770 Shakespeare and Civility (with Indira Ghose) | Robert W. Service and "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The History of Literature – Episode 770

Title: Shakespeare and Civility (with Indira Ghose) | Robert W. Service and "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
Host: Jacke Wilson
Guest: Indira Ghose (Emeritus Professor of English, University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
Date: January 26, 2026

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Overview

This episode weaves together two distinct literary explorations:

1. The popularity and cultural place of "verse" poet Robert W. Service, particularly his iconic ballad "The Cremation of Sam McGee."
2. A thoughtful conversation with Indira Ghose about her new book on civility and theater in Early Modern England, focusing especially on Shakespeare and how his contemporaries used theater as a "laboratory" to test and portray the limits and values of civility in a fractured society.

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Part I: Robert W. Service and "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

Segment starts: 01:14
Poem recitation begins: 11:16

Key Points

• Introduction to Robert W. Service:

  • Service is described as not being in the league of canonical poets like Wordsworth or T.S. Eliot, even by his own admission, yet achieved massive popularity and wealth from his verse.
  • His poetry collections, especially Songs of a Sourdough (also known as The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses) were sensational bestsellers—selling more than $3 million (in today’s money).

• Background of Service:

  • Born in England to a Scottish family; lived with relatives in Scotland, tried his hand at several professions (cowboy, farmhand, bank clerk).
  • Eventually found his inspiration among Yukon gold prospectors, capturing their tales in verse, which he would recite at bars and social gatherings.

• Verse vs. Poetry Debate:

  • Service faced criticism for writing “doggerel” or verse rather than “real poetry.” He embraced his populist style, aiming for memorability and accessibility.
  • “Verse, not poetry, is what I was after—something the man in the street would take notice of and the sweet old lady would paste in her album, something the schoolboy would spout and the fellow in the pub would quote. Yet I never wrote to please anyone but myself.” (Service, relayed by Jacke Wilson, 07:14)

• Reading and Reflection on "The Cremation of Sam McGee":

  • Jacke recites the entire poem, noting its vivid setting, humor, macabre twist, and memorable rhythms.
  • The ballad is positioned as an exemplary work of popular (rather than “serious”) poetry—akin to Kipling and Longfellow, meant to entertain and stick in the collective memory.

Notable Quotes

• “Can you think of a poet today who writes a collection that sells through seven editions before its release date and 37 printings in its first few years?” (Co-host, 02:45)
• “The poem tells the story of a society that's shrunk down to two people. That's hard enough to get along. Most of us live in a community of hundreds or thousands or millions. How do we humans get along, then?” (Co-host, 16:35)

Memorable Moment:

• The full recitation of "The Cremation of Sam McGee," including its famous refrain:
  • “There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold…” (11:16–16:28)

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Part II: Civility, Pretense, and Shakespearean Drama (with Indira Ghose)

Interview starts: 19:40

Main Discussion Points

Why Civility Mattered in Early Modern England

• Polarization:
  • The period was marked by religious conflict and upheaval between various Christian denominations, alongside political turmoil and rising individualism (21:19–21:55).
• Civility as Social Glue:
  • Civility is both “radically ambivalent” and foundational: it can be a force for mutual respect or a tool of exclusion and status (23:03–24:46).
    • Two traditions:
      • Erasmus: Civility as a path to inclusion, understanding, and social healing—a universal good.
      • Castiglione: Civility as a set of codes for advancement and social distinction, sometimes amounting to tribalism or exclusion.

Civility and Pretense: Performance and Reality

• Civility often demands a degree of pretense, which can elicit suspicion (e.g., is it sincere or merely manipulative?).
• Both Erasmus and Castiglione acknowledge this. Pretense becomes ethically ambiguous: it can be an act of necessary adaptation or a means of power and self-interest (28:26–30:48).
  • “Civility is...an art of performance. It's an act of communication. It's about conveying mutual respect to each other. Whether we actually feel that respect...in the final analysis, it's irrelevant, because what counts...is how we act.” (Ghose, 28:44)

Civility as Control vs. Civility as Rebellion

• Civility can suppress necessary protest (“accept your fate,” “let’s form a committee,” etc.), but it also structures how to have conflict constructively (31:00–33:25).
  • “Civility is how we manage conflict. It's not about whether we disagree, but how we disagree.” (Ghose, 32:05)

The Theater as a Laboratory for Civility (and Incivility)

• Theater in Early Modern England didn’t just mirror society; it interrogated its own role in shaping civility and social boundaries (33:44–36:17).
  • “Drama about drama, about acting, about pretense, about make believe...breaking the fourth wall...plays within plays...call attention to the issue of acting and pretense.” (Ghose, paraphrased, 34:19)
• The institution of theater was itself controversial, accused of promoting sedition and immorality, yet was embraced by the masses.

Examples from Plays

• Hamlet:
  • Addresses the suspicion about pretense (“I know not seems. I'm not faking it...”). Hamlet is constantly performing, but also obsessed with the line between seeming and reality (34:50–35:44).
• Coriolanus:
  • Protagonist rejects civility and pretense, equating both with falsehood and flattery, yet his refusal to perform socially results in catastrophe—exile and betrayal (39:43–43:54).
• Merchant of Venice:
  • Contrasts the “civility” of insiders (the Venetians—charming but exclusionary) with Shylock, the outsider.
  • The famous plea for shared humanity:
    • “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands?...If you prick us, do we not bleed?” (Ghose, paraphrasing the play, 43:31)

Do the Playwrights Take a Side?

