University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

A Critical Study Of Frank C. Baxter'S 'Shakespeare On Tv'

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A Critical Study Of Frank C. Baxter'S 'Shakespeare On Tv'

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Content This dissertation has been
m icrofilm ed exactly as received
65-9977
HEALY, John Lovejoy, 1919-
A CRITICAL STUDY OF FRANK C. BAXTER'S
"SHAKESPEARE ON TV".
U niversity of Southern California, Ph.D., 1965
Language and Literature, modern
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
A CRITICAL STUDY OF FRANK C. BAXTER'S
"SHAKESPEARE ON TV"
by
John Lovejoy Healy
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Speech)
June 1965
UNIVERSITY O F SO U TH ER N CALIFORNIA
GRADUATE SC H O O L
U N IV ER SITY PARK
LOS A N G E L E S 7, C A LIFOR N IA
This dissertation, written by
John Lovejoy Healy
under the direction of A.i.®....Dissertation Com-
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date June 1965
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. THE PROBLEM AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE........ 1
Statement of the Problem
Significance of the Problem
Evidence of Success
Review of the Literature
Organization of the Dissertation
II. METHOD. MATERIALS, PROCEDURES ................. 47
Method
Materials
Procedures
III. BAXTER THE M A N ................................ 69
The "Picture” of Baxter
Enthusiasm
Integrity
Sensitivity
Complexity
Summary
IV. BAXTER THE SCHOLAR . .......... ............. 114
Baxter on Scholarship
Relationship of Baxter's Scholarship to
Television
Familiarity with Shakespearean Research
Reading and Scholarship
Range of Interests
if
Chapter
Page
Use of Imagination
Interpolation and Interpretation
Summary
V. BAXTER THE SPEAKER ...........................
Background and Training
Philosophy of Speech
Oral Reading
Planning His Lectures
Gestures
Language and Voice
Summary
VI. SYNTHESIS: "SHAKESPEARE ON TV" AS A COMMUNICA
TION EVENT ..................................
The Nature of Communication Events
The Communicator
The Medium
The Audience
VII. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS . . . .
Summary
Conclusions
Implications
APPENDIXES.................................. . . . .
A. Transcript of Baxter's Lectures on Hamlet
B. Interview with Frank C. Baxter, September
17, 1958
C. Interview with Frank C. Baxter, October
21, 1962
150
208
249
266
BIBLIOGRAPHY 484
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Distribution of "Shakespeare on TV" by
National Educational Television, Inc.......... 7
2. Baxter's Personality Characteristics According
to 69 Students at California State College
at Long Beach................................ 67
iv

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Dr. Frank C.. Baxter, Professor of English at the
University of Southern California, presented his first
series of educational television programs in 1953-1954.
The series was called "Shakespeare on TV," and beginning
on September 26, 1953, it was broadcast on Saturday morn
ings from 11:00 to 12:00 for eighteen weeks over KNXT, a
network-owned commercial station in Los Angeles. To the
astonishment of many people "Shakespeare on TV" was a
resounding success; it not only attracted a large popular
audience but also received the praise of scholars and
critics.^ Thus "Shakespeare on TV" is accurately described
as a remarkably successful pioneering series of open-cir-
cuit educational television programs.
^For a list of the awards and honors won by Baxter,
see Chapter III.
1
Statement of the Problem
The general problem of this study was to evaluate
o
Baxter's "Shakespeare on TV." A basic postulate was that
this series of programs was successful; therefore the eval
uation was focused on the question of why it had been suc
cessful. A working hypothesis^ was that the programs'
success could best be explained in terms of mental and
emotional interaction between Baxter and his viewers. In
order to test this hypothesis, the problem was divided into
two major parts:
1. (Analysis) What were the principal ingredients
of "Shakespeare on TV"?
2. (Synthesis) What were the principal interre
lationships among these ingredients?
Significance of the Problem
The great movement to establish stations especially
devoted to educational television was in its infancy when
2
"A postulate is a declarative statement, the truth
of which is assumed." (Milton Dickens, "Tentative Defini
tions of Some Common Research Terms" [classroom lecture
materials, University of Southern California, 1964], Mime
ographed .)
^"A hypothesis is a declarative statement, the
truth of which is to be tested." (Ibid.)
Baxter went on the air in 1953. As late as the fall of
1952 educators throughout the country were only beginning
"to organize state committees for the purposes of seeking
legislative support for state-wide educational television
networks."^ By February, 1954, according to one history of
the movement--six months after Baxter had first stood be
fore commercial television station viewers in their homes
and showed them the way to read and appreciate Shakes
peare- -only "45 applications had been filed by educational
institutions and groups for reserved channels." At that
time, 245 channels had been made available for educational
television by the Federal Communication Commission, but
only "three stations, at Houston, Texas, Los Angeles,
California, and East Lansing, Michigan, had begun broad-
c £
casting." According to a survey by Kumata, in the United
States only thirty-nine courses had been offered for credit
by both commercial and educational television stations
“ ^Paul Saettler, "Historical Overview of Audio-
Visual Communication," Audio Visual Communication Review.
II, No. 2 (Spring, 1954), 115.
5Ibid.
£ .
Hideya Kumata, An Inventory of Instructional Tele
vision Research (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Educational Television
and Radio Center, December 1, 1956), p. B-2.
before Baxter went on television in the fall of 1953: one
institution had offered two courses during the 1950-51
school year; four institutions had offered fourteen courses
during 1951-52; and five institutions had offered twenty-
three courses during the 1952-53 school year.
When a representative of Station KNXT went to the
University of Southern California to discuss the possibil
ity of putting "a college course for credit on the air"
(C-14)^ no one knew what kind of course would be acceptable,
how it should be presented, or who could present the mater
ial through this relatively new medium. According to Bax
ter's own report, other teachers were approached first, but
they, "being men of discrimination . . . refused" (C-14).
When he was approached he felt that he would like to try to
teach a love of Shakespeare to television viewers. In any
event, he reported, "I fought, kicked, and scratched, and
held off for about eight seconds before I plunged into it"
(C-14), and began the work of preparation in order to make
^Parentheses which follow a direct quotation refer
ence page numbers on the left-hand side of the pages of
Appendixes A, B, and C of this study.
o
the program "entertainingly informative."
As an editorial in the Journal of Broadcasting
pointed out, if the importance of television as an institu
tion is accepted, then its history should also be important.
Yet unless this history is recorded, it may become lost
forever. It takes just a few years after a television pro
gram has occurred before "many of the necessary records
[are] . . .physically and mentally consigned to oblivion"^
unless an effort is made to preserve them. The editorial
stated that the loss of mental records is "even more trag
ic"; as the men who pioneered various phases of television
pass on, "what they have laboriously learned will often go
with them."-'-®
This present study posits that Baxter's contribu
tion to educational television was too important to be al
lowed to slip into "oblivion." Already many details on the
success of the series are no longer available; as time
passes more records "may become lost forever." For example,
no records were found to indicate how many kinescope prints
were made. Some of these were sent to the Educational
Television and Radio Center at Ann Arbor, but no records
show how many. These were distributed to commercial and
Q
Conversation with Frank C. Baxter, January 5,
1964, Los Angeles, California.
^John M. Kittross, "History," Journal of Broad
casting, IV, No. 3 (Summer, I960), 189.
10Ibid., p. 190.
educational television stations, as well as to colleges and
universities around the United States and Canada. Several
inquiries to Ann Arbor brought the reply that no distribu
tion records were available. An additional insistent
inquiry, however, recently elicited the distribution data
presented in Table 1. While this is interesting and re
vealing, the list must be considered incomplete in view of
the fact that other sources have indicated such additional
cities as New York, Los Angeles, and Honolulu, which were
not on Ann Arbor's list.
At some date (which could not be ascertained by this
writer) the kinescopes at Ann Arbor were forwarded to the
National Educational Television and Radio Center in New
York City. A letter from this Center shows one way in
which a program's history may be lost:
In answer to your inquiry of November 11 about
Dr. Baxter's SHAKESPEARE ON TV, I regret to inform
you that since N.E.T.'s rights expired years ago I
am unable to supply you with the information you
requested. Since our volume of production is
large, we cannot keep information of this type
beyond a certain length of time.
Another example of the loss of data was the lack of
or destruction of records of requests for the study guides.
From the program's inception, all requests were forwarded
to the Publicity Department of the University of Southern
^Personal letter to the writer from Patrick J.
Callihan, Director of Field Services, National Educational
Television and Radio Center, 10 Columbus Circle, New York
19, New York, November 19, 1963.
7
TABLE 1
DISTRIBUTION OF "SHAKESPEARE ON TV" BY
NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION, INC.a
Initial Release Rerun
Station, City
I
Part
II III
Part
I II
KCTS, Seattle 1-3-55 6-3-55 9-26-56 1-9-57 5-8-57
KETA, Norman 4-23-57 1-8-57 9-25-56
KETC, St. 9-8-54 2-28-55 9-24-56 1-7-57 4-22-57
Louis
KQED, San 7-21-54 11-7-54 9-23-56 1-28-57 4-22-57
Francisco
KRMA, Denver 7-5-56 10-18-56 1-31-57
KUHT, Houston 4-24-54 11-26-54 7-4-56 10-16-56 1-29-57
KUON, Lincoln 8-3-56 11-16-56 3-1-57
WCET, 10-22-56 7-14-54 11-14-54
Cincinnati
WCIQ, Alabama* 1-9-55 4-24-55 8-26-56 12-10-56 3-25-56
WGBH, Boston 4-6-55 8-14-55 7-5-56 10-17-56 1-30-57
WHA, Madison 5-22-54 10-15-54 7-6-56 10-14-56 1-27-57
WILL, Urbana 10-25-56 2-7-57 5-23-57
WKNO, Memphis 8-27-56 12-10-56 3-25-57
WMSB, East 4-29-54 10-7-54 7-29-56 11-11-56 2-24-57
Lans ing**
WOSU, Columbus 8-1-56 11-14-56 2-27-57
WQED, 6- 54 10-29-54 8-29-56 12-14-56 3-29-57
Pittsburgh
WTHS, Miami 8-27-56 12-10-56 3-25-57
WTVS, Detroit 9-26-56 1-8-57 4-23-57
WUNC, Chapel 1-22-55 5-1-55 7-1-56 11-11-56 2-24-57
Hill
WYES, New 6-22-57 4-8-57
Orleans
* --originally called WTIQ
** --originally called WKAR
aLetter from (Miss) Ethel V. Zeuner, Distribution Super
visor, N.E.T. Television, Inc., 2715 Packard Rd., Ann
Arbor, Michigan, dated March 9, 1965.
Part I = programs #1 through #15; Part II = programs #16
through #32; Part III = programs #33 through #47.
California, which did not have the manpower nor feel that
it was necessary to keep records of these requests. A note
from this department in Baxter's scrapbooks stated that
over four million copies of the guide had been mailed to
viewers to date (but the undated note furnished no informa
tion as to the period covered). Several letters to the
publishers of the guide, requesting figures on the quanti
ties of the guides printed, have remained unanswered.
Another aspect of the significance of the problem,
as documented in the review of the literature, is that few
historical or critical studies have been devoted to an
individual educational television program or series, and
even fewer to the educator presenting the program. It was
believed that analysis of the specific characteristics of
Baxter, and his method of presenting his material, would
furnish a valuable overview of the principles and tech
niques exemplified in one educational television course.
A critical study of Baxter's purposes or planned
objectives, techniques of assembling his material, method
of presentation, and resulting achievements should be of
significance as American education expands to encompass
greater masses of people. It is true that there has been
extensive research in the area of educational television,
but most of it has been concerned with (1) a comparison of
instructional television with conventional or traditional
classroom instruction, (2) with the effectiveness of
particular techniques of televised instruction, or (3) with
surveys of televised instructional program offerings. Some
of the instructional television programs which followed
"Shakespeare on TV" were successful; others were not. To
explore the nature of Baxter's communication as evidenced
in this series and to evaluate its effectiveness would
appear then to be a convenient and feasible method of add
ing to the knowledge about instructional television.
At the time this study was conceived in 1958, the
shortage of qualified teachers was becoming increasingly
evident. Television was one obvious method for presenting
the offerings of outstanding teachers to a large number of
students. Thus the study of effective college-level educa
tional television programs--such as that conducted by Bax
ter-seemed to be of special importance.
Another area of the significance of this study is
that the traditional techniques of rhetorical criticism are
not as directly applicable to teaching by television as to
platform speaking. The exploration of new methodological
approaches, therefore, held promise of a contribution to
one of the basic research areas of oral communication.
To attempt to analyze in any depth all of the lec
tures of "Shakespeare on TV" would have made this study
10
cumbersome and unnecessarily redundant. Five lectures were
therefore selected from the series. A unit on Hamlet, com
prising the last five programs of the second series, was
chosen as the basis for this portion of the study.
Evidence of Success
A basic postulate in the Statement of the Problem
was that "Shakespeare on TV" had been successful. As in
all studies of contemporary speakers, "success" had to be
defined as favorable responses from the immediate audi
ences. Long range influences cannot be assessed until
later years.
A preliminary study quickly showed that in terms of
various appropriate criteria (such as ratings and awards)
"Shakespeare on TV" had achieved widespread acclaim. Addi
tional research substantiated this early opinion. There
fore it was decided that in terms of the immediate responses
the success of the programs should be postulated (i.e.,
assumed), rather than hypothesized (i.e., tested or meas
ured). Of course, some of the evidence supporting the
above decision should be given, and it is reported below.
Awards
A listing of the awards won by Dr. Baxter is
11
presented in Chapter III. By way of establishing their
importance at this point, however, a few of the most highly
regarded are mentioned here. Honorary degrees of Doctor
of Letters have been awarded to him by four schools: The
University of Southern California in 1955; Ripon College in
1957; Elmira College in 1959; and La Salle College in 1963.
In addition, the coveted George Foster Peabody Award was
presented to him for distinguished achievement in televi
sion in 1955; and he has received seven "Emmy" awards from
the local chapter of the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.^
Other honors
In addition to specific awards, many other honors
have been given to Baxter almost continuously since
"Shakespeare on TV" was first broadcast and throughout the
period of its continuing rebroadcasts. As might be ex
pected, Frank C. Baxter has earned a write-up in Who * s Who
in America, the first time his name appeared being in the
1952-1953 edition even before his first program of "Shakes-
■^Bata taken from Who's Who in America. 1964-1965
(Chicago: Marquis-Who's Who, 1964), and a University of
Southern California News Bureau release on Dr. Frank C.
Baxter, Rev. November, 1961.
peare on TV." He has appeared in every edition since that
date. A few of the more recent and more prominent commit
tees on which he has served are included as examples of the
esteem in which he is held. During 1954-55 he served on
the Advisory Committee of five to the Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences, as a member of the Awards Committee and
later as one of the Academy's Board of Governors. Governor
Brown of California appointed him to the California Com
mittee on Educational Television in 1961. In 1961 he was
Chairman of the Curators Committee of the Hollywood Motion
Picture and Television Museum. He was appointed Consultant
to the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company for all activities
in connection with the Shakespeare Quadricentennial of
1964.^ He is (1964) on the Board of Directors of Los
Angeles' newest educational television channel, KCET.
Baxter's Later Television
Career
When "Shakespeare on TV" first went on the air on
September 26, 1953, Baxter was highly thought of by his
students and the faculty at the University of Southern
13Ibid.
13
California,^ and had received national publicity for his
annual Christmas readings in Bovard Auditorium, ^ but he
was then unknown to the world of television network person
nel, sponsors, and advertising men.
He originally agreed to give eighteen lectures
under the series title of "Shakespeare on TV”; this series
was extended until he had given "nearly seventy programs"
(C-14) under this title. Very soon after the first pro
gram, kinescopes of "Shakespeare on TV" began to be
released in other parts of the United States.^
During the 1954-1955 year, he read and discussed
the world's great literature on Sunday afternoons in a
program entitled "Now and Then," which began locally on
station KNXT in Los Angeles. With no change in its format,
"Now and Then" was picked up by the Columbia Broadcasting
System network and aired nationally on ninety-five sta-
■^"Great Teachers," Life, October 16, 1950, p. 109.
^"Sentimentalist," Time, December 26, 1949, pp.
30-32.
^This Was substantiated verbally by people close
to Baxter at the time or who were involved in the distribu
tion of the kinescopes, but no records were found to cor
roborate the reports. As he concluded his series, Baxter
told his television audience that the programs had already
been shown in Hawaii (A-158).
14
tions. "Renaissance on TV" was a relatively short series
which ran during the spring of 1956 locally over KNXT.
This was followed by another sustaining series of eighty-
four programs entitled "Harvest” which aired Sunday after
noons; this series presented over KNXT dealt with episodes
from man's past and present achievements in the worlds of
art, literature, public affairs, and science. The Cinema
Department of the University of Southern California filmed
a series called "The Written Word," which covered the his
tory of printing, printing presses, and the book, and which
has been presented on educational television stations up to
and including 1964. "Dr. Research" was the role played by
Baxter in eight national network Bell System Science Series,
one-hour color programs on science which were produced and
directed by Frank Capra. The first of these, "Our Mr.
Sun," was telecast initially on November 19, 1956, and the
latest to be released was in 1963, but all of those so far
produced are currently (1965) being shown in schools.
During 1964 Baxter began working with the Westing-
house Electric Corporation on a new series of fifty-six
half-hour programs which may originate in San Francisco and
will cover the life and times of Shakespeare.
The mere listing of these programs is directly
15
indicative of Baxter's following. While a saying in the
television industry, that "You are no better than your last
show," may not be completely accurate, it is nonetheless
obvious that had each program not been well received,
Baxter would not have been sought for the succeeding pro
gram.
Ratings
One of the four major research firms which supplies
"either a national rating figure or an estimated total num
ber of television homes reached""^ is the American Research
Bureau. ARB ratings for local programs are compiled and
furnished regularly on a monthly basis.
A check of the ARB reports for Los Angeles for the
period from October, 1953, to May, 1954, revealed that the
ratings for "Shakespeare on TV" varied from 0.6 when the
program went on the air in October to a high of 3.4 in
January. The final rating during the first season was
approximately 2.2 in May. Translating these figures into
the approximate number of viewers according to the ARB
•^Harrison B. Summers, "Qualitative Information
Concerning Audiences of Network Television Programs,"
Journal of Broadcasting. V, No. 2 (Spring, 1961), 148.
16
formula, it is possible to project that when the program
first went on the air it attracted in Los Angeles approxi
mately 9,000 viewers. The number increased to an approxi
mate maximum of 54,000 in January, 1954, after which the
number of viewers decreased to approximately 37,000.
These figures, which apply only to the Los Angeles
area, are at considerable variance with some of the higher
estimates given by others. Summers, however, pointed out:
In view of the variety of methods used . . .
it is hardly surprising that the national rating
figures reported for the same program by different
research organizations often show fairly wide
variations.™
The Telepulse Report for November, 1953, showed
that "Shakespeare on TV" had a 2.- rating which, according
to the Telepulse formula, indicated that the program was
reaching 40,000 homes and an audience of 60,000-70,000.^
In a 1957 article in American Mercury Stocker reported that
"soon the program was ringing up a spectacular rating of
18Ibid.. p. 149.
^-9"The Television Audience," The Multimarket
Telepulse Report (New York: The Pulse, Inc., November,
1953).
17
9.5."^® Stocker, a free-lance writer, did not state the
source of this information nor did he indicate which re
search company's figures he was citing. A Life magazine
article stated: "When he [Baxter] raps for attention, some
21
750,000 persons come to order." Where Life obtained
these figures or which broadcast areas or cities they used
was not reported; on the basis of other ratings, however,
Life appeared unduly optimistic.
An indication of a different sort of rating was
indicated in a "Program Reports" memorandum to Baxter from
22
the Educational Television and Radio Center in Ann Arbor.
In a continuing survey, the Center found that in January-
February, 1955, eight television stations which partici
pated all reported that, among the top ten programs,
23
"Shakespeare on TV" was in first position. By way of
^Joseph Stocker, "Television"s Favorite Profes
sor," American Mercury. LXXXI (July, 1955), 87.
9 i
Television and Teachers Team Up," Life, December
7, 1953, p. 71.
9 9
Mimeographed memorandum in Baxter's scrapbooks.
^This memorandum does not state specifically the
class of programs covered by the survey; however, inasmuch
as the Center was concerned primarily with educational
television, it may be assumed that the survey was limited
to educational programs.
18
substantiating the stature of "Shakespeare on TV" at this
time, and also to indicate the wide coverage the series
enjoyed, the eight stations mentioned in the memorandum are
listed below, together with the cities in which they are
located.
KUHT
WKAR-TV
WHA-TV
WQED
KQED
WCET
KECT
WUNG-TV
WEDM
KCTS-TV
Houston
East Lansing
Madison
Pittsburgh
San Francisco
Cincinnati
St. Louis
Chapel Hill, N. Car,
Mumford
Seattle
The records provided by National Educational Television,
Inc. (see Table 1, supra p. 7) indicated that all these
stations except WEDM reran the first two parts of the ser
ies during the latter part of 1956 and early 1957.
No matter which ratings are used, the evidence
seems to point to an audience which, by any estimate of
the size of the viewing public was larger than had been
19
anticipated.24 Television personnel who analyze the rating
reports from all services apparently felt that Baxter was
drawing viewers in sufficiently large numbers to justify
expanding the coverage of his local programs to the nation
al coverage of his local programs to the national coverage
of "Now and Then." Also, if Baxter could wean such a con
siderable number of viewers from the baseball (including
the World Series) and later football coverage which were
on a competing channel at the same time on Saturday morn
ings, it was worthwhile to put him into a more favorable
time period, and "Now and Then" was aired at 5:00 p.m.
Sunday afternoons.
Mail
In the field of broadcasting, receipt of mail from
listeners or viewers is sometimes considered to be one type
of evidence of success. If this be true, Baxter's success
was almost instantaneous and his incoming mail continued to
be heavy whenever one of his series was televised. During
the period of the initial telecasting of "Shakespeare on
A /
Carroll O'Meara, Television Program Production
(New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1955), p. 339.
20
TV," which was followed by the 95-station CBS network
telecast of "Now and Then," his mail ran to about 10,000
letters annually. He remarked that his secretary "would
7 5
get out on some occasions about 300 replies a day."
Although most of his mail from his viewers fell
into the ordinary "fan mail" category, his scrapbooks on
file at the University of Southern California revealed that
many prominent people wrote to commend him and his program.
On October 18, 1954, for example, letters reached him from
Joyce C. Hall, President of Hallmark Cards; actress Greer
Garson requested his study guide; and performers Sam Leven-
son and Anne Baxter wrote to congratulate him on his pro
gram. Leslie E. Brown, acting dean of Western Reserve
University in Cleveland, on March 15, 1954, requested a
kinescope and said, "Congratulations on the widespread
response to your television course on Shakespeare"; Dr.
William P. Cregar, of Stanford University's School of Medi
cine wrote: "I needed very little encouragement in my
enjoyment of Shakespeare, but I have certainly appreciated
anew what a fine job is occasionally made of teaching"; and
cit.
25
Conversation with Baxter, January 5, 1964, op.
21
Ottmer Schlaah, of the College of Education of The Ohio
State University sent his plaudits. A letter of congratu
lation came from Mrs. William DeMille; actor Brian Aherne
said, "I just saw your television Shakespeare show. Bravo!
It was magnificently done--literate and informative and
interesting"; and actor James Cagney wrote, "That broken-
down school teacher has certainly set a mark for others to
shoot at." Frank Capra's letter of appreciation for the
series led eventually to Baxter's connection with the Bell
9 fi
System Science Series.
These examples, taken at random from the earlier
scrapbooks, are indications of the acclaim by his peers in
the two different fields of education and television.
Requests for the study guide
Up to 1963, over four million of the study guides
had been printed and sent to listeners who requested them.
Neither the station, KNXT, nor the University of Southern
California publicity department which handled the requests
had had any idea that the demand would be so great. The
program was broadcast initially in September, 1953, and by
26
See supra, p. 14.
22
the end of that first year on the air William S. Duniway,
publicity director of the University of Southern California
News Bureau, noted: ’’ We are sold out of the outline guides
after four printings. We have received about 5,000 letters,
27
all high in their praise of the programs."
The guides went into additional printings to fill
the requests, and in 1956 a University spokesman was quoted
as saying, "The mail starts swamping us and then we know
28
Baxter's on some place again . . .It's incredible."
Personal prominence
In 1956 the Speech Association of America held its
annual convention in Los Angeles. The convention program
showed that Frank Baxter was scheduled to speak at a din
ner meeting of the relatively small Western Speech Associa
tion section. The chairman in charge of the arrangements
reported that the many requests for tickets necessitated
moving the dinner to a much larger room. Requests con
tinued to pour in in such large quantity that the meeting
was thrown open so that all members of the Speech
27jjaxter scrapbooks.
^Frances V. Rummell, "Box Office Professor,"
Television Age, August, 1956, p. 112.
Association of America could come in following the dinner
to hear Dr. Baxter. This writer attended that dinner and
can report that when the doors were opened men and women
rushed in. They occupied all the additional chairs which
had been provided, and then stood along the walls and in
the doorways until the room appeared to bulge. Despite the
physical discomfort of the listeners, no one was seen to
leave the room until Baxter concluded his talk.
Baxter was known as a driving perfectionist and for
the severity with which he graded his students. As one
student remarked, "Two courses with Baxter cost me a cum
29
laude. but they were worth it." It was "worth it," also,
to increasing numbers of students at the University of
Southern California. His classes had already been moved
30
from a regular classroom to a larger lecture auditorium,
but still students registered for his classes in Shakes
peare so far in advance, and the waiting list grew so long,
that, during the 1956-57 educational year, no additional
current enrollments could be accepted except from graduate
students who were permitted for special reasons to audit
7 Q
"Great Teachers," loc. cit.
30
Rummell, op. cit., p. 54.
these undergraduate courses.
