The Politics of Shakespeare, Part Three

Summary

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Hillsdale Dialogues – The Politics of Shakespeare, Part Three

Date: March 9, 2026
Host: Hugh Hewitt
Guests: Larry P. Arnn (brief intro), Professor Khalil Habib

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Hillsdale Dialogues continues a multi-week exploration of Shakespeare’s history plays, focusing especially on their political lessons and their unique place in the English tradition. Hugh Hewitt and Professor Khalil Habib delve into why Shakespeare wrote the history plays, what they teach about monarchy and republicanism, and the evolution of English identity and government. The episode is particularly centered around Shakespeare’s King John as the entry point to the English history cycle and compares England’s political development to that of other European nations and ancient Rome.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Shakespeare’s History Plays: An Educational Rarity

• Neglected Texts: Professor Habib points out that plays like King John, the Henry VI plays, and Henry VIII are seldom taught, despite being crucial to understanding the evolution of English politics.

  “Even if you’re familiar with Shakespeare, you’re usually not going to get too many English history plays in classes. You might get Henry V, you might get Richard III. But to the best of my knowledge, hardly anyone teaches King John or the Henry VI plays or Henry VIII. And it’s really too bad.” – Prof. Habib (01:33)

2. Why King John? The Bookends of English Transformation

• Beginning and End: Shakespeare’s history play sequence begins with King John and ends with Henry VIII, tracing England’s movement from a feudal Catholic state to an independent, Protestant nation.
• Central Theme: The struggle between monarchy and church (e.g., John’s battle with the Papacy) is emblematic of England’s gradual separation from medieval Christendom and rise of national identity.

  “What he’s tracing in these plays is the transformation of England as part of medieval Christendom and... eventually becoming its own unique English nation.” – Prof. Habib (03:42)

3. Monarchy, Republicanism, and Montesquieu’s Influence

• Shakespeare’s Political Vision: The plays demonstrate the gradual attenuation of aristocratic and ecclesiastic power, clearing the path toward a 'mixed regime'—part monarchy, part republic.

  “What you witness in these plays, I think, is Shakespeare teaching thinkers like Montesquieu how to look at England as kind of a mixed regime. ... There is a certain kind of republican spirit that emerges.” – Prof. Habib (07:13)

• Republican Seeds: Passages like Henry V’s St. Crispin’s speech and the role of the Bastard in King John are cited as anticipatory of English republicanism, despite their “man out of time” status.

4. Succession, Legitimacy, and Family Dynamics in King John

• Inheritance Crisis: The episode unpacks the convoluted royal succession at the heart of King John:
  • The Bastard (Philip Faulconbridge) is the illegitimate son of Richard I;
  • Arthur is the son of John’s older brother and has the stronger legal claim to the throne.
• Power vs. Legitimacy: This conflict is dramatized through Eleanor of Aquitaine’s candid admission to John:

  “He says, ‘I do hold this throne legitimately through both legitimacy and power’. And she said, ‘No, unfortunately, just power. You’re not legitimate.’” – Prof. Habib (09:59)

5. Comparative Politics: Why England Evolves While Europe Revolts

• Geography and Governance: Montesquieu’s argument explained: small, insular countries with a shared history (like England) are less conducive to centralized autocracy.

  “There’s hardly an English history play where you don’t see somebody, some character, mentioning how proud they are that they’re an island, that they’re small, that they’re homogenous, that they have a shared history.” – Prof. Habib (15:22)

• American Founding: Shakespeare’s portrayal of English constitutional evolution influenced American founders—including in the Federalist Papers.

  “Tocqueville mentions how every cabin he came across in his journey throughout America seemed to have a complete copy of Shakespeare’s plays.” – Prof. Habib (17:42)

6. Locke vs. Montesquieu in the American Context

• Locke as Ideal, Montesquieu as Implementation:

  “I think Locke is the language of natural right, and Montesquieu is the engineering of how to secure them.” – Prof. Habib (18:58)

• Montesquieu’s model of separated powers (rather than Locke’s) is the one the Constitution adopts explicitly.

7. Religion and Politics: The Catholic Question

• The conflict between church and state in the history plays is re-examined in light of later Catholic teaching:

  “If you read the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII, he shows you that the Catholic Church is completely compatible with... liberalism...” – Prof. Habib (20:24)

• But these reconciliations are “pretty late in the day,” after America’s political settlement (20:57).