• Generally, they do not moralize or offer easy answers. Shakespeare especially lets the contradictions—between unity and exclusion, sincerity and pretense—play out in irresolvable ways, inviting the audience to grapple with ambiguity (44:23–45:39).

Why the 16th and 17th Centuries Mattered

• Civility has existed throughout global cultures—Confucius, India, etc.—but the early modern European context (mass media, urbanization, and the Reformation) created a uniquely public and conflicted debate (46:33–48:26).

Connection to Contemporary Life

• The conversation draws a parallel between small acts of civility (taking turns in traffic) and larger social reconciliations (religious toleration, coexistence).
  • “It's often, you know, the little things...which tie into this larger sense of the fact that we're all in it together.” (Ghose, 49:29)

Literature as Empathy Machine

• Literature doesn’t provide easy answers but models empathy and the complexity of being human.

  • “If it does do anything, [literature] does teach us...what it means to be human and to have empathy. The fact that there are no easy answers or simple solutions…is something I think literature does do.” (Ghose, 50:45)

• Memorable outside quote:

  • Quoting James Baldwin: “What Shakespeare does is he complicates all battles by insisting on the human riddle.” (50:45)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps and Attribution)

• “Verse, not poetry, is what I was after, something the man in the street would take notice of...something the schoolboy would spout and the fellow in the pub would quote.” — Robert W. Service (relayed by Jacke Wilson, 07:14)
• “Civility is...an art of performance. It's an act of communication. It's about conveying mutual respect to each other. Whether we actually feel that respect...in the final analysis, it's irrelevant, because what counts...is how we act.” — Indira Ghose (28:44)
• “Civility is how we manage conflict. It's not about whether we disagree, but how we disagree.” — Indira Ghose (32:05)
• “Drama about drama, about acting, about pretense, about make believe...plays within plays...call attention to the issue of acting and pretense.” — Indira Ghose (34:19)
• “What Shakespeare does is he complicates all battles by insisting on the human riddle.” — James Baldwin (quoted by Indira Ghose, 50:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening and Service Introduction: 01:14
• Service’s Poetic Approach and Success: 02:45–07:14
• Recitation of "The Cremation of Sam McGee": 11:16–16:28
• Transition to Civility and Society Themes: 16:32–18:07
• Interview with Indira Ghose Begins: 19:40
• Debate over Civility (Erasmus vs. Castiglione): 23:03–24:46
• Pretense and Performance in Civility: 28:26–30:48
• Civility as Social Control/Instrument of Power: 31:00–33:25
• Theater as Laboratory for Civility: 33:44–36:17
• Examples from Shakespeare: 39:43–43:54
• Do Playwrights Moralize on Civility?: 44:23–45:39
• Why Early Modern England Was Unique: 46:33–48:26
• Literature’s Role Today: 50:45–51:53

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Tone and Style

The conversation alternates between Jacke Wilson's earnest, lightly humorous, and relatable persona and Indira Ghose's measured, insightful scholar's voice—always considerate of both complexity and accessibility. The episode moves swiftly but is reflective, with a focus on the messiness and importance of how societies manage conflict, then and now.

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For the Listener

This episode is ideal for those interested in the boundaries between “high” and “popular” art, the weighty issues of social discord and reconciliation, and the many ways literature can illuminate—even complicate—our efforts to live together. It’s especially rich for fans of Shakespeare, theater history, or anyone thinking about civility in our times.

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Transcript

[Jack Wilson]

The History of Literature Podcast is a.

[Co-host]

Member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.

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[Jack Wilson]

Hello.

[Co-host]

Today on the podcast we look at Shakespeare, commonly considered the greatest poet in.

[Jack Wilson]

The history of the English language, and.

[Co-host]

Robert W. Service, who was not that all coming up today on the History of Literature. Foreign. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. We have a wonderful show for you today with a delightful guest, Indira Ghosh. We'll be talking to her about civility. What exactly do we mean by that? Well, we mean getting along. In short, society needs civility. What did that mean in Elizabethan England? What challenges did they face? And how did playwrights help to shed light on those issues and maybe work toward resolving them? But first, we had a request from a listener to talk about Scottish, English Canadian poet Robert W. Service. Poet might be the wrong word here. He himself was criticized for not writing poetry worthy of the name. Well, that's fine, he said. I'm a humble guy. I see that. I'm not in the same league with Wordsworth and Milton or my heroes Browning, Keats and Tennyson, or contemporaries like T.S. eliot and Ezra Pound. Let's we don't have to say that I write poetry. Let's just call it verse. And yet his verse or poems sold like hotcakes, making him a rich man.

[Jack Wilson]

Can you think of a poet today.

