Interpretations of Shakespeare and Islam

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Saturday December 08, 2012 · 8:29 PM PST

2012/12/08 · 20:29

When I was young, my father introduced me to Harold C. Goddard’s enlightened interpretation of Shakespeare. I remember experiencing the instant conversion to his arguments, which felt so right, so consistent with the morality I aspired to – and yet, such a surprise, because he lands on conclusions that fly in the face of the interpretations held by the vast majority of commenters. The first firecracker of a conclusion, for me, was that Kate was no shrew at all, but a justifiably cranky child (because of the favoritism shown her sister by her father), and that she ends up not tamed, but rather, in fact, holding the upper hand in her marriage (and at last properly, passionately, loved and understood). The second breakthrough, for me, was Goddard’s argument that we are all wrong in assuming that Hamlet should have killed his uncle, or should have killed him earlier. He should not have killed him; he should have forgiven him, and the best part of him knew it, and that he killed instead of forgiving was his downfall. No audience, caught up in the group-think of revenge and hard justice, can see this clearly – but after the performance, as the play festers and worries the mind and heart, we might begin to suspect – and if we are lucky, and we read Goddard, it becomes clear at last, and we are elevated from our eye-for-an-eye existence to a higher plane of understanding where bloodshed is never the right answer.

So, how does this relate to Islam?

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