8. Rome as Foil to England: Shakespeare’s Roman Plays

• Roman Decline vs. English Adaptation:
  • In the Roman plays, Shakespeare contrasts the fleeting success of Roman republicanism with the English capacity for adaptation and constitutionalism.
• Imperial Temptations:

  “He never presents England resembling anything like Rome with respect to its expansion. ... England is a little bit different. The plays ... present England moving from a feudal medieval nation... to something like an independent state under Henry VIII.” – Prof. Habib (25:17)

9. Educational Standards: The Decline and Recovery of Shakespeare in Education

• A Lost Generation: Both Hewitt and Habib lament having to “rummage” for Shakespeare in their own educations, blaming an academic hostility to the Western canon.

  “But now you’re starting to see more and more charter schools pop up... Hillsdale has really set an example... of how to deliver a curriculum that gives you a coherent path to read Shakespeare’s history plays.” – Prof. Habib (30:57)

10. How to Read the History Plays: Chronology Over Composition

• Follow the Historical Line:

  “The better way to do it, rather than lining them up based on the year they were performed or written, is to just let Shakespeare guide you. There’s a historical chronology that he begins with. He begins with King John, then he goes to Richard II, and so on. And if you do it that way, you can actually see a coherent history.” – Prof. Habib (32:32)

11. Monarchy’s Flaws: Legitimacy, Divine Right, and Human Necessity

• Each Play as a Case Study:
  • King John: The crisis of legitimacy during dynastic conflict.
  • Richard II: The problems of divine right without merit.
  • Henry IV: The crises resulting from usurpation.
• Why No Abdications?:

  “Sometimes politics is like riding a tiger. If you let go, you’re going to get mauled... you’re compelled to remain in that position.” – Prof. Habib (35:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Shakespeare’s Unusual Kings:

  “King John was the most excommunicated king in all of England. ... His name was so bad, so stained by his reputation, that nobody named their son John after him. So there’s only John the First, there’s no John II or the third.” – Prof. Habib (03:01)

• On England’s Unique Evolution:

  “England has an evolution.” – Prof. Habib (15:22)

• On the Difference Between Rome and England:

  “I just don’t think Shakespeare thought that the English people were like the Romans. ... They never had this divine mandate to conquer the world.” – Prof. Habib (25:17)

• On Mixed Regimes:

  “Shakespeare [is] teaching thinkers like Montesquieu how to look at England as kind of a mixed regime. ... There is a certain kind of republican spirit that emerges.” – Prof. Habib (07:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:33] Why the history plays matter – teaching and neglect
• [03:01–04:45] Why Shakespeare starts with King John
• [06:53–09:30] Shakespeare and the nature of monarchy; Montesquieu’s influence
• [09:31–10:25] The succession controversy in King John
• [15:22–17:42] Comparative government: England vs. Russia, France; influence on American Founding
• [18:53–20:08] Locke (idealism) vs. Montesquieu (system) in Anglo-American political tradition
• [22:18–26:19] Shakespeare’s Roman plays as a foil to the English history cycle
• [29:06–31:51] Shakespeare in education: why he disappeared, and how Hillsdale aims to restore
• [32:32–35:19] How and why to read the history plays in chronological order
• [35:33] The rarity of abdication and inherent flaws in hereditary monarchy

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Final Thoughts

This episode sets up a deep dive into King John and the Plantagenet lineage for the next Hillsdale Dialogue, while offering a sweeping view of Shakespeare’s political insights and their resonance in Western and American traditions. Professor Habib’s comparative method—pairing Shakespeare’s plays with political philosophers and contrasting England’s gradual constitutionalism with Rome’s and Europe’s violent disruptions—makes this an illuminating and accessible guide for listeners seeking to grasp not just Shakespeare, but the historical roots of modern politics.

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Transcript

[Larry Arne]

Every week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you find your audio.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Morning Glory and Evening Grace America. That music means we're into the Hillsdale Dialogue. All things Hillsdale found at hillsdale. Edu all prior Hillsdale Dialogues, more than 800 of them at HughForHillsdale.com at the end of the program, I'll tell you about how they're getting ready for our 250th birthday as well. But I'm pleased to welcome back Professor Khalil Habib, who spent the last two weeks with us doing it. Classic Hewitt fashion sort of back ass words. We started with the history plays in the middle of Shakespeare. Now I asked him, okay, we have Steelers fans and they're hopelessly confused. They saw Lyon in winter when they were 20 and 50 years later they can't figure this out. So we're going back to John the First and then we're going to go forward. But we're going to begin by doing Shakespeare 101 and why he did the history play. Professor, welcome back. Big hit last week and the week before actually had a lot of good emails. People enjoy sort of learning about what they didn't get in college. Do you find that with your students that they're kind of amazed by Shakespeare?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Yeah, they are. And you know, when I announced that I was going to teach a taught King John before and students who are familiar with Shakespeare think king who? What play is this? These plays are sadly neglected and I think unjustly so. Even if you're familiar with Shakespeare, you're usually not going to get too many English history plays in classes. You might get Henry V, you might get Richard iii. But to the best of my knowledge, hardly anyone teaches King John or the Henry VI plays or Henry viii. And it's really too bad I spent