[Co-host]

Who writes a collection that sells through seven editions before its release date and 37 printings in its first few years? Songs of a Sourdough it was called, and it made service more than $3 million in today's money. Songs of a Sourdough, also called the Spell of the Yukon and other verses his minister hated Them. These are wicked stories, he said. Service hung his head in shame, we are told. And then he went out to autograph some more books and head out to his place on the French Riviera. Servis as a charming figure, indefatigable. Let's hear a little bit more about his life and then we're going to hear one of his, probably his most famous poems. Robert William Service was born in 1874 in Lancashire, England. His father was a banker from Scotland and The family had 10 children. I think he was third in the list. When Robert was five, he was sent back to Scotland to live with three aunts. Three aunts and his grandfather. When he was six, he started writing verses. At 21 he moved to western Canada with a Buffalo Bill outfit. He was hoping to earn some cash as a cowboy. That didn't really pan out, so he had to live as more of a vagabond. He was in Mexico for a while where he was starving. He went back to California and shacked up in a brothel. He found some friends of his parents that he could borrow from to get him through, some say, leech off of them. He had a few jobs at this point, store clerk, farmhand. And then he fell in love with a woman who said, yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm into guys who are educated and who can support me. So he went to McGill University's Victoria College to impress her. But then he soon flunked out. A bank hired him, thanks to his connections, his father with the banker. He had a nice letter of introduction and they the bank sent him out to one of their wayward, their far flung branches where he lived in an apartment over the bank. They transferred him again, sending him even farther away out to Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. Yukon is the part of Canada in between British Columbia and Alaska. And it was here that Service found his calling. He listened to the stories of the men who were on their way to the Klondike gold rushers or the tired men on their tired way home. One of the forms of entertainment in this pre radio era was to attend a bar or a church or some other gathering place and recite poetry or verses. Stuff like Casey at the Bat and Gunga Din were popular. Service was one of these performers. And then verses started popping into his mind and he began writing them down and he started selling them. He wrote his poems quickly, composing them on walks and writing them all down. When he returned. He wrote the verses out on large rolls of paper, writing with charcoal and pinned them to his wall. To assess them, he said, I'd pace around the room trying to make them perfect. Well, his critics said, these aren't poems or it's not poetry, it's doggerel. And Service said, verse, not poetry is what I was after, something the man in the street would take notice of and the sweet old lady would paste in her album, something the schoolboy would spout and the fellow in the pub would quote. Yet I never wrote to please anyone but myself. It just happened. I belonged to the simple folks, whom I liked to please, end quote. And please them he did. The simple folks responded by purchasing the verse in large numbers. Known as the Bard of the Yukon, Service met writers like H.G. wells, James Joyce and Colette. When his novel was made into a movie, he met John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich. He was 40 when World War I broke out. He tried to enlist. He was rejected for health reasons, and he worked as an ambulance driver and stretcher bearer for the Red Cross. He covered the war for a Toronto newspaper and wrote a collection of poems about his experiences, which were better received by critics than his earlier Yukon based poems. But it's the Yukon based poems that we know them for today. And I knew of Robert W. Service in the sixth grade when most of my classmates and I memorized his poem the cremation of Sam McGee, which we spouted like schoolboys and school girls, as Service had predicted. My first thought upon getting the email from the listener who said, how about Robert W. Service? An episode on him was I thought, well, I could read that poem, but jeez, it would be too long to read on the podcast, probably take up the whole hour or more. I should have known better. It's like returning to your elementary school and thinking, wait, this can't be the place. They've lowered the ceilings and shrunk the lockers. These should be way over my head. I shouldn't be looking down at the lockers.

[Jack Wilson]

I should be barely able to reach the top shelf.

[Co-host]

And of course, the poem that I labored over memorizing is not an hour long poem. It's only a few minutes long. Let's hear it now and appreciate what Northrup Frye referred to as an example of popular poetry as opposed to serious poetry. This is in the territory of James Whitcomb Riley or Rudyard Kipling or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Robert Burns, said Northrop Fry. And it's the territory that Robert Service knew and loved, Service said about this poem, the cremation of Sam McGee. I took the woodland trail my mind seething with excitement and a strange ecstasy as I started in. There are strange things done in the midnight sun. Verse after verse developed with scarce a check, and when I rolled happily into bed, my ballad was cinched. Next day, with scarcely any effort of memory, I put it on paper. End quote. A critic, a professor of English named Archibald McMeeken, railed against Service's poetry, referring to Songs of a Sourdough, his first collection, as well as the Ballads of a Chechako II and Servis's first novel. In this passage quote the sordid, the gross, the bestial may sometimes be redeemed by the touch of genius. But that Promethean touch is not in Mr. Service. In manner, he is frankly imitative of Kipling's barrack room Ballardry Ballad, balladry and imitation is an admission of inferiority. Sourdough is Yukon slang for the provident old timer. It is a convenient term for this willfully violent kind of verse without the power to redeem the squalid themes it treats. The Ballads of a Cheechacco is a second installment of Sourdoughs, while his novel the trail of 98 is simply sourdough prose. We will let you be the judge of this. Popular poetry poetry poetry, serious poetry verse the cremation of Sam McGee I'm going to read this not recited from memory. My palms are moist just thinking about the anxiety I felt facing the class as the schoolboy prepared to spout. But I will say that many of these lines are easily recalled to me, even now, decades later, etched in my brain. I will probably go to my grave with these rhymes and rhythms rattling around in my brain. Somewhere I hope my grave is a warm one, not too hot and not too cold. The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.

[Jack Wilson]

The arctic trails have their secret tales.

