Is Anything Original?

October 25, 1989
Musings 1990

Sometime ago, but in this century, the term “psychosomatic” came into popular usage. The psychologists and writers pointed out that ills of the troubled mind – fear, stress, anxiety, guilt, etc. – could affect the health and proper functioning of the body.

But we did not have to wait for 20th century psychologists to become aware of this particular insight. In Act 2, Sc. 4, Shakespeare has King Lear say,

“We are not ourselves
When nature being oppressed,
commands the mind
to suffer with the body.”

Here, the Bard reminds us that physical ills have an effect mental stability. Other places, notably MacBeth, Shakespeare writes with matchless imagery how the unstable mind distresses the physical body. Lady MacBeth’s compulsive hand-washing cannot cleanse the overpowering guilt that destroys her.

Many times I am persuaded that we learn more from the poets, dramatists, and artists than from most academic tomes, even when they are thoroughly “researched.”

A question about process theology has reached me recently. This, too, is a modern term. But the foundation for process theology is as ancient as Heraclitus who proposed, “all is flux” (change).

Shakespeare possessed astonishing insight into why and how we behave as human beings. I know no person in any age who had such a wide and deep grasp of why and how we think, feel and act.

There have been numerous attempts to demonstrate that Shakespeare could not be the author of the magnificent array of tragedies, poems, comedies, and historical plays. The usual assertion is that this man from Stratford did not have the education or time to produce the superb corpus. Pointed out is that he was an actor, producer, business-man, and on and on. Various other men of that time are held to be the author of “Shakespeare.” The Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Oxford, or Francis Bacon have been named as the “author.” My good and dear friend in Rochester, Dave Rhys Williams, was thoroughly convinced that Christopher Marlowe was the author of “Shakespeare,” and David wrote a book to advance that claim.

Much of the difference of opinion centers on “how do you explain genius?” I don’t try. None of the various theories fully answer that question for me. But I do accept that “genius” is real and rare.

Consider if our sources were as incomplete about Beethoven as they are about Shakespeare. One could count on “scholarly” dissertations proving that Beethoven was not the composer. After all, it would be argued, Beethoven became deaf – and how possibly could a deaf man compose the 9th Symphony, the later quartets? But the historical reality is that Beethoven did compose these grand musical expressions.

The Proverbs say about work, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard.” To grasp the complexities of the human condition, go to the dramatist, the poet, the artist, and the composer, because at their best they reach to the heart of things both temporal and everlasting.