Joseph Epstein, a retired English professor, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on December 12 of last year, criticizing Jill Biden for insisting that she be addressed as Dr. Biden, when her doctoral degree is in education, and not in medicine. The article sparked a furor, but not one that conservatives would have noticed. The liberal gentry class, who stake their self-image, and often their livelihoods, on their credentials and degrees rather than their achievements, treated this assault on Mrs. Biden as an assault on them all.

Professor Epstein, at the King Lear-like age of 83, found himself suddenly an unperson at the university where he had taught for most of his career. In his own words: “The English Department at Northwestern University, where I taught for 30 years, flushed me down Orwell’s memory hole taking my name off its website and sending out an online message disassociating itself from my ‘noxious’ and ‘misogynistic’ views.”

Shakespeare, as always, can relate. King Lear himself unpersoned his own daughter Cordelia after she failed her own loyalty oath, in that case Lear’s insistence that she express her filial affection to him in the formula he demanded.

Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, and asks each to announce her love for him. His first two daughters, Regan and Goneril, readily comply, but his youngest daughter, whose love for him is the most sincere, is also the most tongue-tied:

King Lear: “…Now, our joy,
Although the last, not least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.”

Cordelia: “Nothing, my lord.”

Lear: “Nothing?”

Cordelia: “Nothing.”

Lear: “Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.”

Whoops! Cordelia now knows what it feels like to run afoul of Facebook’s speech code. Twitter’s moderators are readying a label for her similar to the ones they put on the president’s messages, before they banned him outright. Oh, and that vines of France and milk of Burgundy phrase refers to Cordelia’s two suitors, the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy. The duke, like Liz Cheney, will reject President Trump, I mean Cordelia, and transfer his allegiance as soon as Trump, I mean Cordelia, falls out of the king’s favor. By contrast, the king of France, like those of us who have kept Trump’s approval ratings high even in the face of the current orgy of repudiation, sticks with Cordelia. She is “most rich, being poor.” Beautiful words. Let’s return to the play:

Cordelia: “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.”

Lear: “How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.”

Mend your speech just a little. That is, say exactly what we tell you to, or we’ll drive you into hiding (like Parler CEO John Matze, currently in hiding with his family following death threats, and the unpersoning of his entire social media network), or we’ll dox you if you were led, or misled, into the Capitol on that self-guided tour people are calling an insurrection. Cordelia, speaking for far too many of us, retains her dignity even as she faces the loss of her birthright (for us, that would be our free republic):

Cordelia: “Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.”

Lear: “But goes thy heart with this?”

Cordelia: “Ay, good my lord.”

Lear: “So young, and so untender?”

Cordelia: “So young, my lord, and true.”

Lear’s final pronouncement is the crazed voice of the activist left, finding itself in power within the government and across the media landscape, believing it is even stronger than the truth itself:

Lear: “Let it be so! Thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,…
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever…”

Well, we shall see. In the meantime, we have the classics, Shakespeare chief among them, to keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, even as we navigate the remnants of our fallen republic, and gather the strength to reclaim it.

P.S. I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale as an e-book and paperback through this link.

‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision; A recasting of Hamlet as the tragedy of the 2020 election,’ reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, and it gives readers a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s great tragedy from an entirely new angle.