[Co-host]

That would make your blood run cold. The northern lights have seen queer sights but the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake Labarge I cremated Sam McGee. Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the south to roam round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd sooner live in hell. On a Christmas day we were mushing our way over the Dawson Trail. Talk of your cold through the parka's fold it stabbed Like a driven nail if our eyes we'd close then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see. We. It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow and the dogs were fed and the stars o' erhead were dancing heel in toe, he turned to me and Cap says he I'll cash in this trip, I guess and if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request. Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no. Then he says with a sort of moan, it's the cursed cold and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone yet taint being dead, it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains so I want you to swear that foul or fair you'll cremate my last remains.

[Jack Wilson]

A pal's last need is a thing to heed so I swore I would.

[Co-host]

Not fail and we started on at the streak of dawn But God, it he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on his sleigh and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee. And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in that land of death and I hurried horror driven with a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid because of a promise given it was lashed to the sleigh and it seemed to say, you may tax your brawn and brains, but you promise true and it's up to you to cremate those last remains. Now a promise made is a debt unpaid and the trail has its own stern code in the days to come Though my lips were dumb in my heart how I cursed that load in the long, long night by the lone fire light While the huskies round in a ring howled out their woes to the homeless snows. Oh, God, how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow and on I went though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low the trail was bad and I felt half mad But I swore I would not give in and I'd often sing to the hateful thing and it harkened with a grin Till I came to the marge of Lake Labarge and a derelict there lay, it was jammed in the.

[Jack Wilson]

Ice but I saw in a trice.

[Co-host]

It was called the Alice May and I looked at it and I thought a bit and I looked at my frozen chum Then here, said I with a sudden cry is my crematorium Some planks I tore from the cabin floor and I lit the boiler fire Some coal I found that was lying around and I heaped the fuel higher the flames just soared and the furnace roared such a blaze you seldom see and I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal and I stuffed in Sam McGee then I made a hike For I didn't like to hear him sizzle so and the heavens scowled and the huskies howled and the wind began to blow it was icy cold but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks and I don't know why and the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear but the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near I was sick with dread But I bravely said I'll just take a peep inside I guess he's cooked and it's time I looked Then the door I opened wide and there sat Sam looking cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar and he wore a smile you could see a mile and he said, please close that door. It's fine in here but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm. Since I left Plum tree down in Tennessee it's the first time I've been warm. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The northern lights have seen queer sights but the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake Labarge. I cremated Sam McGee.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, that's a little bit about Sam McGee and Robert W. Service.

[Co-host]

Sam McGee. The poem tells the story of a.

[Jack Wilson]

Society that's shrunk down to two people.

[Co-host]

That's hard enough to get along. Decisions have to be made. Most of us live in a community of hundreds or thousands or millions. How do we humans get along then?

[Jack Wilson]

How do we forge our path and.

[Co-host]

Make a civil society? What compromises do we make? What institutions are there to resolve disputes?

[Jack Wilson]

And that's assuming good faith and a.

[Co-host]

General comity toward one another.

[Jack Wilson]

We haven't talked about the potential obstacles.

[Co-host]

What if we're in turmoil through hunger.

[Jack Wilson]

Or disease or where the enemy is threatening the borders? What if internally we have religious disputes or other factions? What if strangers and neighbors aren't full.

[Co-host]

Of bonhomie but contempt for one another? A lot of that sounds like our current world. Frankly, Unfortunately. So it's good to know that it also describes Elizabethan England. Somehow they got through. And so we can look to our predecessors in literature, those playwrights whose names are always on our tongue, Shakespeare's chief among them, to see how they dealt with this. Indira Ghosh has surveyed the literature and written a book about it. She'll be here after this.

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[Co-host]

Okay.

[Jack Wilson]

Joining me now is Indira Ghosh, an emeritus professor of English at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Her previous works include Women Travelers in Colonial India and Shakespearean A Cultural History.

[Co-host]

She's here today to discuss her new.

[Jack Wilson]

Book, A Defense of Civility and the.

[Co-host]

Theatre in Early Modern England.

[Jack Wilson]

Indira Ghosh, welcome to the History of Literature.

[Indira Ghosh]

Thank you, Jack. Thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here.

[Jack Wilson]

So when did you start studying this era, the Theater of Early Modern England? Was there a particular moment when you knew that this was something you wanted to focus on professionally?

[Indira Ghosh]

Well, you know, I grew up in India and I was pretty much in a. In a world immersed in the works of Shakespeare. So I was familiar with the works. I read at the age of 11, I read the Tempest. And then after that, at school, we did the Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar and so on. So I've always been interested in Shakespeare. Well, when I went on to become a scholar, I discovered the plays by Marlowe and Johnson and Middleton and the other playwrights. And apart from literature, I've also been, you know, increasing. I'm increasingly interested in the history of ideas, sort of intellectual history. The work of Quentin Skinner has been particularly important for me. But then, of course, the early modern period is just peculiarly fascinating. I mean, the parallels to today's world are just astounding. I find, you know, it was an age of extreme polarization, torn by, you know, religious conflict, not only between Protestants and Catholics, but a whole variety of shades in between.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Indira Ghosh]

It was an age that laid the groundwork for, you know, so many of the developments that have shaped our world, you know, from the nation state to capitalism to individualism, you know, which is why we call it the early modern period.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Jack Wilson]

And they even had a plague.

[Indira Ghosh]

They even. Well, that wasn't specific.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. I'm thinking. Well, what I'm thinking is there is sort of a sense that you have sometimes that in the early modern period that things might be kind of falling apart, that things might be spinning out.

