you can do that, and have a Confucian

Shakespeare, is because he comes from a specific time and place, and

he takes that wisdom from the Christian tradition, which finds its

kind of parallel in the works of Confucius, for example. If it was a

bare-bones abstract work of human nature without embodiment, it

wouldn't work. It doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from God. What do

you make of that? Shakespeare is of his time in one sense. Born at a

time when his education was normal. He was a Protestant. The interesting

thing about the plays is how repeatedly they broaden out beyond

that first. As Richard said, they ask questions and continually

confront the audience with what they would do with moral by lemmas. You

mentioned wisdom, I don't know how much wisdom there is in the

Shakespeare plays. The important wisdom is, don't trust wisdom, trust

yourself, how you think, and how you approach the situation. I would have

said Justin yourselves gets you very little far in Shakespeare. Very

often the endings come, particularly in the comedies, come from outside

people. In biblical terms it would be called Grace, where Shakespeare

turns it into eight brilliant theatrical device, so you end up

with the gift is and reconciliation. But it isn't an -- it isn't earned.

Mercy comes like the gentle rain from Heaven, even though the people

in Merchant of Venice are not merciful. I think that's a rather

simplistic view of Shakespeare. The idea that forgiveness is at the end

of Tempest, or at the end of As You Like It, for example, it's not

simple happy endings or simple grace, there are much more

contradicted things than that. Superficially it's a happy ending,

but it clearly isn't a happy ending. Jem Bloomfield, isn't it fair enough

to say that the Bible for some is a simple message for simple people

that we are in a complicated world that is full of contradiction and

confusion, but Shakespeare, as Richard said, treats us as adults,

and invites us to explore our own sense of morality and come to our

own conclusions. As such it is far richer as literature. Discuss. I'm

afraid, no. It can be portrayed as a simple message in the Bible. I think

around the world we see the terrifying consequences of treating

the Bible as a simple message. The Bible is full of simple genres,

containing wisdom and literature. Nobody killed in As You Like It.

Indeed. The Bible doesn't provide simple answers and it ask serious

questions. There are contradictions even in the wisdom of the

literature. Ask a fool in according to his folly, but it's contradicted

as well. It stages the moral problems that are similar things to

what we find in Shakespeare. People discard lots of things in the Bible.

In a 21st-century, if people don't like something in the Bible, like

stoning adulterers is, or children who disobey and rude to their

parents, if you don't like it come you get rid of it. You don't do that

with Shakespeare. You do, you hardly ever see a full four our

Shakespeare. Laurence Olivier is the big Hamlet that we hold up, but it

only has 60% of the play in it. You can't have the whole text of

Shakespeare. Yes you can, Kenneth Branagh does. Stanley has entered

the fray. We must make the distinction between Shakespeare the

book and Shakespeare the dramatist. distinction between Shakespeare the

That is the most important distinction. On a desert island you

are not getting much from Shakespeare if all you're getting is

my edition of the complete works! Shakespeare is essentially a writer

for performance. That's why Shakespeare has no defined meanings.

The meanings come from the interaction between what he wrote,

which often has strong meanings, of course, but they come between that

and the performance, the actors create a good deal of the meaning

themselves, which is why every Shakespeare play is different every

time it's performed. We are delighted to have Professor Stanley

Wells here, one of the world's leading authorities on Shakespeare.

Why does so much Shakespeare resonate and why does it do so so

much more than the Bible for summary people? Because it's so good! Partly

because it's performed, it can be brought to a new kind of life. I'm

not too happy talking about the Bible, partly because I don't know

it too well, but what is the Bible? People talk about it as if it were

just the Christian part of the Bible and the Gospels. But the Bible

includes an awful lot of very self-contradictory material.

Shakespeare to some extent does. Shakespeare is a developing concept

as well. The plays are developing their attitude towards life, as he

himself grows older and learns more about life, I think. When we talk

about Shakespeare we need to talk about the poems as well. I think if

you are to get close to Shakespeare himself, you can get more out of the

sonnets and you do from the plays. In the plays always putting on an

act, or getting other people to do that. For somebody at home who not

really thought about Shakespeare a lot. Like my daughter 's! Despite

your presence. If you were to recommend one sonnet to read today

that they would perhaps be transfixed and mesmerised and

transported by, which one would it be? The one most relevant to our

theme today is number 146, beginning poor soul, the centre of my sinful

earth. Nobody quite knows what the next two words should be because

there is a gap in the text, but it's a sonnet between the battle between

the spirit and body. It's Shakespeare's only really religious

poem. If people want to think about our theme in relation to

Shakespeare, they would do well to read 146. And that would sit very

well in the Bible, Paul? It would, but other sonnets have a spiritual

dimension, like Sonnet 29, when in disgrace... Sonnet 39, which ends

with but if the while I think on thee, dear friend, or losses are

restored and sorrows end. It's an encouraging text. It's also very

subjective. It is, but one-dimensional this question is

what we go to these texts for. And what we bring from ourselves? What

kind of truth we look for. The deal-breaker as far as Shakespeare

is concerned is that people find him much more inclusive than the Bible.

