Family Moab

Family Moab
In Arches National Park

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Referencing Shakespeare and Emerson

I was checking up on what Shakespeare has to say about passion, and again we have multiple perspectives. For example, "Passion, I see, is catching."  It's quite true in my experience that passionate people are the most interesting to be around, and that their energy can be contagious. But following passionate people, their energies and their causes can also be dangerous, especially if they are lacking in judgment, or mercurial in temperament. Shakespeare has praise for those who are not overly swayed by passions or their senses:

 "Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger/
constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,/
garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment,/
not working with the eye without the ear,/
and but in purged judgement trusting neither?/
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem."

Shakespeare also gave this warning about passion: "What to ourselves in passion we propose, the passion ending, doth the purpose lose." (Hamlet, act 3 sc 2) It seems that the nature of passion allows it to flame and fade away, and if we want lasting effort or success we need to turn our energies and enthusiasm to the long effort rather than the volcanic short burst. As always, Shakespeare gives a nuanced and shaded perspective to one of humanity's most interesting emotions.

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