[Co-host]

Of control a little bit.

[Jack Wilson]

And I feel that sometimes in our own era that it might be something.

[Co-host]

That'S getting beyond anyone's particular control. Mm.

[Indira Ghosh]

I fully agree with you. And I think that's how people felt at the time, too. I mean, there were all these movements, millenarian movements, and. Well, it was really an age in turmoil, of enormous strife and anxieties. So I fully agree with you. And that's what I've also found so interesting, because there are so many parallels to our own time.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Jack Wilson]

Well, that kind of takes us right into my next question, which was going to be, what drew you to these questions of civility and pretense? And when you said you were interested in the history of ideas, I thought that might be a window. But it also seems like civility might be a way to kind of start to stitch together a society that's feeling like that there's turmoil or strife or polarization. Do you see that as being kind of a driving force behind what you're doing, focused on here with civility?

[Indira Ghosh]

Well, it was certainly the way one of the big exponents of civility, Erasmus, saw things. And the fascinating thing about civility is that it's radically ambivalent. I mean, there are really Two strands. And I'd really pin them down to two thinkers or even two books. On the one hand, there was Erasmus who wrote a little book called De Civilitate, you know, in Latin, Morum puerillium on good manners for children, which became one of the very first bestsellers. I mean, it had. It appeared in 1530 and it went through more than 30 editions in the first six years. It was translated into all the, all the European languages. It was really a huge bestseller. It was taught at schools and so on. And Erasmus is someone who believes civility wasn't something just for the elite, it was something for everyone. And the overarching concern in his own life was, particularly the last phase of his life, was his worries, his huge distress at the rift that what used to be a unified, a more or less unified culture, that of Christendom, was falling apart in front of his very eyes on that spurt through the Reformation. And he thought, thought one way of at least getting to, of healing this rift was getting to talk to other people by sort of accommodating oneself to people with whom one disagreed. And that's something you find in all his work, including in this little book on civility. But the other book on civility that was just as influential was sort of written by someone called Baldassare Castiglione.

[Co-host]

Yeah, the courtier. The book of courtier.

[Indira Ghosh]

Exactly, exactly. And that was quite different. It was written for his peers, it was written for fellow courtiers. Originally. He didn't intend it to be printed, or at least so he claims it was written for a coterie, for a group of people who were on the make, who needed to carve out a career for themselves at the fringes or at the center of the. Of court. It was basically a handbook for social climbing, you could say, because once it moved into print, it was snapped up not just by aristocrats, but by anyone who could afford it. And it was used as a handbook for social climbing. And it has all the aspects of civility which were radically opposed to what Erasmus would have liked. That is, it was about civility or man manners as a pursuit of, you know, of prestige and status and self advancement and exclusion in a sort of safeguarding the interests of a coterie. What today we'd call tribalism, a self interest, partisan interests. And that's the exact opposite of Erasmus's view of civility as something, you know, for the wider community. The idea of sharing a common goal, a common sort of purpose in society that's, I think, you know, this, this ambivalence in civility was there from the very start, or at least from the. From the Renaissance onwards. And, yeah, I think so. What you said about seeing this as a way to heal rift, that was certainly one impulse on the part of Erasmus.

[Jack Wilson]

Yes. Let me interrupt you there, because I want to make sure I'm following everything. So when we say civility, one way of talking about it is to say that we're talking about cooper, or politeness and resolving differences peacefully and respect for others. And that was really there in Erasmus, it sounds like. And an example might be if you have. People often talk about this in New York City when you're entering the tunnel.

[Co-host]

And the traffic is backed up, but.

[Jack Wilson]

You can see that the two lines of traffic that are both trying to.

[Co-host]

Enter the tunnel, to enter New Jersey.

[Jack Wilson]

Will take turns and the cars will.

[Co-host]

Go one by one. And everybody accepts that they're not going to try to disrupt the queue and jump ahead of time and so on. And that's a way you could imagine that every afternoon, as that gets busy, instead that could be honking horns and people shouting and cars smashing into each other and all of that. But instead, because we have the civility, and you could extend this to interactions with people and so on, it doesn't.

[Jack Wilson]

Just have to be about cars, of course, but. But that's sort of one way where.

[Co-host]

Civility is a force for social good. And then there's another kind of civility that we might see in Castiglione, where it's about, do you know what's the right spoon to use to eat your soup? Or do you know, like, do you know how to bow correctly or how to address people in the formal way? And that might be a way of saying, well, you haven't been educated and trained and sort of brought up to be the right type of person.

[Jack Wilson]

And so you don't fit.

[Co-host]

We're going to keep you out of the tribe. And people might read this book and say, well, this is how I'm going to get ahead. I have to learn all of these.

[Jack Wilson]

Little mannerisms and different things like that.

[Co-host]

And my next question was going to be about the word pretense in your title. And it sounds like Castiglione kind of takes us right into pretense.

[Indira Ghosh]

Well, not only Castiglione, actually, for Erasmus, that's a feature as well.

[Jack Wilson]

Oh, right, right. Because it might be. You might be kind of acting to say, well, I'll be courteous, I'll be polite, I'll be. You might not be revealing what you really think, which is anger or hatred.

