I introduced the concept of the nasty genius—someone who fundamentally changes the way we think about the world but whose ideas assume something dire about human nature or human possibilities. Today’s nasty genius: Shakespeare.
Why a Genius: Shakespeare knows who you are. And he knows you’re a freak. He’s more honest about who you are than you are. Brutally honest. Or maybe just brutal.
You like to pretend you’re a normal person. You want your family and friends to think you’re worthy of the relationship. You go out in public or into work, and you want people to like and respect you. Sure, you have your quirks, but they’re harmless. You experience the full range of human emotions—you’re not a sociopath—but you don’t let them harm anyone.
Well, Shakespeare calls BS. He knows you dress up as a man or as a woman “just for fun,” and it turns you on secretly. You’re not just wearing a Halloween costume; you’re acting butch, queaning it up.
He knows when you’re jealous, you don’t just walk away and suffer. You plot something nasty to hurt the person you’re jealous of, maybe your best friend. Oh, you’re careful not to let the plot get traced back to you. You sympathize. You offer advice. You smile in their face. Inside you savor every line of pain you read there.
He knows you like to think of yourself as a talented, charismatic leader. You make everything revolve around you. You surround yourself with sycophantic people who tell you how wonderful you are. And if you let it go on long enough, you start to believe what they tell you. The truth is you’re a doddering old fool people are using for their own ends, and they can’t wait to get your bloated ego out of their life.
He knows you’re a really ambitious person, but you don’t have the courage to take what you want on your own. You married a ruthless spouse to do it for you. When you stop halfway to your goal, she grabs the dagger out of your fearful hands and plunges it into the rest of your enemies.
If none of these describe who you are, it’s because freaks come in an infinite variety. Even as prolific a writer as Shakespeare could only just scratch the surface. But you get the idea. You see what humans are all about. That’s why every modern novelist who wanted to explore psychology learned from Shakespeare.
Why Nasty: Shakespeare is bleak. Hopelessly, needlessly so. Think about what you don’t find in Shakespeare. You don’t find a person with all the skills to have a lucrative career in business who becomes a low-paid social worker because he loves helping people in need. You don’t find a daring, creative poet who stashes her poems in a dresser drawer. You don’t find an ordinary guy who walks back into the store to return two extra pennies the cashier gave him by mistake. You don’t find people who make extra food and bring it to an elderly neighbor. You don’t find people who get scant recognition but keep working hard anyway because it is the honorable thing to do.
These are too quiet for Shakespeare. He scorns them if he even notices them. Society is ripped open in sudden gashes, and Shakespeare is there, relishing every drop of blood. But the wounds are also healed by a thousand invisible acts of kindness, humility and generosity. Shakespeare refuses to acknowledge them.
Sure, you will find eloquent speeches in Shakespeare, praising love, mercy, bravery, and other virtues. But they sound pious, not heart-felt. They don’t engage Shakespeare’s imagination the way our freakish behavior does. The human soul is simply nasty, he seems to think, and the world will collapse into ruin if we let individuals run around unchecked.
The only safety lies in social conventions like respecting rank, obeying the government and going to church. Shakespeare knows there is no God and the authorities are corrupt, incompetent boobs. Still, if we don’t fool ourselves into observing these conventions, we’ll all degenerate into serial killers.
If you ask people inside and outside the academy which one writer should be taught in schools, Shakespeare would come out on top, and second-place might not even be close. Every high school student has read him. Writers steal his plots. His plays are performed everywhere and regularly turned into movies. People take their lawn chairs to Shakespeare in the Park in summers. He’s the bestselling author of all time.
Should we really be exposing children to a nihilist like Shakespeare? Thank goodness his language is too flowery and old-fashioned for people to really understand what he is saying. Otherwise, who knows how much damage he would have caused? Still, it would be safer for society if we got rid of Shakespeare from the curriculum altogether and replaced him with someone like Michel de Montaigne, who has a balanced, humane view of our nature.
The Future of Reading 