A Rethinking of Shakespeare’s “All The World’s a Stage” ~

In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, There is a replique uttered not in this era, yet incredibly immersed in it:

                                    “All the world's a stage,

                                    And all the men and women merely players;

                                   They have their exits and their entrances.”

This is a timeless image and a timeless fact as well. Human beings stand on the stage that is Life, as numb recipients of a painfully monotonous and reiterative set of societal dictates, set and motioned on a path unwanted. Their course of being is designed and thrust upon them by the force of conventionality. To be restricted to perhaps an involuntary role while we exist is lethal to the spirit. It unveils how futile life can be if we let it. Only if we let it !

The mad king Lear in Shakespeare’s King Lear cries in a fit of despair:”Is man no more than this ?” One should pause and consider the simple yet loaded question begot by lunacy … Perchance the senile is the inevitable companion of the wise.

So, is Man genuinely nothing but a mere player ?  Does he willingly abide by the rules of a game he initially despise ? Does he reach self-fulfillment through the consistently imitative acts that weave the existence ? Was Plato entirely right in his depiction of the human creativity ?

If the individual solely replicates what he sees and what he learns, if he follows blindly the agreed-upon dull customs, if he uniquely performs the role that society assigned to him for the sustenance of Normality, how will his innovative spirit surface ? Where does his originality, if not his Humanity, lie ?   

The human being does, more often than not, carry on a loathsome mode of being, for what ? To be safely but tastelessly standardized and classified as an entity assuming a function, it does not matter what it is as long as his energies are exhausted for “the higher good” of the community.

People want to be categorized. They desire to be a set of permanent components integrated inside the lifeless circle of ordinariness. Safety for them is a chain of days tinged with similarity. They fear the new, the enigmatic, the excitingly hazardous that might cost them their place in the realm of conformity. Fear should have been one of The Seven Deadly Sins. It is self-destructive. It annihilates all that is ardent and vivid within the soul and the cacophonous alliteration of this life-consuming pattern can bring forth the notorious Waste Land invoked by T.S Eliot.

We are afraid to engage to the different, to the exquisitely fulfilling different. We recoil before unknown paths because they are not safe and guaranteed to the common mind. Perhaps we should stop and brood over the last lines of Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken:

                                 “Two roads diverged in a wood and I

                                  I took the one less traveled by,

                                  And that has made all the difference."

To feel the difference, the world needs not be a stage; it has to be a painting. Life is all about choices. It is a series of decisive moments, and these decisions should mirror the individualistic power of the person, and not further fortify the unquestionably collective complacency. Life is like a painting because every human looks at life and detects a singular meaning that is his own, freely his own. Although framed within a canvass, a painting activates the viewer’s ability to form a plethora of readings, so is life; readings are choices to adopt a certain idea, to follow a certain path …

May it be the path by which our souls blossom and our lives prove worth living …

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony: the Wrath of a Confined Spirit ~

Ludwig Van Beethoven is a genius. This is a well-known fact amongst music composers, scholars, players, amateurs and even common people. It needs not to be studied, because the proof, before it is detected with close scrutiny, it is felt. Beethoven’s dexterity is utterly sensed; it hypnotizes the entirety of our faculties, not because it is richly melodious, but because it, to the hearer’s amazement, tells a well-woven story through the intricacies and overlappings of musical notes.

I tried to read through the angry musical flow of this symphony because it startled me the first time I heared it, in the most horrifying yet beautiful way possible.

It starts with a sudden sequence of high notes; a powerful introduction that keeps the hearer in constant state of alertness. Now that Beethoven succeeded in capturing the ever-evasive attention of the listener, he can begin his narrative.

The abrupt eruption of strength occurs from the onset of the piece so as to serve as a wake-up call to those fully immersed in its stream. It is sudden, it wakes you up, and it comes like a delicious slap to those listening drowsily. As much as it engages the listener to embark in the story, it also provides him\her with the first of its clues. You can feel it if you listen to the symphony while reading this.

Beethoven ~ 9th Symphony

It opens with a violent tap on a hard door, two taps to be exact. The door opens and then footsteps ensue. One might wonder at this point, what sort of door is this ? This is by no means a regular door that is slammed thoughtlessly and effortlessly. It is the door of a dungeon. If you consider the following events, it might strike you as logical.  Now back to the footsteps … A steady and relatively low series of notes translate this movement. The footsteps are numerous indeed. There might be a lot of stairs to get to the cell.

This steadiness is broken with a yet another precipitous outburst in music. The character has arrived to the cell and the prisoner starts screaming furiously as he glimpses the face of the visitor. The nature of this visitor can be left for free speculation … It can be a wicked human being that surfaces to provoke those enraged cries and hence, ferocious musical notes. It might as well be a benevolent comer to whom the prisoner confesses, laments and denounces with hot passion the injustices wrought upon him.

The narrative grows to become a sort of dialogue between the visitor and the prisoner. After the wrathful wailing of that chained spirit, breaks a temporary yet serene set of musical notes. This can embody the answer of that guest as he\she tries to appease the wounded soul and alleviate the weight of his\her manacles. The visitor attempts to give advice, perhaps a few words that pour some taste of hope into the tormented inner world of the wretched captive. At some point, this convict interrupts the guest to convey vehemently his worries. However, the serenity in the symphony takes over anew as the visitor manages to calm his concerns. Just when the listener rejoices in the idea that Good has finally triumphed and the angry self is placated, the notes rise again and one can feel that it is no longer a dialogue but a quarrel. They go up and down alternatively stressing thus the intensity of the dispute and, at the same time, signaling a failure in the communication between these two individuals.