[Indira Ghosh]

I think that's an important factor for. I mean, civility is, you know, an art of performance. It's an act of communication. It's about conveying mutual respect to each other. Whether we actually feel that respect that, you know, in an ideal world, that would be wonderful. But in the final analysis, it's irrelevant because what counts as exactly as in the example you described, is how we act, what we do and how we feel. And for Erasmus, accommodating oneself to others, even if one radically disagrees with them, that's the key to win people over. I mean, Erasmus is someone who talks of St. Paul as a chameleon, who adapts to different people. The key idea is, what's the purpose? What's it for? Pretense. We tend to think of pretense in negative terms.

[Jack Wilson]

Insincere.

[Indira Ghosh]

Exactly. But if you look at the plays and also the theories of civility, sincerity is, you know, something we'd all desire. But what really counts is the effect that's created through our acts, our words, our gestures and. And so on. And if we convey sort of respect for the other through faking it, it would still have the effect. It's a form of rhetoric, basically. The manuals on civility were often sort of, you know, doubled as manuals of rhetoric. Rhetoric too, is an art of persuasion and it's about achieving. So I think in terms of pretense, what is key is really what is the end it serves. Does it just serve rampant self interest of a coterie or of an individual for sort of. And self advancement? Or does it serve the common good? And by the common good, I simply mean shared interests. We're all in it together, like in traffic and. Yeah, that I think is. Yes. Is that what you were.

[Jack Wilson]

Yes, that is. But I have another question for you, which is, it's all well and good to say that I'm glad traffic in Manhattan works the way it does when.

[Co-host]

They'Re entering the tunnel.

[Jack Wilson]

And I certainly, when I'm, you know, walking down the street, I don't want someone to come up and punch me in the face because they don't like the. The jacket I'm wearing or something. But I, I think you could also say that the people who are in power really could sometimes use civility. You know, oppressive regimes might say, let's form a committee to study that, or why don't you all just accept your fate and so on. And maybe for a population, it's important.

[Co-host]

To rise up and say, we're not happy with the way we're being governed.

[Jack Wilson]

Or we're hungry or we have real grievances here. We don't want to just have you fob this off on politeness and that.

[Co-host]

We'Re all supposed to just settle down and be nice to one another and.

[Jack Wilson]

To you, the rulers. You know, has civility been used by authoritarian regimes and so on to keep people from protesting?

[Indira Ghosh]

I fully agree with you. It has. And in fact, today there are, you know, civility is often condemned as whatever a superiority of, of Western culture, of other cultures and so on. But I think one of the things we do learn by looking at the theory of civility, that it's not about an evasion of conflict or a matter of appeasement or self censorship, because conflict is a constant in human society. Civility is how we manage conflict. It's not about whether we disagree, but how we disagree. And if you look at, say, the civil rights movement, regimes in power tend to turn around and accuse others of offending civility or transgressing against civility. But maybe it's just how you define civility. It's a different form of civility, but there are still norms of respect that say people like Martin Luther King were very keen to insist they were still following.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Indira Ghosh]

And civility is always. It changes the norm. Norms that we accept in society, they change in the course of society. And it's perfectly legitimate to advocate to change certain norms. But that for me doesn't, you know, mean jettisoning the entire idea of civility.

[Jack Wilson]

Right, okay, so let's get back to the early modern era. What was working out? You say the theater kind of worked as a laboratory for working out the areas conflicts. What was happening there? What kinds of conflicts were being worked out on the stage?

[Indira Ghosh]

Well, one thing we need to remember it was, you know, it was an age of social division and the world of a world in turmoil. But there was censorship. So the theater wasn't able to. They weren't permitted to stage the social conflicts in contemporary society. What they did do was include coded ways comment on what was going on in society. And the theatre was also remarkably under attack at the time. It was under attack by both authorities which viewed it with suspicion as somewhere where, you know, seditious ideas were being circulated which fostered crime and social unrest. And it was under attacked by moralists, by preachers, who were particularly puritans at the time, who were, who regarded theatre as a sort of hotbed of immorality. And what the theatre came up with in response was Quite remarkable at that time. And that is it was the early modern theatre didn't just, you know, produce a stream of masterpieces that we still read today. It was also a remarkably self conscious theatre in the sense of it was drama about drama about acting, about pretense, about make believe. That was one of its big topics. I mean the, if you look at the. Not only in its, in the, in the plots, but also in, in the form, you know, breaking the fourth wall wasn't an invention of Frances Underwood in In House of Cards. It goes back to this time sort of plays within the plays addresses to the audience all sorts of ways of drawing attention to the fact that this was fiction and drawing attention to the issue of acting and pretense. And if you look at, just to take one example of Ami, sort of Hamlet, the first time we see Hamlet on stage, he launches into a defense of himself in connection with the accusation of simply faking it. His stepfather and his mother accuse him of not really feeling the grief that he shows. And he says, I know not seems I'm not faking it. I'm not pretending I'm authentic. I'm really feeling what I seem to be just performing. And later in the play, he stages a play within the play. These issues of pretense and make believe and dissembling are sort of at the heart of the theater at the time.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, I mean you could see where a playwright who is, you know, maybe they're being a little self defensive about acting and about its importance and all of that, kind of turning that around and saying, well, look at all of you who are reading Castiglione and aren't you just painting your faces and putting on clothes and trying to be someone that maybe isn't your authentic self? Isn't this a society that's full of acting and people who value a type of acting in real life?