[Hugh Hewitt]

last night doing John I, because I knew nothing about it. Everything I knew about John I I learned in lion of Winter and Robin Hood, the animated version, although John I is kind of lurking in the background of every Kevin Costner remake of Robin Hood, Right? So I want with a little bit of history when Henry II comes along, he's married to Eleanor of Aquitaine. They have both Richard the Lionhearted and John Bad King John, Richard the Lionhearted goes off and gets killed, does all sorts of brave things, barely in England. Right. I think he spends a month in England in the week. It didn't rain there. And then he's gone. John takes over. Give us a little bit of a sense of why he picked. I listed all the kings to get Ready. There are 35 kings from John I on. Why did he pick the plays that he picked?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

That's a great question. And there's 14 Plantagenets. If you start by counting from Henry II. I think the only way to answer that is to read all of these plays. And it's a lot. I mean, it's monumental. It would take years to do it, but I have. And he starts with King John and he ends with Henry viii. Those are the two bookends. And if you just trace the themes, you'll see why he starts with King John. King John has a number of themes, but most prominently is his conflict with the Catholic Church. He wants to pick who the Archbishop of Canterbury is. And, of course, the Papal Legate Pandolf has an issue with that. And so there's a lot of tensions that take place between King John and the Church. I think. Don't quote me on this, but I think King John was the most excommunicated king in all of England. And in fact, his name was so bad, so stained by his reputation, that nobody named their son John after him. So there's only John the first, there's no John II or the third. So when you fast forward to Henry viii, as I'm sure you know and your listeners would know, that's that pivotal moment where England shifts from essentially part of the Catholic Christendom to the Church of England. So what he's tracing in the interim in these plays is the transformation of England as part of medieval Christendom and with a feudal order that, over time, precisely because it is so decentralized and so geographically separate from the rest of Europe, eventually becomes its own unique English nation. So I think Shakespeare is trying to show his fellow Englishmen what it means to be English and how their history formed and shaped their institutions and their statesmen.

[Hugh Hewitt]

It's a very interesting time to be doing this because this has been a week of great disappointment for England. And by that I mean the United Kingdom. They've kind of collapsed on us as an ally. And so it's an interesting period in which to be looking back to when they became great and now they remain great. I'll add as a note before we. I'm planning on doing most of John I at the end of this program and next week. This is sort of prelude for the Steelers fan. Are you from Michigan, Khalil?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

I'm from Maine, but I live in Michigan now.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Okay, that's right, you're from Maine. And so you didn't have any professional football up there. You had the Patriots, and now you're in Detroit, so you have the Lion. So you're as bad as a Steelers fan, but not as slow. Not as slow. So I always tell people, if you teach con law, and I've done it for 35 years, you do know the stewards, because you know Charles I gets his head lopped off. You know the Restoration, that's the first revolution. Then you know the Glorious Revolution, that's the second revolution. Then you know our revolution, that's the third revolution. So you get the Stuarts, but you don't know anything about the Platogowow, do you? Say it. Platogenettes.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