They see in Shakespeare the way into a wider sense of what humanity is

about, which is not defined or arbitrated by church voices or

different kinds of Christianity or Judaism, for that matter, with the

Hebrew Bible. Also we talk about the Bible, and we admit it's a load of

different books. By different people over a long period of time. Some

bits are more relevant than others. And in the Bible we have the song of

songs, love poetry. It's very beautiful and sensual. It's my

favourite part of the Bible, and St John's gospel. I haven't read enough

of the Bible to really, to, but I've read much more Shakespeare. It

speaks to be more because I know more of it. In terms of its

long-term translation and how it relates to humanity, you think about

Shakespeare's developed of characters like Macbeth and Hamlet

and Falstaff, and I think those characters will continue to be

interpreted. With the Bible there is the baggage of politics and violence

and the way different religions have interacted. That makes people more

sensitive. We don't have that relationship with the works of

Shakespeare. But part of Shakespeare's popularity is tied to

the British Empire, and also the continued Hegg emanating -- hegemony

of the American empire now with the English language. What will be

returning to the fore in the 21st-century question? His humanity

transcends that. If he wrote in Lithuanian, but was exactly as good

as he was, he wouldn't be the poet he is today. Shakespeare's works are

translated into all... But he didn't do that. He wrote about humans. So

did many other people in many other languages, but we can't deny the

relationship between the spread of the a sandwich and English culture.

Plenty of fantastic poets in every language everywhere in the world.

Shakespeare is 1000 times more famous than them, but it's not

because is 1000 times better, it's because culture, art and politics

interact. There was the time when Arabic was the lingua franca of

science and mathematics. Shakespeare is amazing in the same way that

other historical writers, even recent ones like Tolstoy and Chekhov

and Bert Brecht. Writers can transcends time and place. You could

perform Shakespeare in Japanese. I saw a production by a South Sudanese

Theatre company, performing six beer in their own language, and I still

understood everything that was happening. -- performing

Shakespeare. It was that dilemma, that you mull -- that human frailty,

that we don't get that from the Bible, it's more died act it. -- is

more didactic. It's not so much fun! Who said that? I did. There's not as

much comedy in the Bible. Is the Bible a bit bleak and grim? I'm

making not an entirely facetious point. The greatness of Shakespeare

depends partly on the wit and breadth of the vision, which

includes the down to earth. There is that in the Bible as well, but there

is the comedy we respond to as well. Andy mentioned Falstaff, for

example. There is a character who is very dubious morally. But the fact

people do tend to warm to him is itself a moral point, I think, that

we can easily relate humanely, in human terms, to someone we could

disapprove of. Tell us about the morally ambiguous

characters in the Bible that give us a touch of Shakespeare. A touch of

Breaking Bad, that moral ambiguity, that Long John Silver lad, is there

any of that in the Bible? There is, but I would like to say that Sir

John Falstaff is a great biblical critic. In fact in Henry IV part I,

he is interested in the prodigal son, in St Paul's epistles,

interested in the story of the rich man and the poor man, and there is

some evidence he is conceived as a kind of anti-puritan, a sort of

joke. Those were the commonly understood references of the age,

the context of the time. Well, it is not as simple as that. I'm reassured

to hear that. He is using them positively and critically, using the

Bible to critique people. You are presenting the Bible as if it is

this boring... It is a wonder anybody reads it the way you are

talking about it. Who? Agent provocateur. Are there nuanced

characters like we were hearing in Falstaff and others? Well, the

disciples are very nuanced and they play it all ways. Obviously St

Peter, Judas himself is a very nuanced character. But this is not a

novel. We were not writing in the modern period. We are talking about

ancient texts. And they have to be interred. What Shakespeare does

brilliantly is use them as modes of critique. For example he takes the

story of Christ and he sets up the story of Julius Caesar. He sets up

brute us like Christ, who has his agony in the garden. He isn't

applying it in a lumpen way, but says, these are the texts that reads

us. So to take the Bible out of Shakespeare would be to diminish it.

