Shakespeare's influence on US Presidents

Tithi Farhana

English colonists brought to the New World among essential possessions the works of William Shakespeare. The Bard's plays in the colonies were first staged in 1750. By the time of the American Revolution, more than a dozen of his plays had been performed hundreds of times in thriving New England port cities and nascent towns and villages hewn from the wilderness. French writer Alexis de Tocqueville remarked on the popularity of Shakespeare across the new nation in the 1830s: "There is hardly a pioneer's hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember that I read the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin."
From George Washington's love of the theatre to Harry Truman's surviving high-school essays on The Merchant of Venice, a surprising number of US presidents have well documented connections to Shakespeare and his plays.
Lincoln was a lifelong Bardolater and serial Shakespeare-quoter, as Mr Obama noted in remarks at the recent reopening of Ford's Theatre. Lincoln regarded Shakespeare: an oracle to be consulted for wisdom; a pastor with whom to share confidences and from whom to seek comfort, a friend. He kept a "Complete Works" close at hand in the White House.
Sitting for one official portrait, for instance, Lincoln fought the monotony with a spontaneous performance of the opening soliloquy from "Richard III," along with running commentary on how most actors he'd seen play the role had botched it.
He knew much of "Hamlet" by heart, and shared with one correspondent his still unorthodox view that the best speech by the villain Claudius, the soliloquy commencing, and 'O, my offence is rank' surpasses that commencing 'To be or not to be.' "It was "Macbeth," though, that seemed to haunt Lincoln . He quoted from it countless times, and the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy gripped his imagination with unusual power.
Late one night in the summer of 1864, John Forney, secretary of the Senate and frequent White House guest, established Lincoln asleep at his desk, "ghastly pale, and rings under his caverned eyes." His Shakespeare placed on him. Lincoln started conscious and instantaneously read aloud the remarkable speech, with its metaphors of life as bad acting and human endeavour as the noisy and meaningless soundtrack accompanying our progress toward death. When he completed, Lincoln told a surprised Forney that Macbeth's extreme nihilism and utter hopelessness "comes to me tonight like a consolation.

Regan and nihilism
Ronald Regan was influenced by Macbeth's pessimism and nihilism. He recited the entire "Tomorrow and tomorrow" speech from memory at school event in Tennessee. He said to his young guidance "I hope that none of even get that pessimistic or that cynical about life."
Folger Shakespeare Library has a special place in its history for Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Former president Coolidge (like Henry Folger, an Amherst graduate) headed the library's trustee committee from 1931 until his death in January 1933. As president, Herbert Hoover attended the library's opening ceremonies in April 1932, accompanied by First Lady Lou Hoover.
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum also holds several letters to Hoover from Emily Folger, who worked with her late husband to found Folger Shakespeare Library. Dating from 1934, the letters from Mrs. Folger asked the former president to give serious thought to becoming director of the library. He politely declined, preferring to remain in the West.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were pilgrims to Shakespeare's house Avon in 1786. Adams's son John Quincy was lover of Shakespeare and wrote poems. John Adams was also a critic of Shakespearean plays. He had published a volume of Shakespearean criticism.
James Garfield read Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. He also liked Elizabethan dramatists including John Webster, Christopher Marlow and Thomas Kyd. John F. Kennedy also hosted the first Shakespearean performance in the executive mansion and claimed him as "great American writer".
Both - senior and junior Bushes are lovers of "Great American writer". In an interview Junior Bush told that on vacation in 2006, he had "read three Shakespeare". But he did not inform the names.
Shakespearean cynicism and nihilism made fondle on Bill Clinton's smiling face.
He reeled off same speech at a white house celebration of American poetry. He regarded "Macbeth' as a "hardly designed to entice me to a public career." He told that he had learned about the dangers of blind ambition, the fleeting nature of flame, the ultimate emptiness of power disconnected from higher purpose.
Mr. Obama seems to be joined in the ranks of lovers of Shakespeare. Like his hero Lincoln, he prefers 'pastor's work'. In his face book profile lists, there are Shakespearean tragedies.
Mr. Obama can make allusions from Shakespeare. In the context of Afghanistan he can offer the joint chiefs this advice from "Henry V":
"In cases of defence, it is best to weight / the enemy more mighty than he seems".
He may recall some Henry VI, part II for Dick Cheney, "In your protector ship you did device/strange tortures for offenders never head of".
Imagine this plea for congress to put patriotism before partisanship from '"Henry - VIII: "Let all the ends thou aim'st at be the country". Shakespearean quotations may create Obama as a real follower of Lincoln ideology and it is time for gear up for 2012, Mr. Obama could alternate some "Timon of Athens" for his celebrated uniting cry: "What we can do, we will do".
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