Was the Taking of the Capital last month, and the continuing riots on Biden’s inauguration day, anarchy? We don’t think so. In today’s Shakespeare snack, we’ll look at a real anarchistic utopian vision, presented by Gonzalo in The Tempest.
Gonzalo’s utopian vision, presented in The Tempest, is fairly modest. Shipwrecked on an island in the Mediterranean, he is the councilor to Naples’ King Alonso. For a brief moment in the play, he forgets his courtly obligations and fantasizes about what he would do if he were the ruler of the island:
Gonzalo: “Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, -”…
And were the king not on’t, what would I do?”
Sebastian: “’Scape being drunk for want of wine.”
Gonzalo: “….. I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty;–
Sebastian: “Yet he would be king on’t.”
Antonio: “The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.”
Gonzalo ignores these objections. As for why Shakespeare was looking so closely at this issue, Societal collapse was very much on his and everyone’s mind at the time. While we think of Elizabeth’s reign as spanning England’s steady rise and a cultural golden age, that was hardly how England saw herself. There was a reason that those three Edward VI plays were among the earliest Shakespeare wrote. The civil strife they describe (across 15 excruciating acts!) was still fresh in people’s minds, and are today filed under the heading of the War of the Roses.
Moreover, Elizabeth inherited the schism with the Catholic Church that her father had initiated, with the result that her nation found itself with a mere 50 years of Anglican faith sitting atop a thousand years of Catholic ritual. One false move, such as beheading her Catholic sister Mary Queen of Scots, could form the pretext for Phillip II of Spain to launch his armada, which of course happened in 1588.
To retain control, Elizabeth executed Catholics at a faster rate than Spain itself was doing during its famous Inquisition, although the Inquisition went on far longer. Elizabeth executed around 800 people across 40 years, or 20 a year, while Spain average 15 a year during its era of religious oppression.
A Catholic theocracy based in feudalism and extending across Europe remained a vision of utopia for many. Let’s go back to Gonzalo:
Gonzalo: “All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.”
Sebastian: “No marrying ‘mong his subjects?”
Antonio: “None, man; all idle: whores and knaves.”
Gonzalo: “I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.”
Sebastian: “God save his majesty!”
Antonio: “Long live Gonzalo!”…
This is Shakespeare’s comic take on the idea of utopia. Gonzalo’s vision of a perfect and harmonious commonwealth involves the total prohibition of law, technology, and labor. Pol Pot tried something like that in Cambodia in the late 1970s. The patriots who took the Capitol and fired a shot across the usurpers’ bow are no such thing.
I write this blog because the classics, and Shakespeare chief among them, can keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, and because modern life can reveal richer meanings when it’s refracted through a Shakespearean prism. Hope you enjoyed!
