Joan of Arc arose to inspire her people to drive out these invaders; and the English burned her as a witch. A hundred and sixty years had passed—surely time enough for sober second thought, surely time for England’s national poet to do what he could to wipe this blot from his country’s good name. But the maid of Orleans had to look elsewhere for vindication than to Shakespeare, friend of the rich and powerful, who never advocated an unpopular cause in all his forty plays. He represents Joan according to the basest of the prejudices of his “groundlings”; a vain, boastful creature, unchaste, and not denying her unchastity.
In the series of plays dealing with King Henry VI comes a still more significant incident, the rebellion of Jack Cade. For three hundred years the blood and treasure of the English people had been wasted in these foreign wars, and incessant civil wars of rival earls and dukes and barons. In the middle of the fifteenth century there was widespread distress, and in Kent occurred an uprising; a popular leader took the city of London, and forced some promises of reforms, and was then betrayed and killed. This incident fell into Shakespeare’s lap—an opportunity for delicious gentlemanly wit at the expense of the exploited workers. “Be brave, then,” cries Cade, “for your captain is brave and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny, the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer.”
Just as soon as the Cade of Shakespeare gets power he sets himself up to be a nobleman, and offers to strike one of his followers dead for failing to recognize his claim. He addresses Lord Say, one of the persons against whom the indignation of the people had been roused:
Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our fathers had no other book but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast erected a paper mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun, and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.
Such is the wit of our gentleman poet; and what is the comment of our Louisiana scholar? He tells us: “This savors of modern times.... The demagogue has the ignorance of his audience on his side. He has in behalf of his appeals that sullen jealousy of the masses who are conscious of classes, that is, of a caste above them and more accomplished.” To be sure, the Louisiana professor admits that Shakespeare is here handling a great historic scene “flippantly”; but then, you see, the poet had such a good excuse! He was “sorely in need of comedy for the tragic drama of ‘Henry VI’”! But I ask: why could he not have made up some comedy dealing with noble lords and gentlemen?
The answer is: It is a tradition of the leisure-class literature of England that the sufferings of the rich and powerful are dignified tragedy, while the sufferings of the poor are “comic relief.” The only way a poor person of any sort can get Shakespeare to take him seriously is by being a devoted servant of some wealthy and powerful person; for example, Old Adam in “As You Like It,” a part which, according to tradition, was played by Shakespeare himself. But when the common people try to do something for themselves, they are clowns and fools, yokels and tavern roysterers.
Take the comedy scenes in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” when working people actually attempt to give a play. Shakespeare thinks that no idea could be more absurd. But nowadays working people give many plays in England; there are radical theater groups producing a new dramatic literature, in which it does not always happen that poor people are boobs, while ladies and gentlemen are refined and gracious. More significant yet, the descendants of those Jack Cade rebels, whom Shakespeare represents as objecting to grammar schools, have by a century-long struggle forced the establishment of free schools for the children of the people in every corner of England. They have some three thousand branches of the Workers’ Education Association, in which the people learn about nouns and verbs at their own expense. Was ever a national poet more sternly rebuked by the people of his own nation?
Says Mrs. Ogi: “It is time for Jack Cade to make it felony to read Shakespeare.”
“No,” says Ogi; “we have to follow the example of the Catholic Church, whose priests are allowed to read prohibited books for purposes of controversy. But certainly it is time for us to get clear in our minds that Shakespeare is a poet and propagandist of the enemy; for the present, at any rate, a burden upon the race mind. He is the crown and glory of the system of class supremacy, and a magic word used by every snob and every time-server in the place of straight thinking and the reality of life.”