You may not be aware of it but it is adding to the complexity, not taking

away from it. APPLAUSE. That's right, the Bible is

a huge source for Shakespeare, as it would have been for any generation.

It is surrounding him, he is hearing it every week or month in church. He

has digested large parts of it during his education. The obvious

play here is Measure for Measure, which is Matthew 7. What Shakespeare

is doing in that play, the main story is the woman whose brother is

sentenced to death and the judge comes to her and says, if you sleep

with me I will get your brother off. Shakespeare so sharpens that

with me I will get your brother off. and makes us think, well

with me I will get your brother off. does mercy look like? It

a religious question but it is continually asking questions

a religious question but it is intensifying the dilemma. There is

no happy ending in that play. It intensifying the dilemma. There is

tortured and difficult and intensifying the dilemma. There is

shady that nobody ends it clean. It intensifying the dilemma. There is

is a play about sexual harassment apart from anything else. You

imagine any writer would be proud to write, I will let him off if you

have sex on me, and she says, I will blow the whistle on you, and he

turns and says, well who will believe you? That's a chilling,

modern sense built. It is an understanding of human beings and

humanity. I don't think there's a line like that in any particular

story in the Bible, but I bow to... Any humour in the Bible? Any laughs?

Life is full of laughs. I don't think there's a case for supposing

that Genesis has some humour in it. It is so utterly strangely

incongrus. You have a series of events, people behaving badly, or

Jacob telling huge, whopper, lies and yet being blessed of Abraham.

More or less denying he is married to his wife in order to circumvent

danger. And again he is to his wife in order to circumvent

this. It is this strange... It is not laugh out loud. It's not, but a

strangen congruity, I hope this makes sense. Sur reality It makes

you think and coming back to that idea of whether the Bible tells us

what to think or makes us think, I don't think it does. I think there's

any number of books in the Bible that are so strange, whose morality

is so inexpublishable, like Job for instance. Or Revelations. But Job in

particular. We have this utterly pained experience, the immense

suffering of this figure of Job begging God for an answer. And God

just resolutely refuses even to engage with the question. It is just

like King Lear isn't it? Just like King Lear. And King Lear on the

heath begging for an answer of the absent gods. Is Job like King Lear?

Without a doubt when Shakespeare is penning this mental breakdown of

King Lear, he has Job in mind. In so many of Shakespeare's plays it

King Lear, he has Job in mind. In so simply the air that they breathe,

and the echoes and the half echoes are everybody where. For me one of

the most impressive lines in King Lear is why should a dog, a horse, a

rat have life, and thou no breath at all, as he looks into the face of

his dead daughter. This is suffering brought to fully dramatic life isn't

it? Did he address perhaps life being the end? Does he not posit

that at the end of everything? To lie in cold obstruction and to rot.

Andrew, was it to be to die, to sleep, perchance to dream. Give me

the rest of it. I have to hand over. We are in that sleep of death what

dreams may come, shuffle off this mortal coil to pause, to die, to

sleep, though more. As it progresses, the questions multiply.

What is the most famous line in Shakespeare? It is to be or not to

be. It is a question, and there is no answer. Hamlet spends the

entirety of the play trying the find some answer to that question,

perhaps, but Shakespeare doesn't resolve it for us or for him. And in

that speech is that not a example of him suggesting that death is the end

of everything? Hamlet knows that it isn't, because he has just seen his

father's ghost, who has told him to avenge his murder. Was it not a mere

apparition? He knows that ghost has come from somewhere. It has

terrified the life out of Horatio and the other people on the

battlements. The number of resurrection references are, Hero in

Much Ado About Nothing. Claudio, the twins Violet and Sebastian are res

rented for each other in Twelfth Night or What You Will. He is

re-using this motif throughout the work. Shakespeare uses the Bible as

a kind of colour on his palate of many colours. He is never using the

Bible to preach with as far as I can tell. It is a linguistic resource.

Falstaff has been mentioned. Alison, you spoke well of Falstaff. But this

horrible drunkard is mentioned as a character, and that is interested.

We need to acknowledge that Shakespeare is writing on the edge

when most religious people saw the theatre as something to be very

suspicious of. Including his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. And

there he was owning the largest house, New. In place, from 1597. The

council became increasingly shrill and banned playing for the next

couple of decades. So it wasn't that he was having a comfortable time,

that the Globe on the edge of London, out of the jurisdiction of

the City fathers, people frowning on it from the a religious perspective,

he had to be careful. So is taking his human drama beyond the scope of

the Bible into classical literature, looking at ways in which people can

interact. There's a freedom there and a daring there to ask questions,

which has been touched on very much with King Lear just now, and Hamlet.