A different type of acclaim was reported by his
peers at the University of Southern California. The chair
man of the English Department at the University, Dr. Wil
liam D. Templeman, said that he had "been inspired by his
[Baxter's] ability to speak clearly, concisely, and to the
point in the classroom" and in various situations outside
O I
the classroom. Another example of acclaim from his
peers came in 1954-1955 when the faculty Budget Committee
unanimously refused to accept Baxter's request for "no
salary raise"--he had suggested that this money be added to
the salaries of younger men.
Other indications of Baxter's widespread popularity
are cited briefly. Some of these may have resulted from
the publicity he received as a result of his television
programs; some might have come to him as a result of his
years of teaching Shakespeare and other English literature
courses at the University of Southern California. For
instance, he recently has written or revised a number of
articles on Elizabethan dramatists for the Encyclopaedia
31
Interview with Dr. William D. Templeman at his
office at the University of Southern California, June 2,
1963.
25
Britannica. For the special Los Angeles issue of Holiday
magazine in October, 1957, Baxter was asked to write the
article about Pasadena. In addition, he wrote two articles
for This Week magazine and, with Mrs. Baxter, a Christmas
feature for McCalls in 1955.
The fact that all of these articles have been writ
ten and published since "Shakespeare on TV" probably can be
attributed in part to that program. However, it is not
fair to Baxter's knowledge and long years of research on
the subjects covered to attribute them solely to his tele
vision series.
Although there were various indications that he was
increasingly in demand as a public speaker, according to
Baxter no record was kept of the number of requests that
he received.^
Summary
The evidence of the wide public approval of the
work of Frank C. Baxter on television as chronicled in the
above areas is testimony to what Americans as a people
call "success." His long career as a teacher culminated
Telephone conversation with Baxter's secretary,
April 10, 1963.
26
in what might be termed a "burst of glory" as he became a
household name in millions of families. One of his col
leagues said of him, "There’s no substitute for a man with
a fire in his belly," but Baxter’s own reflection on his
success was summed up in a conversation with him early in
1964:
It was a tremendous and lasting personal sat
isfaction. I did It as I wanted to do it. I read
the plays and tried to make them understood,
clear, entertaining and profitable to the viewers.
I thought of them as entertainingly i n f o r m a t i v e . ^
Reyiew of the Literature
This study was primarily a critical analysis of
five specific televised lectures on Hamlet from the
"Shakespeare on TV" series. The literature reviewed here
relates only to the objective of this paper. The first
section of the review covers material about "Shakespeare
on TV" and its "star," Dr. Frank C. Baxter. The second
section reports on the extent of the literature regarding
the effectiveness of educational television.
The following bibliographical sources were con
sulted: card catalogues of the libraries of the University
■^Conversation with Baxter, January 5, 1964, op.
cit.
27
of Southern California, the University of California at
Los Angeles, California State College at Long Beach, and
the Library of Congress; Reader's Guide to Periodical
Literature. 1905-1964 (semi-monthly September to June,
monthly July and August); Education Index. 1929-1962
(monthly); Dictionary of Education, Carter V. Good, editor,
1953-1962 (annually); Bibliography of Speech Education,
edited by Lester Thonnsen and others, 1939 to 1948 and
1950; Bibliography of Speech and Allied Areas, edited by
Dorothy Mulgrave and others, 1962; Dissertation Abstracts
(called Microfilm Abstracts. Volume 1-2), 1938-1962 (bi
monthly); "Graduate Theses: An Index of Graduate Work in
Speech," Speech Monographs, edited by Franklin H. Knower,
1935-1962 (annually); "Abstracts of Theses in the Field of
Speech," Speech Monographs, edited by Clyde W. Dow, 1946-
1962 (annually).
These additional sources were perused for pertinent
data and information, as well as for bibliographies and
listings: Audio-Visual Communication Review, 1953-1964
(quarterly); Journal of Broadcasting, 1956-1964 (quarterly);
National Association of Educational Broadcasters Journal.
1957-1962 (bimonthly); Association for Education by Radio
and Television Journal, 1941 to 1957; Television Quarterly,
1962; Education on the Air. 1930 to 1953 and 1959 (annu
ally) ; An Inventory of Instructional Television Research,
edited by Hideya Kumata (1956); The Impact of Educational
Television: Selected Studies from the Research Sponsored by
the National Educational Television Research Center, edited
by Wilbur Schramm, 1956; Television Effects: A Summary of
the Literature and Proposed General Theory, edited by
Lionel C. Barrow and Bruce H. Westley, 1958; Educational
Television: The Next Ten Years, edited by Wilbur Schramm,
1962; and Frank Baxter's personal scrapbooks.
Baxter on television
Two graduate studies investigating aspects of Bax
ter's program, "Shakespeare on TV," have been completed at
the University of Southern California.
The first of these, Scothorn's study of Baxter's
audience, was an analysis of one segment of the audience of
"Shakespeare on TV" during the 1953-1954 school year.^ To
34 i t
Robert A. Scothorn, A Description of Some of the
Viewers Who Enrolled for Credit in 'Shakespeare on TV,'
Spring Semester, 1954" (unpublished Master's thesis, The
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1955). An
article based on this thesis was published: Robert A.
Scothorn and Kenneth Harwood, "Some Characteristics of
Viewers of 'Shakespeare on TV,'" The Journal of the Asso-
29
motivate and focus listener interest, the public had been
invited to enroll in the course for one unit of college
credit. For this enrollment, they received a copy of Bax
ter's printed study guide and were scheduled to appear on
campus at the end of the series to take a written examina
tion. The public had also been invited to enroll as "audi-
3 5
tors,1 and for this type of enrollment they received the
study guide but were not entitled to take the final exam
ination or to receive credit. According to Scothorn there
were 1,267 auditors and 244 credit students, 177 of whom
took the final examination.^
Scothorn circulated questionnaires at the final
examination and used as his sample these 177 viewers, but
he stated that the sample was not necessarily representa
tive. In fact, the probabilities were that his sample
definitely was not representative because of selective
factors such as the payment of tuition, the need to view
all of the programs, the need to take notes, the restricted
ciation for Education by Radio and Television, XV, No. 1
(October, 1955), 12-15.
35
Special registration terminology.
36
Scothorn and Harwood, op. cit.
30
usefulness of one unit of university credit, the inconven
ience of a trip to the campus, and fear of doing poorly on
the final examination.
From the questionnaires returned to Scothorn at
the final examination, he gathered data regarding these 177
persons, which may be indicative of the nature of Baxter's
audience in several respects. There were probably more
women than men, for example, because it was competing with
national sports events.^ Also the total audience probably
averaged about middle age because there would be reason to
suppose that more older people than young people would have
use for one unit of college credit earned largely in the
home. Finally, it was likely that the main reason for
viewing the program was "interest and personal pleasure,"
since that is true of most viewers of any such "public
service” program.
The other graduate study covering "Shakespeare on
TV," by Joel Standard, was completed in 1962.^® According
37
See supra, p. 19.
3®Joel Standard, "A Content Analysis of Educational
Television, 'Shakespeare on TV'" (unpublished paper, Tele
communications 577, The University of Southern California,
1962) .
31
to Standard:
The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to
analyze the production techniques of a program
that ran 47 weeks and find out something about
production of educational television in the old
days, and (b) since the production of the program
might have been a learning experience for the
production crew, it was desired to find out what
changes in production resulted from "learning."39
Standard's method consisted of an analysis of sam
ple clusters from the fourty-seven kinescopes of the
series. He viewed fifteen of the kinescopes (three of
which were on Hamlet) and timed and classified each shot
as to its nature, length, number of people appearing, and
subjects (Baxter, students, visual aids). Notations also
were made of introductions, resumes, summaries and wrap-
ups, and production in general.
Standard found that the time between the first and
last programs of the series had produced little improve
ment in production techniques. He did, however, find that
some of the early patterns of production had become estab
lished and standardized; examples were use of waffle light
ing, extensive use of the medium shot of Baxter, heavy
reliance on shots of students seated in the studio, and
39Ibid., p. 1.
32
Baxter's concentration on the studio students. Standard
concluded that as the program developed there was no
decrease as a result of experience in the number of produc
tion slip-ups; he felt that Baxter did not appear to be
40
better adapted to television as he gained experience, or
that patterns presenting the verbal content were estab
lished.
These were the only two studies which were found in
the scholarly literature which dealt specifically with this
program, but two other references to Baxter are worth
reporting. Tarbet's 1961 book, Television and Our Schools,
referred to Baxter, pointing him out as a successful exam
ple :
The time may come when an outstanding educa
tor may receive as much recognition, or nearly as
much, as well known entertainers. There are exam
ples at the present time in such men as Frank
Baxter, with his work in literature, and Harvey
White, with his physics series. Eventually the
educator may become a regular part of the life of
the out-of-school public.4-1
The other reference to Baxter was by Hideya Kumata, who
^Standard commented, however, "Dr. Baxter has a
reputation for being an articulate and interesting speaker.
This was no less true before the cameras."
^Donald C. Tarbet, Television and Our Schools (New
York: The Ronald Press Company, 1961), p. 242.
33
contributed a paper to the 1958 conference of the American
Council on Education. Introducing him, the chairman men
tioned that he was the man "to whom we are indebted for his
excellent Inventory of Instructional Television Research."
In discussing television audiences, Kumata said:
There is also an age difference; the typical
open-broadcast student is in his forties. This
has been true from the Frank Baxter course in
Shakespeare to the recent Chicago Junior College
courses
The importance to this study of these references
lies in the fact that Tarbet's reference was due to the
fact that he considered Baxter to be one of the successful
examples of "education" on television, and Kumata1s refer
ence implied that Baxter was one of the earliest of the
educational telecasters.
The literature teems with mentions of Baxter from a
popular point of view. Baxter^ scrapbooks contain clip
pings which mention his name. A count of the items in the
scrapbooks which appeared in newspapers and periodicals
during the period from July 21, 1953, to June 10, 1955,
^Kideya Kumata, "Further Facts on a National
Scale," College Teaching by Television, ed. by John C.
Adams, C. R. Carpenter, and Dorothy Smith (Washington,
D.C.: American Council on Education, 1958), p. 85.
34
totals 427 referenceswhich may be taken as one of the
measures of the success of the Baxter television programs.
Although these items for the most part were brief, they
represented a wide distribution throughout the United
States and several foreign countries. Many of them con
tained reports of the awards and honors Baxter had received.
These were of course repetitious in content and not objec
tive in evaluation of Baxter's work on television. It is
significant to note, however, that they did universally
reflect approval of and interest in Baxter and his lec
tures .
An article in Popular Science stated:
Perhaps the most popular professor in the
U.S. is the one who gives TV lectures on world
literature and builds his own props for them in a
bedroom in South Pasadena, Calif.^
This article, naturally, was slanted for the magazine's
class of readers, and so it illustrated some of the "props"
which Baxter used in his lectures: the model of the Globe
theatre, his small reproductions of Shakespearean charac-
/ Q
From Frank Baxter's scrapbooks, on file in his
office at the University of Southern California.
44«iTy prof Makes His Own Props," Popular Science,
CLXVI, No. 3 (March, 1955), 133.
35
ters, and his printing press model--items which will be
discussed further in Chapter III.
Many human interest or feature articles were writ
ten about Baxter. The accuracy and precision of such
articles is always suspect, but they often serve as indi
cators of general trends of public interest, approval, or
disapproval. Several such articles are cited below to show
the general laudatory trend regarding Baxter.
Stocker's article in American Mercury is an exam
ple:
Dr. Frank Baxter of the University of Southern
California in Los Angeles is the best thing that
ever happened to the embattled champions of adult
and intelligent television.
"For a long time," says TV's favorite prof,
"I've felt that people were starved for something
more nourishing in entertainment. The bill of
fare on TV has included too much hamburger. Most
people want a little chicken-salad--if not pheas
ant under glass."
Alluding to the fact that many of his Shakes
peare viewers not only viewed the program but paid
for the privilege, Baxter says drily, "There's no
flattery quite so sincere as
In an article on teaching through the use of tele
vision, Life magazine stated:
^Stocker, op. cit. , pp. 86-88.
36
Every Saturday at 11:00 a.m. Dr. Frank Baxter
of the University of Southern California convenes
his class in Shakespeare. When he raps for atten
tion some 750,000 persons come to order. Recog
nized as one of America's greatest teachers . . .
Baxter, as witty as he is scholarly, today is the
number 1 example of what educators have in mind
when they speak hopefully of the future role of
television as an educational instrument
Carroll O'Meara, television consultant and agency
representative, wrote:
In a modest little program launched over KNXT
(CBS Hollywood) in the summer of 1953, Dr. Frank
Baxter floored critics and prophets by proving
that--in a pure lecture series, aided only by
interesting graphic material--he could charm and
delight viewers with the subject of "Shakespeare
and His Times." In the following summer he became
a popular figure on the Columbia network.
One of the more comprehensive contemporary articles
on Baxter's "Shakespeare on TV" ran four pages in the
August, 1956, issue of Television Age, entitled "Box Office
Professor." The Reader's Digest revision of this article
appeared in September, 1956, under the title, "TV's Most
Surprising Success." Rummel opened with the observation
48
that Baxter "has played hob with all preconceived ideas"
^"Television and Teachers Team Up," loc. cit.
^O'Meara, op. cit. , p. 339.
^Frances V. Rummel "one time was associated with
the U.S. Office of Education and more recently served as
37
for achieving success as a television performer, and quoted
Baxter as saying that his television work was "cultural
entertainment." According to Rummell, Baxter had "passion
ate convictions about the social responsibility of the
teacher in the field of the creative arts." She quoted him
as saying: "At a time when our population is beginning to
be beset by the problem of leisure, it is the teachers who
must plant the good seed toward the harvest of our national
culture. Reporting on the initial program, she said:
Dr. Baxter predicted an audience of three
retired librarians and one bedridden old man.
To everyone's amazement, the professor never
even had to build an audience. Apparently people
were not only waiting, but waiting with pen in
hand. Suddenly Dr. Baxter was no longer a profes
sor in a single classroom; within weeks his class
encompassed a vast area of the west coast, with
his students coming from every walk of life.-*®
Rummell's interesting, albeit unsupported, state
ment about the use of the kinescopes is cited as another
general indication of the widespread acceptance of the
coordinator of magazine information for the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare. She has contributed arti
cles on education and educators to a number of major pub
lications." (Television Age, August, 1956, p. 54.)
^^Rummell, op. cit., pp. 54, 111.
5QIbid.. p. 111.
38
programs:
Beginning this August, every one of the
nation's educational television stations, now
numbering 23, is scheduling a total of 63 of Dr.
Baxter's kinescoped programs. These include his
Shakespeare telecasts and a new series on the
Renaissance. With many commercial stations sched
uling these programs in areas which no educational
stations cover, the size of future audiences will
dwarf those of the past.51
In connection with these popular articles about
Baxter, two others might be mentioned at this time, despite
the fact that they predated "Shakespeare on TV." Their
importance lies in the fact that they establish Baxter's
importance in his own field even before his first telecast.
The December 26, 1949, issue of Time magazine ran a 3-col
umn story about Baxter's Christmas readings. Parts of this
article have been incorporated elsewhere in this study.
The other article appeared in the special issue of
Life magazine on "U. S. Schools," dated October 16, 1950.
In order to discover 1950's greatest and most popular teach
ers, Life asked "the student governing bodies of fifty-two
leading U. S. colleges to nominate the outstanding teachers
on their faculties," men whom they thought might measure up
to teaching giants such as William Lyon Phelps of Yale and
51Ibid.. p. 112.
39
George Lyman Kittredge of Harvard. At some schools the
students felt that none of their teachers measured up to
these men and in all cases, Life reported, the students
chose "not the teachers who are 'easy marks' but those who
work conscientiously and expect the same of their stu-
dents." The University of Southern California student
selection, Dr. Baxter, was the first of the teachers to be
described in this article:
Even though he has a reputation at the Univer
sity of Southern California as a rough man with
grades, students have to line up early to be sure
of a place in Baxter's Shakespeare classes. Like
both "Billy" Phelps and Kittredge, Baxter, 54, is
a professor of English who has spanned the field
of literature and made good writing something to
be understood and enjoyed. . . . No event on
U.S.C.'s calendar is more eagerly awaited than
Baxter's annual Christmas reading of poetry and
fable. He has taught for 27 years and is, he
admits ruefully, the last of the sentimentalists.
Literature on effectiveness of
educational television
There is an imposing quantity of literature on the
subject of educational television. A large part of it con
sists of experimental studies of a quantitative nature
CO
"Great Teachers," loc. cit.
53Ibid.
40
which compare educational television with regular teaching
techniques. Almost universally their finding is that there
is "no significant difference" in the effectiveness of the
new medium when compared with traditional methods of class
room instruction.
Kumata's excellent Inventory of Instructional Tele
vision Research was mentioned above. As he said in his
Introduction:
Formal instruction by television has experi
enced a steady growth both in the number of insti
tutions involved and the variety of courses of
fered. There is reason to believe that this
growth will continue. A periodic assessment of
this growth may prove to be a valuable guide not
only to those who expect to plunge into instruc
tional television, but also to those who are
already engaged in this activity.^
Kumata’s study was divided into two main parts: Section I
was a review of research findings; and Section II, the main
part of the study, contained 71 abstracts of pertinent
articles. In addition 173 titles in the appendix were sug
gested for further reading and annotated for convenience.
Another excellent "report and summary of major
Hideya Kumata, An Inventory of Instructional
Television Research (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Educational Televi
sion and Radio Center, December 1, 1956), Introduction,
n.p.
41
studies on the problems and potentials of educational tele
vision" was published in 1962 by the Institute for Communi
cation Research at Stanford, entitled Educational Televi
sion: The Next Ten Years. Twenty-four articles on various
aspects of the future of educational television were sum
marized and each of the papers contained a bibliography of
additional studies in the same field.^
In a recent study, released in mimeographed form,
Donald W. MacLennan and J. Christopher Reid, of the Uni
versity of Missouri, undertook to "abstract the experi
mental literature pertaining to instructional television,
and the experimental literature pertaining to instructional
film research" from 1950 to 1964. The material which was
abstracted included the following:
Mr. Reid abstracted articles in the Audio-
Visual Communication Review, the USOE Title VII
studies, dissertations, and all the various pub
lished booklets as well as mimeographed, dupli
cated, and offset material that was available.
All dissertations, [sic] unless otherwise noted,
were prepared from Dissertation Abstracts. Mr.
MacLennan abstracted articles from the Armed
55
Institute for Communication Research, Educational
Television: The Next Ten Years (Stanford: The Institute
for Communication Research, 1962).
42
Forces studies and from all other journals and
periodicals.56
For some years, Audio-Visual Communication Review
has included a section devoted to reviewing research
i
reports released by individuals and organizations. The
usual procedure is to report the "purpose," "procedure,"
and "results" of each research. Periodically this journal
abstracts some of the doctoral dissertations pertinent to
the field of audio-visual communications, and in addition
it attempts to compile lists of all dissertations completed
in the field from the time of the previous list to the cur
rent publication. From time to time, addenda to these
lists entitled "Research Abstracts and Analytical Review
of Completed Projects: National Defense Education Act,
Title VII" are issued by this journal. Part A of Title VII
of the National Defense Education Act called for research
in the newer educational media, while Part B dealt with the
dissemination of these research findings and information.
By its second year of operation, it had been reported that
"approximately one-half of the projects funded by Title
■^Donald W. MacLennan and J. Christopher Reid,
"Abstracts of Research on Instructional Television and
Film: An Annotated Bibliography" (mimeographed study,
April, 1964), p. ii.
43
VII relate closely to television."57
In an article entitled "Some Suggestions Regarding
the Preparation of Research Proposals," Seibert and Stor-
dahl said:
In somewhat less than two years of operation,
the educational media research program authorized
in Part A, Title VII, National Defense Education
Act (P.L. 85-864) has provided financial support
to 81 new research projects. These projects were
selected from 421 proposals formally submitted
prior to the September 1959 deadline and when each
of the approved projects is completed, they will
have received Federal grant funds totalling ap
proximately $6,120,000.58
Abstracts of all of these sources, as stated above, are
published for the information of those interested in this
specialized field.
The Journal.of Broadcasting has published period
ically a list of graduate theses and dissertations in its
field by subject classification, with author and title.
The journal stipulates that every effort has been made to
keep these lists as complete and inclusive as possible.
Eugene K. Oxhandler, "A Report on Six Research
Studies," Audio-Visual Communication Review, VIII, No. 3
(May-June, 1960), 150.
^^Warren F. Seibert and Kalmer E. Stordahl, "Some
Suggestions Regarding the Preparation of Research Propos
als," Audio-Visual Communication Review. VIII, No. 3 (May-
June, 1960), 154.
44
The Journal of Broadcasting offers reviews of books related
to the field of broadcasting. Among these, of course, are
those specifically concerned with educational broadcasting
and television.
Some of the other journals cited in the list of
material researched carry reports or reviews or abstracts
of material pertaining to its specific field. These may
appear in each issue or they may be accumulated and re
ported at various times, or regularly in certain issues.
The policies of the two journals which were described above
are, in general, the broadest of the attempts to alert
those interested to the material which is being released
steadily.
In view of the enormous quantities of material
available, it was especially interesting to find that there
was a paucity of historical or critical studies on individ
ual programs or series on educational television. This
fact seemed especially significant in view of an editorial
in the Journal of Broadcasting which stated, in part: "One
of the greatest problems in historical research in broad
casting is the relative scarcity of an objective view-
45
point. "-*9 This, then, was one of the reasons for consid
ering that this study might help to fill what appeared to
be a research gap in the literature.
Organization of the Dissertation
This first chapter has stated the problem of this
study; indicated its importance from (1) a historical view
point and (2) the insight it provides into the content
treatment and production and rhetorical techniques of one
successful educational television course; and suggested its
significance as a pioneer among educational television
programs. The various indications of the success of
"Shakespeare on TV" were presented and the literature per
tinent to this study was reviewed.
Chapter II presents the methodology, the materials
used, and the procedures followed in analyzing the five
Hamlet lectures.
Chapter III describes the various aspects of "Bax
ter the Man," including his physical appearance, his per
sonality characteristics as evidenced by his television
program, and the complexity of his educational background,
59
Kittross,loc. cit.
46
experience, artistic pursuits, the breadth of his reading,
and some elements of his philosophy as gleaned from his
lectures and from interviews with him.
Baxter's views on scholarship and the application
of these views, as revealed in his lectures and in inter
views, is the subject of Chapter IV.
Chapter V is a detailed analysis of Baxter as a
speaker, supported by his own comments during the inter
views and the manner in which he applied his theories in
his televised lectures.
A synthesis of these three facets of Baxter--the
Man, the Scholar, and the Speaker--is presented in Chapter
VI. Additional interrelationships between Baxter, and the
medium of television, and the viewing audience are also
discussed.
Chapter VII presents the summary, conclusions, and
implications.
An element of vital importance to this study is the
material in the Appendixes which contain transcripts taken
from the sound track of the five Hamlet lectures and tran
scripts of two extensive taped interviews with Baxter.
These three items constitute the principal raw data on
which this study was based.
CHAPTER II
METHOD, MATERIALS, PROCEDURES
Method
The research method used in this study was that of
critical analysis and synthesis. No ready-made variation
of the critical approach was found which could be applied
to Baxter's "Shakespeare on TV.” Traditional disciplines,
such as rhetorical criticism, dramatic criticism, and
literary criticism have scholarly histories that extend
back for more than 2000 years. By contrast, scholarly
criticism of motion pictures, radio, and television is
still in its infancy. Therefore in the present study a
major methodological problem was how to draw upon estab
lished principles from classical rhetoric and at the same
time to draw upon unique developments from modern communi
cation theory.
47
48
Rhetorical theory
The principles, theories, and critical standards
enunciated by Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and
Quintilian (and variations of them developed during subse
quent centuries) are still applicable, either directly or
in modified form, to many contemporary speech events. In
fact, a substantial proportion of modern graduate research
applying critical or historical methods to speech making
has relied basically upon classical concepts.
In recent years, however, rhetorical scholars have
voiced considerable dissatisfaction with traditional con
cepts. For example, Croft commented bluntly:
Here is the contemporary situation: a re
searcher takes the old theory, finds illustrations
of it, piles these up, and concludes, for example,
that a given man's speaking exhibits characteris
tics which may be said to fall properly within the
categories of traditional rhetoric. This sort of
criticism works upon the presumption that rhetoric
is rhetoric, and, beyond deciding which traditional
doctrine he prefers, the critic shall not fancy
himself a creative theorist. And so we have made
rhetorical criticism a dead-end street.1
Croft stated that it was his belief that a "dynamic
interaction between theory and criticism" must be created
Albert J. Croft, "The Functions of Rhetorical
Criticism," Quarterly Journal of Speech, XLII, No. 3 (Octo
ber, 1956) , 285.
49
and that one of the functions of rhetorical criticism was
to encourage "creative theorizing." He deplored the ten
dency to treat traditional theory "as a closed, fixed sys
tem," and said:
This is the first major inadequacy to be noted
in our typical research, and it exists because of
the naive notion of the relation between theory
and criticism.^
He suggested:
The fault of some modern criticism has not
been in wholly ignoring this necessity [to create
a dynamic interaction], but rather in devising
inadequate tools to deal with it.3
Others, too, have voiced dissatisfaction with tra
ditional criteria, with the result that various new or
modified approaches to rhetorical criticism have been sug
gested. Examples of these suggestions would include
Redding's application of content analysis,^ Burke's empha
sis upon speaker-listener identification,"* and Wrage's
2Ibid., p. 286.
3Ibid., p. 287.
^W. Charles Redding, "Extrinsic and Intrinsic
Criticism," Western Speech. XXI, No. 3 (Spring, 1957),
96-103.
5
Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (New York:
George Braziller, Inc., 1955), pp. 19-31, 45-46.
50
idea-centered methodology. ^
Despite the criteria of scholars such as Croft,
Redding, Burke, and Wrage, many of the traditional canons
of rhetoric were found to be readily adaptable to "Shakes
peare on TV"--especially to the analytical sections (spe
cifically Chapters, III, IV, and V), such as those dealing
with Baxter's background, training, methods of speech
preparation, and his use of voice, bodily action, and
language.
