Engagement and Detachment

     I'm currently reading Maynard Mack's Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. So far, the entire piece is forcing me to rethink some important aspects of Shakespeare's oeuvre: the themes found from looking at the entirety of his work and its function in our modern society. In Mack's first chapter he discusses Shakespeare's presence in our world today. In direct opposition of my last post, he says, "Shakespeare is the only writer in world literature who actually comes close to belonging to the world." While I stand firm in my claim that the majority of the population doesn't allow Will to be as present as he should be, Mack focuses solely on the relatively subconscious additions to our culture: the phrases and words that the Bard contributed to our language, the inspiration and aspects of story he has given history's writers, and the themes he has taught - especially "what it means to function as a genuinely humane human being in a harsh and often wholly incomprehensible universe." I simply desire a stronger consciousness of these contributions in our culture - I only wish the general populace realized the importance of the literature.
     Reading earlier today I came to Mack's discussion of Shakespeare's constant theme and encouragement of engagement and detachment in his audience. "Most of the transactions that take place between an audience and a play are ultimately grounded in two...familiar psychological states...engagement and detachment." Mack claims Shakespeare was conscious of these states and that he encouraged them through his abundant metaphors comparing the stage to life (i.e. "All the world's a stage"). What surprised me was Mack's definition of these two psychological states. He explains engagement as being so immersed in the image and language of the play that one does not have time to think - we see the characters as real people in danger, in love, in despair; detachment, according to Mack, is the state which allows the audience to sit back and reflect on theme, to find a deeper, applicable meaning. In class Dr. Sexson has discussed our own detachment and engagement as applied to his class and this blog; to him, engagement consists of many meaningful posts relevant to Shakespeare, because from that we can find more meaning and gain further understanding. For Dr. Sexson, it seems, it is in detachment that we do not learn. Do these definitions differ only because of the separate arenas to which they are applied - a play and a class? Both explanations make sense; I can accept both as truth in each scenario. Does this mean the states of engagement and detachment are defined only by the situations in which they are applied, or do they have to have strict definitions? If so, which is correct?
     These psychological states, though, were not the reason I felt a need to post today; I haven't even gotten there yet, so stick with me. The reason I need to share Maynard Mack with you is the following paragraph:

"However used, the effect of the stage and world comparison is to pull us in both directions simultaneously, reminding us of the real world whose image the playhouse is, but also the playhouse itself and the artifice we are taking part in. If the traveling players in Hamlet solidify the realism of the play by the lesser realism of the fictions they bring to it, they also nourish our sense of the play as an artful composition made up of receding planes where almost everybody is engaged in some sort of "act" and seeks to be "audience" to somebody else. Conversely, if we sit looking down with detached superiority on the lovers watching Bottom's play in A Midsummer Night's Dream, because they in turn look down with detached superiority on the antics of Pyramus and Thisbe without realizing that they are watching the very image of their own antics the night before, we are forced...to understand that there is another play afoot, in which we are actors as well as spectators."

 It seems obvious upon reading this that Shakespeare's abundance of plays within plays serve to represent us - the audience. In reality, then, Shakespeare's plays within plays are actually plays within plays within The Play (that is, life), and with this, "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players," becomes quite literal. According to Mack, the playhouse is an artifice representing the real world, but if the real world is a stage isn't it all artifice? So, what distinguishes the real from the imagined?
     Shakespeare was real; his words are real; the playhouse is a real place where real people "act." If it is in the acting that we find the falsity, but we're all acting in The Play, then none of it is real. I prefer the opposite: everything is real. This leaves me at a philosophical impasse, though; I will have to further contemplate this and get back to you.

Thank you,
Sabrina Hayes