of a century. I predicted a wave of groundbreaking
works and ideas in the next few years. And what would one not give to be alive
at the turn of the millennium a hundred years hence!
'You are certainly - enthusiastic'
was my father's phlegmatic reply. His only reply. I had made the mistake of
showing excitement. Enthusiastic was for my father a term of utmost
deprecation.
But my enthusiasm was vindicated. In
1905, an unknown Swiss patent agent of German-Jewish extraction produced a
theory he called relativity. Within twelve months, my professors at Harvard
were saying that this Einstein had changed our ideas of space and time forever.
In art, I concede, nothing happened. In 1903, the crowd at St. Botolph's made a
great fuss over a Frenchman's water lilies, but these proved to be the work of
an artist who was merely losing his eyesight. When it came, however, to man's
understanding of himself, my predictions were again fulfilled. Sigmund Freud
published his Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. My father would have
scoffed, but I am convinced that Freud too will have changed our thinking
forever. After Freud, we will never look at ourselves or others in the same way
again.
My mother was always 'protecting' us
from my father. This was an irritant to me; I didn't need it. My elder brother
did, but her protection in his case was quite ineffectual. What an advantage to
come second: I saw it all. Not that I was favored, but by the time my father
came around to me, I had learned to be impenetrable, and he could do no serious
damage. I did have an Achilles' heel, however, which he eventually found. It
was Shakespeare.
My father never said aloud that my
fascination with Shakespeare was excessive, but he made his opinion clear: there
was something unwholesome about my taking a greater interest in a fiction,
especially Hamlet, than in reality itself, and something arrogant as
well. Once only did he give voice to this sentiment. When I was thirteen,
thinking no one home, I delivered Hamlet's What's Hecuba to him, or he to
Hecuba, that he should weep for her? Possibly I sawed the air a little hard
on bloody, bawdy villain ; conceivably I was a little earsplitting on Oh vengeance! or Fie upon 't! Foh! My father, unbeknownst to me,
witnessed the whole thing. When I was done, he cleared his throat and asked
what Hamlet was to me, or I to Hamlet, that I should weep for him?
Needless to say, I had not wept. I
have never cried at all, in conscious memory. My father's point, if not solely
to embarrass me, was that my devotion to Hamlet could mean nothing in
the scope of things: nothing in my future, nothing in the world. He wanted to
make me understand this early on. He succeeded and, what's more, I knew he was
right.
Yet that knowledge did not impair my
devotion to Shakespeare. It will have been noticed that I left the poet of Avon
off my list of world-changing geniuses. I also left him off the list when I
made the case to my father in 1899. The omission was strategic. I wanted to see
if my father might take the bait. It would have appealed to him to use my
'beloved Shakespeare,' as my father used to refer to him, against me. He was
far too subtle to cite a Dickens or a Tolstoy: he would have seen at once that
I would call them classic mid-century giants, masters of existing forms rather
than inventors of new ones. But he also would have known that I could never
deny the tide of revolutionary genius to Shakespeare, who might thus have been
presented as an instant, devastating rebuttal of my argument.
Perhaps my father smelled the trap.
Perhaps he knew his history better than I expected. At any rate he didn't ask,
so I didn't get to tell him that Hamlet was written in 1600.
Nor did I get a chance to point out
that I was hardly the only one impassioned about Shakespeare. Men were once
ready to die over Hamlet. My father did not know it - indeed, nearly
everyone has forgotten it -
works and ideas in the next few years. And what would one not give to be alive
at the turn of the millennium a hundred years hence!
'You are certainly - enthusiastic'
was my father's phlegmatic reply. His only reply. I had made the mistake of
showing excitement. Enthusiastic was for my father a term of utmost
deprecation.
But my enthusiasm was vindicated. In
1905, an unknown Swiss patent agent of German-Jewish extraction produced a
theory he called relativity. Within twelve months, my professors at Harvard
were saying that this Einstein had changed our ideas of space and time forever.
In art, I concede, nothing happened. In 1903, the crowd at St. Botolph's made a
great fuss over a Frenchman's water lilies, but these proved to be the work of
an artist who was merely losing his eyesight. When it came, however, to man's
understanding of himself, my predictions were again fulfilled. Sigmund Freud
published his Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. My father would have
scoffed, but I am convinced that Freud too will have changed our thinking
forever. After Freud, we will never look at ourselves or others in the same way
again.
My mother was always 'protecting' us
from my father. This was an irritant to me; I didn't need it. My elder brother
did, but her protection in his case was quite ineffectual. What an advantage to
come second: I saw it all. Not that I was favored, but by the time my father
came around to me, I had learned to be impenetrable, and he could do no serious
damage. I did have an Achilles' heel, however, which he eventually found. It
was Shakespeare.
My father never said aloud that my
fascination with Shakespeare was excessive, but he made his opinion clear: there
was something unwholesome about my taking a greater interest in a fiction,
especially Hamlet, than in reality itself, and something arrogant as
well. Once only did he give voice to this sentiment. When I was thirteen,
thinking no one home, I delivered Hamlet's What's Hecuba to him, or he to
Hecuba, that he should weep for her? Possibly I sawed the air a little hard
on bloody, bawdy villain ; conceivably I was a little earsplitting on Oh vengeance! or Fie upon 't! Foh! My father, unbeknownst to me,
witnessed the whole thing. When I was done, he cleared his throat and asked
what Hamlet was to me, or I to Hamlet, that I should weep for him?
Needless to say, I had not wept. I
have never cried at all, in conscious memory. My father's point, if not solely
to embarrass me, was that my devotion to Hamlet could mean nothing in
the scope of things: nothing in my future, nothing in the world. He wanted to
make me understand this early on. He succeeded and, what's more, I knew he was
right.
Yet that knowledge did not impair my
devotion to Shakespeare. It will have been noticed that I left the poet of Avon
off my list of world-changing geniuses. I also left him off the list when I
made the case to my father in 1899. The omission was strategic. I wanted to see
if my father might take the bait. It would have appealed to him to use my
'beloved Shakespeare,' as my father used to refer to him, against me. He was
far too subtle to cite a Dickens or a Tolstoy: he would have seen at once that
I would call them classic mid-century giants, masters of existing forms rather
than inventors of new ones. But he also would have known that I could never
deny the tide of revolutionary genius to Shakespeare, who might thus have been
presented as an instant, devastating rebuttal of my argument.
Perhaps my father smelled the trap.
Perhaps he knew his history better than I expected. At any rate he didn't ask,
so I didn't get to tell him that Hamlet was written in 1600.
Nor did I get a chance to point out
that I was hardly the only one impassioned about Shakespeare. Men were once
ready to die over Hamlet. My father did not know it - indeed, nearly
everyone has forgotten it -
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