In making a critical study of Baxter's "Shakespeare
on TV," however, a central difficulty in adapting classical
rhetorical methodology was the fact that traditional cri
teria were intended mainly to discover whether a person was
effective or to estimate the nature and extent of his
effectiveness. As was documented in the preceding chapter
the immediate success of Baxter's "Shakespeare on TV" was
clearly established by the ratings, awards, critical
acclaim, and continuing demands for more of his television
programs. A more significant problem for the study,
Ernest J. Wrage, "Public Address: A Study of
Social and Intellectual History," Quarterly Journal of
Speech, XXXIII, No. 4 (December, 1947), 456-457.
51
therefore, appeared to be the investigation of the commu
nication event of which Baxter was a principal part. Other
difficulties in adapting classical rhetorical methodology
to Baxter's "Shakespeare on TV" lay in the fact that these
communication events were hybrid forms of public speaking;
they were not speeches in any ordinarily acceptable classi
fication of types of speeches; rather they were "enter
tainingly informative" talks to large numbers of people
delivered with the intimacy and attempt at rapport normally
utilized primarily with small numbers of people. They were
delivered, too, with no immediate feedback from the view
ers, and thus with the speaker-listener identification
unbalanced.
Communication theory
Most of the modern researches on oral and pictorial
communication have employed quantitative research methods,
such as empirical surveys or controlled experiments. This
raised a methodological question: what are the future pros
pects for significant communications research in which
primarily nonquantitative methods, such as historical and
critical, are used?
The proper use of critical method requires four
52
major conditions: (a) observation, (b) by a qualified
critic, (c) who applies selected criteria, (d) in order to
make valid and reliable evaluations. The choice and appli
cation of criteria suggest a possible common ground between
quantitative and nonquantitative approaches.
The writer reviewed some of the recent quantitative
researches in communication with a view to finding useful
critical criteria and other categories. An intriguing pos
sibility was suggested by the fact that many communication
researchers and theorists have sought to summarize their
results by means of general communication "models." One of
the frequently-cited models was that of Shannon, who stated:
The fundamental problem of communication is
that of reproducing at one point either exactly
or approximately a message selected at another
point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that
is they refer to or are correlated according to
some system with certain physical or conceptual
entities.^
Shannon developed what is usually called "informa
tion theory." This theory was basically mathematical and
stressed the measurement of the signal carrying capacity of
an electrical channel. Shannon measured the amount of
7
Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathe
matical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1949), p. 3.
53
information by the "bit," a basic universal unit of infor
mation in terms of choice or uncertainty. With the bit it
is possible to measure the information capacity, or infor
mation rate, of channels. The major implications of the
theory were those having to do with the design of communi
cation systems and the encoding of messages produced by the
"source."
Weaver interpreted and clarified Shannon's theory
in such a way that it more explicitly related to the area
of oral communication:
The word communication will be used here in a
very broad sense to include all the procedures by
which one mind may affect another. This, of
course, involves not only written and oral speech;
but also music, the pictorial arts, the theater,
the ballet, and in fact all human behavior. In
some connections it may be desirable to use a
still broader definition of communication, namely
the procedures by which one mechanism (say auto
matic equipment to track an airplane and compute
its probable future positions) affects another
mechanism (say a guided missile chasing this air
plane) .
The language of this memorandum will often
appear to refer to the special, but still very
broad and important fields of the communication of
speech; but practically everything said applies
equally well to music of any sort, and to still or
moving pictures as in television.°
Weaver considered that communicators had a type of
8Ibid., p. 95.
54
problem at each of three levels. The first level was the
technical problem of how accurately the symbols of communi
cation could be transmitted and received. The second was
the semantic problem, which involved the degree of preci
sion with which the transmitted symbols conveyed the de
sired meaning. The third was the effectiveness problem,
which dealt with how successfully the received meaning
affected the conduct of the receiver in the desired way.
Cautioning against thinking that the mathematical theory
applied only to the first level, Weaver asserted that not
only would the limitations of the first level apply to the
second and third levels, but that there was more overlap
among the three levels than one ’’ could possibly naively
suspect.
Thus Weaver suggested some of the lines along which
Shannon's mathematical model might be adapted to human
communication. Many subsequent writers interested in the
behavioral aspects of communication have described a vari
ety of models, some of which were adapted directly from
Shannon and Weaver. Sometimes these models have been pre
sented graphically, sometimes verbally.
9Ibid., pp. 95-97. 1QIbid., p. 98.
55
It was thought that a verbal model might be well
suited to the needs of the present study. Therefore the
following general model was chosen:
A completed act of communication has often
been described in these terms: Someone says some
thing somehow to someone with some effect. The
fundamental questions, therefore, are: Who, says
what, how, to whom, with what effect?^
In the present study, these questions are criteria
in the sense that it was hypothesized that Baxter's success
was due to the interaction between the speaker and the
listener. In their application, for purposes of conven
ience and appropriateness to subject matter, the chapters
of analysis were divided into Baxter the Man, Baxter the
Scholar, and Baxter the Speaker, followed by synthesis.
In this study, each of these modern criteria was
handled separately. "Who" was Baxter, and the material
applicable to this criterion was detailed in Chapter III,
Baxter the Man. At all times the unstated question used by
this writer in selecting the material used was, "What kind
of person do we need to have for successful interaction?"
-^Harold D. Las swell, Daniel Lemer, and Ithiel de
Sola Pool, The Comparative Study of Symbols (Hoover Insti
tute Studies, Series C: Symbols, No. 1; Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, January, 1952), p. 12.
56
"Says what" was assumed to be the criterion covering the
content of the Hamlet lectures. Chapter IV, Baxter the
Scholar, presented the material deemed appropriate to this
criterion. The criterion "how" was presented in Chapter V,
Baxter the Speaker, in which many data were assembled which
were considered to be relevant to this criterion. In
Chapter VI, Synthesis, the criterion "to whom" was applied
principally to the viewing audience of both the original
telecasts and the kinescoped rebroadcasts in other areas.
To a lesser degree the criterion was also applied quite
broadly to all of Baxter's students, including classroom
students and the students in the studio during some of the
initial telecasts in addition to his television-audience
students. The criterion "with what effect" was considered
to have two aspects: (1) the success of "Shakespeare on
TV" was presented in Chapter I, and the success of Baxter
as the source of "Shakespeare on TV" was included in Chap
ter X where appropriate and/or in Chapter III where appro
priate; and (2) it was linked to the criterion "to whom" in
Chapter VI as a phase of the synthesis of Baxter and his
viewers.
These criteria may also be viewed as a single ques
tion consisting of several inherently interrelated subques-
57
tions. This aspect of the model was important because the
present study is process-oriented and a process can be
taken apart only arbitrarily and artificially. As Berio
said:
If we accept the concept of process, we view
events and relationships as dynamic, on-going,
ever-changing, continuous. When we label some
thing as a process, we also mean that it does not
have a_ beginning, an end, a fixed sequence of
events. It is not static, at rest. It is moving.
Berio's next sentence is especially applicable to this
study: "The ingredients within a process interact; each
affects all the others."^3 Thus in Chapter VI of this
study, the interaction was called "synthesis," and the
interaction of the aspects of Baxter's "Shakespeare on TV"
were discussed and the effect of one aspect on other as
pects was described; in addition, the interaction and the
effect of the interaction on the speaker-listener relation
ship was a part of this chapter.
Berio went on to warn of the difficulties of
studying a process by analyzing it into its parts or
■^David k . Berio, The Process of Communication: An
Introduction to Theory and Practice (New York: Holt, Rine
hart and Winston, Inc., 1960), p. 24.
13Ibid.
58
ingredients:
When we try to talk or write about a process,
such as communication, we face at least two prob
lems. First, we must arrest the dynamic of the
process, in the same way that we arrest motion
when we take a still picture with a camera. We
can make useful observations from photographs, but
we err if we forget that the camera is not a com
plete reproduction of the objects photographed.
The interrelationships among elements are oblit
erated, the fluidity of motion, the dynamics are
arrested. The picture is the representation of
the event, it is not the event. As Hayakawa has
put it, the word is not the thing, it is merely a
map that we can use to guide us in exploring the
territories of the world.
A second problem in describing the process
derives from the necessity for the use of lan
guage. Language, itself, as used by people over
time, is a process. It, too, is changing, on
going; however, the process quality of language is
lost when we write it. Marks on paper are a
recording of language, a picture of language.
They are fixed, permanent, static. Even spoken
language over a short period of time, is relative
ly static.^
Two main efforts were made to avoid or at least
minimize the dangers described above by Berio. First, in
analyzing Baxter, the Man, the Scholar, and the Speaker,
the investigator tried to keep in mind pictures of Baxter
in action, and in writing this report the investigator
tried to preserve that same general spirit. Second, the
investigator attempted to employ a combination of analysis
13Ibid., p. 25.
59
and synthesis. Figuratively speaking, he first sought to
take the programs apart; then put them back together again.
As previously suggested, in making his analysis the inves
tigator utilized modifications of traditional rhetorical
principles and techniques; in attempting a synthesis he
drew upon principles and techniques derived from modern
communication theory. In this latter task special atten
tion was paid to the dynamic and unified nature of the
human communication process. No previous study was found
in which this particular combination of analysis and syn
thesis was used.
Materials
Kinescopes
Fortunately, kinescopes had been made of all pro
grams in the "Shakespeare on TV" series, and these were
available for examination. The first decision of impor
tance was that the study would be limited to only the
programs which dealt with Hamlet. Several reasons governed
this choice. First, there were five programs on Hamlet,
and it was believed that a group of five lectures analyzed
in depth would yield more information than many lectures
given more cursory examination. Second, it seemed clear
60
that five 45-minute lectures would provide ample data for
the proposed methodology of analysis and synthesis. On the
other hand, to use a single lecture, or possibly a pair of
lectures, did not appear to provide sufficient materials
for the purposes of the study. A third reason was that the
five Hamlet lectures constituted a unit. A fourth reason
was that the programs selected provided an element which
might have been less evident in the lectures on any other
of Shakespeare's plays: Baxter's own enthusiastic attitude.
As he said when he summed up the broadcasts of "Shakespeare
on TV," "And then last of all, the greatest of all, of
course, is Hamlet" (A-155); and in his office he remarked,
"Look at Hamlet. There are very few thinking men who do
not identify themselves with Hamlet now and again, and
again, as they go through life" (B-8).
Using the kinescopes of the five Hamlet lectures,
audio tapes were made from the sound tracks. These were
then transcribed so that the full text of each lecture was
readily available on paper.^
14
See Appendix A for transcriptions of the kine
scope sound tracks.
Baxter interviews
Another major source of information for this study
was the invaluable material supplied by Dr. Baxter himself
during many casual conversations and two tape-recorded
personal interviews with this writer. The first interview
was in Dr. Baxter's office at the University of Southern
California on September 17, 1958.*'“' A second interview was
conducted in Dr. Baxter's home on October 21, 1962, jointly
with Dr. Milton Dickens, Baxter's friend and colleague for
many years.
In addition to the interviews, the investigator on
many occasions held brief conversations with Dr. Baxter for
the purpose of clarifying specific details. These conver
sations were recorded by means of notes rather than tape
recordings.
Other
Other materials included the large personal scrap
books compiled by Baxter and his office staff; the textbook
used in the course, Shakespeare: Major Flays and the
*"~*See Appendix B for complete transcript.
16
See Appendix C for complete transcript.
62
Sonnets;^ the outline study guide used by those who took
the course for credit; and mimeographed copies of Dickens'
"personality inventory for public speakers.
Procedures
With the materials at hand, and the methodology
planned, the procedure of preparation for this critical
study required three phases: (1) physical assembly of the
materials, (2) a small public-opinion poll on Baxter's
personality utilizing Dickens' personality inventory, and
(3) the application of the critical criteria.
Physical elements
The initial step, of course, was the original view
ing of the televised lectures of "Shakespeare on TV." Then
came the view of eighteen kinescopes and the selection of
the five programs centered on Hamlet. Tapes were made on a
Wollensak tape recorder, model T 1500, of the sound tracks
from the five kinescopes, so as to be ready for continual
■^C. B. Harrison (ed.), Shakespeare: Major Plays
and the Sonnets (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1948).
18
Milton Dickens, Speech: Dynamic Communication
(2d ed.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963),
p. 341.
63
examination and review.
Another of the physical elements was the interviews
with Dr. Baxter. These interviews were tape recorded and
the tapes were then transcribed so that the texts were
available for further analysis. The analysis included the
selection and recording on index cards of various words,
phrases, or ideas to be used in connection with the pro
cedures of analysis and synthesis.
The process of transcribing and making written
reproductions from sound recordings is basically a simple
one, carried out daily by millions of stenographers in
offices throughout the nation and the world. For research,
however, maximum accuracy is required (even including items
such as repetitions of sounds, false starts, and so forth):
When a sound recording is available, it is
possible to produce a text which corresponds very
closely to the original speech. A major advantage
of the recording is that the transcriber is not
hurried; he may go back over any obscure passage
as often as necessary to establish the exact word
ing, and he may check and recheck the completed
transcript against the original to eliminate his
own errors of hearing or transcribing.-^
1 Q
^Theodore Clevenger, Jr., Donald W. Parson, and
Jerome B. Polisky, "The Problem of Textual Accuracy," The
Great Debates, ed. Sidney Kraus (Bloomington; Indiana
University Press, 1962), p. 344.
64
The texts of the Baxter lectures and the Baxter
interviews obtained from sound recordings first were checked
and rechecked by this writer--those on the lectures against
the original kinescopes and those on the interviews against
the original tapes. When the texts were considered to be
as accurate reproductions of the sound tracks as possible,
the texts and the audio tapes were then checked equally
carefully by an assistant. Differences in interpretations
of words and sounds on the tapes were noted and the writer
and his assistant listened together to the tapes in order
to reach mutual agreement of the exact words or sounds
which had been in question.
The third physical procedure used was interviews
with Baxter's secretary, his colleagues, and various of his
friends--people who were most generous with their time in
discussing "Shakespeare on TV" and Dr. Baxter's contribu
tion to it. Pertinent remarks and observations have been
included where appropriate in the ensuing chapters, but
were not considered to be of sufficient value to report in
full although they did contribute helpful insight into some
of Baxter's characteristics.
65
Personality inventory
Mimeographed copies of the Dickens' "personality
inventory" were distributed to a group of sixty-nine stu
dents at California State College at Long Beach. One of
the kinescopes used in this study was then shown to this
group so that the students might record their impressions
of Baxter's personality. Sixteen personality characteris
tics were included. The middle column listed the desirable
or "about right" gradation, with the left hand column
showing "too little" and the right hand column showing "too
much" of that specific personality trait. As the creator
of the inventory explained:
This list is constructed to demonstrate a use
ful personality concept, namely, that desirable
characteristics shade off into undesirable ones in
either direction: too much as well as too little.
. . . The human tendency to overdo a good thing
may turn your greatest strength into your greatest
weakness.^0
With sixty-nine subjects rating sixteen items,
1104 choices were possible; of these 1097 items were
checked by the students. Only overall generalizations of
the results are reported at this time; however, references
20
Personal interview with Dr. Milton Dickens, Los
Angeles, May 5, 1963.
66
to some of the specific findings from this survey will be
found in later chapters of this study where appropriate.
According to the results tabulated in Table 2, Baxter’s
television personality was especially attractive to this
group, with 918, or 84 per cent, of the checked items in
the middle or desirable column. The students apparently
felt that Baxter was a strong personality. Items with
sixty or more check marks out of the sixty-nine possible
included: friendly, confident, courteous, alert, forceful,
enthusiastic, direct, and original. If a criticism of
Baxter's personality, material, or presentation was evi
denced by the data it was that he consistently leaned in
the direction of "too much"; slightly less than 6 per cent
of the check marks appeared in the "too little" column.
Critical elements
The final, and probably the most important, pro
cedure was the analysis and evaluation of the characteris
tics of Baxter the Man, Baxter the Scholar, and Baxter the
Speaker and the synthesis among them in relation to the
television medium and the audiences.
TABLE 2
BAXTER’S PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS3 ACCORDING TO 69 STUDENTS
AT CALIFORNIA STATE COLLEGE AT LONG BEACH
Item
No.
Too Little N About Right N Too Much N
1 aloof 2 friendly 62 fawning 5
2 colorless 1 animated 54 showing off 8
3
ins incere 4 sincere 58 fanatical 7
4 nervous 5 confident 62 arrogant 2
5 ill-at-ease 3
poised 57 condescending 9
6
tactless 2 courteous 60 oily 7
7
listless 0 alert 60 tense 9
8 weak 1 forceful 60 bombastic 8
9 grim
6 humorous 56 a clown 7
10 poorly-informed 0 knows subject 57
a display of knowledge 11
CT>
■-J
TABLE 2--Continued
Item
No.
Too Little N About Right N Too Much N
11 fumbling 19 fluent 40 gushy 10
12 passive 2 enthusiastic 61 boisterous 6
13 eyes avoid listeners 5 direct 61 fixed stare 3
14 empty-headed 0 thoughtful 59 ponderous 10
15 dogmatic 12 open-minded 50 vacillating 7
16 banal 2 original 61 eccentric 6
Totals 64 918 115
Hilton Dickens, Speech: Dynamic Communication (2d ed.; New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, Inc., 1963), p. 341.
O '*
00
CHAPTER III
BAXTER THE MAN
Classical and modem rhetoricians have agreed that
the criticism of any speech event must include analysis of
the person who originates the immediate event. The analy
sis of such a person usually falls under the heading of
"ethos” in classical rhetoric, or "source" in modern com
munication analyses.
Regardless of the rhetorical approach, an inherent
danger in trying to describe and evaluate a person is that
the critic may develop no more than a list of traits. In
analyzing Baxter the Man, it seemed necessary and desirable
to create an appropriate list of his personal characteris
tics. As mentioned in the preceding chapter an attempt was
made, however, to create and to report these characteris
tics within a dynamic context. In other words, the writer
sought at all times to keep in mind the living picture of
Baxter. At all times the mental image was there--pictures
69
70
of Baxter performing on television, or lecturing to a
class, or giving a Christmas reading program, or pounding
the arm of a chair while being interviewed, or visiting the
Student Union to get a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and
a table where he could either talk with students or read
one of the books that he always seemed to carry in his
pockets, Baxter was visualized, not as a set of snapshots,
but as a living motion picture.
The "Picture" of Baxter
Frank C. Baxter was bora in 1896. He was educated
at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his
bachelor's and master's degrees, and had additional educa
tion at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He
was a teacher at the college level of poetry and English
literature for nearly forty years, has been married for
more than forty years, and is the father of two children.
As Baxter pointed out, the television teacher must
remember that he is a "picture . . . a two-dimensional
figure moving about the television screen, not a man behind
a desk talking" (C-19). The picture of Baxter that viewers
saw in 1953 was that of a man 58 years old, about six feet
tall, weighing approximately 195 pounds. Mrs. Baxter said
with amusement that the term most often used to describe
her husband was "bald or balding." On television, Baxter's
clothes were conservative and comfortable looking;
"tweedy," reported one magazine writer. Baxter's posture
could be described as alert and yet at ease. In moving
about the studio he gave the impression of physical vigor
held under restraint. Baxter's smile was natural and warm.
A majority of the students at California State College at
Long Beach who rated Baxter after viewing one kinescope
felt that he was friendly and sincere. When using humor he
gave the impression that his eyes were twinkling.
Baxter's appearance and general manner did not fit
any of the stereotypes with which he may have been compared
by the television audience. He did not resemble the hand
some movie hero, much less the scowling villain. Neither
did he typify the absent-minded professor, nor even the
kindly philosopher. He did not appear to be an actor,
orator, comedian, announcer, or commentator. He did not
seem to be exactly an amateur, neither did he seem to be
exactly a professional. He simply could not be conven
iently classified by "television type." He certainly did
not look like a man about to become a favorite of millions
of television viewers.
What then was he?
In order to answer this question it was necessary
to select arbitrarily certain personal qualities and to use
these terms as guidelines to learn more about Baxter the
Man. The personal qualities or characteristics were each
given names, chosen arbitrarily, even as it is admitted
that many other names or labels might have been selected.
Those chosen, however, were intended only as indicators to
let us examine Baxter the Man, and to help him to reveal
himself to us.
Enthusiasm
Baxter’s eagerness to share his appreciation of
Shakespeare and the warmth and zeal he exuded as he faced
his audience or class are obviously integral parts of his
personality. There seemed to be nothing false, nothing
forced in his enthusiasm; it was spontaneous and genuine.
Since "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm,”
according to Emerson, perhaps this is one of the keys to
his success.
Baxter gave of himself wholeheartedly to inject
drama and liveliness into his television programs. He
wanted to give his students more than the "bones, the
73
dates, the learned little facts about these things," he
wanted them to realize that literature was "an evaluation
of life" (C-18), something they must learn to "feel" and
to "understand" (C-18). "God! God!" he felt sometimes, as
he looked at the students in his classrooms, "Can they be
awakened to the wonder and tragedy and excitement of being
alive?" (B-5).
Such intensity denotes no ordinary pedantic ap
proach. It evinces an ardor of depth and warmth, a vital
desire to give of himself, to share. In the Foreword to
one of the study guides he wrote, "Let us . . . read these
plays as vital and fresh literary adventures. The lecturer
intends to read a great deal with you."^ Over and over in
his series on Hamlet he told his audience that he wanted
to arouse in them some of his own enthusiasm: "I want you
to . . . be able to translate the squiggles on the page
into pictures in your own awakened mind" (A-64). In an
interview he said, "this is a tremendous business" (B-5),
and added:
^Frank C. Baxter, "Shakespeare on TV" (unpublished
Study Guide for English 356a; The University of Southern
California in cooperation with Station KTHE--Channel 28
UHF, n.d.), p. 3. (Mimeographed.)
74
To extend people’s emotional eyes and let them
live more abundantly vicariously, through inter
preting for them the magic of the great words and
situations of a great artist like Shakespeare.
These are tremendous. (B-5)
He considered himself "lucky in that I've never had
to talk about anything that I wasn't excited about" (C-30).
But, as we shall see from the wide range of his interests,
it is perhaps more pertinent to wonder if Baxter was not
sufficiently enthusiastic about most events and people and
things that crossed his path to investigate further and
soon to be able to talk about any of them.
He loved to talk, and he did so with charm and
conviction and imagination. He used gestures plentifully
to emphasize his points, and believed it was "part of the
vibrance that I feel about the things that I must talk
about" (C-30). In fact, he deplored any kind of sham, and
emphasized that he had never consciously used any "tricks."
"If I have," he said sincerely, "God help me, they're
entirely instinctive" (C-31).
He was undoubtedly quite consciously aware of the
need to share his enthusiasm with his audience. In fact,
he remarked, "I think that the exciting people on televi
sion are rather hammy" (C-20). To emote, or overemote, was
to be a "ham,” which he believed himself to be, and said,
75
"I accept that happily" (C-20). His justification for this
overt enthusiasm was delightfully direct:
. . . say it as you will, I guess that I am a
ham in that I wear my heart on my sleeve. If I
read a verse that is moving, damn it, I am moved
by it, and I refuse to read it as if it were mere
ly printed ink words on a printed paper page.
(C-19)
Integrity
Despite his enthusiasm, we have seen that Baxter
deplored sham. His frank and open honesty was refreshing
and believable. His scholarship and his ability, as we
shall see in the next chapter, were of such depth and
breadth that he could make positive, unequivocal statements
and leave no area for question. Whatever comment he made
about the play, he believed it. These were his own evalu
ations; he was not quoting someone else's opinion unless he
specifically gave recognition to the original speaker.
Perhaps one of the best, and at the same time most
remarkable, indications of his integrity was his presenta
tion of Shakespeare's lines in Hamlet. Standing before the
television cameras with no sort of prompting, he talked,
as he said, to the "twenty to fifty" television technicians
on the set (C-16), rather than to the television audience
that he could not see. He read speeches, interrupted
76
himself with interpolations or explanations, and picked up
again the line that he had interrupted, with only infre
quent glances at the printed page. In other words, he was
sufficiently prepared from long study to be able to cite
passages and know where he was in those passages at all
times. Many are the speakers who have interrupted them
selves and then had to ask the audience, "Where was I?"
Not so with Baxter. Not only did he not ask the question,
but apparently he never even had to fumble for the place in
the play. He knew Shakespeare.
Many citations from the five Hamlet lectures could
be used to illustrate this ability. For example:
"Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,"
Horatio is the gentleman scholar from Wittenburg
who doesn't believe a word of all this; and he
laughs easily.
"Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy," (A-5)
The king says,
"It is most retrograde to our desire;"
which means "no," but very fancily.
"And we beseech you,”
he says, we
"bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,” (A-30)
"And I do doubt"
--which means "suspect" in Shakespeare nine times
out of ten; "I do suspect"--
"the hatch and the disclose" (A-120)
And this delightful interpolation:
"With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,"
One merry eye, and one weeping one, which is an
interesting trick,
"As 1twere with a defeated joy," (A-21)
In these examples Baxter's ideas and thoughts were
so intertwined with Shakespeare's words that they tumbled
out in splendid rhetoric, and it was necessary to consult
the printed version of the text of Shakespeare which lay on
Baxter's lectern to separate Baxter from the Bard.
Baxter's inherent honesty was evident, too, in his
personal evaluations of the characters in Hamlet. For
example, he said of Claudius, the King, "But Claudius is,
in a sense, admirable, this dark man, because he doesn't
rationalize . . (A-137). He pitied and liked, because
he understood "the humble little puppet, Ophelia" (A-155):
"this is a dear, gentle, rather simple, loving girl" (A-
73). On the other hand, his description of Polonius was
almost vehement: "I think Polonius is awful" (A-50); he is
"a double-crosser, a schemer, a plotter . . . an old spider
78
in the middle of a web" (A-51). Baxter's defense of his
opinion was, "My mind is made up. . . . I'm a simple soul
and see only one side of this" (A-50). Laertes was de
fended by Baxter against some of the acting or directing
which has in the past, he said, portrayed the young chap as
"just a sort of nuisance, gadfly"; Baxter disagreed with
this: "He's a splendid stalwart young fellow" (A-23). Ham
let, of course, is the principal character, and throughout
his analysis of the play may be seen Baxter's keen alert
ness to discover and reveal the amazing complexities of the
young Prince of Denmark.