The Plantagenets.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Plantagenets. All right, John Henry III, Edward123, Richard II, Henry4, Henry V, Henry6, some way Henry6, get interrupted by Edward IV, Edward V, then Richard III. That's the end of the Platinumnettes. You talked about that last week. And we'll rearrange them in order so it makes sense. Then we get the Tudors, merry old England. We know about Henry VIII and Henry VII a little bit. The Lawgiver, Edward vi, not too long. Bloody Mary, Elizabeth, great queen Elizabeth I, enter the Tudors. Then we get to the Stuarts, civil wars, all that kind of stuff. And then we get into the Hanover Windsors, who are still with us. So it's actually an unbroken monarchical system. But what do you teach your students about what Shakespeare thinks about monarchy?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Well, there's an interesting observation that Montesquieu makes in the spirit of the law. And he says when he studies England and its constitution, he sees what he thinks is eventually a republic that emerges within England. And that's puzzling because as everybody knows, we always identify England as a monarchy. But I think these plays show you where Montesquieu derived that from. By the time you get to the Henry VIII play, so many of the nobility have been destroyed because of their bloody wars. They're not as decentralized anymore in terms of, like the three estates. The church has been weakened, the nobility has been weakened. And what you start to see is one of the preconditions for the rise of republican government, as far as Montesquieu is concerned, is the love of equality. But that's impossible, he says, in a monarchy, because in a monarchy, it's really honor that governs its cultural mores and its political orientation. So what you witness in these plays, I think, is Shakespeare teaching thinkers like Montesquieu how to look at England as kind of a mixed regime. And there's a regime change that takes place organically within it as it sort of nudges itself in the direction of somebody like Henry viii. Eventually, what you'll see is there is a certain kind of republican spirit that emerges. You see that in Henry V, Howe's speech, or Henry v's speech on St Crispin's Day, he calls for a new kind of brotherhood of Englishmen. And you can already see that there's a movement in the direction of something that would look closer in character to republicanism. And there's a character named the Bastard in King John, which we can get to next week if you wish. And he's, in a way, a moral center of that play and kind of gives you an indicator of where these plays are actually heading, because he embodies the future of English citizenship. But he's a man out of his time, and Shakespeare tends to do that a lot. He'll take a care. Like King John. King John gives these very proto Protestant sounding pushback against the Pope. The problem is he's centuries too early, and they're ineffective, and they lead to his excommunication. But Shakespeare's always showing you that there are these elements in England that always made up part of its character. But eventually, over time, the conditions were right that it would emerge no longer really a feudal medieval monarchy, but the political conditions that are the direct results of its bloody wars and its transitions of power actually lead it to something like a constitutional government.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I want to do a little comparative government with you in segment two, but just to set this up and foreshadow Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Again, the lion in Winter is the great movie. They have Richard the Lionhearted, who has an illegitimate son who is the bastard right in John. So he's the bastard, but there's also a nephew. Now, under English law, ought the nephew to have inherited the bastard or the brother John I?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Well, it should be the older brother. And so Arthur does actually have the legal right to inherit the kingdom. And we don't have to guess. We can just look at the scene between Eleanor and her son John after the French ambassador leaves. He says, you know, I do hold this throne legitimately through both legitimacy and power. And she said, no, unfortunately, just power. You're not legitimate.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Okay, we gotta come back and talk about that after the break. Just. Even the Browns fans need that to be figured out. Maybe I got. Maybe I got it wrong. I thought the bastard was Arthur's son, but the nephew is Arthur's nephew. I'll get it right with the professor after the break. Don't go.

[Bill Gray]

Hi there, it's Bill Gray from Hillsdale College. Before you skip ahead, can I ask you a question or two? If you could teach 50 million Americans one thing, what would it be? Would you teach our great American story that this nation is unique, founded on self government and individual liberty? Maybe you would teach the truth about free enterprise, how hard work and opportunity allow anyone to rise? Or would you teach the gospel and the Christian faith that helps us live good and meaningful lives? At Hillsdale College, we're doing exactly that, teaching the best that's been thought and said. Through our free online courses, K12 programs, Imprimis, podcasts and more, we reach and teach millions every year with the principles of liberty that make America free. And with your help, we can reach even more. Your tax deductible gift today will help us teach millions more to people to pursue truth and defend liberty. Just text the word give to 7 1844. You'll get a secure link to make your donation in seconds. That's give to 718 44. Thank you for standing with us. Now back to the show.

[Larry Arne]

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour and we've got a jam packed show for you. This week we talk with John O. McInnes, law professional professor at Northwestern University, about the important role the wealthy play in our republic. His new book, why Democracy Needs the Rich. Maria Servold from the Dow Journalism program here at Hillsdale College discusses the current state of student journalism and student press freedom across the country. And John Seifert from the computer science department here at Hillsdale College explains the nature of artificial intelligence. All of that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Welcome back, America. Professor Khalil Habib is one of those wonders up at Hillsdale who can do Montesquieu and Shakespeare and that means he can do comparative government and literature. And we're going to do a little bit of both over two weeks as we get into the history plays backwards. Last week we just dove into the middle, which was of course, classic Hillsdale dialogue. Then we make you go back and learn the beginning and we'll get to the end. However, I got to get straight in my head. John I is the name of the play. He is the brother of Richard the Lionhearted the son of Henry II and Eleanor Aquitaine. Who is the bastard? What's the blood relationship to whom?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

The bastard is the illegitimate son of Richard the Lionheart. He is technically in the royal family, but he's illegitimate.