[Indira Ghosh]

I think that's precisely what the plays do do. In fact, I think one of the points that they do raise, they call into question whether pretense is always a harmful thing. I think they point out precisely the way you describe it, that in social life we're all performers, we're all acting and performing certain roles, often many roles simultaneously. And that would really counter what we should really be looking at is what is performing or pretence aiming at? What's the final end? Does it have a purpose which as I said, is in the interests of a wider community, or is it purely about deception and prestige and advancing oneself and so on? So this grappling with the idea of pretense and calling into question whether it is always necessarily a negative aspect, pointing out that we're all in it somehow, that we are so in social life, that we are all performers. I think that's something that the the theater certainly does.

[Jack Wilson]

Let's take a quick break and come back with more from Indira Ghosh.

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[Co-host]

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[Jack Wilson]

Okay, we're back. So Indira, we heard the example of Shakespeare and Hamlet. Are there any other examples from Shakespeare or one of the other playwrights that you can point us toward where we can see some of these issues playing out?

[Indira Ghosh]

Yes. For instance, I think a marvelous example is the tragedy Coriolanus by Shakespeare. Coriolanus was an early Roman warrior who was single handedly responsible for defending Rome against its enemies. Coriolanus is someone who categorically rejects civility, which he regards as flattery. He rejects pretense, which he equates with lying. He's the epitome of a character committed to sincerity, to the idea of being true to himself. And he is entirely sincere. He says exactly what he thinks, and often what he thinks the play shows us is spot on. I mean, he pours scorn on the plebeians, who are really a fickle, cowardly bunch. He pours. He's entirely contemptuous of the tribunes, that's the representatives of the plebeians, who are sort of a devious, weaselly set of people. But by being truthful, what he does is he escalates the conflict to such an extent that he's then banished from Rome and he ends up fighting on the side of the enemy. And what the play sort of ironically shows is that Someone who insists on being true to himself ends up by betraying everything he'd ever believed in and held dear and betraying himself too. So that's one example where the question of civility what are the limits of civility? What might be the advantages of civility played out? Another example would be the Merchant of Venice, which really sort of plays off the two aspects of civility against each other. So the Venetians in the play, they're enormously attractive characters. You know, they're witty, they're charming, they're glamorous. They're a set of sort of beautiful people who spout beautiful poetry and express beautiful sentiments. But when it comes to sort of the unpleasant outsider in their midst, Shylock. It's as if the play exposes their facade of civility. As you know, it crumbles, it's exposed as hollow. Because for them, civility is entirely a matter of sort of demonstrating their cultural sophistication and the interest of their small coterie. So the term we'd use today is tribalism. It's not about displaying respect for an outsider whose values differ radically from those of this elite. And, you know, Shakespeare doesn't make things easy for us. Shylock is not an. Is emphatically not an endearing character. He's vicious, he's vindictive. He's himself deeply uncivil. But the charming sort of protagonists of the play, you know, they sort of. They disdain to him a disdain the idea of extending to him a form of civility which would acknowledge they're all part of the same society. And there's two extraordinary moments in the play. One is when Portia, who's disguised as a lawyer she pretends to be unable to distinguish between Shylock and Antonio, who's the Venetian merchant from whom Shylock demands a pound of. And she says the line which is the merchant here and which the Jew? And, you know, most of us take that line at face value. But if you think about it, it's actually perfectly clear who is who. Because the play tells us that Shylock's always in this Jewish gabardine. So I think Shakespeare inserted those lines sort of ironically to draw attention to the fact that, you know, beneath the facade, there is no real difference between the Jews and the. And the Gentiles. And in fact, in Shylock, he puts, you know, in the mouth of Shylock that remarkable speech that we still cite today, the plea for common humanity. Hath not a Jew eyes had not a Jew hands? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? This character, this outsider, this unpleasant outsider, Shylock, who gets that marvelous speech. So those are two examples of civility, how civility is sort of discussed in the plays.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

Where do the playwrights, I mean, do we get a sense of their position on this? Do they seem to be on the side of saying civility is important and we should value the. Even if it is insincere or dissembling, we should value it if it helps to keep the peace. Or do they say our commitment to civility can expose some of these more complicated issues?

[Indira Ghosh]

I think it's the latter. The playwrights don't actually come out and moralize. Even Ben Johnson, I mean, he has. He's far more forthright about his views in his prologues and epilogues. Shakespeare never is. He lets the plays speak for themselves and the speeches speak for themselves. But even Johnson, he has a play, for instance, which is almost forgotten today. Sejanus, who is about once again, a Roman character who was a favorite of the emperor Tiberius. But what the play shows is actually how the decay of civil life sort of paves the way for tyranny. So that in this play, when you see how civil society falls apart and how sort of social bonds with a repressive sort of regimes flourish, and that's something inside that the play sort of plays out stages for us without ever, you know, lecturing us about these, we just see the enormous importance of civility in the sense of the social bonds that tie us together. And conversely, we see the effect of simply safeguarding the interests of a coterie of protagonists.

[Jack Wilson]

Now, some people might be listening to this and thinking, well, isn't this just part of being a human being in society? Isn't it something we, that every society has to come to grips with at some level, is how do we get along? How do we conceal our truest thoughts if that's important to do in order to keep the peace, and so on.

[Co-host]

And.

