SHAKESPEARE AND THE HORSE WITH WINGS
417
of Claudius is irrelevant. What matters is simply Hamlet's love for
his mother. And what I want to say is this: that you will find in
this
poem more terrifying illuminations of that sinister and destruc–
tive mother love than in all the speculations of psychiatrists.
But it would take a very intrepid man to conclude from this that
therefore William Shakespeare was morbidly in love with his mother.
It would not surprise me if I were told that he had been, because
it seems to be a habit of great men. I am speaking, however, about
the unpredictable relationship between the poet and the poem. That
such a relationship exists seems to be about the only indisputable
statement one can make. I therefore question whether any of those
scholars who read Shakespeare's life into his poems can ever have
written a poem themselves--or, indeed, really have lived a life.
And this brings me back to the horse. The presence of this
symbol of poetic inspiration in the house and the life of the poet
confuses and confutes all reasonable calculations. Until, like Socrates
in
search of the truth, one is forced to conclude that the poet him–
self knows nothing and understands nothing. He is merely the agent
of a power that operates through that most mysterious of all instru–
ments, human speech. There is, I believe, a school of thought at
Cambridge University which insists that, finally, words have no
meaning at all, that the only existing verities are mathematical form–
ulae: but I retain the conviction that if I or anyone else were to
call one of the Logical Positivists a very nasty name--or a very nice
name-the blush might suffuse his cheek. And I do not speak frivol–
ously, for, when you have said all there
is
to say about the Seven
Types of Ambiguity and Archetypal Patterns of Poetry and the
Meaning of Meaning, you are left with this very simple fact: Poetry
is
calling things names. I learned that from William Shakespeare.
Some years ago as I was walking down Fifth Avenue in New
York I passed by the window of a famous publishing house. Gazing
at me out of this window was the photograph of an old painting. It
was of a young man with a face so striking, so intense and so con–
temporary, that I can never forget it. I went back to the publishing
house two or three days later, and asked if I could buy a copy of
the photograph. And then I asked who it was. You will probably
know that supposed portrait of the young Shakespeare. I think Dover
Wilson first came across it. There
is
very little point in trying to