[Hugh Hewitt]

And who is Arthur?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Arthur is. He is the son of Richard. Sorry, of King John's eldest brother. So technically he should inherit the throne.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Even though there's a skip. Even though there's a generational skip.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Yeah, there is, because Eleanor is really dialed into power. I mean, she doesn't want to lose an inch of power. And in a private conversation with her son John, she does admit that Arthur does actually have a legitimate claim. And just like the bastard has a legitimate claim to being actually a member of the family. Even though he was born illegitimate.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Yeah.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

And he does play a crucial.

[Hugh Hewitt]

I don't know when the lion in Winter was made. It's the early 60s. Right. Do you like the movie?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

I've never seen it. Yeah, I haven't seen it.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Oh, okay. It's just all. It's the three sons, including the one who dies trying to maneuver with Eleanor and Henry to get the throne. And that's all it's about. And it's a fabulous kind of all set in a fortress and not very high end budget, but it won every Academy Award. All right, let me go back to the history part. You've done Montesquieu, so you've done comparative government. How does England make the transition to parliamentarianism, but Russia gets stuck with a czar, France gets stuck with a king until the revolution. Italy gets stuck with chaos. I mean, England's the only one that kind of has, though there's a lot of blood and revolution. England has an evolution.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Correct. Well, again, I. I don't mean to bring up Montesquieu again, but he wrote a very short piece called On Universal Monarchy in Europe, and it was originally part of his book on the Rise and Fall of Rome. But he withdrew that chapter because it was obvious that it was a critique of French imperialism and French ambition. So he withdrew it. But we do have copies of it, and it was recently translated into English. I also taught that years ago because I thought it was quite relevant to the question you just raised, according to Montesquieu. And you can see elements of this also in the Federalist Papers. The difference between land like Russia and England, which is a small island, is that Montesquieu believes that a large area can only really be governed efficiently through a centralized state or some kind of centralization. And England is the closest thing you get to something like what Aristotle thought was a polis, it still would be too big for Aristotle's taste. But it is an island. And there's hardly an English history play where you don't see somebody, some character, mentioning how proud they are that they're an island, that they're small, that they're homogenous, that they have a shared history. And so it's not conducive to centralization. And when that happens, a king is usually deposed because there's such a strong streak of independence among the English. So when Montesquieu is writing about politics, and then when the Federalists bring him up in Federalist 9, they're aware that if you're going to have an extended republic, it's going to have to have some monarchical element. And what Montesquieu's Confederated Republic is designed to do is take the advantages of monarchy and republicanism and synthesize them through the separation of powers. So you ensure that the monarchical element, which is a large federal government, a unitary executive, has the ability to manage such a massive territory. But the republican element, which places the love of liberty at the center of its constitution, has the weight and force of the separation of powers with an independent judiciary. So that's how I think these plays also help to shape many of the American founders. I mean, Tocqueville mentions how every cabin he came across in his journey throughout America seemed to have a complete copy of Shakespeare's plays.

[Hugh Hewitt]

So I think that. Professor Rabit, how does Locke. A half dozen people out there are screaming, what about John Locke? What about John Locke? You know, you're talking about Montesquieu. What about John Locke?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Yeah, well, John Locke was, of course, enormously influential. He was quoted, I think, second only to the Bible in just sheer numbers of references. And Montesquieu, I would say, is probably a close third. Maybe there's a photo finish between the two. Locke's understanding of natural right, there's no question informs the American Founding. Direct passages are almost lifted verbatim, and you can see them in the Federalist Papers. John Jay's Federalist Paper, too, literally speaks as if it was coming right out of John Locke's Second Treatise. But the separation of powers that we end up adopting is the one that is advanced by Montesquieu. And Montesquieu is the only philosopher mentioned explicitly by the Federalist. In the Federalist Papers, you do get a reference to Polybius, but if you consider him more of a political historian, technically doesn't count. But there's no question that the founding owes an enormous debt to Locke.

