Shakespeare and Ingersoll by William B. Lindley Shakespeare was by far Ingersoll's favorite writer. Frank Smith writes, on p. 23 of his biography of Ingersoll (reviewed elsewhere in this issue), "At a village inn in Illinois (in 1852), waiting for supper, he and other travellers listened to an old man reading from Shakespeare. 'I was filled with wonder.' He had to have a copy, no matter the cost. 'The next day I bought a copy for four dollars. My God! More than the national debt'. Now in possession of Shakespeare, the greatest student of humanity, and (Robert) Burns, the greatest singer of common life, Ingersoll called Shakespeare his Bible, Burns his prayer-book." In later years, when Ingersoll was on the lecture circuit, his standard lectures included one on Shakespeare. Here is a sample from it: William Shakespeare was the greatest genius of our world... He was not of supernatural origin. At his birth there were no celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were both English, and both had the cheerful habit of living in this world... Shakespeare was born in 1564. In that year John Calvin died. What a glorious exchange!... There was in his blood the courage of his thought. He was true to himself and enjoyed the perfect freedom of the highest art. He did not write according to rules - but smaller men make rules from what he wrote... Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What Greece and Rome produced was great until his time. 'Lions make leopards tame.'... Shakespeare was an innovator, an iconoclast. He cared nothing for the authority of men or of schools. He violated the 'unities,' and cared nothing for the models of the ancient world. The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend to the catastrophe. They did not believe in the episode - in the sudden contrasts of light and shade - in mingling the comic and the tragic... Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and currents of universal life - that Nature cares neither for smiles nor tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins as on cradles...The ordinary dramatists - the men of talent - create characters that become types. Types are puppets - controlled from without - characters act from within. The great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as an individual. Hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual being - and for that reason there is a difference of opinion as to his motives and as to his character. We differ about Hamlet as we do about Caesar, or about Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare's characters act from within. They are centres of energy. They are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They have objects, desires. They are persons - real, living beings. In his delineation of character Shakespeare has no rivals. Table of Contents | 1993 Issues | Subscribe Truth Seeker | Feedback | Freethought.com Webmaster Credit card Orders call: 800-321-9054 or fax: (619)676-0433 Or send check or money order to: Truth Seeker / 16935 W. Bernardo Drive, Suite 103 / San Diego, CA 92127 $20.00 annual U.S. subscription ($35.00 international). Individual issues—$10.00 + $2.50 postage and handling Or be a committed freethinker and send $35.00 for a two year subscription. Truth Seeker is published by Truth Seeker Co., Inc. (ISSN 0041-3712) © 1996