Inevitably, "It takes one to know one," and so from
the personalities of these characters (which will be
analyzed in more detail in Chapter IV), we can discover the
traits that Baxter admired, those he understood, and those
he disliked. This discovery revealed some of the facets of
Baxter's own integrity.
In one of the interviews Baxter said bluntly, "I
think a teacher . . . must never be a faker" (C-40)--a
statement expressive of his dedication to his integrity as
an educator. Because the relationship of his many attri
butes to his successful career as a teacher will be dealt
with in detail later, only one example of his attitude
79
concerning honesty in his lecturing and teaching is in
cluded here:
To be meretricious, to be evasive, to be glit
tering in a way that conceals meaning is not to
play fair with the materials that you read or
about which you speak . . . These are sins just as
truly as great as any of the seven deadly of the
ancient canon. (B-10)
Thus Baxter's integrity lay on him like a mantle;
it was an inherent part of his television ethos and was
manifested in his direct approach to the presentation of
his material.
Sensitivity
As already asserted, the characteristics only of a
robot could be compartmentalized. Integrity in an alive
and vital person is inevitably blended into sensitivity,
not divided from it--just as both are blended with all
other qualities. So it is that the line drawn between two
traits by the exigencies of detailed descriptions of cer
tain personality characteristics may be useful for purposes
of analysis yet be somewhat static in its concept. With
this understanding, then, let us see how Baxter's integrity
blended into his highly developed sensitivity.
Baxter delineated for us his own belief in his
sensitivity. As he brought his series of programs on
80
Shakespeare's works to a close, he told his audience:
. . . it seems to me a man would be very
insensitive who, having gone through these great
things, would not feel the power and the magic and
the wonder of this great man. Not a learned man!
Not even technically a gentleman. A very humble
fellow. But what he expressed in nature! Who
reached out, and surveying the world of men and
women, of ambition and love and hate, gave us a
great commentary on these things which rule men's
lives. (A-156)
Obviously Baxter was not "insensitive," for that he felt
the power and the magic and the wonder of Shakespeare was
evident in his love and understanding of Hamlet, and his
grasp of its meaning and beauty.
Each detail that he believed might escape the
attention of any man or woman in his audience was pointed
out, carefully, exactly, and yet with a gay abandon and a
rich enjoyment of the wealth and poetry available to the
discerning. There was nothing cut-and-dried in his
approach, for, since this is poetry, Baxter believed it
was, "in the last analysis, a matter of overtones and sug
gestions" (B-2).
To criticize poetry one must be, to the best
power that works within him, a poet. For like the
original artist who reflected life and made it
significant to his hearers, to his listeners, in
short, he has to be as truly an artist as the man
who created the work of art. (B-2)
He believed that a teacher had to feel "with all of his
81
being, with all that has ever happened to him, with all
that he is, those things he would expound and make clear to
his listeners” (B-2). Teaching, he added, "means that one
has embarked” upon something "almost priestly in its func
tion" (B-5). Very gently he said, "in Shakespeare, I found
my heart's home” (B-4).
"Hamlet,” said Baxter, "is the lonely intellectual
in a most unintellectual world" (A-155). Was he looking
into his own mirror? In part, perhaps, but only in part.
For Baxter the Man had too obvious and too great a love and
understanding of people to be lonely in the sense of an
absence of companionship. But a lonely intellectual? He
was a scholar who had devoted a lifetime to developing an
understanding of poetry, of the dramatic art, as well as of
a number of other arts. Undoubtedly this set him apart
from the majority of men, apart from the masses who com
posed his television audience and whom he called "the ran
dom, mixed bag of people" (C-20). It would have been Bax
ter's own sensitivity that built the wall that kept others
out and made the man inside lonely. He spumed the intel
lectual scholar who cherished scholarship, in quotation
marks, for its own sake. "Most scholarship in America,"
he said, "is a label of respectability worn by . . .
82
mediocrity as a badge" (C-28). And again, "I deplore
people who go to conventions because, as they tell you,
they want to meet the people in the field" (C-28). Then,
too, there could have been little intellectual rapport
between Baxter and the students who flooded his classes or
the audiences who reportedly sat enthralled before his
televised lectures--these were in no wise his intellectual
peers. So perhaps, even probably, it was out of his own
deep intellectual loneliness that he recognized in Hamlet
"a lonely intellectual."
Sensitivity can touch a man in many ways. Baxter,
we have said, liked people; this was shown by his frequent
identification, his "you and X" approach, his eagerness to
have his audience understand what he was giving to them.
Yet, in his first Hamlet lecture, he digressed in his char
acteristic way to reveal himself briefly to his audience:
Now I've always resented people who shambled
up to me and said, "Brother, can you--?" followed
by some query. "Brother!" Brotherhood is some
thing not easily granted, it seems to me. I doubt
if I should even like to have them call me cousin
. . . "Brother, can you spare a dime?" Well, the
dime may be available, but not brotherhood, if you
don't mind. Let us claim only the common brother
hood of men. (A-26)
Thus spoke the sensitive man: acknowledging a universal
brotherhood but not wanting to mingle too closely with the
83
individual.
Complexity
No one of the compartments into which the writer
consigned Baxter bulged with as much material as the one
labeled "complexity." The experiences in his life, the
broad range of his studies and his readings, his limitless
liaisons with hobbies and crafts and arts and interests,
and his blotting-paper-like absorption of everything he saw
and heard made of Baxter a man of remarkable heterogeneity.
It had apparently been his lifelong belief that
this was necessary to be a success as a teacher: "the art
of teaching must represent experience passed through the
filter of a personality" (B-l). "I have seen men die," he
said, "and I've begotten children, and between those two
epoch-making parts of any man's life, much has happened to
me” (B-6).
The interviews with Baxter brought to light some
of his varied experiences, which supplemented those re
vealed by his lectures. While an analysis of these two
sources can furnish justification for attaching a "complex
man" label to Baxter, it is unrealistic to believe that
such a list is more than a partial record.
Education
From the time he was ten years old, Baxter earned a
living "at many strange things" (B-4). While he was still
attending "at least half a dozen very bad and separated,
unimportant schools in Philadelphia" (C-21), he went to
work as "a water boy--a cloakroom boy--under Oscar Hammer-
stein's Manhattan Opera House in Philadelphia" (B-4), where
n
he "carried glasses of water to singers in the wings."
Far from remembering that experience as one of hardship or
drudgery, he said, "All those nights--and meeting this
flamboyant dream which is opera. I began to see the wonder
and the magic of acting" (B-4) . He had "one semester of
high school" (C-21) and then went to work for a "big cor
poration in Philadelphia" as a bookkeeper (C-22). During
this time he went to night school where he took "Latin and
French and geometry and college algebra" (C-22) to the dis
gust of his employers who thought that he should be taking
bookkeeping or accounting.
World War I took him away from his formal studies
but not from his education, for his report was, "I saw many
men who should not have died under various circumstances.
^"Sentimentalist," Time, December 26, 1949, p. 32.
All that was a most tremendous experience for me" (B-5).
On his discharge from the Army Medical Corps of the Ameri
can Expeditionary Forces in 1919, he discovered a notice
in an "old newspaper" that "the University of Pennsylvania
would accept any veterans whose education had been inter
rupted," and on twenty minutes notice, "in a fit of san
ity," took the tests which let him enroll as a student on a
conditional basis (C-22).
During his undergraduate years at the University of
Pennsylvania, two experiences left especially deep impres
sions on him. One was the Philomathean Society, a literary
society composed of thirty-five or forty men, which he
called "the greatest single thing in my education" (C-3).
He attributed his "readiness of speech" to "that speaking
and talking and the sharpening of our minds against the
toughest of stuff ever designed for that purpose, the sharp
and tough minds of other people" (C-4). The other experi
ence had to do with acting and the fact that he "was in all
sorts of things" including "many one-act plays" and "some
larger productions" (C-5). During his junior year, Robert
Mantel came to Philadelphia and Baxter "suped" in a produc
tion of Shakespeare's The Tempest. As he expressively told
it: "Thanks to the second grave digger having taken an
86
'alcoholiday,' as Freud says, I became second grave digger"
(C-6).
He received his bachelor of arts degree, summa cum
laude, in 1923, and went on to earn his master's degree at
the University of Pennsylvania. While working toward this
latter degree, he was a full-time instructor in the English
Department and also was "teaching half the time at Swarth-
more" (C-22), a small college nearby which then and now
has one of the highest academic reputations in the world.
During these years a number of areas opened up for
him. One was his first radio experience, a job with
"station WOO Wanamakers," where he gave programs consisting
"largely of reading recipes, weather and local news notes,
and advice to the love-lorn" (C-7). Another was the initi
ation of his Christmas readings, which began with Dickens'
Christmas Carol, a custom which he carried on through the
years, "just telling students or posting on the board that
I would read" (C-12). The popularity of these readings
grew until, in about 1939 or 1940, it was necessary to hold
them in the University of Southern California's Bovard
Auditorium, which was crowded annually with alumni and
their friends, many of whom traveled from considerable
distances away. As a result, Baxter "became something of
87
an institution at SC--an institution where there are no
institutions, really, just a few traditions," and he seemed
to enjoy the fact that he could refer to himself as "a sort
of hoary, antique tradition" (C-12). Yet another area
which opened for Baxter during his years at the University
of Pennsylvania was his first exposure to the study of
Shakespeare:
I came under the spell of the famous Felix
Schelling, the great Dr. Schelling, who was one
of the early American Shakespeare scholars. He
was one of the giants at Pennsylvania in my
undergraduate and graduate days, and I took many
many years of Shakespeare with him. (C-24)
In 1926, newly married to "a red-headed lady from
Germantown" (C-23), he went to England where he received
his Doctorate from the University of Cambridge, as a member
q
of Trinity College. During this time he studied with "the
great Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and various other people at
Cambridge who were Shakespeareans," and took every oppor
tunity to see Shakespeare's plays, "amateur, semiprofes
sional, and professional companies" (C-24).
In 1929 he had another year of graduate work "in
connection with a teaching assistantship at Berkeley" after
His Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge
is dated 1932 according to Who's Who in America, 1964-1965.
88
which, in 1930, he "came to the University of Southern
California" (C-23). For the next thirty years Baxter
taught in that University's English Department. In an
interview he stated that it was not until a year or two
before his "Shakespeare on TV" that he had an opportunity
to teach the Shakespeare classes because "these courses are
vested in someone who has had them for a long time" (C-24)„
This comment was especially revealing of Baxter's love of
and enthusiasm for his educational work, because a check of
the University of Southern California bulletins of courses
revealed that he first taught a course entitled "Shakes
peare and the Elizabethan Drama" during 1941-42 and con
tinued to teach the course each year until his retirement.
Thus although in 1950 Life reported that "... students
have to line up early to be sure of a place in Baxter's
Shakespeare classes,"^ the professor's recollection during
the interview in 1962 was that he "did not teach Shakes
peare until relatively recent times--perhaps ten years
ago" (C-24).
In 1961, on his retirement from active teaching,
^"Great Teachers," Life, October 16, 1950, p.
109.
89
Baxter was free to continue his own education--learning
more about the broad fields of people and of literature.
Television
Television has contributed enormously to the com
plexity of Baxter's life, and he has contributed to the
complex medium called television. In 1955, when President
Fred D. Fagg, Jr., of the University of Southern Califor
nia, conferred on Dr. Baxter an honorary degree of Doctor
of Letters, the citation read, in part:
Long before the advent of television he was
known among his colleagues as a man of unusual
talent, and among his students as a superlative
teacher. Today this acclaim is echoed across the
country wherever there is a television set. . . .
Two years ago he demonstrated that his ability to
turn a phrase from wit to wisdom in the space of a
hyphen was as effective before a television camera
as before a class. Since then, he has won nearly
every award given for the best educational program
on television.^
His first television experience dated back to the
1930's, during the "early experimental days before there
was anything but closed circuit" (C-13). When he began his
"Shakespeare on TV" in 1953, it was "the first college
^Willis S. Duniway, "News Bureau release on Dr.
Frank C. Baxter," News Bureau, University of Southern
California, December, 1960, p. 2.
90
course to be taught on TV for academic credit in Southern
California."^ During the next three semesters, he taught
"nearly seventy programs of Shakespeare, of forty-five
minutes each" (C-14).^ The series was later offered for
credit by other colleges, among them Mills College, Oak
land, California; the University of Hawaii; and the Uni
versity of San Francisco through the use of kinescopes. In
addition, his series has been broadcast and rebroadcast on
many of the nation's educational television stations as
O
detailed in Chapter I. As a result, it is Baxter's proud
boast:
I was to have--and this seems incredible, but
it’s true--that I was to have the distinction of
having talked to more people about Shakespeare
than any person who ever lived. (C-14)
Following his successful presentation of Shakes
peare on television, Baxter went on to other local and
national television series, and the years from 1953 up to
6Ibid., p. 1.
^Programs about Shakespeare in his other series
were probably included in Baxter's figure. KNXT originated
54 programs of "Shakespeare on TV." The size of the re
broadcast series varied. N.E.T. stated that there were 47
programs (see supra, p. 7), and Rummell mentioned "the
entire series of 45 Shakespeare programs" (Frances V. Rum
mell, "Box Office Professor," Television Age, August, 1956,
p. 112).
8See supra, pp. 6-7, 17-18.
91
the time of this writing have found him frequently on the
nation's television screens.
On April 11, 1956, he was the first individual to
receive the George Foster Peabody Award for television
education, presented for distinguished achievement in
television in 1955. The Peabody Award has been described
variously as "the Pulitzer prize of the Fifth Estate," "the
prestige award of the industry," and "the goal of every
producer in radio and television."^
Through the decade following his initial telecast
of "Shakespeare on TV," many television awards as well as
other types of awards have been bestowed upon Baxter, in
addition to those given to him for related achievements:
1953 The Sylvania Award for the nation's best local
educational program in 1953.
1953-1960 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy
awards five times for the best local public
service or educational programs.
1953, 1959 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy
awards for the outstanding male personality on
television in the Los Angeles area.
^Duniway, op. cit., p. 1.
1954
1954
1955
1955
1956
1956
1957
1959
1959
1960
National Association for Better Radio and
Television for best educational and information
program on television in the nation in 1954.
Tau Kappa Alpha, national forensic honor soci
ety, "Speaker-of-the-Year."
University of Southern California, honorary
Doctor of Letters degree.
National Citizens Committee for Educational
Television, citation for an evening of poetry
reading in the Library of Congress on March 28.
Los Angeles College of Osteopathic Physicians
and Surgeons, honorary Doctor of Fine Arts
degree.
Wisdom Magazine, achievement award.
Ripon College, Wisconsin, honorary Doctor of
Letters degree.
Elmira College, New York, honorary Doctor of
Letters degree.
Toastmasters International, the first Golden
Gavel Award for "service in bettering the arts
of communication.1 1
Hollywood's Walk of Fame, a coral star.
93
1962 The International Senior League, on "Teacher
Remembrance Day," Apple of Gold as Teacher of
the Nation.
1963 La Salle College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
honorary Doctor of Letters degree.
Baxter twice won the award from the Institute of
Education by Radio and Television at The Ohio State Univer
sity. Other awards were received from the Adult Education
Association of Los Angeles; American Shakespeare Festival
Theatre and Academy of Connecticut; Benjamin Franklin Award
of the Los Angeles Printing Week Council; Brandeis Univer
sity National Women's Committee; California Federation of
Women's Clubs; DuPont Foundation Citation; Los Angeles
Junior Chamber of Commerce; New Jersey State Fair (two Blue
Ribbons for TV); Optimist International of Los Angeles;
Rotary Club of Los Angeles; The Shakespeare Club of New
York City; TV Magazine; TV-Radio Life Magazine; and during
1962 illuminated scrolls were presented to Baxter by the
California State Assembly, the Board of Supervisors of Los
Angeles County, and the Council of the City of Los Ange
les in commendation of his career as a college teacher; and
Senator Kuchel had a similar statement of approval read
94
into the Congressional Record.-*-®
That part of the initial success of "Shakespeare on
TV" was due to a hunger on the part of people for cultural
programs, as Baxter himself modestly explained it was
accepted with reservations (C-38). Too few strictly cul
tural programs have achieved sufficient popularity on com
mercial television to warrant their continuance. Not so
with the Baxter programs. After his initial series on
Shakespeare, he went on to make several others, most out
standing of which was the "Now and Then" series. The vari
ous series of lectures have been rebroadcast in whole or in
part over educational television stations again and again
through the years. As recently as the fall of 1964, for
example, "The Written Word" was telecast on the Los Angeles
educational television station, KCET.
Few men since Baxter have contributed so effective
ly to educational television and it is doubtful that any in
this field have been so richly rewarded in popularity,
acclaim, and recognition--truly an amazing record and one
which attests the complexity of Baxter the Man.
^ Ibid., p. 3 and supplemental notes.
95
Artistic pursuits
A list of the many complex facets of Baxter the Man
must inevitably include his interests in and his contribu
tions to art. In his unpretentious way, Baxter referred to
the fact that one form of his artistic ability helped to
pay his undergraduate way through the University of Penn
sylvania :
Because I had always been able to draw a lit
tle bit, I found myself drawing pictures for the
zoological museum, and later for the archeological
museum, resulting in three trips to the Painted
Desert. (C-22)
That this was a gross understatement of his ability is
almost self-evident. Unless his "pictures" for the museums
merited recognition, it is not likely that the University
of Pennsylvania would have paid a student in the English
Department for these drawings in preference to a student
from the Art Department or one studying archeology. That
his ability to draw is considerably more than "a little
bit" was evident, too, in the many sketches and pictures
with which he illustrated his lectures and his television
programs. Also, the walls of his Pasadena home have sev
eral fine examples of Baxter's ability in oil painting.
In addition, for many years he has been a collector
of art, especially pictures which depict the people or
96
things of the Renaissance, medieval, and Elizabethan peri
ods. In his library, and in fact throughout his spacious
old home, are a myriad of examples of his interest in
specialized forms of art collecting. Some of these, too,
found their way into his television programs as illustra
tions and visuals.
Drama was another of the arts in which Baxter had
an abiding interest through the years. Beginning with his
early acting experiences at the University of Pennsylvania,
he has been either on the stage or in the audience of
uncounted and uncountable productions. An interesting
side light of this interest was evident throughout the
Hamlet lectures as he frequently referred to various pro
ductions of Hamlet that he had seen, and compared or criti
cized them. In the third of the Hamlet series, he brought
to the studio some of the old playbills he had collected in
order to give his student-audience a visualization of the
"many strange-looking Hamlets" of the past. One, he said,
was from the nineteenth century, and another was dated
about 1850 (A-67). Such collector's items do not become a
part of a man's library without considerable search and
money, and it was therefore reasonable to assume that
Baxter made an effort to acquire them, and then treasured
them for their historical value.
The making of models was another of Baxter's crea
tive and artistic interests and one that has been given
relatively wide publicity. In 1955, for example, Popular
Science wrote an account of his model of Shakespeare's
Globe Theatre, titled, "TV Professor Makes His Own
11
Props." In addition, his working model of a printing
press of about the year 1500, which he used in another
television series, "The Written Word," also was publicized
in a national magazine."^
On a visit to his home, the writer inspected a
large former bedroom that had been converted into a work
shop, equipped with work benches, drawing board, and a
variety of tools. The garage contained all sorts of mater
ials, such as metals, wood, paint, and other necessities
for handicraft work.
Baxter's miniature Globe Theatre, the model to
which he referred frequently during "Shakespeare on TV,"
was an indication of the complexity of his artistry. Each
ll"Tv Professor Makes His Own Props," Popular Sci
ence, CLXI (March, 1955), 133.
I O
iJtDuniway, op. cit. , p. 3.
98
detail of the Theatre was researched painstakingly, and
the construction had been a rewarding avocation for over
twenty years. Throughout this long period, whenever his
reading revealed any new detail which he believed to be
authentic, he incorporated it into his model. Baxter loved
his little reproduction which, in his mind, obviously
became almost tantamount to the original Globe Theatre.
Often as he pointed to his model during his lectures, his
admiration for the original theatre and its miniature
counterpart was evident: "marvelous, that old stage in its
simplicity" (A-47); "the magic of this old stage" (A-136);
"I think it shows the old stage in its versatility very
interestingly indeed” (A-57); "as always, this stage will
tell us, this theatre will tell us, without benefit of
program" (A-49); and "if you'll think of this old stage to
which I have most wistfully sent you time and time again"
(A-130).
The miniature Shakespearean figures he used in
order to illustrate the characters in the plays revealed
Baxter’s ingenuity, professional craftsmanship, and his
attention to important details. He had purchased a set of
toy lead soldiers. Using their basic form, he reshaped and
repainted these toys until he had created some 300
99
beautiful little doll-like figurines with revealing details
of costume and character. These he moved around on the
stage of his little Globe Theatre in illustration of the
placement and juxtaposition of the characters.
His awareness of the value of these art forms--his
models, his charts, his drawings, his collection of mem-
orabilia--to his television performances was part of Bax
ter’s empathic identification. He dwelt on this in one of
his interviews:
I've specialized more than anyone else in the
country, I fancy, in the range of visuals, using
miniatures and models and interesting effects,
trying to make colorful and vibrant physical vis
uals that would illuminate the point; never as
gimmicks, but always somehow as necessary and
vital illuminations of what is said. (C-20)
A man as versatile and enthusiastic as Baxter could
not confine himself to the art forms discussed here, but
these were the ones most closely related to this study's
attempt to evaluate "Shakespeare on TV" and Baxter's con
tribution to its success. Surely they illustrate his com
plexity of artistic interests and abilities.
Baxter's reading
"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready
man.” We have seen previously how Baxter exemplified and
100
practiced the second part of Bacon's epigram, beginning
with his years in the Philomathean Society: "We talked,
how we talked!" (C-3); it was also pertinent to consider
the epigram's first thought. For this, Baxter's eloquent
oration on reading which he delivered during an interview
in his home is worth reproducing in full. The words
spewed forth in response to a question concerning any sug
gestions he might give to young teachers asked to teach on
television:
Love and respect reading. You can only read
twenty thousand books if you read a book a day for
seventy years. In the Library of Congress there
are now perhaps thirteen million books. In the
British Museum perhaps fifteen million books. The
Moscow Library has eleven million books. But you
can only read twenty thousand if you read a book a
day. How little that is! The answer, in America,
is to read none at all, for only one out of two
adults in America reads one book per year, al
though there have never been books available so
cheaply and easily. The young teacher should read
everything that he can--not in his specific sector
alone, but to get that width and breadth, depth of
knowledge about this whole world. Comprehensive
ly, the world of art, of science, of history, of
biography, of government--everything to make him
self as rounded as possible. I'm very tired of
the process that puts in the schools people who
are curiously one-sided, and poly-faceted in their
--their disinterest. God, the one-sided people!
I think the young teacher should be articulate
and, as I say, respecting his language he should
be well-read and as well-rounded as he can.
(C-41-42)
101
The words, although pointed specifically toward
the teacher, might have applied as well to all men and
women. Baxter realized this, and expanded his theme as he
told about the reading habits of a man he said he knew--
almost undeniably a biographical revelation:
I think a man should carry a book with him at
all times and never be at a loss for something to
read. It's amazing how much you get read. You'll
never read the whole thirteen million, but you may
approach the twenty thousand. Many people, of
course, have read more than that. I know a man
who was once able to read two books a day. In
recent years, for one reason or another--I shall
not give you his name--he reads about five a week,
but that's about as far as he can get. He's very
humble, but he may make his twenty thousand, given
a few years of comfortable retirement. (C-42)
Baxter's colleagues at the University of Southern
California frequently commented on his voracious reading
habits. As one said, "The pocket book must have been
designed for men like Baxter," for many of them noted that
he used every spare moment to take a book from a baggy
pocket and loose himself in its contents.
In his home, his library was carefully catalogued,
with books related to each other precisely located. The
range of titles and subjects was enormous, and when he
became interested in some topic he apparently collected and
read all he could find about it. When he wanted to know
102
more about a man who had attracted his attention, this
bibliophile collected everything he could which had been
written by and about the individual, and he knew instantly
where to go to refer to the material. For example, the
section of his library on words, word usage, quotations,
concordances, encyclopedias, and dictionaries of all kinds
covered about ten feet of wall space with bookshelves from
floor to ceiling--a total of approximately eighty square
feet containing probably a thousand volumes. Asked about
this area, Baxter estimated that he had perhaps three
hundred books in the general category of dictionaries.
His own perusal of books, however, is only one side
of any discussion of Baxter's reading, for there was
another vast and vital segment of this man's interest in
books: his reading aloud to others and his urging of
others to do more reading. He wanted people everywhere to
know and love books, to know and love reading. He chal
lenged them to go further in their own reading and was
delighted when they accepted the challenge.
In his home area of Southern California, Baxter's
Christmas readings were widely acclaimed as proven by the
attendance at them. This attendance increased year by year
as those who had heard him once returned, spreading their
103
enthusiasm so that they brought friends who, in turn, also
came back and brought their friends. "Very gratifying," he
commented as„ he told about the fact that "townspeople
called up, so that our phone was always busy early in
December with people calling up, asking when the Christmas
readings would come" (C-12-13). As we have seen, these
readings, or Baxter, or both became "an institution" at the
University of Southern California. Beginning with his
reading aloud every Christmas season from Dickens' Christ
mas Carol, "a book which I know pretty well by heart now
from long immersion" (C-ll), he read in "honor of Christmas
and for my own delight" (C-ll). Gradually, he said, he
began to include other readings until, "about twenty-three
years ago I began to read prose and verse around Christmas,
about Christmas" (C-ll). About ten years after he expanded
his readings, his public acceptance and acclaim was great
enough and widely-enough known that Time sent a reporter
to attend the annual tradition. Part of the story that
resulted was as follows:
Along University Avenue at the University of
Southern California one afternoon last week, some
100 students huddled in the rain, waiting for the
voice that would soon come through the loudspeaker.
Inside Bovard Auditorium, 1,500 more waited in
their seats. Finally, Professor Frank C. Baxter,
104
dressed in a 20-year-old dark blue suit, mounted
the podium and took his place behind a lectern
piled with books. As the murmuring and chattering
stopped, the professor began to read.