It is writ large in Shakespeare. You can ask a question dramatically, to

be or not to be, that is the question. You may never get an

answer. Shakespeare is saying that's fine, the you can live with that.

That's life, but the Bible says we will get an answer doesn't it?

Shakespeare is not a moralist, putting it simply. He discusses

moral questions and is fascinated with moral questions but he doesn't

come up with the answers. He invites us to come to our own conclusions

does he? Yes, I think a so. I haven't heard from you for a while.

The last time it was magnificent. You touched on the issue of

censorship at the time and the attempt to ban many books that

contradicted religious doctrine. No-one is denying the Bible's place

in English literature or its influence on Shakespeare but we are

retro speare but we are retro pocketsively colouring --

retrospectively colouring our intertakes of that reference. So you

have the banning of certain books that restricts people. The way

people can quote passages to the Bible in Shakespeare, they can't

quote the Ovid, or whatever Shakespeare was reading. There is

all of those factors at work. I think with Shakespeare, I don't

know. It is that he doesn't tell you what to do. It is a bit disgusting,

a bit hideous. We see ourselves. I think sometimes not just the best of

ourselves, in the Bible we are encouraged to paint ourselves as

being particularly moral. Often when you read Shakespeare it is like a

Quentin Tarantino movie. It is disgusting, violent, sexy, jokes

everywhere and I'm kind of enjoying it and that's OK. I feel that it is

that lack of morality actually that is kind of moral in its own way.

Holding a mirror up to nature. We can address our own frailty. When we

pretend we are good and moral, the Nazis pretended they were good and

moral. Moral. I'm not saying that's religion's fault but it is dangerous

to say, I'm moral and you're not. When I read Shakespeare I think,

this is horrible, but there is probably a bit of that in me. Of

course. You touched on a phrase, we retrospectively paint. Talking about

his opinions, whether it is race or gender or sexuality, do you think

there's a danger of retrospectively painting Shakespeare with

contemporary colours? Of course there is. Post the Holocaust,

reading The Merchant of Venice, which some argued at the time was a

comedy, which post 1945, how can it be read as a comedy. Post

transatlantic slavery, Othello becomes a different character. When

the Ottomans were more powerful than Britain, those place become

different plays, which is when Shakespeare was writing. Are you

uncomfortable watching Othello? No, it's one of Shakespeare's better

characters. But Jago is the vile racist, the bad guy. But we know

know why. There is the hint he thinks Othello might have slept with

his wife, which is never addressed properly. But he's a Moore. Without

the understanding of the scientific racism that would come two centuries

after Shakespeare's death, we are reading back all of the events

that's happened since and saying his depiction of that character through

our modern eyes. We don't live in Elizabeth than England, so we can't

grasp with way those stories were written.

APPLAUSE. I want to nudge this on to what about was he a liberal, what

was his views on women and race? Anyone in the audience want to say

anything, put your hand up. Sir, good morro. I am neither a scholar

or a Shakespearean, but according to my belief all the religions are one

and the same and all of the religious texts may resemble the

Bible. But the difference is from the Bible and what it says in there,

we have a power behind those words. Which Christ and other religious

leaders claim to be divinely inspired. And which enables

individuals and societies to transform and act on it. I have not

yet seen anyone living their lives for families and everything,

destitute, going elsewhere as a missionary to promote Shakespeare.

Let's put that point. There are missionaries going all over the

planet performing Shakespeare and the teaching of Shakespeare to

countries all over the world. It is probably the most successful

international playwright and artist in the world today. Good morning.

Good morning. It is incredible to make a comparison between the impact

of the Bible and the readership and the distribution and the depth of

influence. Across many artistic spheres with one author who was

inspired by the Bible. I think it is very narrow. Inspired by the Bible

or what he saw in the context of the time? He was enthused with biblical

literature. Not everyone was learned at the time. Not at all. But it was

compulsory to go to church. It was the only show in town.