[Hugh Hewitt]

So is it fair to say Locke is the poetry, Montesquieu is the prose?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

I think Locke is the language of natural right, and Montesquieu is the engineering of how to secure them. What would be the most efficient way to secure them. There isn't really an independent judiciary in Locke. It's a bit ambiguous. The king has a bit of share in it. The legislature has a bit of a share in it. And you can see it's very English. I mean, in the English history plays, King John acts like a judge in act one. I mean, here he is trying to deal with France and. Yeah, and then there's the claimant, and that's very English. And Henry vi, it's still there. It's still present in Henry vi. Henry VI acts like a judge in certain instances where people want to sue for some kind of justice. And so Locke is very much, I think, still working within the English tradition. But I think Montesquieu, having been chastened by the French experience, where Louis XIV and even way before there was this encroachment upon these principles of government, and that centralization proved for Montesquieu to lay the foundation for what he believed would be a future revolution. He was right about that. He anticipated the French Revolution.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Jumping ahead a little bit, there is the papal envoy here who does get involved on both sides. Both the English and the French is part of our founding. Anti Catholic as a result of Shakespeare. We have a minute to the break. Professor.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

I don't know if it's anti Catholic, because if you read the papal encyclical Rerum the Barum by Pope Leo xiii, he shows you that the Catholic Church is completely compatible with very important principles, with liberalism. He actually speaks the language of Locke throughout that encyclical. And he comes to the defense of the natural right to property, to life. And in that encyclical, he wants to show that the Catholic Church and liberalism can work in tandem, especially to head off any encroachment by socialism or economy.

[Hugh Hewitt]

That's pretty late in the day, though. That's a good century and a half after, well, maybe a century and a third after the founding. I'll come back with Professor Avib. We got to talk about the Roman Empire as well, because this is our setup. Then we'll be deep into John in the last segment this week and totally into John next week. Don't go anywhere. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Professor Khalil Habib is with me from Hillsdale College. Hillsdale dialogue is underway. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale. Edu. Our last two Hillsdale dialogues as we take a month off from Churchill. Dr. Arn is out and about. Dr. Habib has come into our good graces and is helping us through the history plays of Shakespeare. We've done the tragedies, we've done a little bit of the comedies over the years. We've never really dove into the history plays. And this is fascinating. Dr. Arnold and I are in hock to the audience for a lot of things. One of them is the Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which I'm making my way through at night, listening to a half hour to an hour a night. And it's just the story of how a republic becomes a monarchy, becomes a military government, becomes chaos until Constantine, and then it becomes chaos again, and then we go into the Dark Ages. How in the world does England climb out of that mess, Dr. Habib, according

[Professor Khalil Habib]

to Shakespeare or just in general? Both. Okay, so I do think that the Roman. Shakespeare's Roman plays are intended to be read as foils to the English history plays. Oh, I really believe that because they share a lot of the same themes. And I think he's looking at two touchstones of political achievement. And what England achieved and what Rome achieved were really extraordinary, but they went in two different directions in the Roman plays. What Shakespeare shows you there in Coriolanus is Rome during its most republican moment. And Coriolanus himself embodies that. And in that play, Coriolanus predicts that if the people ever get an inch of representation, the country's gonna be down a slippery slope towards demagoguery, democracy, and all will be lost. And then when you get to the plague, Julius Caesar, after the plebeians do in fact get the tribunes, which is the sort of English version of the House of Representatives. England, sorry, Rome, through its conquests, essentially has become an empire. And Julius Caesar now is the right guy at the right time to basically cross that Rubicon, so to speak. In that play, you see that the people don't even care about their representation anymore. They were never really political. What they always wanted was somebody that they could look up to, like a God, who could essentially take care of them and keep them distracted with just bread and circuses. So Shakespeare does not present Julius Caesar in a good light. And I think that reveals Shakespeare's Republican leanings. He's not a fan of that kind of imperialism. And the reason why I Say, that is when I turn to reading Julius Caesar himself. Like the Gaelic wars, there was such a sharp contrast between just how great Caesar himself is. I mean, that writing should be absolutely required reading. And the bizarre way that Shakespeare presents him in that play. He's old, he's not impressive. You would never guess that's the same guy who had achieved what he achieved in Rome and what he wrote about. And then you get Anthony, Cleopatra. And by the time you get there, Rome has lost its way. It's no longer a republic. And as far as it's an empire, it's really an administrative state. The person who becomes the emperor there, Octavius, is essentially the embodiment of an administrative state. He has no heart, no soul, no sympathy. He's all business. And his sharp contrast is Anthony. And in that context, although politics is dead because for Shakespeare, it really is most prominently seen and experienced in a republic. Nevertheless, it makes possible for something like the love affair between Anthony and Cleopatra. So in that regard, it's almost like a Jane Austen play novel. You can finally see love now that all of the great wars are over and you're living amidst the rise of a new commercial society. Now with England, England is a little bit different. The plays that he presents and knows England, he never presents England resembling anything like Rome with respect to its expansion. It never consumes the world the way the Roman Empire did. So that you could literally see Rome begin first under kings and then under a republic, then in an empire which lasts a long time because their institutions were pretty extraordinary. And it lasts a long time, but it does by necessity seem to go in the direction of an empire. England, of course, does eventually. But Shakespeare is really just looking at that moment when it moves from a feudal medieval nation that is part of Christendom and under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church to something like an independent state under Henry viii. And I just don't think Shakespeare thought that the English people were like the Romans. They were never about conquest. It wasn't. It was never about. They never had this divine mandate to conquer the world.