[Jack Wilson]

And you point out that these questions were being addressed in ancient cultures in Europe and Asia. What was new or different about the discussions they were having in early modern England? Is it because of Erasmus and Castiglione that these issues came to the fore as they did, or because of the particular socio political atmosphere, or what exactly makes this the period where we can see these issues so clearly?

[Indira Ghosh]

Well, first of all, I'd like to get back to what he was saying about what people say about civility. And it's often attacked, you know, as a typically western invention, which the catch word is Sort of white supremacy or whatever. And to my mind, that's a breathtakingly ignorant and patronizing view, because civility was not an invention of Europe. Norms of conduct have been codified in all cultures and at all times, from Confucian culture to ancient India. But that said, the debates that we're talking about were actually quite specific to the time and context of early modern Europe. And I think the Reformation played a huge role so simply in this upheaval in dividing what used to be a unified culture, namely Christendom. And that is something people were grappling with at a specific time. And a second factor is the theater, of course, as the first mass medium, as the first entertainment industry emerged in this period in England. And so we have a medium that actually stages many of these debates in a way that large sections of society, because many of them, urbanization really kicked in in this period that the population of London exploded, you know, sort of fourfold within the 16th century. It's more like, you know, you have to think in terms of Mumbai or Sao Paulo or something in those days. And these people would go to the theater on a regular basis. And the theater was what later the cinema became and so on. Now we have a. Media are much more fractured, but it was the first mass medium of the time.

[Jack Wilson]

You know, it's interesting that you. As you were talking, I was thinking, I gave the example of drivers of cars waiting for one another in traffic. But it really raises the stakes when we're talking about something like the Reformation and you're saying someone's religious beliefs or their very identity is the thing that needs to be compromised. Not just one's position in line, in traffic and getting home, but, like, how do you worship? And are you allowed to live here? And what do you, you know, will you be going to heaven or not? Based on, are we going to allow you to believe what you believe? And. And things like that. And to think that these playwrights were addressing audiences where these issues were very real, and they would have people on.

[Co-host]

All sides of the issues standing or.

[Jack Wilson]

Sitting in the crowd, listening to these debates play out on the stage kind of gives me a stronger sense of the importance of this. It's not just an academic issue.

[Indira Ghosh]

No, I hope not. I don't think so, but I think the two are related. I mean, what do you say about traffic is a perfect example? Because it's often, you know, the little things, the little gestures, the everyday things, which tie into this larger sense of the fact that we're all in it together. And I think one of the great issues at the time, and even today is, you know, the whole idea of evangelical quest, basically to always be for moral purity, for being in the possession of, you know, the sole possession of the truth and not accepting other views of things. And that starts with small parts of everyday life and continues to. Yeah, the way we live and the way we need to live together in the same society without loving each other, but just to get ahead with things, simply because. Simply for pragmatic reasons, because we share interests that affect all of us.

[Jack Wilson]

You write in your introduction, civility, we.

[Co-host]

Are told, is in crisis.

[Jack Wilson]

Do you feel like these plays, that they could be helpful to us and would have lessons for people that we could import into our own world?

[Indira Ghosh]

Yes, actually, I do. But it's not just these plays. I think that's what you're trying to show in your podcast. I mean, literature in general, I think, is, you know, if it does do anything, it does teach us, you know, what it means to be human and to have empathy. Yeah. And to the fact that there are no easy answers or simple. Simple solutions in. But sort of it offers us insights into other lives and other ways of seeing the world. And that's something I think literature does do. And it also sort of shows us that sort of faced with the contradiction of human life, that our obsession with moral purity just doesn't hold. I mean, I came across this passage by James Baldwin, which I thought sums it up marvelously, where he says that what Shakespeare does is he complicates all battles by insisting on the human riddle. And I thought that puts it marvelously. It's just not about simple black and white solutions to the problems in the world.

[Co-host]

Right, right.

[Jack Wilson]

Well, I am going to bank this one a little bit. For my own personal satisfaction, I gave a Shakespearean scholar a chance to suggest a play that would help us out of our current crisis, and instead she offered up that maybe people should be listening to the History of Literature podcast.

[Indira Ghosh]

Precious.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, well, let's leave things there. Indira Ghosh, thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.

[Indira Ghosh]

Thank you, Jack, for having me.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, that's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature.

[Co-host]

I'm glad you were able to join us for it.

[Jack Wilson]

My thanks to Indira Ghosh for that lovely conversation.

[Co-host]

Remember that we're headed to England for.

[Jack Wilson]

A trip to Shakespeare's Globe Theater very soon. I can't wait.

[Co-host]

That's going to be in early May, and you can join us, too. Indira is based in Switzerland, so she's not on our list of scheduled guests who are gonna drop by and shake.

[Jack Wilson]

Hands and say hello to the tour goers, if that's the right word.

[Co-host]

Alas, I would love to have Indira join us for that.

[Jack Wilson]

But the good news is we have.

[Co-host]

Plenty of friends of the show in London and Oxford and Bath. So we expect a few scholarly stars to join us. Some of your favorite guests here on the podcast, and you can join us to check out the itinerary and information at John Shores Travel [e-mail] Act soon. You only have a few more weeks before the numbers get locked in. And remember, we're still looking for your favorite local bookshops, indie bookstores. Do you own one? Do you work at one? We'd love to hear from you. Send us an [e-mail] that's J, a C K E. Jack with an E. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.

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[Co-host]

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