The little o'th'earth: Shakespeare's Sustaining Allegory

Abstract

Since the early seventies, the circle metaphor has been widely applied to sustainability theory, in concepts such as the 'circular economy', 'cradle-to-cradle' and 'regenerative design'. Klaas van Egmond more recently added an imaginary cross to the metaphor, in order to define crises of unsustainability as the result of unilateral value patterns, and to illustrate the need for an integral understanding of essential values, from the metaphorical centre of the circle. This thesis demonstrates the applicability of the works of William Shakespeare to the contemporary sustainability debates. It analyses the circle metaphor in Shakespeare’s plays and poems, denoting the circle and its adversative cross as an underlying allegorical pattern. It demonstrates how this allegorical pattern finds its continuity principle in its immanent resilience, resulting in sustaining narratives that can change themselves with time. It exposes several iconic mental representations within Shakespeare’s allegorical pattern, as signposts on the quest for ‘values worthy of pursuit’, inspiring its ready Knights and Ladies to square allegory’s circle (Clifford). This quest culminates in ‘O’: Shakespeare’s memory image for the allegorical (home of) soul, where sustainability germinates with the ‘diverse elements in creation’ (Chance). Shakespeare’s allegories anticipate philosophical, agricultural, political, economic and personal debates of sustainability. This anticipation largely rests on Shakespeare’s skills as a memory artist, who sought ‘to memorize through a technique of impressing ‘places’ and ‘images’ on memory’ (Yates). Therefore Shakespeare’s plays and poems offer a profusion of these memory images, which serve to train our memory, in order to learn to reason by analogy. Memory can be trained by paying attention, repeating what we hear, and then by placing what we hear on what we know. This is, in broad outline, how the application of Shakespeare’s sustaining allegory works. Shakespeare’s plays and poems can be interpreted and applied as memory plays. The thesis finally shows how Shakespeare’s invitation to soul-searching may inspire individuals and organisations to personal and professional sustainability strategies.