Pacifist Voices in Shakespeare

135 Pacifist Voices in Shakespeare Robert S. White There is only one substantial article arguing for the existence of pa thought in Shakespeare's works, Steven Marx's 'Shakespeare's Pacifism'. Good as this article is, it should not be left to stand alone as the last word, since this diminishes the subject, as if pacifism were just a kind of isolated footnote in Shakespeare, or as if no more could be said. In particular, I question as over-sharp Marx's argument that 'a central turning point' occurred between 1599 and 1603, changing Shakespeare from 'a partisan of war to a partisan of peace'. In this article I leave out the obvious plays dealt with in detail by Marx, Henry V, Coriolanus, and Troilus and Cressida (and Henry VIII, which Marx argues is the most pacifist of all Shakespeare's plays) and dwell rather on earlier plays. M y real intention is to show that Shakespeare includes the pacifist voice amongst m a n y others throughout his plays, virtually whenever the subject of war is raised directly or indirectly. Armed conflict is rarely, if ever, allowed to stand unchallenged as the norm of human behaviour, even w h e n the context is a 'just war'. I shall not be arguing that 'Shakespeare is a pacifist', but equally I believe no argument can be mounted to prove that 'Shakespeare is a militarist'. His unique brand of radical ambiguity seems to be a function of the dramatic medium itself, at least in his practice: it is enough to portray convincing dramatic presences giving vehement expression to a range of apparently strong and conflicting convictions. As one steeped in the rhetorical tradition of Cicero, he would have been trained like a good lawyer to defend almost any position with power and plausibility, 1 Renaissance Quarterly, 45 (1992), 49-95. 2 Marx, p. 50. 136 Robert S. White and he always has characters w h o can speak with as much belief of peaceful values as warlike ones. Like Stephen Marx, I do not confine myself to a restricted definition of pacifism, preferring to apply it to those w h o strongly condemn war as a solution to problems. Stephen Marx, while conceding that there were no '-isms' available in Renaissance vocabulary, points out that the age did distinguish between 'martial' (war-loving) and 'irenic' (Eirene was the Greek goddess ofpeace and prosperity). In the broadest terms it m a y b e possible to posit a spectrum running between two kinds of temperament, one assuming conflict to be a kind ofsocial and political norm and the other assuming peace is the norm of h u m a n existence. At the 'middle end' of each there is a meeting place around the issue of 'the just war': on the one hand, if there must be war, let it happen only when necessary and let it be humanely contained; on the other hand, i f there must be peace let it be a positive resolution of a particular conflict, before the next war breaks out. The ways in which war and peace are constructed by individual readers will inevitably reflect their prior attitudes and ideologies, and since precious few governments at any time in h u m a n history have based their policy on the conscientious belief that war is always unnecessary and under all circumstances unacceptable, inevitably pacifism has been a minority and besieged ethical stance. It deserves at least in calm, scholarly circles, a more independent and positive definition, rather than being defined only by contrast with its opposite. In order to focus on 'the peace motive', I refer rather indiscriminately and casually to war between nations and civil war, and I have not addressed the question of the just war. I would defend these decisions in this context, because fundamentally pacifism is concerned with avoiding violence as a solution to problems of any kind, international or domestic, and given more space I think I could show that most of the wars in Shakespeare are justified only speciously by the aggressor: Henry V s manoeuvring by means close to blackmail to persuade the clergy to declare his campaign...