In twelve years, Frank Baxter's annual Christ
mas readings had become a tradition at U.S.C. A
pink-faced, bouncy man who gives his readings his
dramatic best, he has had enthusiastic audiences
since he began.
Whatever he read, his audience loved it. For
that matter students approved most everything Frank
Baxter did, in or out of his Shakespeare class.
"If you haven't taken a course from Dr. Baxter,"
the Daily Trojan last week declared, "you haven't
been to college." U.S.C. students had voted him
the man "who should teach all the classes in the
» * . I l l
unxversity. ■ L- )
Referring to the challenge to read more books that
he sometimes flung at people, he told of having piqued "the
imagination and the curiosity of people" in one of his
television lectures when he talked "on a certain book one
time," and received the next day an "irate telegram from a
bookseller" in Denver, Colorado: '"For God's sake never
mention book without telling us advance. Love.1" (C-38).
It excited and pleased him to realize that he had stirred
men to further reading:
Just think, once I gave some programs on Homer,
the Iliad and the Odyssey, and had eleven hundred
requests for the reading list which I offered. A
reading list on the Homeric world. That's what
■^"Sentimentalist," op. cit.. p. 30.
105
you do. You drop pebbles into pools, and the
ripples go out. Some pools are jellied and vis
cous and you get very few ripples. But somebody
out there gets the ripples, or X wouldn't get the
mail that I do . . . (C-38)
He was successful in his readings. His mail was
one of the proofs; the attendance at his lectures was an
other; and another was the award given to him in 1955 for
"an evening of poetry reading in the Library of Congress,"
by the National Citizens Committee for Educational Televi
sion.
And, of course, over and above any of these sub
stantiations of Baxter's versatility in his ability to read
aloud was his reading of Shakespeare in one television
series, and his reading of the world's great literature
over CBS television for a full year in his "Now and Then"
series.
If "reading maketh a full man," here indeed was a
man replete, a man catholic in his reading habits, a lover
of books and reading, a man who exemplified the complexity
he discerned and pointed out in others.
Philosophy
When an attempt was made to discover from his lec
tures and the interviews some aspects of Baxter's personal
106
philosophy, only the surface could be seen. The depths
beneath the surface were probably beyond the sight of this
investigator, who was concerned primarily with Baxter's
contribution through his "Shakespeare on TV" program. Yet
no study of Baxter the Man could be complete without an
attempt, however feeble, to describe his philosophy as
revealed in these lectures.
Baxter's admiration for intelligence, and his impa
tience with stupidity, were a phase of his philosophy of
life, frequently evidenced in these lectures. "To think is
to embrace complexity in this world, and to accept it as
one of the endless and. characterizing phenomena of human
existence" (A-37), said Baxter, as he belittled those peo
ple "who make up their minds too quickly" because they
"very often have very little to work with" (A-37). "The
trouble with Hamlet," Baxter pointed out, with a jibing
touch of irony, "is that he has too much mind. He wants to
be sure he's a reasonable man." Then, with apparent self-
revelation: "He's what men ought to be . . . he's a gentle
man and a scholar" (A-80). On this same theme Baxter some
times went as far as sarcasm, as when he said, "It's dan
gerous to think, and it's very uncomfortable. It's un-
American, so don't think." (A-36).
107
Baxter appeared to reveal much of his own ethics as
he analyzed the characters in the play. Some of these
aspects were mentioned previously. For example, his views
on integrity were evident in his discussion of Claudius.
At least three times in the lectures he stated his admira
tion for the king because he was a villain, knew he was a
villain, and did not rationalize his villainy. As Baxter
put it, "We admire . . . a man who dares to face up to
himself, no rationalizations whatsoever" (A-20). He
expressed this thought, too, on another occasion:
A knowledge of evil sometimes is very handy in
dealing with the world as it is; a consciousness
of one's own sin is calculated, I think, to be
very valuable to a man at times. (B-10)
On the other hand he castigated Polonius and felt that "the
old duffer" was "cruel and stupid in his attitude toward
people" (A-68).
Baxter greatly admired and respected Hamlet, "the
greatest of all" (A-155). In his ability to see and like
the weaknesses of the Prince of Denmark, to see and under
stand and forgive the misfortunate Queen, to feel compas
sion for the King--"we'll be sorry for him before we're
through" (A-19)--and to pity "gentle, rather simple" (A-73)
Ophelia, he displayed an unusual acceptance of people as
108
they are. As they revealed elements of Baxter’s personal
philosophy of life, these character analyses also showed
his compassion for people, his empathy. Referring to the
plot Polonius was laying, Baxter said, "And this is so
real! How this aches, almost, when you think of it! The
power of people to explain and excuse themselves to them
selves" (A-77).
Baxter believed that great speakers and great ar
tists were effective because "they were a mixture of good
and evil" (B-10), and this remark may have revealed part of
Baxter's self-awareness. Good and evil, he thought,
existed in practically all men, including himself. He
called both Claudius and Hamlet "complex" men: Claudius was
mostly bad--but not all bad; and Hamlet was mostly good--
but not all good--for both are complex men.
Often he said of himself, "I am a simple man.” In
its broadest meaning, Baxter undoubtedly was a simple man.
Yet compared with the people whom he was teaching, Baxter
was not simple. His lectures showed that he had experienced
deeply and remembered well the grist that came to his mill,
he had ground it exceedingly fine and stored it in compart
ments that were so organized that he could release any part
of the material as it was needed. He drew "upon all that
109
he has known" (B-2), and had "so to speak, an underlying
pyramid of facts" (B-ll). Thus the lectures refuted Bax
ter's self-evaluation that he was a simple man and con
signed him to the category of a "complex" man--even as he
so consigned Hamlet and Claudius.
In both the third and the final Hamlet lectures
Baxter mentioned Bertrand Russell's reference to "people
who confuse a moral vocabulary with a good life" (A-67).
This double mention suggests the possibility that Baxter
may have pondered this thought, accepting it as an apt
expression of an idea that he had long held. The most
probable inference was that he strongly believed that it
was far better to be good than to talk good sentiments.
"One often finds that he can bear insults with more
equanimity than compliments, I think" (A-125). This state
ment appeared to be autobiographical and probably rein
forced Baxter's "I am a humble man.” Often in both the
lectures and the interviews Baxter indicated his humility.
For one example, there is the reference to the vast number
of books he will never read--books that he probably consid
ered worthwhile but for which he would never, even in his
"comfortable retirement," find the time. For another, he
paid sincere compliments to the great men who had been his
110
teachers in his younger years. Name-dropping? Perhaps, in
some degree, for Baxter was human and probably was justi
fiably proud of these associations. He appeared to relish
the awards which had come to him, too. It is likely that
he often had to "bear compliments" and may have experienced
embarrassment as some of the flowery language which accom
panied the giving of the honors. Most sincere people sel
dom feel that they have merited effusive compliments and
tend to deprecate them. The "equanimity" that withstands
the ego-inflation of compliments belongs only to the ma
ture, and Baxter appeared to have a considerable measure of
both maturity and humility.
"To thine own self be true" is one of Polonius
lines that Baxter realized would be familiar to his audi
ence, and he developed the thought in his own way. "Be
true to what?" Baxter asked. "The dream of yourself? I
would accept that but I say you can't push this very far"
(A-54). How much can be read into this brief statement!
Be true to your own dream, Baxter seemed to be saying, but
only up to a point. His experience with Life, with a capi
tal L, had given him the wisdom to know that dreams have
their value but that no one can live only in his dreams.
This was pointed up in his reference to his lack of
Ill
scholarly articles in scholarly journals:
Not that I haven't burned my energy up--be-
cause no one has lived energetically and more
abundantly than 1 have, no one has done more 4
things than I have, touched more lives, of that
I am sure--but it's just that that sort of thing
has never appealed to me. To another man it might
appeal, and to another man, the "B Minuses" who
haunt us, will find in that some rationalization
for their existence. And I'm glad they have it--
because they have so little else, some of them.
(C-29)
Thus, he felt that men must temper their desire to be true
to themselves and to their dreams, with the admission that
there are chores in daily living that must be attended to
also. Be true to yourself, and to the things that appeal
to you--yes, but also be true to reality when it is
demanded of you.
Baxter's philosophy, as we have seen, included an
aspiration to stir in others a desire for education, for
growth. This was one of his dreams and, although he had
attempted to be true to this dream, he had learned that he
could not force such a desire in others and so he had had
to compromise:
. . . I'd like you to read this play. If
you'll just listen to me--oh, that's thin stuff,
but I hope that in listening to me . . . you may
understand it. (A-65)
He held out the material to them and could only hope that
112
his student-audience would accept it.
Baxter was generous with his time, with his know
ledge, and with himself. Surely he received, too, in the
admiration and rewards that came pouring in on him from all
sides. But these latter were the results of his having
given first. He gave everything within himself freely,
largely, putting his heart and mind into making his lec
tures as entertaining and instructive as it was within his
power. He admitted as much again and again in the inter
views, and believed that this was necessary for every
teacher. But it was from his own habits of being generous
that he reaped whatever return he got. This apparently was
part of his credo, part of his enthusiasm, this desire to
give whatever was asked of him--and more.
Baxter seemed on the surface to be an intellectual,
a man widely educated both formally through his schooling
and informally through his extensive self-teaching. His
exposure to many thousands of people throughout his check
ered early life and his years as a teacher and lecturer
undoubtedly gave him an empathy, a warmth, and an under
standing of his fellow men which made him compassionate.
His contacts with people throughout this country and abroad
probably broadened his outlook. His contacts with the
113
characters who paraded through the books he read must have
helped the development of his broad outlook and his toler
ance to the point where "there is nothing either good or
bad but thinking makes it so." Baxter appeared to think
that things and people generally are good. This makes for
a wise man, a serene man, a comfortable man.
Summary
This chapter has looked at the "picture of Baxter
that his viewers saw, has admired his enthusiasm and his
integrity and his sensitivity, has attempted to discover
some small measure o-f his education, his experiences in
television, the breadth of his reading, and something of
his philosophy. It can only conclude by returning to its
author a statement Baxter made in the second Hamlet lec
ture: "'He was a man,' paying one of the greatest compli
ments in life" (A-44).
CHAPTER IV
BAXTER THE SCHOLAR
Figuratively speaking, a scholar, at one end of a
continuum, is the student who by connotation and common
usage is a pupil. At the other end of the continuum
stands, once again, the scholar, but now the connotation
is that he is a learned man, a wise and erudite person.
The scholar, in either case, is the same individual but
many years or a lifetime have separated the ends. Along
the continuum at any given point stands always the scholar
--the pupil on the one hand who has continued to be the
student and to learn and, standing beside the pupil, the
scholar who is wiser now than he was as a pupil, but still
the student as he seeks to learn yet more and to become
ever better informed.
We have seen how Baxter the Man contributed to the
success of "Shakespeare on TV." Pursuing the search for
the principal ingredients of this program from another
114
115
viewpoint, the scholarship (or content) of the broadcasts
was explored. One way of delimiting and focusing this
inquiry was to hypothesize that Baxter was, indeed, a
scholar and then to test that hypothesis.
A preliminary test was made in 1960 by administer
ing an inventory, previously described, to sixty-nine stu
dents at California State College at Long Beach after they
had viewed one of the kinescopes of "Shakespeare on TV."
The results strongly supported the hypothesis. Thus fifty-
seven testees thought that Baxter knew his subject (eleven
others checked "display of knowledge"). Fifty-nine
described Baxter as "thoughtful" and sixty-one checked
"original." Eleven found him "ponderous," two called him
"banal” and six said "eccentric." But the number of stu
dents who rated Baxter as "poorly informed” was zero.
After taking into account the customary tendencies of
undergraduates when marking an anonymous inventory, the
writer concluded that this poll revealed exceptionally high
agreement that Baxter had something to say and that he knew
what he was talking about.
Baxter on Scholarship
The popular journals almost unanimously tagged
116
Baxter with "Shakespearean scholar," using a variety of
adjectives to modify the term, as for example, "eminent"
or "popular." Aware of the nomenclature, he said,
I have never pretended to be the Shakespeare
expert that the newspapers always call me. I
represent Shakespeare, Shelley, Shaw, and Company
south of the Tehachapis and east of Crenshaw.
(C-24)
In most unscholarly language he added, "But I found myself
in Shakespeare up to my neck" (C-24).
He had never considered himself to be a "formal
Shakespeare scholar" in the sense of writing papers about
Shakespeare or belonging to literary or Shakespearean soci
eties. He remarked that he was quite content to be "aca
demically disreputable" on this point, and said that he
could "go into television without losing anything" because
he was no longer a "virgin, a scholarly virgin, but was
declasse" (C-25). He went on:
I was already beyond the pale because I had
never been the formal scholar who writes about
Spenser's grandmother, or the obscure dates of
obscure people. This, alas, I know to be a lack
in me, but curiously enough I've never felt it a
fatal flaw for my happiness. (C-25-26)
Much of the content of "Shakespeare on TV" con
sisted of Baxter's ideas--his ideas about Shakespeare,
about literature, and.sometimes about life in general.
117
These ideas were drawn from "all that he has known, all of
which he is aware, not only in the realm of the intellec
tual, but even more important, in the realm of feeling"
(B-2). They were a product of his way of thinking, his
general background and his experience, his formal and
informal education, including, of course, his scholarly
training in Shakespearean drama, and his intentional
approach as delineated in the study guide:
These telecasts will not be "academic," in the
malign sense of the word. Very little will be
said about dates, Shakespeare's sources, textual
criticism, and the thousand and one problems that
are the valid concern of the research scholar.
He said that he would "try to present" Shakespeare's plays
"as a living experience" and advised his audience that "The
9
lecturer intends to read a great deal with you." Thus,
although the overall impression was that Baxter read Hamlet
aloud to the audience, an actual word count of the five
transcripts showed that Shakespeare's lines accounted for
approximately thirty per cent of the total, with Baxter's
^-Frank C. Baxter, "Shakespeare on TV" (unpublished
Study Guide for English 356a; The University of Southern
California in cooperation with Station KTHE--Channel 28
UHF, n.d.), p. 2. (Mimeographed.)
^Ibid., pp. 2, 3.
118
lines accounting for the rest.^
As a teacher, Baxter wondered whether his students
could be "awakened to the wonder and tragedy and excitement
of being alive?" (B-5). As a scholar he answered that life
itself was the tragedy: "A man only grows to his fullness
of powers to find that they slip from him" (B-6). He
yearned to have people realize that "in literature they
have gathered handfuls [of powers] ready at hand for them
to make them wise and make them safe" (B-6). This was no
scholarship of the "hypocritical gesture" type that he
abhorred (C-29). This was creative, wise understanding to
enable a man to enjoy life, even as he savored its trage
dies. He considered Shakespeare's plays one of the great
est of the art forms, and said:
Art must be attacked always, I think, because
we must deal with problems that vex and burn and
sting, and scourge men, and give men either com
fort or . . . magic formulas by which to live.
(B-8-9)
Can scholarship and culture be equated? Baxter
believed that they could. "As a matter of fact," he said,
"culture is an intellectual process of great depth. I
3
A count of the texts of the five Hamlet lectures
disclosed a total of 30,000 words. Shakespeare accounted
for 9,000; Baxter for 21,000.
119
think that all culture worthy of the word rests upon exact
knowledge" (B-ll). He believed that "good hard little
facts" underlay any true serenity, balanced feelings, and
"equipoise of soul" (B-ll). He believed that for culture,
one had to know as much as possible--to have "knowledge,
good knowledge, a great reservoir of it, knowledge of the
exceptions . . . a knowledge of the yeas and nays of
things" (B-ll). "Sagacity," he went on, "is the power of
generalizing satisfactorily on fact" (B-ll). For example,
he reiterated constantly his belief that much of the under
standing of literature had to do specifically with learning
to feel and sense the beauty of the thought and the meaning
of the author. On the other hand, he said, "If I were
teaching zoology, as I once did, I would not feel this
degree of personal involvement" (C-19).
He believed in learning; he believed in knowledge;
he believed in facts. But these were tools, and were not
to be confused with the results to be achieved. It was
interesting to speculate, however, how this man who eventu
ally became a Shakespearean scholar was at one time suffi
ciently involved with zoology to be able to teach a premed
ical course in Mammalian Anatomy--as he did during his
graduate school years at the University of Pennsylvania!
120
The ease with which Baxter appeared to deliver his
televised lessons was probably highly deceiving. He felt
a great responsibility to do well the task he had under
taken, to ’’ educate’1 through television, and various refer
ences from time to time reveal some of the preparations he
had made:
You know that the necessity is put upon you
to be clear and to be cogent and to be scholarly--
let’s use the word--so that what you say will not
be challenged by the intellectual and it will not
be obscure or baffling or dull to the very humble.
It's a hard thing to do. (C-20)
This, then, was a facet of his scholarship--that he
was interested not in the cold, printed page, not in the
facts and figures, but in the understanding by people of
the beauty and poetry of literature, especially of Shakes
peare, perhaps most especially of Hamlet--"last of all, the
greatest of all, of course, is Hamlet” (A-155). "I’ve
tried to talk about the people,” he told his television
class in closing the series, "and tried to make you read
them, and that's our prime question" (A-156).
Baxter deplored what he called "a sort of hypoc
risy” in scholarship that says the men in educational in
stitutions must "publish or perish— promotion depends upon
publication” (C-26). He was referring, of course, to the
121
demands by educational administrators--"a pretty dull lot,
an insensitive lot, and unscholarly lot1 1 (C-26)--for formal
proof of scholarship. He was referring to the kind of
thinking expressed by Fay, "Some universities, by means of
promotion in rank and salary, encourage the members of their
faculties to do research."^ Almost violently, he voiced
his revulsion to this approach:
Here they had a man who had published six
papers. No one had ever read them, except the
man’s wife perhaps and a few colleagues who
scorned them, but he'd written six. He's better
than the man who wrote three; he's better than the
man who wrote none. (C-27)
Although he spent a good deal of time at his typewriter
writing for other than scholarly journals, Baxter advised
young men not to follow his pedantic anarchy:
A young man who goes into academic life must
take the shilling, bite the bullet, and write the
damn papers. . . . he doesn't have to write papers
that anyone reads--he just has to write them!
(C-27)
One of the delightful proofs of Baxter's deep per
sonal scholarship appeared again and again in his epigrams
sprinkled liberally through transcripts of his lectures and
^Eliot G. Fay, "Teaching and/or Research," American
Association of University Professors Bulletin, XXVI, No. 4
(Winter, 1950), 676.
122
his interviews. Some of these are cited in the chapter on
Baxter the Speaker, but one is especially appropriate here:
"Most scholarship in America is a label of respectability
worn by mediocrity-as a badge" (C-28). With a tinge of
bitterness at the shallowness of the label, Baxter explained
that by this "hypocritical gesture" (C-29) of writing some
obscure article, a man
. . . becomes a bibliographic entity, he becomes
immortal in a booklist somewhere. And the academ
ic --the most unacademic-minded administrator who
wants to promote his faculty--will go down the
list and say he has written the thing. (C-27-28)
Baxter made it clear that he was not speaking thus
of true scholarship. "There is wonderful scholarship in
the world which I applaud. There are men to whom I doff my
cap with great and splendid willingness," he said, "because
they are pursuing truth. They have a quest" (C-28). He
illustrated his meaning: "If a man says to me, !I must
write about Spenser's grandmother because this is important
to me, I'm doing something splendid,1 I'm for him" (C-28).
But for the scholarship which he believed was a "gesture--
let's face it" (C-29), he had little use.
Relationship of Baxter's Scholarship
to Television
Rather than publish in the commonly accepted sense
123
of the word in a professional journal, Baxter's mode of
publication was distinctly oral--by lectures in the class
room, from the public platform, through television, on
radio, and on phonograph recordings. "I doubt if anyone
can ever be educated by television" (C-37), he admitted,
but his aim in all his lectures was "to seek wisdom and to
translate it into meaningful terms to people" (B-5); to
garner a "few seeds of wisdom that are the end product of
any life" (B-5). The seeds he sowed in his Hamlet lectures
for his audience to garner were varied and plentiful.
"Ive always thought of what I've done on television not as
teaching in any formal sense, but as a. piquing of the
imagination and the curiosity of people," Baxter explained.
"Opening doors through which they, according to the power
that works within them, and their interests, can go"
(C-38). As Rummell described it--specifically of Baxter's
classroom students but equally applicable to his television
students--they "listen for the inevitable nimble phrase,
an exquisite bit of imagery, an irresistible wisecrack.
. . . they come to his classes for wha.t Dr. Baxter calls
1 the chance to feel literature intensely.1"'*
^Frances V. Rummell, "Box Office Professor," Tele
vision Age, August, 1956, p. 54.
124
Baxter tried not to force his interpretations on
his viewers: "X don't want to tell you what to believe
about the play. I have a horror of that. But I hope to
make it clear it's a great and rewarding thing, this play"
(A-64), he said during his second Hamlet lecture. And in
the fourth lecture, "I've given you some background and, I
hope, some catalytic help to your understanding and appre
ciation of the play" (A-128). Rather, he sought to use his
knowledge in such a fashion as to catch the attention,
stimulate the imagination, and challenge the thinking of
each viewer. Let us "listen to the evocative words"
(A-66), suggested Baxter, "to see the Hamlet of our imagi
nation" (A-67). "X don't care whether you agree with me,"
Baxter told his viewers. "That isn't the point. This is
just what I feel as of this day, about these particular
things I read to you. Do read your own play ..." (A-96).
True, he guided their thinking--the thinking of
that unseen audience of his. He gave them background lore
to facilitate their own interpretation. Frequently, too,
he suggested some of his own considered opinions for their
consideration, as when he described Claudius:
Now, historically, on the stage, of course,
poor Claudius has had a bad time because the actor
125
manager, the number one boy in the company, has
always played Hamlet. And since it's a long play,
they cut the play. Claudius is often pared down
until he becomes a villain . . . Shakespeare wrote
him as a complex man. (A-19)
He came back to this explanation in the fourth lecture:
As I told you when you began, keep your eye
upon the king, the king who gets treated so
shabbily in so many professional versions of this,
because the actor manager who plays Hamlet has
Claudius cut down to size. (A-102-103)
Or when he first presented Laertes to his audience:
So we have a young man on this side . . .he's
generally played by the ninth man in the company--
and itfs too bad, for Laertes never gets a fair
break. He's really a very decent fellow. He
doesn't know; he can't see into an anvil very
deeply; he's a very young man . . . (A-22-23)
Baxter then took his audience through the next several
speeches and came back to the subject of the young man to
insure that his television students truly understood the
situation:
So here's a young man studying the arts of
life; he wants to go back to Paris where, histor
ically, these arts have long been studied both at
the undergraduate and postgraduate level. He's
to go there and study the arts of life. He wants
to go back. (A-24)
Perhaps this was part of the genius of Baxter the Scholar.
He knew so much about each of the characters in the Shakes
pearean plays that he could amalgamate what he had seen on
stages during a life-time of watching Shakespeare acted out
126
with what he had read into the personalities of the charac
ters through his analysis of the connotations of each
phrase or word of the characters. In his extemporaneous
lectures he could then present the fait accompli of a
three-dimensional personality.
Familiarity with Shakespearean Research
In Chapter III, Baxter's early identification with
Shakespeare was established. Dr. Felix Schelling was one
of Baxter's professors at the University of Pennsylvania, a
man whom Baxter called "famous" and "great" (C-24). During
these years, too, one of Baxter's colleagues in the Philo-
mathean Society was Alfred Harwich, a man who went on to
become a professor at Harvard and whom Baxter considered to
be "the greatest Shakespearean in America" (C-4). Baxter
recalled that many long hours were devoted to discussion
with him about literature, just as he discussed religion,
"sex, science, art, and politics" with other fellow Philo-
matheans (C-3).
I wish everybody in college and in universi
ties today could have such a group as we had then.
. . . we did nothing but talk, we talked all Fri-
^Personal conversation with Dr. Baxter in his
office, University of Southern California, December 2, 1963.
127
day, and talked the dawn up the next morning, sit
ting on the edge of the roof of Old College with
our feet hanging out into space. (C-3)
At Cambridge he had the opportunity to study with the "great
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch" (C-24). By this time his identi
fication with this period of literature was well estab
lished and when Baxter went to Berkeley he studied and did
his thesis in the "fortunes of Elizabethan drama, from
their own times to the end of the nineteenth century"
(C-25). "Most people don't realize," he pointed out in an
interview, "that the eighteenth century . . . people knew
nothing about the Elizabethans, really" (C-25). Shakes
peare had been forgotten by the Western World, and the
reviving of Shakespeare's plays and the Elizabethan school
of drama came only with the romantic movement" (C-25). Out
of the fullness of this long familiarity with the Shakes
pearean scholars, Baxter could explain the "play within the
play" in Hamlet to his audience:
. . . it's about the only major clue we have to
the quality of acting in Shakespeare's day. It's
hard for us to believe that with boys playing
girls, with the tremendous rapidity of their per
formances, putting a play like this within two
hours, two hours and a half, a play which, in our
modern way of staging would take five hours--it's
hard to believe that the acting could have been
our sort of acting--couldn't have been in the mod
ern theatre, with its pauses, its natural rhythm.
128
. . . so that many people have come to the conclu
sion that in Shakespeare's day the acting was more
or less stylized, not too subtle; the thing was to
deliver the words clearly. The stage picture was
incidental to that picture which the audience had
to evoke in its own imagination. (A-123-124)
Familiarity with the important published research
dealing with Shakespeare was implied both throughout the
lectures and in his Foreward in the study guide:
Shakespeare has had many bad friends: pedantic
critics, parsers, and elocutionists; people who
regard him as a mine to be worked for quotations
("To be or not to be"!); producers who have over
produced and overdressed his plays into circus
spectacles; and people who, like the "Bardolators"
of the late eighteenth century, see Shakespeare as
a superman without flaw. . . . There are people
who believe that Shakespeare was somebody else:
two other fellows, or Francis Bacon, or the Earl
of Oxford, or thirty Rosicrucians--and discern
puzzles where no puzzles exist. There are hot
eyed patrons of Shakespeare who see him as a writer
of political and religious allegory; there are
those who read into his writing more than the
author ever intended; there are those who see him
as a prophet of Sigmund Freud.7
Baxter never made any display of his knowledge of the
research on Shakespeare and, in fact, in his second Hamlet
lecture, mocked his knowledge:
If I were, I suppose, a real professor of
English, I should tell you a great deal of what
one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six different
people have said about Hamlet. (A-34)
^Baxter, "Shakespeare on TV," op. cit., p. 2.
