Jand and Bloom
on
Pericles
Having recently read Mark Haddon’s The
Porpoise, a wild spin-off of Pericles, it seemed a good time to
re-read the play. It’s one of Shakespeare’s oddest ones but I’ve always quite
liked it.
While we were reading it, we heard on the
news that Harold Bloom has died. This is a great loss for the academic world.
Bloom and I did not always see eye to eye.
I am a historical materialist, new historicist if you like, which Bloom
definitely was not. Still, his analyses of Shakespeare were at times both
exciting and inspiring.
In honour of his memory I dedicate this
text to him and his work and will highlight some of his insights into Pericles
in his book Shakespeare the Invention of the Human.
The first thing he tells us is that the
first two acts are dreadful and cannot possibly have been written by
Shakespeare. There seems to be a consensus on that amongst Shakespearean
scholars. That’s good to know. They are quite bad.
Bloom goes on to point out that neither
Pericles nor Marina have any personality, unlike Hamlet, Shylock, Cleopatra,
Rosalind and others. Instead they are the universal father and daughter and the
only thing that interests Shakespeare is their relationship. I wasn’t going to
argue against Bloom here, but I must say that there isn’t even much about their
relationship. They spend scarcely two days together throughout the play and as
Bloom observes, Marina isn’t even allowed any emotional response upon their
reunion. Maybe it’s more about their ideas about each other that Bloom finds
interesting but even there it is vague.
If Pericles and Marina lack personality,
Pander, Bawd and Bolt make up for it. The scenes with them are funny, appalling
and candid in their view on survival in a society that exploits them and looks
down on them. However, Bloom doesn’t even mention that Bolt becomes positively
reasonable and helpful when he agrees to get Marina work as a teacher of music
and other refined skills. Come to think of it, surely Marina’s own insistence
on that, after having refused all advances upon her body, gives her a very
determined personality, a very strong sense of her own self-worth?
In my first text on Pericles,
‘Oddities’ (pp. 544-550) in Shakespeare calling – the book, I dealt with
a few of the, well, oddities of the play. Though he didn’t use that word Bloom
seems to have had a similar reaction to the play. He ends his analysis with,
‘Shakespeare took a high risk with this play. But what remained for him to
accomplish? He had revived European tragedy and vastly perfected comedy and
dramatic chronicles. What remained was vision, tempered by the necessities of
stage presentation. He went beyond Pericles in the romances that
followed it, but this play was the school where he learned his final art.’
Nothing very radical. Nothing very
aggravating. Well, just a little. Enough for me to feel the need to argue.
And that is what I will miss most. The
stimulation Harold Bloom offered to see things his way and know that I often saw
things another way.
His work will continue to poke and prod and
inspire. So, thank you, Professor Bloom, for that.
Work cited: Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare
– The Invention of the Human. 1998.
Film seen this time: None
Shakespeare calling – the book available here and other sites:
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