The fascinating thing about Shakespeare is how he exists in Sony

parts of the world outside a Christian context. Where does the

Bible not exist? Soviet Russia. China. The way Shakespeare's roots

entwine with all these local cultures and entwine themselves in

Bollywood movies or 1920s adaptations of Merchant of Venice in

Shanghai. It reaches beyond the understanding of the Bible in terms

of humanity. I don't know how to do this, but try to plot the global

influence, surely Shakespeare has to have a more extensive and lively

presence these days around the world than the Bible. Was Shakespeare

liberal? We will come to Alison first, was he liberal for his times,

in relative terms. He had strong women in his plays, powerful women.

The famous speech by Amelia in Othello. Then you have the Taming of

the Shrew, which is perhaps not so good in terms of the way the women

are treated, and the way she has to kowtow at the end. We have all been

saying that in the sense there isn't actually a message, so it's hard to

say we can turn around and go the other away. Can we find out anything

about what he thought? I don't know if we can know what he thought. But

when you have people like Polina, who orchestrates the rescue in the

Winter's Tale. There are wonderful female characters. The Victorians

were the first to hit. There were whole books about Shakespeare's

heroines. It's not that they were being Victorian, they were seeing

latent potential of women to be moral agents. That was important to

the Reformation because we lost a lot with the Reformation. Before the

Reformation there were sisterhood is, mystics, women in Catholicism

had, I would argue, quite powerful roles, and there is increasing

patriarchal control under Protestantism. In that context, I

would argue that the female characters in the plays of

Shakespeare are liberated. Appropriate to differ at this point!

Thank you. It's important to recognise comedy cross dressing

women have active roles, when a dress as men and act as men, they

are incredibly important in driving the story and action. Their can

usually be seen as part of them playing the role of the men. Like

Portia in Merchant of Venice, when she's dressed as the lawyer, she is

more important, arguably, than when she's a woman. Shakespeare still has

wonderful female characters. She still had a female brain. She did,

but was presented to the audience and the characters in the play as a

man. We have to appreciate that. Talking about Taming of the Shrew,

it's an early play, and probably the last play, and I will defer to

Stanley, it's probably the last play in terms of a comedy where a woman

is silenced. From that moment on, women have their voices, but in

tragedies they are silenced, Desdemona is silenced, in Hamlet, of

Ely is silenced. I think that's astonishing. What about Lady

Macbeth? The Scottish play? I would rather prefer. We are going to have

the lights go out! She is not a silenced woman. She is front and

centre but has a tragic end. Arguably deserves it. Can I just

mention again, the contemporary situation six Shakespeare was in, we

had Queen Elizabeth the first, it was an Elizabethan settlement,

Protestantism, everyone had to go to church and everybody knew the new

English Bible, which had been produced for the first time in

English, and the people, ordinary peasants who couldn't read,

probably, they had lost these plays and the catholic idea, and were

beginning to wake up. All of these issues, as you rightly said,

Shakespeare has got all of this that he puts into his plays, and the

dilemmas they are in. I think every single play gives people, reap what

you sow. You can see justice coming through at the end. If you do that,

it will not have a happy outcome. In a sense they are morale details. In

a way. In King Lear when the fool says, I will have you whipped when

you have grown old but not grown wise. You can see he's turning

everything about his head, and saying, yeah, what the Bible is

saying to you is what I'm saying in the play, you will reap what you

sow. Back to these points as well, coming on from that, was he liberal

for his times? Andrew, some of the way that women were portrayed, are

we seeing, the fact that Othello is the synthetic character, Iago is the

racist. Shylock in Merchant of Venice, there is sympathy to him as

well. Are we seeing the seedlings of modern human rights or is it that

reading too much into it? It's so hard to say. But it's a fascinating

question. Shakespeare contains so much and you can see so many things

in it. You could make an argument that Othello is a racist play and

people have made that argument. It's difficult to sustain, but you could

make the same point about Merchant of Venice, being anti-Jewish and

people do make that argument. Nevertheless, Shakespeare makes it

more compensated. -- more complicated. What does Shakespeare

think about this? They are all plays. As Stanley said at the

beginning, he is creating characters. One thing we think we

know about Shakespeare is that he got he his start as a writer because

he was an actor. Sometimes I think, these parts are really underwritten.

Wouldn't it be fascinating if Claudius in Hamlet was an

interesting character instead of just the bad guy. Wouldn't it be

interesting to write a play about a black man who isn't a villain, and a

white racist Italian as the villain. That is reading modern tea into the

past again. A good book out the moment, Africans in Tudor England. A

merchant working for Queen Elizabeth asked for the Moors to be dispelled

from England, he said there were too many in this realm. It didn't

happen. Were they Moors from Spain, where they men of power? The ideas

of blackness that consolidated post the 17 and 1800s, they were nascent

in Shakespeare's time, that you had African German Saints in this time.