A brief moment of silence follows, then, the pattern reiterates itself again. This is indicative of two ideas: unfairness is a painfully and consistently existent notion. It is out there as old as Humanity and as everlasting as time itself. Episodes of joy and satisfaction are, more often than not, clouded by these unwelcomed, if not loathsome visits of misery and existential handicap. This suggests the notorious Nietzschian notion of Eternal Recurrence; everything is destined to tirelessly repeat itself and all human happenings are registered and then revisited. However, it keeps the history of the universe monotonous yet forever eventful. It is because as history replays itself, the fight between Good and Evil persists as moments of mirth and woe are engaged in a permanent struggle.

This is how Beethoven illustrates, through a seemingly repetitive yet vivid pattern, the perpetual fight of the Humankind. 

Dr Hannibal Lecter: The Benevolent Cannibal ~

Can we dissociate Goodness from Evil? Are they like two substances fused together in a homogeneous whole? Or do they reside each in its own realm? If so, are they antagonistic or complementary?Every human soul, because it is human, encompasses both. It is through the work of Reason and self-control that the individual balances between the two. However, the question that painfully engages the mind in rumination is the following: Can someone balance between the extremes? Can a human soul reconcile between fundamental magnanimity and severe maliciousness?

All these thoughts are provoked by the astonishingly enigmatic character of Dr Hannibal Lecter that plays one of the leading roles in the American Series “Hannibal”.

Dr Lecter is admittedly a brilliant psychologist holding a sophisticated and spacious cabinet that is at once enticing and comfy. He would graciously and respectfully welcomes his patients who, at times, appear to be allured by the organized and ornamented workplace. Despite the apparent vastness, Dr Lecter chooses to locate his library almost near the ceiling of the cabinet, using evidently a ladder to reach it. One may stop here and think: Why does he have to keep his study books so remote? He does have the space for it in the ground floor!

Perhaps he prefers to furnish his place with refined elements of distraction .. Perhaps those books encapsulate the essence of his self … An enigma that is yet to be resolved. 

It is fair, on the other hand, to assert that this man is utterly dexterous in pleasing his guests. He hosts splendid feasts and successfully prepares dinners using exotic recipes. It is a delightful poison for the eye to behold the beauty and luxury.

But how can beauty poison the eye? Perchance we should primarily ask: what is Beauty? From where is it rooted? Can a root be entirely an anti-offspring? More lucidly, can ugliness beget beauty? If so, we shall henceforth, forever consider beauty with suspicion.

That impressively “homme de gout” clouds from the public eye a somber identity that awakens when the moon defeats the sun and night governs…  Dr Lecter is a devoted serial killer and a classy cannibal. He hosts people, slaughters them and entices other fellow-humans to mirthfully devour them. In this, he, in some way, recalls to the mind Macbeth, the notorious Shakespearian character. To his fair castle, Macbeth invited his king Duncan to a most gracious feast and appeared determined to attend on his leisure .. Only appeared.  Appearances are deceitful as we know. It is a matter of seeing through and deciphering the mysterious duality of seeming and being. The human being is not a one-dimensioned creature, what is scary is that other hidden facet. Dr Lecter, akin to Macbeth, puts forth a glamorous show of hospitality, but conceals in the dimmest angles of his self, lethal intentions for the Other. This is because in Dr Hannibal’s world, leisure begets death.

It is equally surprising to detect androgynous features in Dr Hannibal Lecter; he introduces into the bodies of his guests, an unusual kind of venom: The human flesh... munched, swallowed and digested. In this behavior, he resembles the great witch Circe, the mythological figure who dotes on the Toxic and the Destructive.

  You may be wondering, what is so benevolent about all this.. Evil, to the viewer’s bewilderment, could not consummate his whole being. This good-reputed psychiatrist is a man of extremes; he masochistically satiates himself with cooked human organs. However, his satiety did not quench his thirst for love and friendship. Will Graham, a very special FBI agent, was able to tickle the soft spot in him. Albeit met in rather unfavorable circumstances, a very friendly relationship seems to join the two. Dr Lecter, indeed, constantly confesses to Jack Crawford (The head of the FBI’s behavioral science) that he is concerned about Will, he even talks about this attachment to his own psychiatrist. He once told Will directly that he does not care about other lives; he only cares about his friend’s. Can this mighty love emanate from a psychopath and a serial killer?

Not only friendship, Dr Lecter also subsumes fatherly love. Abigail Hobbs is an orphan who had to endure the pains of losing both her parents in the same day. Hannibal emerged afterwards in her life as a loving surrogate of the father, anxiously following her case and passionately consoling her. In fact, he is seen, more than once, embracing her tenderly while she cries. How can a cold-hearted cannibal bear this immense affection for a forsaken girl?

Dr Hannibal is indeed a man of paradoxes. What is utterly puzzling is the fact that in an Opera concert, he begun to cry hearing a song untitled “Vide Cor Meum” in Latin, which means “See my heart”. Perhaps, Dr Lecter, eventually, longs for understanding and acceptance and craves for the companionship of a soul that can see through his... Perhaps the goodness in him is the norm and all that darkness is just a loophole …