I took my own undergrad survey of Shakespeare in the spring of 2001. George Bush Jr. had just won a highly contested presidential election, and even pre-9/11, my professors were skeptical. During the campaign, Bush had adopted the narrative of a redeemed man. His past was pretty sordid: alcoholism, shirked duties, the stereotypical foibles of a rich kid with tons of privilege and little common sense. But now? He was a highly successful Texas governor, a born again Christian, a compassionate conservative who was tough on crime but merciful to his political opponents.
George Bush, my professor Ted Brown told us, was Prince Hal: not the historical Prince Hal, but Shakespeare’s representation of him. Someone near the Shrub, as Dr. Brown was wont to call the president, had been reading his Shakespeare (Doc Brown couldn’t imagine that Bush himself had read the play). They knew that the redemptive, comedic narrative succeeded in the 1590s just as well as the 1990s.
Here was the irony, I think. Most of my profs read modern conservatives as analogues to Hotspur, war-hungry holdovers from a bygone era who fussed and fought and had an outmoded sense of masculinity and carped at their wives and were generally blowhards.
But was Hal any better? Hal seems curiously disconnected from any real moral standard, though he’s certainly able to talk the moral talk if called upon to do so. He has become self-conscious of authority’s theatrical quality. His acting decisions aren’t made according to an ethical code. He performs for power. He is our modern stereotypical politician. He’s not real. The world is all a holiday for Falstaff. Hal sees holidays as his work, and it’s because he sees the distinction between performing in holidays and performing on regular days as artificial. He’s always campaigning.
So on this primary Saturday, I’ve been thinking about the presidential carnival of the past several months and what awaits us as the circus’s 3-ring centerpiece performers take the stage. And I also remember, that as I laugh at the bluster of Falstaff and blowhardiness of Hotspur, tons of people die in this play’s battle. It’s not a carnival for everybody.