[Hugh Hewitt]

The way Libby presents was an accidental empire. We have talked about that a lot on the program. We do do our history. We did the history of the English speaking people with Dr. Arne. Accidental, but boy, are we glad it came along. And it's sad to see it go. Don't go anywhere. Dr. Abed, Steve and I will set up next week in John the First right after these messages. Stay tuned. All things [e-mail].

[Bill Gray]

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[Hugh Hewitt]

Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Professor Habib is still with me. And I gotta ask you, Khalil, I'm going to complain about something that is 51 and 50 years old. I was a freshman at Harvard 51 years ago. Couldn't get into Shakespeare, the survey class. I was a sophomore 50 years ago, couldn't get into Shakespeare, the class. So it's all been patchwork, learning from other people and backward sources did none of it in high school. What are Hillsdale students obliged to do about Shakespeare? And what has happened to our education? As the late David Allen White used to say, you read him for one reason. He's the greatest master of the English language ever. But there are other reasons to read him. Obviously you're displaying those.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

I entered undergraduate. I'm trying to think. It was like 1992. I'm terrible with dates, Hughes, so don't quote me on any of this. And it was right at the time when there was a war against dead white males. That was the first time I'd ever heard that phrase. I didn't even know what it meant. And I was disappointed because I wanted more than what I got in high school. And I was eager to learn something like a college level Shakespeare course, but you couldn't really find one. And there was this hostility to the tradition that I didn't quite understand at the time. But I think it's reversing in many ways. And I would like to say it's partly due to Hillsdale's influence. Hillsdale has been teaching the liberal arts in such an extraordinary way. Between what we do here in the Barney program and the K12 program that we have going across the country, there's a clear taste and desire for exactly what you just said. I mean, you were at Harvard, and yet you had to sort of rummage through things to see if you could find a course like something on Shakespeare. But now you're starting to see more and more charter schools pop up. Because I do believe, and I know it sounds like I'm being prejudiced because I'm at Hillsdale, but I do think that Hillsdale has really set an example in both the college and at the K12 level of how to deliver a curriculum that gives you a coherent path to read Shakespeare's history plays and then take a history course and study England, take a literature course and study Jane Austen's novels, take a political theory course and study Montesquieu on the English or John Locke. And I think when the curriculum is coherent that way, and it's not Balkanized according to just mere specialization, students can then make the connections that are necessary. Because no one class will exhaust a great book. That's not possible, no matter who. Who's teaching it. You could have Montesquieu himself on the Spirit of the Laws, but it would always be helpful to have some of the foils that he references in other classes. So you create a mosaic of a curriculum. So that's what I think. You and I were unfortunately victims of the absence of that. But it's never too late, I think, to.

[Hugh Hewitt]

No, it's not. David Allen White was. He passed away last year. He was a guest on this show. This trail is 25 years old, and for the first 15 years, he would come on once a month and do a little Shakespeare here. But he had a very unusual way of Teaching. He didn't want to tell you anything. It was very Straussian. And then Stephen Smith came along, your colleague. He was fabulous. And we did some of the comedies and some of the tragedies with Stephen. But the history plays are linear, and some of us are just given linear brains. Right. We want to know how we got from A to B to C to D to E. And I think John I matched up. What did we do last week? Henry iv. It makes more sense when you do it that way. Is that how you teach it?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Absolutely. You know, I published on King John, and I remember when I was doing my research on just secondary sources. You know, the problem with just scholarship is they think the way to order a Shakespeare play is at the time that he wrote it, when he composed it. But obviously a genius like Shakespeare can conceive of the entire plan of his works, just like Aquinas was able to with the Summa. So the better way to do it, rather than lining them up based on the year they were performed or written, is to just let Shakespeare guide you. There's a historical chronology that he begins with. He begins with King John, then he goes to Richard II and so on. And if you do it that way, you can actually see a coherent history.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Why does he skip 150 years? He goes from John's dead in 1216. Richard II is born in 1377. Why does he skip 150 years?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