All that most of these writers ever printed about
Shakespeare had almost certainly been read and digested by
Baxter. What each contributed to the sum total of Baxter's
scholarship is of no importance here, but his manner of
doling out these "bits and pieces" of his accumulation of
these data illustrated his desire to give from this schol
arly research. "This little bit,” said Baxter--referring
to the line "such was the very armour he had on / When he
th' ambitious Norway combated"--"is in no source of
Shakespeare. He makes this up" (A-7). Another illustra
tion was Baxter's comment, "This speech is often cut in
stage presentation" (A-108). Reference has already been
made to Baxter's statements about the shortening of
Claudius' part in many productions.® Another type of exam
ple: "Now most of the books have footnotes saying that you
should decently address any medieval ghost in Latin" (A-7).
Perhaps as a result of its then (1953-54) current
popularity, Baxter referred several times to the motion
picture production of Hamlet distributed by the J. Arthur
Rank organization, and to his obvious distaste for the
characterizations used. "Forget all that . . . J. Arthur
®See supra, pp. 124-125.
130
Rank has told you" (A-26) he admonished his audience as he
began his own discussion of the queen. Baxter had been
highly incensed by some aspects of this production. He
said, for example:
Now the British film was infuriating at this
point, for it began by saying, you remember, that
this is a play about a man who could not make up
his mind, reducing Hamlet to the level of a spin
ster in a cafeteria poised with pretty trepidation
between this plate and that. (A-37)
Baxter dropped his rancor and went on; but suddenly, as he
continued his explanation of Hamlet's soliloquy, he hap
pened to say, "poor Hamlet thinks when he's alone" (A-37)
and this caused him to explode again:
That statement, by the way, at the beginning
of that British film, that this is a play about a
man who can't make up his mind, seems to me to be
the most sinister threat to Anglo-American rela
tions since the Boston Tea Party. I still wake up
in the middle of the night and think about the
absurdity of that. (A-37)
He topped himself in his final lecture. "We referred to
this last week, in the J. Arthur Rank production" he said,
"that Hamlet is a man that can't make up his mind. One
yearns to quote, 'My offence is rank' at this point, but
one restrains himself"(A-140), said Baxter, requoting the
opening line of the king's soliloquy.
On the other hand, when he wanted to explain the
131
basic dramatic principle of the soliloquy, reference was
made to this particular production:
Now we have seen how, in the British film on
Hamlet, when Hamlet had the great nTo be or not to
be" soliloquy, he was motionless; he didn't utter
anything; he sat there alone on the top of the
parapet looking down at the sea beating itself to
froth at the base of this precipitous cliff, but
in the sound track we heard what he thought and,
of course, that's very natural because men, when
they are alone, will think. (A-35-36)
He complimented the Margaret Webster production of
Hamlet twice to bring out a point minor in her overall
interpretation but which was of interest to Baxter as it
clarified for him something which had been perhaps somewhat
obscure. "I've never been able to accept Laertes with a
friendly handclasp," he explained,
. . . until I saw Margaret Webster's production
of this, and the way she did this I suddenly liked
Laertes for the first time. For, as Laertes began
to utter this advice, he suddenly realized that he
was getting pompous, like his father, Polonius,
and he stuck his stomach out and imitated his
father's manner . . . (A-50)
Again, as Baxter was describing a scene between Hamlet and
Ophelia, he said, "Now, Margaret Webster's direction of
this was inimitable. They were in each other's arms by
this time, looking at each other, very close indeed"
(A-115) .
In the fourth lecture Baxter played a record of
132
Professor Kokeritz reading a speech from Hamlet in the
language of Shakespeare's day. He prefaced the playing of
the record:
I'd like you to hear him read this speech
we've just gone over in the language of Shakespeare's
day. Now, of course, this is a tremendously
scholarly business. They study puns, they study
rhymes, they study British writing, of crude
spelling of foreign names. And, with a thousand
clues, piece out what they feel to be the pattern
of Shakespeare's speech. (A-112)
At the end of the transcription, Baxter the Scholar evalu
ated a piece of scholarship:
Interesting. It sounds vaguely Irish, doesn't
it? And incidentally, it's much less, oh, barbar
ic than previous attempts to recapture the ancient
speech. It's a much sounder book; I recommend it
to your attention; it's extremely interesting.
(A-113)
Reading and Scholarship
Baxter's devotion to reading was described in
Chapter III. This discussion might have been included
equally well in this chapter on Baxter the Scholar, for
surely the personal reading that he did was a definite part
of his scholarship, just as the public reading was a def
inite part of his speaking.
As a scholar he was disturbed about the "digests
and predigested reading" which he knew were "alas increas-
133
ingly the rule" (A-65). He told his viewers that he hated
to "contribute to this sort of thing" (A-65), and in each
lecture on Hamlet he urged them to read the play: "As you
remember by your past reading of this play, and the reading
that I hope you gave it last week" (A-137); "Then we hear
Shakespeare giving his opinion of the child actors. Do
read this carefully" (A-95); and "in the limitations of
time, we can't read all of this, and I hope that in the
meantime you will read the rest of the play very quietly
and steadily. Read it several times, if possible" (A-128).
Frequently Baxter explained that it was necessary
to have a great deal more information at hand before speak
ing on a subject, lecturing to a group, or facing his stu
dents, than could possibly be consumed in the allotted
time. In the first interview with him, in reply to a ques
tion, Baxter prefaced his answer with a literary allusion:
In his preface to his strange and fascinating
translation of the Odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia
said: I feel that I am gifted by the Gods in a
very curious way . . . (B-4)
One brief reference to one man and one book, yet the
library in his home contained a whole section of books
written by or about Lawrence of Arabia. In other words,
Baxter's familiarity with this writer was so extensive that
134
anything he said had a ring of authenticity.
Baxter's breadth of experiences in his reading, as
well as seeing productions, of Shakespeare gave him a full
"reservoir” of material from which to draw, enough so that
he knew that he was "not going to empty the reservoir"
(C-9). In introducing the Hamlet series, he revealed some
thing of this reservoir by his complimentary assumption
that his audience was as well informed as he:
You have heard Hamlet; you have heard it bur
lesqued; you have seen it in the movies; you have
seen it in I don't know how many staged versions
of the play; and, of course, it's parodied, and
it's kicked around, and yet we come back to it
again. What will it be like this time? (A-l)
Then he wisely invested his audience with a feeling of
superior knowledge as he said:
Whether any given groundling knew the story
it's hard to say. But it must have been a very
fresh and thrilling experience about 1600 when
they gathered to hear this play. They didn't
know; they hadn't had the long tradition that we
have of stage production, or the pictures of
ancient actors. (A-2)
In concluding the series, he said, "I hope I have given you
enough . . . to make the reading of it fun and possible for
you" (A-153).
Range of Interests
It was shown in Chapter III that Baxter's principal
135
hobbies included reading, book and art collecting, the
design and construction of models, and art both for its own
sake and by way of visualizing areas of the past. In addi
tion, many others of his interests were evident as a result
of the interviews and the analysis of his Hamlet lectures.
For example, he was fascinated with words and the meanings
of them that were hidden from cursory inspection. He con
tinually interrupted his talks to explain these meanings
and some of these are detailed under the discussion of
Baxter the Speaker.
plete in view of the fact that it was culled from specific
source material only, it was possible to understand at
least some of the breadth of Baxter's interests by record
ing a few of his many references in just the five Hamlet
lectures. His reference to people, for example, used in an
off-hand manner by way of illustrating a point he was mak
ing, provided an astonishingly heterogeneous assortment:
Admitting that the list presented here is incom-
Steinbeck Emily Post
Freud Gilbert and Sullivan
J. Arthur Rank Margaret Webster
Mr. Hitler Mr. Mussolini
Eddie Slovic John Dillinger
Ponze Plato
Bertrand Russell Lord Chesterfield
Spenser S idney
Bernard Shaw Housman
Noel Coward Oscar Wilde
Dewey (probably John)
In addition to this assortment of men and women
used as references, the cogent aptness of some of his
similes and metaphors was sometimes startling, frequently
amusing, and usually another indication of his wide range
of interests.
Now Polonius' metal processes can be seen like
the entrails of a tropical fish. (A-134)
All this is rather super-heated blank verse.
(A-99)
Did you take him bowling; did you take him out
to the latest double feature to get his mind off
things? (A-105)
Today he would suggest knitting, I think.
(A-107)
. . . there is a gulf between them greater
than the Grand Canyon, a chasm not to be bridged.
(A-115)
Let us pause for a moment and think for a
moment what a senator Claudius would have made.
(A-20)
137
Hamlet is like a coin worn smooth by long
usage. (A-l)
. . . Shakespeare.was somehow good for you,
like a sort of literary vitamin pill. (A-156)
Like a little bird caught in the sticky lime
on the twig. (A-139)
. . . a nice little judo chop . . . of a re
joinder. (A-26)
Now this would shake a Wells ley senior . . .
No offense to Wellsley. I was just picking that
out of the air...... I just meant a sophisticated
lady of the world. (A-75)
The king feels now that he must field the
ball . . . (A-27)
This sting like a scorpion's is in the tail.
(A-21)
This is the old man whose beard glows like a
neon light. (A-23)
And their eyes are out on stalks like lob
sters. (A-61)
These and many other references were scattered
throughout his talks on Shakespeare. When Baxter the
Speaker is examined in Chapter V, other interests will be
mentioned. Those cited here, however, should permit the
conclusion that Baxter was a man of wide scholarship and
diversified interests.
Use of Imagination
Throughout his televised Hamlet lectures, Baxter
138
tried to induce his listeners to feel the beauty and poetry
of the play, to let it write upon them "in burning and
moving words" (A-2). "Men's minds and hearts and feelings
are best reached," he said, "not through pure intellectual
approach, but through the sensory” (B-3). He wanted men
and women to enjoy Shakespeare. As he closed his series he
told his audience, "I hope this has been enjoyable to you"
(A-157)--and he believed that the way he could best move
them was to let them savor the enjoyment by "speaking to
their imaginations" (B-3). He knew that he could not do
this on a purely intellectual level--they had to understand
but they also had to "feel.”
"You have to invade a book or play with everything
that has ever happened to you in your life" (A-67), Baxter
told his audience, as he sought to catch the attention,
stimulate the imagination, and challenge the thinking of
each viewer. An example of this occurred when he broke
into Hamlet's soliloquy on death and sleep:
All the poets from time immemorial have seen
sleep as a little image, a model of death, a mini
ature model of death. For we sleep, we go into
unconsciousness, we rise again in the new birth of
the new day. And in men's little death, which is
sleep, they dream dreams, often horrid and soul-
racking. How much more terrible must be the dark
dreams, he says, that may come in the sleep which
is the greater sleep called death. (A-110-111)
139
Out of his desire to "stir the imagination" of his listen
ers, he used many graphic expressions: "Remember that
Shakespeare's Elsinore was a never-never land" (A-2);
"Imagine the Elsinore of the misty Scandinavian fog-ridden
dusk, or midnight . . . Try to imagine what it was like up
there on the cold battlement" (A-3), he urged as he
attempted to arouse a mental image. "The men were huddled
down here by this column. We imagine them to be out in the
wind-swept rather airy parapet at Elsinore" (A-15). Thus,
skillfully, Baxter set the stage in his listeners' imagina
tion. Again and again he came back to the image he had
created to insure its stability. "You must think of it on
the old stage; it's only fair to the author. And at the
same time you must imagine Elsinore and the battlements and
the grey fog and the lonely void" (A-58). Again, as he
read aloud the lines of Hamlet: "You must see on the stage
of your imagination these as three-dimensional people,
. . . you must go beyond that and see Elsinore" (A-66).
The following week he reminded them: "Now, of course, in
directing this play on the stage of your imagination, you
must have Polonius shaking his beard, touching his face, at
just the appropriate moment" (A-85).
He never relaxed his determination to create an
140
image in the minds of his audience. As he discussed the
positions of the actors on the stage of the Globe Theatre,
he oriented his listeners by moving his "doll-characters"
about on his model stage. "Over here by the bench that
somehow we must postulate to be on the stage by the column
most of the time" explained Baxter, "a young gentleman,
darkly dressed, somber garments, sits" (A-19). He had
created a picture to which he could return at the proper
moment, as when later he introduced Laertes, "a dapper
young man" (A-22) beside the king. "Remember," Baxter re
minded his audience as he pointed to his dolls, "there's a
lonely figure of another young man put in opposition to him
in balance--the old stylized way of the stage. Over here
this lonely figure" (A-23). Thus, having set his own stage
for his audience, at last Baxter was ready to introduce
Hamlet to them. "Suddenly the whole field is reversed,"
Baxter explained, and the king turned to "the lonely man
over here" (A-24), and addressed him, "But now, my cousin
Hamlet ..." Only a scholar so versed in every detail of
the play that his "reservoir" of knowledge was full could
have created such a picture, built carefully step-by-step
for the benefit of his viewers, yet without notes, without
a script.
141
Interpolation and Interpretation
Throughout his reading aloud of Hamlet to his tele
vision audience, Baxter attempted to simplify and explain
the sometimes obtuse language of Shakespeare. In the sec
ond Hamlet lecture, Baxter had given Polonius his usual
string of exquisitely-pointed adjectival qualifications--
"schemer, double-crosser, plotter, a man who baits the
trap with his own daughter" (A-51)--and he went on to
translate Polonius1 speech into modern terminology:
"Don't attack any problem this way but get
around it, you see. Find out what the neighbors
are saying; get in on things that way." I wish
his sort were dead in the world, but alas, I could
document his reincarnation. (A-51)
Baxter digressed briefly and then returned to continue his
interpretation of Polonius in every-day terminology:
There's Mr. Polonius . . . he begins to give
good advice.
Now I grant you that there's a certain sort of
man who says, "Think," and his employees are made
to look at a sign and "think." And I often visu
alize these poor devils sitting there, with what
ever the gods have given them in the way of equip
ment, endeavoring to do this. "Think!" "Be hon
est!" Well, there are very few people in the
world who have chosen to be dishonest, but the
complex web of things that catches a man and makes
him what he is; life is not so simple that you can
follow these things. Be wise, be wise all of you;
see? Now he's the sort who likes to give advice
in this sort of back-of-a-post-card motto form.
(A-51-52)
142
Another apt explanation of the complicated language of the
play occurred at the graveside in the last act. Hamlet had
accepted the challenge of a "fencing match." Baxter ex
plained that Horatio was worried but Hamlet had been living
on borrowed time and so it was "like the gambler who,
having gambled everything, borrows, appropriates his boss’s
funds and says, 'On this throw will I place all1" (A-151).
Not content with the simple statement of his simile, Baxter
was carried away with it and launched into an entertaining
explanation of what he had meant:
Now I have no doubt that people get away with
this often and, of course, we don’t hear of them.
The experience of man is that the things that rule
the air seem to say, "Look at this little man who
has gone off to Las Vegas with the firm's kitty,
who is staking it all on this throw." And the
forces of evil, or whatever they are, nudge each
other and say, "Watch him throw a three and a
two," which isn't much help, come to think of it.
There are times when a man feels that he has
reached the point where this is the throw. (A-
150-151)
Baxter appeared to have wandered far from his point, but he
was able instantly to bring himself and his audience back
to the scene at hand. His next words were, "And Horatio
is wise enough, this student and friend, to know that
Hamlet has been riding for a fall" (A-151).
One of Baxter's fascinating interpolations was his
143
detailed explanation of some of the very familiar lines
from Hamlet. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" (A-52),
quoted Baxter to his audience, knowing that the line had
probably been heard by and used by most of them. Then he
took them to his own analysis and understanding of the
line:
That's a good safe principle in some ways.
"Never lend because you lose a friend. Never bor
row because you make an enemy. Keep out of it."
Now, I could make a point that this is un-American,
certainly, for our nation is built upon what is
called credit. Without installment buying, where
would television be--either in substance or in
instrument? (A-52)
There were many other interpolations, where Baxter
interrupted either Shakespeare or himself to explain some
point to his listeners. A few are listed below to indicate
the variety of reasons for their inclusion and the manner
of Baxter's explanations.
Speaking of the fact that Claudius knew he had done
an evil thing, Baxter said, "He knows it; he has all the
fruits of his evil action and he can't say to himself
hypocritically, 'I shall build a church, or found an or
phanage, and thuswise free my soul'" (A-18).
When Polonius was instructing his servant before
sending him to spy on his son, Laertes, in Paris, he said,
144
"You must not put another scandal on him, / That he is open
to incontinency." Baxter commented: "And that is utterly
fascinating. . . . 'Permit your indiscretions, but save the
surface,1 like the paint manufacturers: save the surface
and you save all, you see" (A-70). With no pause, he con
tinued :
The way of the gentleman in the world. Don't
wear your heart upon your sleeve, and certainly
don't wear your past record, but preserve the
middle course. That's the desideratum in life.
(A-70-71)
Similarly, he referred to another then-current
advertising campaign:
The king . . . would raise this great flagon
to his lips and begin to drink. As he did, boom!
went the last drop; you see, that famous "last
drop" to which Danish ale was notoriously good
..." (A-31)
As Baxter was reading Claudius' commiseration with
Hamlet over the death of his father, "and the survivor
bound / In filial obligation for some term," he broke in
to advise his audience, "It's in Emily Post, just how far,"
and picked up Claudius 1 line again, scarcely missing a
beat, "for some term / To do obsequious sorrow." Baxter's
eyes gleamed as he explained,
And the next morning, you needn't. You see,
it's all there; it's the way of men. Every
145
father dies, and then the son weeps according to
the statutory period--then breaks out in a new
pastel suit. (A-28)
In another place in the play, "The play's the
thing," Baxter intoned, and then announced:
This is the most misquoted line in all Shake
speare. 'The play's the thing,1 which is gener
ally taken to mean, 'There's no business like show
business,' which isn't exactly what Shakespeare
had in mind. (A-102)
In connection with the play with Hamlet, Baxter
paraphrased a line, '"and the lady shall say her mind
freely.1 Isn't that amazing," Baxter asked his audience,
. . . when you think of all Shakespeare's young
women . . . they're all bright articulate ladies,
and they say their minds freely? It's as if
Shakespeare were reviewing the collected works
of W. Shakespeare. (A-95)
By way of familiarizing his audience with Shake
speare as a man, Baxter said:
We know that he [Shakespeare] detested school
teachers, which I view with somewhat mixed feel
ings. He detested peasants. He detested crowds.
He loved the lord and respected lordship as an
essence in men. We know that he hated a fop, a
little mincing sort of badly calcified, person.
Shakespeare never got tired of laughing at such.
(A-149-50)
Similarly, of another section of the "little play," Baxter
remarked, "It's hard not to believe that Shakespeare is
doing anything but satirizing some of the rather high
146
falutin language of a certain sort of Elizabethan play"
(A-99).
In connection with a speech of Hamlet's, "0 God, 1
could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of
infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams," Baxter
figuratively laid Shakespeare to one side and launched into
a little oration of his own, blasted free of Shakespeare by
the spark touched off by Hamlet's line:
Now you know how people go to Europe often,
don't you? And come back and have really very lit
tle in the knapsack when they return, because you
can't go to Europe and have it write upon you as if
you were white paper. You have to meet an alien
culture, or a distant and different culture, with
some foreknowledge of it that you may understand
it. Otherwise you merely find that it's well,--
Many Americans have come back from foreign travel--
and some of you will this summer--convinced that the
world is really very full of foreigners, which I
think is a profound truth. (A-89)
A variation of these forms of interpolation was
Baxter's use of the interpretive interruption, as he cut
into a speech to explain the meaning of a word or phrase or
custom. He believed that this was essential if he was to
teach his viewers because, as he explained in an interview:
"You have to define as you go along" (C-37). Some of these
were mentioned in Chapter III; others bear quoting here.
Claudius had just asked Hamlet, "How is it that the
147
clouds still hang on you?" Baxter interrupted before Ham
let could reply: '"The clouds1--he's using a figure of
speech, and Hamlet picks it up and turns it back to him."
"Not so, my lord, I am too much i' th1 sun." Once again,
Baxter jumped in:
But to call a man "son" in this situation is
something of a risk. "How fair is our cousin,
Hamlet, and our son?" "You're in the clouds."
"No, I'm too much of a son," says Hamlet, which
is a nice little judo chop, it seems to me, of a
rejoinder. (A-26)
Just previously Baxter had explained another well-
known line: "A little more than kin, and less than kind!"
And that's an Elizabethan pun, for kind has
the two meanings: you do things according to kind,
that's according to nature, to the genus, to the
species you represent, according to your kind;
and, of course, kindness, the kindness of the
heart.
"A little more than kin, and less than kind!"
This is said sotto voce. The king can't hear
it, but you and I hear it there in the pit and up
in the balconies; we hear it across the years.
(A-25)
"Now 'cousin' means kinsman of any degree, really
kinsman," Baxter explained (A-25); "'trivial fond records,1
foolish old records" (A-60); '"admiration1 means 'amaze
ment'" (A-44); "'And I do doubt1--which means 'suspect' in
Shakespeare nine times out of ten; I do suspect'--" (A-
120); "'You have me,' which, of course, means 'You get
148
me?1" (A-61).
"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, / But not
express'd in fancy," Polonius said to his son, and Baxter,
topping the line, interpreted it: "Get a good tailor, son,
you see, if you would be a man; get a good tailor" (A-53).
In the last act, as Hamlet stands over Claudius,
ready to thrust his rapier into the back of the king's
neck, he pauses.
He thinks, and here, of course, thought sty
mies him; baffles him, because he realizes that
what he would be doing would be the greatest of
all favors to men: to provide them a ready-made
gang plank to heaven. For a man killed in an
attitude of prayer, of course, is in a state of
grace. So he must wait for a better moment.
(A-141)
There are many such examples of Baxter's use of
interpretation, but the last one to be cited here had
something also of Baxter's use of interpolation, in order
both to explain and to lay the thought at the feet of his
audience:
"What is the matter?" Now, the matter is what
the policeman says when there's a little alterca
tion. "What is the matter?" What's the subject?
Which is called in the Bronx an argument, in which
there is mayhem and trauma. "What is the matter?"
And, of course, matter is also substance. (A-85)
149
Summary
Throughout this chapter the attempt has been to
equate Baxter's success on television with his scholarship.
The range and the depth of his interests and his research
have been examined and the application of these to his lec
tures on Hamlet has been pointed out. His use of imagina
tion, and of interpolation and interpretation, was ex
plained and illustrated with quotations from his talks.
Because the publication of the results of his
scholarship took the form of speaking rather than writing,
it is now pertinent to consider and analyze his method of
disseminating his scholarly research. This is the subject
of the following chapter, Baxter the Speaker.
CHAPTER V
BAXTER THE SPEAKER
Background and Training
Background
As far back as his undergraduate days at the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania in 1921 or 1922, Baxter was speak
ing in public. Beginning with his audience of the thirty-
five or forty men in the Philomathean Society, Baxter went
on to become a part-time radio announcer for station WOO in
Philadelphia. He admitted that he had not been overly suc
cessful in this venture and that he had never been given
any permanent "commitment,” but remarked that "it was in
teresting to have been, in a sense, a pioneer in radio, or
at least to have come in the second boat" (C-8).
After joining the faculty at the University of
Southern California in 1930, Baxter became actively engaged
in "what might be called public service programming for the
150
151
University" (C-8), and through these lectures he began to
build "a sort of clientele among clubs" (C-8). As Baxter
put it in his inimitable fashion:
In the days when no one was paid very much
money it was necessary for us to augment our in
come as best we could; at the drop of a suggestion
I would be in Santa Barbara talking to sixty
matrons with hats, quite inadequately and, from
their point of view, quite unnecessarily, I'm
sure. But for thirty-five dollars, let us say, I
would go to Santa Barbara and eat out my heart.
(C-8)
Training
Baxter believed that any man who spoke in public
was not being "natural." He felt that there was hostility
and disagreed with "those teachers who would have us be
lieve that to stand up and talk is natural" (B-12). Asked
about his own training in public speaking, he replied that
when he had been in college, "such departments were rather
rare . . . just as journalism [was] . . . and just as
television techniques are still regarded askance in 1961"
(C-6), and said that he had "never had any formal instruc
tion in speech" (C-7). He described the beginning of
speech courses at Pennsylvania as "a struggling little
department" under John Dolman (C-7). However, as a gradu
ate student, Baxter taught "a section or two each year of
152
public speaking--a subject of which, formally, I knew
nothing and, I regret to say, still know nothing" (C-7).
Philosophy of Speech
In reply to a question as to whether he used "con
sciously or unconsciously" "certain techniques of good
public speaking" (C-29), Baxter first replied that he did
not know (C-29), and then discussed at length his thoughts
about the use of gestures. Referring to formal or classi
cal rhetorical theories, Baxter later iterated, "I don't
know anything about speaking" (C-31) and then continued by
reciting an illustrative anecdote:
I remember one time hearing a famous statesman
in Britain, who was asked by an undergraduate,
"What is your formula for speaking so successful
ly, my lord?" And this man uncoiled like a tall
boney cobra from his chair, and he said, "Young
man, I rise, talk rapidly, and when I have uttered
a sentence which seems to me to be rudely grammat
ical I sit down." (C-31)
His own philosophy, he added, was "scarcely more complex"
(C-31).
As for the formal guidelines of speaking, he
believed "that a speech must have a beginning" (C-32).
"There must be development; there must be logical sequence"
(C-31), Baxter believed, and his four-by-six card contained
a "skeletal outline of points" (C-9) to guide him; it
153
should have "a certain pertinence to the occasion and to
the audience" (C-32); and it should have "an end." Beyond
this simple plan, he believed "that every subject presents
its own treatment" and felt that it would be impossible
for him to reduce his philosophy "to a formula so that
someone else can take it over" (C-32). "With this simple
outline," he said, "I begin to talk" (C-10).