The idea that blackness is innately bad and criminal, was there in an

east at Eric sense, but hadn't been consecrated in the same way. --

esoteric sense. It's not clear that Caliban is black comedy could be

indigenous American. Caliban is the archetypal savage, I think there is

no doubt about that, it's an accurate interpretation. I don't

know if Shakespeare would consciously say, I would make the

white man that bad guy and black man the good guy. Scholars have taken to

calling the passage of sonnets 127 to one 50 for the black lady, but

there have been interpretations over those characters. Scholars have

called for the dark Lady even know Shakespeare calls of the black lady.

At that period, Howley black people would Shakespeare have met? There

were a few in London. -- how many. He was doing a daring thing still

when he made Othello a hero. If you look at Titus Andronicus, the

audience would have been very surprised to see a black man

portrayed sympathetically, as Othello is. It's one of the ways

that Shakespeare is forward looking. I will come back to you, Paul?

Shakespeare's liberal mind is ripped so large in the place. Against his

contemporaries in the period and also since. That's one of the things

he's most admired for. A line that pops into my head from not a

well-known play, All's Well That Ends Well, simply the thing I am

shall make me live. If ever you needed a kind of plea for a sense of

common humanity, it's simply the thing I am shall make me live. These

sorts of moments are all over Shakespeare's plays. His

contemporaries saw him doing things as being a mould breaker in the art,

and it comes back to daring to be free and say what you really think,

speak what you feel, not what we ought to say, we here at the end of

King Lear. It's that freedom that centuries afterwards have come to

value about Shakespeare, yes we have read back into it, but we have done

that with all texts. All texts will try to make them contemporary. We

mentioned boys playing women, women dressing up as men, it's gender

fluid, but we can't look back at those times in the context of modern

Western Europe in contexts of sexuality either. Homosexuality, it

was rather like parts of the Middle East and Arab world, there is plenty

of homosexuality, but no gay culture. It's possibly like that.

of homosexuality, but no gay you think he was bisexual? These are

modern labels, and I do reject them, but did he have an absolutely clear

and empathetic understanding of passionate relationships between

men? He demonstrably did. Half the sonnets are to men. Shall I compare

thee to a summer's day, thou art more lovely and contemporary, I

think it's to a man. I think. But a lot of them are. He has Antonio in

Merchant of Venice, his love for Bassanio is by a modern context

homosexual. Would his audience have understand that? I don't think that

kind of relationship was viewed in that context, even the word

homosexual didn't exist. I don't know if they would have seen it in

those terms. So they did, but didn't express it? I will defer to Stanley.

I think it was so common and ordinary that people didn't think

about it. He certainly portrayed loving relationships, like Merchant

of Venice, and the relationship in Coriolanus between Coriolanus and

the Warriors, who at my and love each other, it's one of

Shakespeare's most profound and psychological portrayals, in my

opinion. It has been brought out wonderfully in certain productions,

the things I think is interesting, the things I think is interesting,

we are looking at the plays as if we can

way Shakespeare has been used to reflect on moral issues. You

way Shakespeare has been used to say that on the Bible itself. The

Genesis, for example, people say, what they really meant was this, and

others say, no, they really meant this. You get it with Shakespeare

and plenty of other literature. You do, but also where you might have

Shakespeare used in place of the Bible. There is a debate in the

House of Lords about the age of consent for gay relationships, and a

Lord says that we are dealing with moral issues, and I understand you

have moral principles you have held for a long time. He says, I'm an old

man, and I saw Merchant of Venice, and I thought, good, they should put

the man down. I watched Taming of the Shrew, and thought it was very

funny, shutting up the woman, that's very good! And I now horrified. The

Taming of the Shrew, it depicts a terrible act of violence against

women, and the Merchant of Venice has a terrible crime at the end. He

says he used to watch Hamlet, and he used to laugh at seeing Peter

Cushing played an effeminate, over the top, clear coded as gay

character, and he looks back and winces. My Lords, think that you

might be wrong. Think on the way you have watched Shakespeare over the

years. There's something about the performances that so long and rich,

people say, Shakespeare might not agree with us, but we might not

agree with us. It could be a moral reflection.

APPLAUSE Aldridge when playing in Russia changed Merchant of Venice.