I love it. Great question. So I think the key to understanding all of these plays that will answer that question, why skip that? Is because each play raises and attempts to get us to think about a central tension inherent in hereditary monarchy. And he selects kings based on the circumstances that most illuminate that. So, for example, King John is a play about legitimacy. And it sets the tone for the rest of the plays because it shows you just how complicated and ineffectual hereditary monarchy is. Arthur is the legitimate heir, but he's a child. And England is about to have a war and conflict with France. The prudence would say, you don't have a child enter the throne. You would have King John or somebody else. Richard II shows you what happens when you try to establish monarchy on the grounds of divine right of kings. And is that an improvement on the conditions that you find that Shakespeare is spotlighting in King John? And it shows? Well, not really. And if you are to end up with somebody like Richard II who abuses that position of divine right, you're going to lay the foundation for a legitimate uprising. But that usurpation by Bolingbroke ends up destroying the cosmic order of England. And then it leads to the next series of plays. Henry iv, where you now have the usurper dealing with the consequences of jettisoning a king who frankly, wasn't really suited. In fact, even Richard II has a line in the play where he says, I'm really not suited to govern. Now, in Henry iv, having usurped that, you see the consequences of what happens when you destroy the sacred. There's an element of the sacred in monarchy. And when Bolingbroke does that and becomes Henry iv, you see, England plummets into a state of nihilism. Then the next question.

[Hugh Hewitt]

Edward VIII abdicated and I was. We got a minute and then we'll go to next week and John the first. He's the only one that abdicate. Apparently, it does not occur to people to ever assume I'm not cut out for this job. Is that just a human failing?

[Professor Khalil Habib]

It is a human failing, but sometimes it's also a necessity of politics. I can't remember who came up with this phrase, but I like it. Sometimes politics is like riding a tiger. If you let go, you're going to get mauled. And so quite often, sometimes, given this political turmoil in the factions and how high the stakes are, sometimes by necessity, you're compelled to remain in that position. And I think it's just another way of chase. They're showing you just how problematic monarchy is when it's based on hereditary.

[Hugh Hewitt]

We will be back next week with Professor Habib talking about John the first, and only because he was so bad, nobody ever wanted to be John ii. Maybe William will get. I guess not. The kids are already born. Maybe his son will get funny and give us John ii. Don't go anywhere. America I. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I Hope you've enjoyed Dr. Khalil Habib today in the absence of Both me and Dr. Arn. I got ahold of him last week and what a perfect set next week is going to be amazing. Either Dr. Arnold will be back or you'll get part two of Dr. Habib. I do want to tell you about the American Revolution, though. We are in the 250th anniversary and the American Revolution did not just happen. It wasn't just a series of events that, you know, very, very nicely took place. Hillsdale is doing their effort to make sure that that is not what you believe. Go and visit Hillsdale Edu. You'll find out that the colonists did not just wake up one day and decide, oh, we're going to have a revolution. Hillsdale has a brand new miniseries, it's free on colonial America. You want to find out what it was like from 1607? Is that the time that Jamestown is founded right up through 171976 Hillsdale 6 part documentary Hillsdale College professors are going to teach you the religious, political, cultural and economic ideas that shaped the uniquely American culture during the colonial period. You'll learn why is there an idea about liberty, especially religious liberty, inspired by the settlers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve and practice their faith as they wanted. They'll learn how Americans organized their local governments in the time of colonial governors. But there were also colonial parliaments. There was the House of Burgess. There were other all sorts of representative institutions at that time. You'll find out where America is a land of virtue and always has been, always upheld virtue. We are a country of a moral people and our Constitution is made for a moral people. You've heard me say that. So right now go to HughForHillsdale.com to enroll in this course. Hugh for Hillsdale.com no cost, easy to get started. All you have to do is go to hillsdale.com to register and you'll learn more about colonial America in advance of our 250th. Do not miss this course. HughForHillsdale.com Everything Hillsdale by the way, at Hillsdale. Edu and all of the dialogues, including with Dr. Habib at HughForHillsdale.com thanks for

[Larry Arne]

listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to Hillsdale.

[Professor Khalil Habib]

Eduardo.