Although many books have been written about the
philosophy of speech and/or the philosophy of speaking,
Baxter disclaimed any "formal" (C-7) knowledge of their
contents. The one speech book to which he referred was by
John Dolman, and he linked this to Dolman's book on play
production as he mentioned that he had known this man dur
ing his years at the University of Pennsylvania (C-7).
On the other hand, he found it "psychologically
. . . extremely interesting" (A-98) to analyze Shakespeare's
handling of one of Hamlet's speeches. "Once he gets the
momentum started, then the words come briskly" (A-98),
Baxter told his television audience. Baxter quoted eight
of Hamlet's lines and then interrupted Hamlet to explain:
And so, once he gets into it--and this happens
to you and to all men--once he gets into it, then
the words seem to come, and he finally reaches the
end of the speech. He's whipped himself up into a
sort of delightful passion about all this. (A-99)
154
If Baxter's disclaimers that he was aware of the
techniques of speaking are accepted, then the above exposi
tion, so patently biographical, is an indication of his
true speaking philosophy. This implication is supported by
the analysis of his lectures, which revealed that his
philosophy of speech conformed more comfortably to this
descriptive enthusiasm than it did to the replies he gave
during the interviews. In other words, it must be con
cluded that Baxter's "philosophy seems more like that of a
successful practitioner not familiar with the theory of
public speaking" than like that of "an English professor
and one-time public speaking teacher . . . [who] might well
be expected to know some of the tenets documented in vari
ous staple references in rhetoric."^
Reservoir
Over and over in the interviews Baxter stated that
the most valuable asset a speaker could have was a know
ledge of his subject. He felt that every talk "must be
uttered, not from a minimal and surface knowledge of the
^Gale L. Richards, Associate Professor of Speech,
University of Southern California (pencil notes regarding
Baxter's philosophy of speech, n.d.).
155
subject but out of a vast reserve" (C-32). He stated that
he always thought sufficiently about his subject in advance
to fill his "reservoir" so that he would not empty it
(C-9), and he tried always to have a "full reservoir to
begin with" (C-10) . Specifically, he said that "if you
lecture for forty minutes on something, you should have
enough to lecture for four hours before you try it" (C-40).
Something of the fullness of his own reservoir was
revealed continually throughout his Hamlet lectures.
Hardly a single page of the transcript reproduced in Appen
dix A does not have more than one aside or clarification,
and many pages contain quantities of material illustrating
this fullness. In the chapter on Baxter the Scholar under
the heading, Range of Interests, some indication of the
variety and complexity of this reservoir has been docu
mented . ^
Attitude toward audience
Baxter's television approach was not to deal with
his audience as though he was sitting beside each listen
er, talking to him or her individually. He never gave the
2
See supra, pp. 134 ff.
156
impression that he was being "pally," and said "that sort
of thing always infuriates me" (B-12). His approach was
that he was talking to a small group rather than as though
he was standing before a vast number of people. As noted,
he told himself that he was talking to the technicians on
the set, the grips, and cameramen, and electricians, and
the many others needed to put the program on the air
(C-16), or to the handful of students who in some cases
constituted his studio audience classroom. In fact, in
describing his own technique, he referred to Gladstone"
Remember how Queen Victoria said she didn't
like Gladstone to come to Windsor Castle because
he always addressed her as if she were a public
meeting? I don't think you can talk to two people
in their living room as if they are a public meet
ing. (C-15)
The impression he gave was friendly enough, but he was
always the teacher, always the scholar, never the "buddy."
One of the criteria of the "personality character
istics" list used by the Long Beach students to rate Baxter
had to do with eye contact. Three students felt that
Baxter had a "fixed stare," five of them checked "eyes
avoid listeners," and sixty-one, or eighty-eight per cent,
said that they found his gaze "direct." This is especially
interesting in view of Baxter's comment that he had been
157
told to watch the "red light." This is a small light
usually on top and/or front of each television camera on
the set which lights up when the image from that camera is
being televised. As the camera is selected the red light
glows automatically so that the cameraman behind the camera
knows his camera is being used, and so that the person
being televised knows where to look in order to gaze into
the camera and therefore in effect at the viewer; or
whether to avoid such a gaze. In lecturing or singing, the
performer usually looks directly at the audience. Except
to create special moods, on the other hand, actors in
dramas avoid looking into the camera as it often destroys
the illusion. Baxter's expressed reaction to this was,
"to hell with the red light" (C-16). He reported that he
decided that if the red light was interested in him it
would find him (C-16). Obviously this was a somewhat
oversimplification, because the kinescopes of Baxter's
television programs showed that he frequently looked
directly at his television audience, which he could have
done only by looking into the lens of the camera which had
the red light glowing.
158
Integrity
As used in this section, the word "integrity" is
practically synonymous with the classical rhetorical term
"ethos," The term "integrity" was chosen, however, because
it seemed to be the more consistent of the two terms in
comparison with the other terms used in this study to
describe Baxter's personal characteristics.
In the discussion of Baxter the Man's integrity in
Chapter III, the emphasis was on the personality aspect of
Baxter's honesty. At this point in this study, the integ
rity of Baxter the Speaker is worth noting. Regardless of
the impression he sometimes made on others--as for example,
four of the sixty-nine students at California State College
at Long Beach felt that he was insincere--he said, "I know
that there are ethics of speaking" (B-10), and he stated
that it was always his intention to be completely honest
with his audience. His aim was to be "entertainly informa
tive." If a man . . . slants toward an audience, then he's
guilty of some sort of salesmanship," said Baxter emphati
cally, "and I have never tried to be that sort of salesman"
(B-10).
He resented wholeheartedly the speaker who con
sciously attempted to win his audience "meretriciously"
159
(B-12) by beginning with some sort of story: about two
Irishmen, or "there was a parson down south who said," or
"the two little boys." "That sort of thing always infuri
ates me" (B-12) said Baxter. "I sit there and refuse to
be entertained" (C-33). "Nothing is worse than the joke
told by a humorless man" (C-33), Baxter insisted, and said
that he always had hated "the speaker to work on me, to
play up to me, to slant for me, to jolly me" (B-10). He
was "always furious" when he thought someone had worked
upon him to get his "good will," or had made a determined
attempt to be pally" in a speech by catering to his "good
humor" (B-12).
Thus far in analyzing Baxter's integrity as a pub
lic speaker the emphasis has been on the things he dis
liked and which he said he tried to avoid in his own lec
turing. On the positive side, one thought he expressed
was, "I think that you have to hold to whatever you con
sider best according to the power that works within you"
(B-10). Another thought had to do with his philosophy
regarding integrity in the content of his talks:
Much of what I hear in public service program
ming on television, much of what I've heard in
classrooms, seems to come out of a rather--oh, I
don't know--a rather humbly filled knapsack. I
160
think you must know your stuff if you're going to
teach anywhere. (C-40)
Specific mention has been made frequently in this
study to the many areas in which Baxter's integrity was
apparent. Reference to it at this point is for the purpose
of indicating that no analysis of Baxter's speaking philos
ophy as revealed in the lectures and interviews could be
complete without mentioning it. His comments in one of the
interviews summed up this integrity better than any other
words which might be written about it:
. . . a great speaker, a successful speaker,
has to strive for good will, but he must get that
as a byproduct. Like most of the good things of
life, like citizenship and all that sort of thing
--parenthood--it can best be taken, not by direct
assault but by induction. You get the good will,
I think, because you deserve it. You get it be
cause you deserve it, not because you consciously
build it. (B-12)
Oral Reading
Although Baxter has been referred to in this study
as a speaker, and although he has done a great deal of
public speaking in the ordinarily accepted connotation of
the word, it was as an "oral reader" that he first achieved
special renown. Starting professionally when he began his
Christmas Carol reading at the University of Pennsylvania
in "1923, '24, f25, in there" (C-ll), he continued this
161
this practice after becoming affiliated with the University
of Southern California in 1930. By this time he knew
Dickens' Christmas story "pretty well by heart . . . from
long immersion" and created "an hour version of my own--
knowing what to skip, what to include, what to bridge over"
(C-ll). To the Christmas Carol he added other Christmas
readings and this study has previously documented his suc
cess with this program.
This approach, he felt, was essential: to know
thoroughly the material to be read because he felt that
only "a very gifted actor of long experience" could read
and yet have "in the timber and the timing of his voice
exactly the same cadences of free and extemporaneous
speech" (C-9). He admitted that it could be done, but felt
that "free and easy flow of speech" was inhibited by the
"eye energy" which was "invested in following the lines"
(C-9).
As he described his method of using oral reading
in his classroom teaching, he said that he first read a
poem through without pausing.
Then, going back, X read the poem almost line
by line, making clear how all this is fitting to
gether, what it's all doing, making allusions
clear, perhaps ancient words out of the past, or
phrases, making them clear. (C-35)
162
He then went back and re-read the complete poem, and felt
that with the "mental baggage" the students now had, this
second reading should make the poem completely clear--or,
as Baxter said, "make sense" (C-36).
He attempted to adapt the above procedure to his
television teaching of Hamlet. He always instructed his
television class to read the play prior to the television
lecture. This constituted, in effect, the element of
"first read the poem through." During the forty-five min
ute period of the television performance, he took the
lines apart, explained them, and made them "clear" (C-35).
It was up to the students, after the class was concluded,
to go back and read the lines again so that they could
"make sense."
For Baxter, oral reading had to "begin with an
absolute familiarity with the material so that when you
come to the end of the line you know what's coming" (C-10).
He believed that it was necessary to "have the cadence in
your head,” so that there would be no fumbling over the
lines, and thought that this could be done only if the
reader had a "full reservoir to begin with" (C-10).
In the case of the printed page you have to so
familiarize yourself with the page that you know
where things come, where the breaks in thought or
rhythm come, the full stops and the partial stops,
the rising inflection and the lowering inflection.
(C-10)
That he loved this aspect of his speaking is evi
dent in his remark that he "wished" he and the audience
could share the "little play" in Hamlet together. "X wish
we had lots of time. As a matter of fact, I wish I could
act out the dumb show for you. But alas, that can’t be”
(A-131) .
He said that "by reading and reading and under
standing what the man has written" (C-ll), the speaker
"almost instinctively" (C-10) has a fuller understanding.
When the time comes to read aloud, "the book is not really
being read, but . . . is being used as a sort of a prompt
er" (C-ll). In this way the speaker is free to utilize it
to establish a "set of cadences" (C-ll).
Planning His Lectures
Improvisation
"I feel that in using speech, I use it extempora
neously, never with script" (B-7), Baxter said. What he
called his "philosophy” was "to think about the subject,
draw up a sort of skeletal outline of points" (C-9). For a
164
talk of an hour or an hour and a half, he made a few notes
on a four-by-six-inch card. Then he thought in advance
about what he was going to say,
. . . and so fill the reservoir that I know I'm
not going to empty the reservoir, but I know more
than I'm going to say. I know what I talk about--
I hope. And then with this simple outline, with a
beginning and an end indicated, I begin to talk.
It's the only way that I can do these things.
. . . I can't write it out in advance. (C-9-10)
Although he had given ’’ many hundreds of programs"
on radio and television (C-9), for none of his televised
programs has Baxter used a script. He frequently had a
small studio class of ten or twelve students, but apparent
ly- -as he recalled his experiences during an interview--he
spoke mostly to the technicians on the set and in this way
was able to get a feeling of the response of his audience.
Because the men were interested in what he was saying, "as
I was interested," said Baxter, "once or twice . . . they
have forgotten the time, and we have run over--much to the
consternation of the networks" (C-17), who were, of course,
forced to cut the program.
One small indication of his success with his
extemporaneous method was the rating of the California
State College students, more than fifty per cent of whom
checked "fluent" as the term most properly applicable to
165
to Baxter, as opposed to about twenty-eight per cent who
thought he was "fumbling" and fifteen per cent who thought
he was "gushy."
Very few miscues or ”fumbles"were discovered by the
investigator in the transcript of the sound track of the
five Hamlet lectures. In the second lecture as he started
to quote a long speech of Laertes, he began, "My neces
sity--! fm sorry. 'My necessaries are embark'd'" (A-49).
In the third lecture he said, "Hamlet has a letter;
Polonius has a letter that Hamlet has sent to Ophelia"
(A-79). Several other times he miscalled a name, as when
he once called Hamlet "Shakespeare" (A-150). Also it is
true that Baxter occasionally slipped in his straightfor
ward delivery, as for instance, "And immediately that
general statement, that single statement, leads to a
generalization" (A-56).
These occasional "miscues" were not considered to
be important or unusual for extemporized speaking.
Baxter appeared to be amused by the consternation
he sometimes created by his lack of a prepared text or
script. His reply, when he was asked to furnish a copy of
an upcoming speech "two days in advance," was "I'm afraid
we can't do business, because I can't speak from a script"
166
(C-9). He realized that this confused reporters who, he
felt, had "lost their cunning" and become a rather "deca
dent race, really" (C-10). "They can't take down a speech
and get the salient points," Baxter asserted. "They're
only happy if you give them the whole thing in advance"
(C-10).
Evidence of planning
The fact that he never used a script in his talks
did not mean that he did not have ideas, Baxter insisted,
and had not "marshaled them" and arranged them (B-7). An
example of this might be the way in which he referred to
the characters in Hamlet in similar but not identical
terminology each time he came back to them. We have seen
his repetitive reference to Claudius as a villain but a
villain whom Baxter could admire because Claudius was frank
and open about his villainy. At least five times during
the Hamlet lectures Baxter described the villainy of
Claudius, and each time he excused it or at least condoned
it through his understanding of it (A-19, 78, 103, 137, and
139). Similarly, he apparently had concocted a set of
epithets to hurl at Polonius each time he intruded into the
parts of the play Baxter was reading to his audience.
167
Apparently Baxter had these well established in his mind
and did not have to pause to sort out which ones he would
use at any given point (see eg., A-51, 68, 71, 106, 134,
137, 142).
His use of parallel phraseology stands out vividly
as Baxter compared the approach that Fortinbras might have
used in killing the king to Hamlet's approach. The three
references which follow occurred in consecutive lectures--
not on the same day:
Fortinbras would have slain the king and
thought about it on Tuesday, or gathered his evi
dence afterward. In a topsy-turvy Alice-in-Won-
derland world of ours that sometimes happens.
Make the charge, and prove it if you can tomorrow.
(A-80)
. . . unlike Fortinbras, who would cut Claudius'
throat from mastoid to mastoid, and think about it
next Tuesday, Hamlet can't. (A-110)
Fortinbras would, of course, have lunged for
ward, found the third interlumbar costal space--
or whatever it is--thrust his rapier home, and the
following Tuesday said, "By George, I sent him to
heaven." (A-141)
Another illustration of this repetition of thought
is that of the "chameleon-like" character of Hamlet as
Baxter characterized it. In the second lecture Baxter
detailed his concept of this idea:
Now one of the exciting things to me about
Hamlet is this--and you see this for yourself, you
168
see it in all men--that, while statistically we
pretend to exist--Myrtle K. Statistic, living at
411 East Statistical Boulevard, with certain docu
mented existence--yet we know that Myrtle K.
Statistic is never the same to any two people.
For men take color, women take color, from the
people with whom they associate. You know that
in some groups you are thought highly of. Really,
you rise to the occasion. With other groups you
are less than yourself, perhaps, I don't know.
But you're different; you know that. You're dif
ferent with different people. (A-40-41)
Then he applied this to Hamlet: "Hamlet . . . is such a
complex and sensitive man that he seems almost chameleon
like to take color from people with whom he finds himself"
(A-41). He then illustrated the concept: "immediately he
puts on . . . face number twenty-seven" (A-42), and "see,
he's different with all of them" (A-42). In the lecture on
the following Saturday, Baxter returned to the point he had
been making with a further explanation:
. . . Hamlet, as I said to you before, takes
color from his surroundings. When he talks to
"A," he somehow meets "A" more than half-way.
Hamlet has that very human chameleon tendency we
all have of being different with different people,
different with different groups. The very tense
ness or degree of tenseness, or the flavor of a
gathering that we enter, determines how we shall
be--what particular one of the ten thousand masks
in the closet we may use. (A-82)
He began the following lecture with a recapitulation of
this same idea: "I do want to call your attention to this
again: that Hamlet takes color from his surroundings, and
he adapts himself . . .n (A-97).
Such similarities and such concepts carried forward
from week to week indicated that Baxter had accepted cer
tain ideas that he had developed, had tested and found them
worthy, and then stored them away so that they were conven
iently at hand as he needed them.
On the other hand, the extemporaneous nature of
Baxter's lectures had its disadvantages, the principal one
of which, perhaps, was his timing. Undoubtedly, since he
was limited by arbitrary periods of time both in his class
room and television lectures, Baxter had a preconceived
idea of what he would cover on a certain day. His observa
tion that "once or twice" the technicians on the television
set had become so engrossed that they had "forgotten the
time" (C-17) was evidence of the magnetism of the lecturer.
However, it was also an indication that Baxter, himself,
gave little heed to the mandates of the clock. Apparently
he became so involved with his subject and the ramifica
tions which he tossed into his material in an ad-lib fash
ion, that he had to forego some of the points which he may
have listed on his "four-by-six-inch” card, and wrap up his
lecture in a final dash for the inevitable cut-off point.
The five lectures of the Hamlet series indicated the
170
serious trouble Baxter experienced in attempting to com
plete the play. According to the outline in the study
guide, he had planned to present Hamlet in four lectures,
saving the last lecture of the series for a general summa
tion of the course and an analysis of the contributions of
Shakespeare. Lecture five on Hamlet, which was the last
of the eighteen-week commitment for the series, left the
audience probably somewhat breathless, as Baxter was forced
to skip long sections, condense several scenes into a
phrase or single sentence, and wind up with "unseemly
haste." The study guide outline indicated that he had
planned the material for each lecture quite carefully, but
each of the lectures had to end before Baxter had finished.
Taking just the first lecture as an example, Baxter
said, ". . .we get the first, the first of the great
soliloquies," and quoted Hamlet's first two lines. At
this point Baxter must have realized that the floor manager
was giving him the warning signal to begin to draw this
lecture to a close. He was up to only the middle of the
second scene of the five in the first act, and he had
expected to complete the full Act I during this lecture.
The question occurs: did Baxter leave his audience on the
edge of the first "great soliloquy" by design--one of the
171
"Perils of Pauline” continued-next-week endings--or, unaware
of the passage of time, had he barely introduced the Hamlet
soliloquy only to be stopped by the signal from the floor
manager? Analysis of the final minute or so of this lec
ture indicated that it was somewhat incohesive, contained
a number of fumbles for words, and lacked Baxter's usual
clarity of thought. His next sentence had no meaning for
his preceding sentence nor the one that followed: "now
we'll come to Hamlet, and we'll see much of him" (A-32).
The conclusion an analyst would have to reach was that
Baxter had planned to include the soliloquy but had reached
the end of his telecast time; cut short, he was able to
recover quickly and turn the trap into which he had fallen
into a snare to entice his audience to read the material:
"Reading ahead, will you read quietly?" (A-32).
Thus, had his audience realized it, his lack of a
prepared script was a mixed blessing, for they had to fore
go sections of Baxter's reading to receive the Baxterian
miscellany tossed, randomly at times, into each lecture.
Baxter, however, was not overly concerned about his
inability to complete his material as planned. During one
interview, in fact, he seemed delighted that "once or
twice" the studio technicians forgot the time and "we have
172
run over" (C-17). He considered this to be a personal
tribute: "everyone was interested in the subject, as I
was interested" (C-17). This obviously reinforced his con
cept that in teaching literature he had no intention of
confining himself to the "bones, the dates, the learned
little facts about things" (C-18), but chose rather to
"experience it [English literature] in their presence"
(C-19).
Gestures
The gestures which Baxter used fell into two
classifications. There were the gestures which Baxter
used as a technique in his own speaking and interpreting
the lines of Shakespeare. These became part of his
delivery and were a phase of public speaking which was
discussed with Baxter during the interviews.
Then there were the gestures which he read into
his interpretation of the lines to indicate the actions or
emotions of the characters. Some of the gestures of this
nature could be illustrated by Baxter physically and others
were indicated only verbally in order that his listeners
might translate his words into gestures in their minds--
that they might "deck" their "own play" (A-114). Some of
173
them fitted only crudely into the classification of ges
ture, for they were more accurately concerned with Baxter's
interpretation of manner in which the lines were delivered.
Gestures as a technique
Baxter admitted that he had been accused of using
too many gestures. He acknowledged that this had probably
been true (C-30) and he therefore consciously tried to tone
down his "bounce." The limitations of the set, lights, and
cameras forced him to remain more or less confined to one
small area, and he admitted that this was perhaps good
discipline for him. On the other hand, he said "I guess
that I am a ham in that I wear my heart on my sleeve"
(C-19) and believed that his gestures "flowed" from "the
vibrance" (C-30) that he felt about the things about which
he was speaking.
For example, what could be more natural or more
visual than Baxter "acting out" Horatio's meeting with the
ghost: "Horatio comes forward with his arms out," said
Baxter, throwing out his own arms. "That's a good tech
nique in addressing a ghost because you make the cross, you
see, with your body" (A-7). Baxter paused just long enough
for his audience to accept his visualization, then dropped
174
his arms and went back to the lines of the play.
He said that he had used a "calculated gesture"
(C-30) only once or twice, and that for the most part any
gestures that he might use were automatic, unconscious,
and "entirely instinctive" (C-31). It appeared that this
statement was accurate only in a general way. From analy
sis of the kinescopes, it appeared that what could once
have been a "descriptive" desture which had been "instinc
tive" had become part of a ritual. An example was the
scene where Claudius and Polonius hide behind the "arras,
tapestry" to spy on Hamlet.
I have no doubt in the Elizabethan's theatre,
for the benefit of the groundlings, the heads may
have appeared around the side of the curtain to
remind us that here is the king and here is Polo
nius, listening to all this. (A-106)
And Baxter bobbed his head as if peering around something,
first from the right and then the left. But he wanted
first to discuss another speech, which he had overlooked,
and after handling that he then reintroduced the line, "I
hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord." "And so they
go," said Baxter, "each around his edge of the arras
curtain" (A-108). Baxter's head bobbed out to remind his
audience that Claudius and Polonius were there, even as he
had intimated the groundlings needed to be reminded. "And
175
here comes Hamlet" (A-108).
Watching him on a television screen, he appeared
to have a little trouble with knowing what to do with his
hands. When they were busy with a bit of business they
became useful adjuncts to what he was demonstrating and his
movements seemed smooth and sure. But when he stood and
talked directly to the camera, at times his hands went into
his pockets; apparently he felt they should not be there,
for he pulled them out and tucked them inconspicuously
behind him; then, seeming to feel forced or stilted, his
hands came out and were used for gestures. And all the
time, this fluent speaker turned a neat phrase, delved into
an intricate detail, or digressed to stress his point with
an appropriate reference or quotation.
He emphatically denounced what he called the "woe
ful" gesture,
. . . which is noted on the side of the manuscript:
"At this point hit the table," and so the high
school debater says, "And now we come to the all-
important third point" [Baxter bangs], with just
that awful little gap in there which shows that
he has known that the gesture is starred in the
margin. (C-31)
If you feel a gesture, "you hit the table," emphasized
Baxter, "but if not, you certainly don't" (C-31).
It must be noted that on this point Baxter was
176
somewhat inconsistent. As stated above, some of Baxter's
gestures had become a ritual. Just as an actor in a role
performed many times uses the same gestures every time he
delivers a speech, so Baxter used the same gestures each
time he delivered certain speeches in Hamlet. Baxter might
be said to have gestures "starred in the margin" of his
mind's script as a reminder of the action to accompany a
line. A student in Baxter's Shakespeare course in 1956
corroborated Baxter's use then of some of the same gestures
3
with certain Hamlet lines observed in the kinescopes.
Baxter said that certain gestures were "tremendous
ly interesting" (C-30), especially some of the Indian
signs. "The Indian sign language for prayer, which is an
eloquent gesture, might be a point at which to start a
talk" (C-30). He explained that "to give the Indian sign
language for death" was to "present a very curious, graphic,
pictorial little poem" (C-30). As he used this "poem" in
the third Hamlet lecture, he said:
The Indian sign language is often very graphic
and beautiful. The Plains Indians--the Sioux and
3
Personal interview with Frederick Schapsmeier,
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History, Uni
versity of Southern California, November 18, 1964, in Los
Angeles.
177
the Ojibway--had the sign, Death, the blow down
under and up. (A-lll)
Accompanying his description, Baxter illustrated the sign
graphically. These Indian signs, too, are gestures which
Baxter used repeatedly in his talks. Several different
people reported that they had seen him use these in his
classes or on different lecture occasions.
As observed in the ’’ Shakespeare on TV” kinescopes,
Baxter's gestures appeared generally to be appropriate,
seemed to be executed with purpose and good timing, and
seldom were weak or meaningless. They fitted the occasion
and sometimes were part of the humor he injected. His
description of Laertes, when "he suddenly realized that he
was getting pompous like his father, Polonius, and he stuck
his stomach out and imitated his father's manner” (A-50)
was accompanied by Baxter’s own stomach being extended and
his arms made the gesture indicating the fat man. Later
Baxter used the gesture in a similar manner, as he said,
"Now think of Polonius, fat little Polonius, with his hands
about his equator” (A-71).
Perhaps to keep from holding his stance in one
position too long, Baxter appeared to insert movements
whenever they might be logical. For instance, he strutted
178
a little, back and forth, as he introduced Hamlet: "A man
walks hack and forth across the stage with his halberd,
back and forth, watching, patrolling his watch. Suddenly
he comes to port” (A-4), and Baxter stiffened abruptly.
When Baxter used the expression, "make a knee" (A-23) or
"make a leg" (A-24), he bobbed by way of illustrating the
words. "He [Hamlet] stands and bows, I think" (A-30), said
Baxter, suiting his action to the words. As noted, ges
tures of this nature were used as much to give Baxter an
opportunity for physical flexibility as for their illustra
tive value.