He thought Shylock was a racist character. Being an African-American

character expelled from Britain he performed it differently. In terms

of Shakespeare's supposed liberalism, or not, we can look at

the man. One, he was possibly the only, Stanley can correct me if I'm

wrong, playwright who didn't go to prison for his beliefs in the

period. And someone be that close to two monarchs be so liberal? Most of

his characters come out on top. When you look at the usurpers in

Shakespeare, and they are the bad guys. There's a place he couldn't

step beyond if he was that close to the two rulers at the time. But he

pushed it as far as he could. Kevin? I have a sense that we can be

anachronistic about Shakespeare's liberalism. The thing that's

consummately modern about Shakespeare, the thing that makes

him last through the centuries is his ability to have sympathy with

the villains of his play, and his ability to put himself into the mind

of characters who are utterly despicable, morally speaking. He

manages to create a Lady Macbeth, an Iago, so tellingly such that the

audience can't help but go along with him. Do you get that in the

Bible, that we can sympathise, I suppose it is Judas... I don't think

the Bible is particularly character driven in the same way. I don't

think we do, no. There are incredible characters in the Bible

though aren't there? I would like to suggest that Iago is in fact the

embodiment of pure evil and is an example of Shakespeare telling us

that sometimes we have to face up to evil. What you make of that in terms

of the Bible I don't know, but I think he is. Is. There are very few

really evil characters this Shakespeare but Iago I think is one

of them. His implaquability in the end is I think Shakespeare's way of

telling us that. But he is also great fun to watch. Great fun to be

with. It is the same with Richard III. We see in ourselves the danger

we might also be a bit like that, so there is an amusing side to that

certainly. I think it is absolutely crucial. I think he had this

extraordinary ability to channel any character he came up with. Often at

the expense of his plays perhaps. There was an argument that The

Merchant of Venice was written at a time when he needed a play with a

villainous Jew. He creates the Jew and he gets into the character of

the Jew and he writes, prick us and do we not bleed? He can't help

himself but to find a logic, an emotional logic, in any character.

He is like the world's greatest actor writing. But the barrister

defending the criminal. He says it to the bottom of his soul. Anyone

else who wants to make a quick one? I want to go back to that point you

made about human rights this Shakespeare, because I think what

Shakespeare does better than the Bible and other moral texts for that

matter is the fact that it appeals to moral intuition. What seems to be

underlying debates on philosophy is it moral intuition that we share, or

is it the culture of our upbringing or religion. Shakespeare's message

proliferates around the world. He can appeal to everyone, different

cultures and people. As a result perhaps it is a foundation of human

rights, human rights depends on is there something that's universal,

something that appeals to everyone. Are certain people good, or are some

people bad? But telling it like axioms in the the Bible is not as

nuanced as Shakespeare. It is the It is the mirror up to nature - we are

good, we are bad, we are horrendous, we are beautiful, marvellous,

malicious. All of that and it is all in us. I've been like that, I've

felt like that, I've intertarnished those thoughts. That's the problem.

Obviously the question was set up to diametrically oppose people, but

that's the problem when a book tells you that you must do this, you must

be moral, because deep down you know you are not those things. Sometimes

you are this guy. If you are lucky you might be good six days out of

the ten. Kevin, you said the Bible isn't so much character driven where

these place are very much character driven. Are you saying that some of

the characters in the Bible are one did dimensional? Certainly some of

them are. Some of them are, some of the situations in the books allow

for a wonderful multi-dimensionality and in particular I think one of the

things that hasn't been mentioned is that how self critical the Bible is.

The Bible is constructed book after book out of prophets who

relentlessly attack the religious morals, the political morals of the

society that they live in. It is relentlessly self critical as a

work. And they are ferocious and also wonderful characters. Elijah is

utterly crazed, deranged but politically dynamite. In the

prophetic books, similarly... Can you see a human being coming through

from the mists of Elijah in the same way you can Othello? With Elijah you

can. He's chased out of, by Ahab and Jezebel. He's a character in flight.

He's a character in exile. This again is something that pervasive in

the Bible. It is a book of exile. A book of statelessness, a become of

those who are put upon, who are relentlessly outside of society. So

many different books from different eras and times, over thousands of

years, and so many different authors. Fascinating. Is Shakespeare

now in our day and age more relevant than the Bible? Here we are in 2016.

