Covert Appropriations of Shakespeare: Three Case Studies

Papers on Language and Literature, Winter 2007 by Hirsh, James

in heaven [...] there's One that's always on the lookout [...] It

warn't no use to try to hide it from Him. (268-69)

CLAUDIUS: Bow, stubborn knees [...]. (70)

HUCK: So I kneeled down. (269)

CLAUDIUS: My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (97-98)

HUCK: I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right

thing [. ..] but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie. [.. .] You

can't pray a lie. (269)

CLAUDIUS: Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (98)

HUCK: All right, then, I'll go to hell. (271)

In each case the character ( 1 ) is tormented by a guilty conscience, (2) attempts to reform, (3) expresses a belief that a reform must be wholly sincere because (4) heavenly powers will know if the reform is dishonest or half-hearted, (5) feels as if he is engaged in "double" dealing, (6) suffers because he is strongly pulled opposite directions, (7) momentarily feels hope and the possibility of a cleansing of the sin, (8) tries to pray, (9) kneels, but (10) finally acknowledges an inability to reform sincerely, and (11) expresses resignation in terms of Christian eschatology. Huck's final resolution to "go to hell" corresponds to Claudius's final recognition that his words and, by implication, his soul will "never to heaven go."'1 The prayer scene is so familiar and these connections are so numerous and so specific that it is unlikely the appropriation was unconscious.

What makes this appropriation strange and obscures the connection despite the numerous similarities are the radical differences between the characters, their situations, and the dialects in which they express themselves. Huck Finn is a poor, ill-educated, outcast child growing up in Missouri in the nineteenth century, speaks a backwoods dialect, and is one of the most beloved figures in literary history. Readers are intended to rejoice in his decision to help Jim escape even though Huck believes he will go to hell as a result. Huck's innate goodness overcomes the social indoctrination that justifies slavery on moral and religious grounds. The character whose struggle with his conscience provided the raw material for Huck's struggle is the King of Denmark, a Machiavellian politician, a murderer, and a speaker of highly sophisticated blank verse. Playgoers are intended to disapprove of his failure to follow his conscience. Clemens had the insight to recognize that Claudius's attempt to reform in 3.3, though transitory, is earnest and heartfelt. Clemens also had the artistic daring to fashion the moral struggle of a character meant to be admirable out of passages spoken by a character guilty of a heinous crime.

Clemens made contradictory assertions about his literary indebtedness. At one extreme Clemens declared, "the most valuable capital [...] in the building of novels is personal experience. [...] I don't know anything about books" (Letters 2: 543).7 At the other extreme he confided, "I would not wonder if I am the worst literary thief in the world" (23 Nov 1875, Twain and Howells 1:112). Clemens also exhibited contradictory attitudes toward Shakespeare. He was capable of bardolatry-"there is wholesome refreshment for both mind and heart in an occasional climb among the pomps of the intellectual snow-summits built by Shakespeare"8-and he appropriated Shakespearean materials throughout his career.9 But a number of his writings, often beneath a facetious surface, reveal envy or antipathy. Clemens created parodies and sketches that cut Shakespeare down to size. In one pastiche, he inserted into Hamlet anew character, an American book salesman who denigrates the manner of speech of the Shakespearean characters: "It's the most unnatural stuff! why, it ain't human talk; nobody that ever lived, ever talked the way they do. Even the flunkies can't say the simplest thing the way a human being would say it. [. . .] Lord, I get mighty tired of this everlasting spechifying."10 In "1601," a sketch set in the court of Queen Elizabeth, "Shaxpur" refuses to acknowledge that he farted. Shaxpur also exhibits literary envy and competitiveness, emotions now associated with anxiety of influence. When another writer becomes the topic of conversation, "Shaxpur did fidget to discharge some venom of sarcasm" because he is one of those people who "having a specialtie, and admiring it in themselves, be jealous when a neighbour doth essaye it."" Clemens projected onto Shakespeare an emotion evident in his own attitude toward Shakespeare, in his creation of parodies, sketches, and episodes that hold Shakespeare up to ridicule, including his creation of the contemptible figure of Shaxpur in this very sketch. Near the end of his life Clemens published an essay in which he denied Shakespeare's authorship of the works attributed to him.12 What better revenge on an author who provoked one's lifelong anxiety of influence than to deprive that author of authorship?