Shakespeare

tile Britisftby Christopher g. WhiteFor 1616, the William first nearly Shakespeare two centuries and after his dramatic his death art in at theIronically, beginning Shakespeare's of the nineteenth creations century were by the revived Eastwere nearly totally suppressed by the same British India Company financed circles associated with thewho now claim him as their national poet. Where his opium-smoking degenerate Samuel Ta.ylor Coleartwas not totally suppressed, it was rewritten and ridge, in an effort to offset the explosive mfluence ofrearranged to be brought into conformity with the Schiller, who was Shakespeare's then-contemporarydictates of Aristotelian methodology. Where played successor in mastery of the scientific principles thaton the stage, as is done now in fact, it was only in the underlie art in the Platonic tradition.rewritten and butchered versions susceptible of corn- Schiller was known and loved in the nineteenthprehension by such minds,century on both sides of the Atlantic as the poet andIn this process the historical William Shakespeare, dramatist of the American Revolution. In the setvicealong with the historical tradition of European Pla- of his pen great art once more became a rallying pointtonism that had made Tudor England--and Shake- for the development and uplifting of the morality Qfspeare himself possible was blue-pencilled out of whole populations. And because Schiller contributedhistory. A benchmark in our revolution of constitu- to the fostering of the moral and political outlookstional republican forms of government was in conse- which supported the fledgling American republic inquence suPl?ressed, buried along with the artistic its early years, and thus helped the republic to survive,remains of mat tradition,so, at the same time the creations of Shakespeare's artWere it not for Friedrich Schiller, the great were appropriated by their common opposition to beGerman dramatist of the close of the eighteenth used against him.century, William Shakespeare would now be as Nowadays, Shakespeare is a more or less univerunknownas he was for the first nearly two hundred sally known representative of great art. Schiller, hisyears after his death, successor, is condemned to the obscurity which byCAMPAIGNER / November 1980 5