Shakespearean Personalism

Abstract

Shakespearean Personalism Travis Curtright (bio) Literature was such a love of the young Karol Wojtyła that it nearly kept him from the priesthood. Describing the period of his life before his vocation matured, Wojtyła writes that it was not the desire for marriage that kept him from the seminary, but a different passion: "Certainly, I knew many girls from school and, involved as I was in the school drama club, I had many opportunities to get together with other young people. But this was not the issue. At that time I was completely absorbed by a passion for literature, especially dramatic literature, and the theater."1 That passion for dramatic literature led to an interest in Shakespeare. Years after becoming a priest, as auxiliary bishop of Krakow, Wojtyła delivered a meditation to university students on the theme of conscience and conversion—one that included a brief, though telling, assessment of Shakespeare. In that meditation the future pontiff observed, "We know that most of the major works of world literature center around the question of the conscience. . . . Shakespeare's plays are all concerned with the conscience, because this force of nature is such a characteristic human feature."2 After these comments, Wojtyła attempts to explain conscience and its significance in light of his unique understanding [End Page 56] of the human person, but tantalizingly, the relationship between conscience, personhood, and Shakespearean drama is not developed, provoking the question of how his ideas of conscience may relate to Shakespeare's plays. Drawing upon the same retreat meditations, this article will attempt to describe how Wojtyła's notions of conscience might bear upon an understanding of drama and in particular Shakespeare's plays. By revisiting Wojtyła's definition of conscience, I believe one may reconstruct a plausible way of reading Shakespeare in light of Wojtyła's personalism. After explaining Wojtyła's conception of conscience, I will show how Wojtyła's personalism represents a unique literary hermeneutic, even if it emphasizes moral teachings that are similar to those found in older Shakespearean criticism and often ignored in more recent examinations of the plays. In hopes of showing how Wojtyła's personalism might advance our understanding of Shakespeare, I will conclude by examining Edmund from King Lear, paying particular attention to this character's striking reversal on the basis of conscience. I. Conscience and Personhood To return to the meditations, after referring to Shakespeare's works, Wojtyła defines conscience by describing its functions. First, conscience "commands some things and prohibits others." Second, conscience judges us, both in regard to what evils we have committed and in light of what good we are called to do. This second function is called a "great ally of what is good" because it represents what Wojtyła calls a "fundamental energy of our personality," one that urges us toward goodness.3 In listing these functions of conscience, Wojtyła's teaching resembles that of Aquinas, who writes that conscience may witness our actions, incite or bind us to take certain actions, and excuse, accuse, or torment us for certain actions we have committed. Yet for Thomas conscience is best understood as "an application of knowledge to something done"; it is neither a faculty of the soul, nor a power, but an act of judgment.4 For Wojtyła, [End Page 57] conscience will be described in a way that identifies what those acts of judgment mean for human development. Developing a definition in terms of phenomenology, Wojtyła claims that conscience is best understood when personhood is described in light of human development—a person is not a static identity, but one shaped by particular processes of becoming. Such a process of becoming Wojtyła refers to as a "history of the self," and in that history he describes three levels. The first is physical growth, which moves to a point of zenith before decay and finally death; the second is intellectual growth, from first childish impressions to the capacity for reflection and analysis. Finally, there is spiritual development. According to Wojtyła, the development of persons made in the image and likeness of God represents the most...