Richard? Well, I think inevitably he would, because he is 2,000 years

younger and that therefore he is easier for us to see our lives

reflected in his books. So easier for us to see our lives

think he is more relevant. easier for us to see our lives

point of view the Bible seems easier for us to see our lives

should behave. It may cause you a lot of suffering but

should behave. It may cause you a alright when you are dead. For me I

need someone to help me when I'm alive and Shakespeare helps me when

I'm alive. One of the most striking, we've been talking about narrative

and finding ourselves in quite unpleasant stories, one of the

things we see in the Bible is the prophet Nathan coming to King David

and saying, there was a man who had sheep and within had only one lamb,

and he wanted a feast. We took this man's lamb and slaughtered it. What

should be done? David says, he should be killed and then fined,

kill him and take some of his taxes. Nathan says, thou art the man. The

Bible itself contains that, oh, you think you are on one side of this

narrative. You should pause. There's a richness in a narrative sense writ

warns us against exactly that kind of reading and we think, Hhzzah, we

are on that side of history, of reading and we think, Hhzzah, we

may be mistaken. What about Deuteronomy chapter 7. It contains

criticism of the religious establishment. The main reason to go

to Shakespeare is not because he is relevant but because we enjoy him.

There is no moral obligation to enjoy Shakespeare at all. It is

great when people do. We've had just had Shakespeare Week. 1.5 million

primary school children took part and got really excited and enjoyed

it. It is putting forward that sense of passion and feeling which is

going to ignite a spark. What should we read? We are told it is relevant,

oh my heart sinks when I'm told it is relevant. What should we see now?

Go and see Hamlet in Stratford. As You Like It, that will tell you what

it is like to be in love. Romeo and Juliet will tell you what it is like

to be in love with somebody you shouldn't be in love with. Nobody

has a moral duty to likes Shakespeare. We shouldn't be

overemphatic I think. Shakespeare does have his difficulties

overemphatic I think. Shakespeare problems for modern readers and

theatre goers. While we are problems for modern readers and

enthusiastically in favour of Shakespeare, nobody should feel

inferior if they don't respond to Shakespeare. Much as people don't

respond to with Beethoven or the Rolling Stones.

APPLAUSE. Rebecca, what would inspire people? If you had one work

by Shakespeare, whether a Sonnet of a play. A tricky question. It is a

horrible question. It's the big question. Yeah, that's true. I think

you could pick any play. Any play? Any play. You can get so much out of

it. Any Sonnet. If you enjoy it, if it speaks to you, it is worth

reading, watching, listening to, engaging with in some way. I love

that you were talking about the Klingon version of Hamlet. They have

the emote were talking about the Klingon version of Hamlet. They have

the emote cot version of -- the emote conversion of Romeo and

Juliet. It is heart, heart, dagger. Very eloquent. Meh. Exactly. If that

speaks to you, that's the version for you to go to. You will probably

read that and think, the you will see a different version of this and

go back. Romeo and Juliet, the back. Romeo and Juliet, the because

Luhrmann version -- Romeo and Juliet, the because

version, my teenage children liked that. A lot of people don't like

Shakespeare, and that's fine. But that film came out and it wasn't

received as a film by a 400-year-old author. It was a great film. Full

stop. At school that film came on and wasn't punishment. I grew up in

a theatre, so I always felt that sense of accessibility which many in

my class did not. We didn't even question it. It was 1950s styling in

late 1990s LA, it seemed, with 14th and 15th century with Elizabethan

characters... It was great storytelling. Do you like the modern

versions? Is it a valuable and vital exercise? I think it is valuable and

vital if Shakespeare is to remain a living text. And a living text that

iving text that gives us living virtues - faith, hope and love.

That's what the Bible is about. Could the Bible learn something from

the way Shakespeare is reinvented all the time? Well, we do. The Bible

is only inspired when there's a group of people to read it and be

inspired by it and go out to change the world.

APPLAUSE. When you see Charlton Heston doing his thing. That doesn't

do it for me. The great biblical epics. Heston playing the Middle

Eastern guy. I preferred the Life of Brian. Always look on the bright

side of life, black humour but deeply religious. Stanley, a last

word. It is extraordinary, 400 years on, we have no moral obligation to,

but we still celebrate and stand in awe of this extraordinary talent

don't we? Yes, we do, because he is the most humane of writers and the

most humane of communicators, and he teaches us, if that's the word, he

shows us perhaps, helps us to understand ourselves. To understand

and to respond to human emotion and the fundamental things of human

life. While never insisting that there are answers to any of it. He

is always one big question mark. And the big question from you, one word,

which play? To my mind the greatest of the plays is King Lear. It is not

the easiest of them but it is the one which he faces up most

profoundly. We'll give it a go. Thank you everyone.

As ever, the debate will continue on Twitter and online.

For now it's goodbye from everyone here in York.

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