Shakespeare and the Early Modern Self 155
Did Othello try to reach above the gods? Is he a victim of hubris?
Oh no. He simply tried to reach above the members of the all-
conquering middle class, and for that there is a harsh verdict and
sentencing without appeal. For Self suff ers from self- doubt. In some
quadrant of its being, Self understands its limits: in its essence it
is teeming, ravenous, grasping life. It is the will of the world, the
energy in all that lives. But at the same time it is merely a force
of life and appetite— a force common to men and to animals and in
some mea sure to plants. The Self is what life is all about, for the Self
is a concentration of vitality. In most people the intellect is merely a
servant of the Self. It aids self- seeking and does nothing more. The
Self is striving will. But a person does not feel he is fully human
when he lives only to survive. It is not enough when he lives to eat,
lives to prosper, lives to procreate. He feels there is more to life, but
that more frightens him. So he has a double task. He must fi nd ways
to denigrate intellect and compassion and (at Shakespeare’s moment
in par tic u lar) courage. He must be able to laugh with Cervantes
at the spindle- shanked, delusional knight, who sets his lance at
windmills.
But he must also fi nd a way to invest meaning in Self. He must
create a philosophy of life that circulates around what he eats and
what he wears and what he buys. He must create for himself a life-
style. His story about middle- class existence has somehow to com-
pete with Homer’s story about martial glory, or Plato’s about the
heights of contemplation. He hoards and sleeps— “he hops and
blinks” as Nietz sche says— and he listens to the songs of happiness
(he must be sung to day and night), and he feels almost justifi ed.
Shakespeare reinvents woman. Or rather, he gives the world female
characters who are unpre ce dented. Shelley compares an adored
woman in his life to “one of Shakespeare’s women”— “a won der of
this earth.” And Shakespeare often does seem to prefer women to