Verbal gestures
As noted above, the verbal gesture or the interpre
tive gesture used by Baxter was probably more useful to the
audience than the technique gesture, inasmuch as it was
designed to contribute to the audience's visualization of
the characters. Not necessarily illustrated by Baxter,
this gesture was injected primarily to give additional
substance to the mental image being created. When he said,
"Hamlet's knuckles are white, I think" (A-47), quite obvi
ously there was little Baxter could do by way of illustra
tion, but each listener could visualize Hamlet's clenched
179
fists and imagine instantly the tension existing. With
Hamlet and Ophelia on the stage alone, when Baxter said,
"And I think she clings to him" (A-117) or "I think he
chucks her under the chin" (A-119), he set a scene in which
he conveyed verbally gestures that were visual in the minds
of his viewers. A rather lengthy description of the action
of a character which was interpolated by Baxter indicates
the way in which Baxter conveyed to his audience some of
the gestures that he could not act out for them:
. . . it's almost irresistible to have Horatio
go and stand by one of those columns, lean
against it with his arms folded and, I fancy--in my
direction, at least, imaginative direction as it
be--he does not move during the whole action of
the play until, at the end, when the king has been
swept out, he's tired of passion and this dis
turbance. (A-130)
In a similar way, Baxter described Claudius' posi
tion before Hamlet came in with the intention of killing
him:
And he kneels. . . . Now of all the cooperative
attitudes for a murder, this is perhaps the most
cooperative--to bend one's head forward, outline
the intercostal spaces. And Hamlet comes in with
his rapier . . . (A-140)
Small descriptive bits of stage business as visu
alized by Baxter were incorporated frequently: "Bernardo, I
think, pulls his lip and is about to speak" (A-16); "As
180
they start out, I think he pauses at the side door" (A-122);
"they look at each other, I think, and Horatio blurts it
out" (A-44); "and suddenly he looks around, I think, rather
embarrassed" (A-99); "I think Hamlet just answers, seeing
these fellows dimly" (A-42) ; and "Guildenstern and Rosen-
crantz look at each other" (A-132). These examples, usual
ly accompanied by "I think" although not always, showed a
technique that Baxter employed freely.
Thus, gestures to Baxter were important in several
ways. They released some of his emotional energy or
"vibrance," they contributed to his enthusiasm as he inter
preted the lines, and they were a verbal connective between
the mind of the speaker and his watching audience, between
his imagination and theirs, as he tried to enhance their
visualization and their imaginative "feeling" for the mater
ial he was reading.
Language and Voice
Vocabulary
"Now one of the most deceptive and dangerous imple
ments ever invented by man was, of course, speech," (B-6)
said Baxter in an interview. His command of English was
impressive in the extemporaneous Shakespeare lectures; it
181
was even more impressive in the impromptu interviews. Thus
Baxter referred to overspecialized professors as "curiously
one-sided," and then characterized them immediately as
"poly-faceted in their disinterest" (C-42).
A question put to him during the first of the inter
views reproduced in the Appendix had to do with the speak
er's vocabulary and whether Baxter believed it should be
adapted to his audience. In order not to lose by para
phrase any of the sharpness of his reply, it is reproduced
here in full:
When ultimately I stand before that last in
ventory before Saint Peter, I'll have very few
things wrapped up in an old handkerchief to pre
sent in advocacy of my candidacy for admission to
that last great matriculation. But one thing I
will be able to say: "Saint Peter, Sir, I have
never talked down to an audience. If I wanted to
use a five syllable word, because it seemed to be
the only, the right, the just, the apt, and inev
itable word, by golly, I've used it! And if the
American age level is supposed to be 12, 13, 14
years, I've never acknowledged that in speaking
on any occasion." (B-9)
Then, in direct response to the question, Baxter was em
phatic as he denied that he had ever "talked down" to any
audience at any time, or that he had ever "consciously
adapted anything" to his audience (B-9) .
He believed that "a full and flowing vocabulary"
was no "hindrance to a public speaker" (C-32). During an
182
interview conducted in October, when political speakers
were to be found everywhere on the airwaves, he commented
that he could "almost calculate the sentence beyond the
next sentence" (C-32), and remarked, "The semantic waste,
the evasion, the slipperiness of political language, for
instance, is a horrid thing" (C-41).
He deplored the "lack of respect for the spoken
word" which he felt was a "curse" "put upon all of us in
American education in the last . . . three generations"
(C-41). He was implying that he sensed what he called
"the lack of belief in the almost moral necessity of making
words mean something" (C-41).
These comments seemed to establish Baxter's love
and respect for the English language. The following sec
tions will show some measure of his versatility in the
handling of that language.
Imagery
In Chapter IV, Baxter's use of imagination was
equated with his scholarship. As with so many of his the
ories and practices, to differentiate the imagination
possessed by Baxter the Scholar from the imagery used by
Baxter the Speaker to stimulate the imaginations of his
183
listeners was to draw a fine and devious line through an
area that is almost indivisible. Baxter recognized this
difficulty: "I can’t altogether feel that what X have to
offer is independent of myself and the way I say things and
the way I feel things” (B-7).
He felt that people could be moved most strongly
"by speaking to their imaginations” (B-3). He remarked
that the great speeches that he could remember and that had
moved him all had imagery. The outstanding and most widely
read of these was the Man who spoke to a group of peasants
"in parables--the grain of mustard seed, the buried talent”
(B-3). It was necessary, Baxter believed, to give people
the materials that image: "the concreteness, the smells,
the sounds, the sights, the feelings, the savors, the heat
and cold of things” (B-3). He pointed out some of these
images in his lectures: "But watch, when beauty suddenly
flickers out like a flame and falls again. It will come in
this speech and in the speech that follows it” (A-17), and
"his kingship will be a very hollow thing--ashes to his
taste, or salt" (A-103), and again, "There is beautiful
rhetoric, moving rhetoric, exciting rhetoric, to provoke
your imagination" (A-123). Baxter greatly admired Church
ill's speeches to the British people "in their hour of
184
agony. Think how concrete it all is 11 1 he urged. "How it
does feed the imagination with those blessed concretenesses
upon which the imagination can work!" (B-3).
People use their imaginations unconsciously, Baxter
believed, and on one occasion he urged his television view
ers to do it consciously, to experiment with their "thought
patterns":
Sometime play this trick upon yourself when
you're reading a book. Put a piece of paper in
some--any--place further in the book and forget
it. And then, suddenly, as you're reading the
man's book, you come to that piece of paper. And
ask yourself what you've really been thinking
about in the last twenty minutes. You'll get the
surprise of your life. Ostensibly you're reading
the book; but you're all around it, and that's
natural. That's what you should do because no
book means anything--this play means nothing--
unless somehow you document it by building in it
illusively the references, the things you have
known, the people you have known. (A-39)
He recommended that "a young public speaker would do well
to study poetry for the concreteness of the imagery" (C-33)
and said that "this is part of noble discourse, concrete
imagery" (C-33). He illustrated what he meant by "the
active verb, the concrete noun":
When a man says, "I intend to devote myself
rather consistently from this time on to the fur
therance of this purpose," and another man says,
"Tomorrow I'm going to begin to dig; I'm going to
dig and I'm going to drill; I'm going to use a
185
stout shovel and get to the heart of this thing,"
and the second man, of course, gets your atten
tion. (C-33-34)
We have seen how he worked to build an imaginary
"stage" in the minds of his viewers, and how he came back
to it again and again: "Now remember, there's no curtain
here, no ripple of applause, no break in the imaginative
investment" (A-48). Baxter paid great tribute to the power
of imagery: "I think that this is the common denominator
through all the history of speech" (B-3). Using Omar
Khayyam's "Life is all a checkerboard of nights and days,"
as an example, Baxter praised the "simple image" and
believed "that's a thing a man should strive for" (C-33).
Figurative expressions
In other sections of this chapter as well as in the
two previous chapters, many examples of Baxter's pictur
esque language have been cited. Some of these were sheer
poetry uttered by a man well qualified to quote from writ
ers of the past as well as of the contemporary period: "the
sea beating itself to froth" (A-32); "that world which,
alas, soils the hands too often of those who touch it"
(A-66); "a skewered drift toward truth" (A-69); "an utterly
black figure of villainy" (A-19); "in the last great bar
186
of justice, there is no amendment behind which a man might
crawl. He must testify against himself" (A-139); "the
Elsinore of the misty Scandinavian fog-ridden dusk" (A-3);
"the lonely, cold, bitter cold midnight rampart of Elsinore"
(A-3); "manipulation of language, rich tides of oratory"
(A-20); "dawn comes up slowly out of the sea" (A-17);
"Ophelia . . . ground under the wheels of this terrible
action" (A-113); "poetry, the strange stir in the blood, an
evocation of the imagination" (A-17); and the poetically
graphic description of Norway:
You think of . . . Norway invaded with a heavy
hand upon it, and yet Norway, by its very geo
graphical nature, has the skirts of the realm, the
peripheral, what shall I say, coastal area, inter
rupted, I grant you, with fiords and with moun
tains that come right down to the sea, but sea
ports, the skirts of Norway, and the mountain val
leys, . . . (A-ll)
Baxter's use of descriptive phraseology to evoke
the imagination has been described,^ but at that time the
emphasis was on his intent to evoke imaginative response
from his audience. Just as vivid, but in language far more
nearly resembling the vernacular or coloquialisms, are
other picturesque phrases. A few of these were indicated
^See supra, pp. 137 ff.
in the section on similes and metaphors in the Hamlet lec-
tures: "old man whose beard glows like a neon light"
(A-23) and "like a little bird caught in the sticky lime
on the twig" (A-139). Many others could be cited, such as
"a man who baits a trap with his own daughter" (A-51);
Claudius "doesn't play religious footsie" (A-20); "the man
with the moral vocabulary and the most immoral mind"
(A-155); "he's that eternal, flip, noisy, ungrammatical,
utterly irreverant type that you meet in all English fic
tion" (A-147); "he's really running the gamut of possible
wild oats" (A-71), and "wild oats of a good and bland
cereal type" (A-70). Then there is the group of phrases
which came to Baxter's mind when he discussed Polonius:
"he's an old spider in the middle of a web" (A-51); "he
. . . is capable of almost every sort of double-crossing of
almost fiendish ingenuity and hunting out the wrong way of
doing things from the point of view of the gods" (A-54);
"left-handed way of the provocateur" (A-72); "the shrewd
Machiavellian, low cunning of Polonius" (A-113); "poor
intruding fool, you've intruded once too often your little
left-handed Machiavellian machinations" (A-142); and
^See supra, pp. 136-137.
188
"Polonius with his sententious labyrinthian rhetoric"
(A-83). When Hamlet came rushing in, Baxter described him:
"Hamlet's . . .all twisted with excitement, laces which
hold him together all unlaced" (A-74).
From the vivid language used by Baxter in the
interviews, it is reasonable to assume that some of these
expressions came spontaneously to Baxter's lips from( his
full "reservoir." Others perhaps were familiar to him from
long association with the Bard and from having explained
Hamlet to many classes of students during his years of
teaching. To sort his poetic language into some sets of
categories would be meaningless to this study. What is
important to recognize is that poetic and imaginative words
flowed extemporaneously from Baxter with ready wit and
ingenuity, he had the "ability," as President Fagg of the
University of Southern California said in conferring the
honorary Doctor of Letters degree, "to turn a phrase from
f t
wit to wisdom in the space of a hyphen," and that in his
lectures which he delivered without a script he used the
"deceptive and dangerous implement" of speech strikingly.
fi
Willis S. Duniway, "News Bureau release on Dr.
Frank C. Baxter," News Bureau, University of Southern Cali
fornia, December, I960, p. 2.
Slang
In his speaking, Baxter frequently resorted to
slang as an attention-getting device. Despite his asser
tion that he had "never consciously adapted anything I've
ever said to an audience" (B-9), Baxter was aware of the
language of his day and knew that identification with his
audience was important. He may tell St. Peter that he
used a "five-syllable word" when he felt that it was the
best word for his purpose, but analysis of the Hamlet lec
tures also revealed that when he wanted to establish
deeper rapport with his listeners he reverted to what he
felt to be the language they might use, however briefly.
And if he wanted to use a slang expression, "by golly," he
used it.
In most instances, his slang expression or brief
word of slang were fillips to add what he believed to be
the necessary touch of commonality. The juxtaposition of
some of these slang words to the poetic beauty of other
words had the same touch of genius that Baxter admired in
Shakespeare: "he is able to mingle the most deep and moving
passion with crude horseplay" (A-145). Because they jump
out at the most unexpected moments, a list of some examples
should suffice to establish the extensiveness of their use:
190
. . . his father's taking off was a little too
quick, a little too pat. (A-48)
[Hamlet] takes this old duffer and puts him
into a sort of mental spin. (A-83)
Hamlet has been living on borrowed time.
(A-151)
Hamlet has been riding for a fall. (A-151)
And he's leading her on, being as zany as he
can. (A-119)
And here Hamlet says, "Don't saw the air;
don't do all these things; take it easy." (A-124)
He doesn't kid himself about it. (A-138)
She knows she1s the kid put in the trap to
catch the thief. (A-112)
In comes the young buck we saw in the first
scene, young Laertes. (A-48)
Now think of this, if you're a tender young
thing! (A-75)
If we only had time to read this blow-by-blow.
(A-129)
In comes this highly perfumed and exquisite
little court twerp. (A-150)
Polonius sums it up, makes his snap judgment.
(A-74)
Integration
Baxter's ability to retain in his mind the "ca
dence" of Hamlet was quite remarkable. As he stated in one
of the interviews, it was necessary to "familiarize"
191
himself with the page so the he "knew where things came"
(C-10). To have so "filled his reservoir" that he could
talk about Shakespeare and Hamlet. quote Shakespeare and
Hamlet. paraphrase Shakespeare and Hamlet, digress to in
sert one of his many asides for illustration, interpreta
tion, clarification, or humor, and return to the play with
out loss of his "cadence" indicates a speaker and scholar
of unusual versatility. These various elements of his lec
tures were so skillfully interwoven that frequently it was
necessary to compare the typed transcript of the audio part
of his kinescopes with the edition of Shakespeare which he
used in his talks.^ One section of the transcript is
reproduced here for illustration.
Laertes: "May I go back to France?" nWhy, of
course." "May I go back to my studies in Witten
berg?" where Hamlet was no doubt majoring in
philosophy. The king doesn’t say, "No," because
that's not a nice thing to say if you're a king.
He says, "It is most retrograde to our desire."
(A-29)
Taking this paragraph apart, it may be seen that
the first word was inserted by Baxter to orient his audi
ence as to the speaker. The question, the reply, and the
7
C. B. Harrison (ed.), Shakespeare: Major Plays and
the Sonnets (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1948).
192
next question were all paraphrases of speeches which pre
ceded in the play the section Baxter was discussing. The
phrase which follows, "where Hamlet was no doubt majoring
in philosophy," served many purposes for Baxter: it rein
forced a statement made previously and reminded the audi
ence that these two young men were classmates at Wittenberg;
it characterized Hamlet as the "thinker," the "philoso
pher"- -a point that Baxter would repeat later; and it added
a touch of typical Baxterian irony. Another touch of humor
came as Baxter pointed out the meaning of the Shakespearean
line to follow. The commonplaceness of "that's not a nice
thing to say" was followed by laughter in the studio as
heard on the sound track. His listeners had heard their
mothers use the expression, probably, and perhaps they had
said it to their children. Knowing that "that's not a nice
thing to say" was an everyday expression and in order not to
leave his remark at that level he tacked on, "if you're a
king." Up to this point Baxter was paraphrasing Hamlet.
When he said, "It is most retrograde to our desire," Baxter
was quoting verbatim a line from Hamlet.
An excellent example of Baxter's use of the para
phrase to condense a scene was his handling of Hamlet's
conversation with the ghost, which illustrated again the
193
use of Baxterian asides:
We can't read it here together; time is so
brief. But the ghost tells him his story. It's
a very interesting ghost. You recognize in it a
two-dimensional human being, somewhat lost in the
ectoplasmic essense. Out there, a ghost that
speaks of my fair-like body, and so on, which
apparently he misses in the spirit world, but he
ways it was given out that T did it accidentally.
"No," he says, "I was murdered, and the serpent
that did sting me now wears my crown." And Hamlet
says, "0. my prophetic spirit," and the ghost
says, "You must seek revenge for this." "Ah,
yes," says Hamlet. Hamlet pledges to the ghost
all of this, and finally the ghost fades away and
Hamlet is alone. (A-59-60)
Thus was a scene from Hamlet. which ran for ninety Shake
spearean lines, condensed, with Baxter quoting from the
play only the words italicized above.
Many other examples could be cited which were
equally complex in their integration of paraphrase and quo
tation. In the reading of Appendix A in its present form,
with the differentiation indicated among the direct quota
tions, the indirect paraphrasing, and the impromptu inter
polations of Baxter, the intertwining is less obvious than
it was on the soundtracks.
Baxter summarized much of Acts IV and V of Hamlet
with such succinctness that there was little time even for
the paraphrase. Forced to conclude his lecture series, he
still wanted to complete Hamlet for his audience and
194
selected short speeches which he integrated into his hur
ried summary of the balance of the play.
Humor
In the second interview Baxter stated, "Humor is a
very wonderful and live and magnificent tool to have in the
repertory. It should be encouraged, but not on the part of
the man who's humorless" (C-33). In his study guide he set
down his precepts on the differentiation between humor and
wit:
Narrowly defined, humor is the sympathetic
presentation of human being [sic] discovered in
some incongruous, atypical, unstable, absurd rela
tionship with each other. Humor gives us a sort
of laughable objective picture . . . of human
beings in the wrong place, or involved at cross-
purposes, or bent upon futility, or tangled up
most humanly in trivia. On the other hand, wit is
intellectual and verbal and is rarely sympathetic;
wit is brief and explosive and subjective. The
fun of wit is in the mental agility and readiness
of the speaker--and in the neatness of the point
he makes. People can be unconsciously humorous,
but they cannot be unconsciously witty. Note also
that a witty remark or epigram or wisecrack makes
us laugh suddenly at the perception of some new
relationship between things, but leaves us with no
human picture or tableau, as humor does. Wit
tickles the intellect; humor evokes a warmer sym
pathetic identification of man with his fellows.®
g
Frank C. Baxter, Shakespeare on TV: Outline Guide
(New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1954), pp.
13-14.
195
Baxter's use of both humor and wit, which frequent
ly caused his classroom students to break into hilarious
laughter, must have been a delightful part of his televi
sion audience's appreciation of the education they were
receiving. How studied it was, how consciously he used it,
was not always possible to discover from analysis of the
kinescopes. Some of the expressions or descriptions which
had evoked laughter in the past were probably stored in
Baxter's memory for re-use at the appropriate time (inas
much as he was never seen to refer to any notes).
The sound track of the kinescopes has many areas
where the studio audience--either the students who some
times attended the lectures or the technicians --laughed so
loudly that Baxter had to pause; at other times, when he
did not wait for the laughter to subside, it almost ob
scured his words. One of the loudest bursts of laughter
came when Baxter was talking about Polonius. He had said,
"don't write me letters about Polonius, please, will you;
my mind is made up" (A-50). A few minutes later he quoted
Polonius' line, "to thine own self be true," discussed it
briefly, and then said again, "Now, don't write to me about
it, because I'll send your letters to each other" (A-54).
The sudden explosive laughter which can be heard on the
196
sound track forced Baxter to wait for it to die down before
continuing his lecture.
His description of the ghost and where the ghost
stood in relation to the other actors on the stage of the
Globe Theatre had been a source of merriment to Baxter's
previous classes,^ and he glibly repeated his conception
for his television class:
Now it's a question, always, what to do with a
ghost. I don't think we want our ghost to be too
pally, to sit side-by-side on the chesterfield
with us. Ghosts are always better at a distance,
a little aesthetic distance. It's better to have
them up and beyond and not have them right here.
There is a certain sort of Scandinavian ghost who
stands beside you at a bar--"skol, skol," and then
he isn't there. You see, we don't like our ghosts.
After all, as Mr. Dewey said about ghosts, people
very rarely see them. But everybody's aunt has
seen a ghost; you see, it's better to have your
aunt see it. It's a much more exciting ghost if
your aunt saw it at some distant place. Lift it
up; put it beyond. (A-14-15)
Another illustration is Baxter's interpolated com
parison of Shakespeare's use of the soliloquy with the way
modern dramatists handle the same need for revealing a
character's thoughts:
The soliloquy is, of course, something that we
don't like on our stage. We don't accept it as
good stage convention, that a man alone should
Q
Schapsmeier, loc. cit.
197
talk aloud; rather we think that some sort of
psychotherapy is indicated for the person who is
too voluble alone. True, a man hitting his thumb
with a hammer may break the silence, but that a
man should go into a long philosophical discourse
when alone doesn't seem to us quite natural. Yet
in the Elizabethan stage, and for centuries there
after, this convention was maintained, and it's
very helpful. Really, we get around it in various
ways. We have someone to whom the man may talk,
or we have him using the telephone, without which,
of course, modern drama would be bankrupt. With
out the telephone and the cigarette box, a great
shackle would be imposed upon modern drama. Well,
in those days, they accepted this, . . . (A-35)
As beautifully done and as amusing as these are,
they are a little too finished to have come forth in this
fashion for the first time. Obviously, these were gems
that Baxter had been polishing since he first began reading
Hamlet aloud to his classes
Baxter's asides, sprinkled liberally through his
lectures, usually contributed to the humor of his talks,
as well as playing the dual role of interpreting the scene
to his audience:
Polonius has said, "Read a book,” and of
course, that's a respectable venture in our day--
almost a forgotten one-- (A-108)
"To be honest, as this world goes, is to be
one man pick'd out of ten thousand." . . . You
could write that on a card and put it on a desk.
. . . You could put it in the house organ for
March 21st. (A-83)
198
. . . men and women more real than most of the
phantoms we meet at 7th and Broadway in your town
or ours. (A-157)
As in the House of Parliament, when a question
is asked, the answer: his majesty’s ministers go
into a huddle and when they come out, the answer
is either ’’ yes" or ’’ no,” but that wouldn't be
formal enough so in the House of Parliament, the
minister responsible for answering the question
will rise on question-day and say, "The answer to
the interrogatory is in the negative," which is
really a very nice parliamentary way of saying
"no." (A-29)
"You nickname God's creatures." I know a
woman in San Marino who has a pet name for her
icebox. (A-119)
. .by the rights of our fellowship" . . .
chiming together like two matched forks of equal
tune and pitch, like two plucked strings. (A-92)
. . . it's like Lord Chesterfield's advice to
his son, which I recommend to you to read in order
that you may know what not to tell your own chil
dren. (A-5 3)
Like a man who might say, "Because of necessi
ties quite beyond my control, and because, although
I am a man of deep and rich spirit, and have a
human heart as large as a barrel--because things
are as they are and inflation has brushed us with
its wing, and recession has been rumored somewhere
--I'm going to foreclose," you see! This sting
like the scorpion's is in the tail. And this is
good political language. He comes to the very end
and then, at the very end, ping!--you get it!
(A-21-22)
If a man followed all this, he would be a
cold-blooded shark among men. (A-52)
Horatio . . . is the sort of "B-plus" who
doesn't suffer the agonies of an "A"; he's better
199
than a "C," but he has a survival quality of nor
mality. (A-41)
Many other examples of Baxter's wit and humor have
been cited previously by way of illustrating other aspects
of this able speaker. Those combined with the above list
of Baxterian asides evince exceptional versatility in the
types of humor injected through the lectures. When it is
realized that the citations above are only a small part of
the longer list that could have been compiled, and that
they were taken from only five of Baxter's lectures, the
feat is more amazing. Humor, then, mostly gentle raillery,
quite obviously was one of the most outstanding and most
frequently used techniques of Baxter the Speaker.
Suspense
As a speaker-oral reader, Baxter developed another
technique which might be called "suspense.” Throughout the
lectures he warned his listeners that something special
was coming and that they should be watching for it. For
example, having previously mentioned that "we'll be sorry
for him [Claudius] before we're through because we see him
for what he is" (A-19), Baxter reminded his audience of the
kind of man the king was: "You know perfectly well that
the king's guilty conscience is at work here. He's got to
200
use every tool by which to pry into Hamlet's secret" (A-
78). He continued to build up his suspense: "As I told you
when you began, keep your eye upon the king. . . . the king
is uncertain, miserable. Hovering over him is danger"
(A-103).
Another example is Baxter's use of the word,
"trap," in connection with Polonius. As he discussed the
development of Polonius1 machinations, he frequently accom
panied his description with an indication that Polonius
would eventually be caught in his own trap, as: "He's going
to make one little left-handed maneuver too many before the
play goes much further. He's going to bait one more trap,
and we'll see what happens" (A-77).
A different type of suspense or foreshadowing was
used by Baxter in connection with the "boom" accompanying
the king's draining of his goblet. One interpretation of
this is seen later in the section on Baxter's use of
onomatopoeia, but it is also an excellent illustration of
dramatic suspense. Baxter described how "the king pro
ceeded to drink at the table," draining "the great flagon,"
and then "a roll of drums and 'boom!'" "Later on," fore
warned Baxter, "we'll hear of this custom. It will be used
most ingeniously for dramatic theatrical purpose" (A-31).
201
When the purpose was at hand, during the subsequent lec
ture, Baxter told his audience, "There's a moment's silence,
and then, 'boom!1 The drum and the cannon. You're not
expecting that. 'What's that?' says Horatio" (A-55). And
Baxter then explained the dramatic purpose: "See how Ham-
let's mind works. He says, 'Here's this custom, this
strange business. The king drinks and the cannons go off.'
They laugh at us in other countries" (A-56).
These illustrations showed planning in the use of
suspense. Perhaps the illustration which follows was just
as carefully planned, but the suspense is of a different
nature. Here he kept his audience waiting with baited
breath: "Now, I feel very humble and not a little fright
ened at reading this speech with you, for if there is one
thing that has been worn smooth, it is this speech of
Hamlet's" (A-108), said Baxter, referring to the "to be or
not to be" soliloquy of Hamlet. His audience, knowing that
he referred to this best-known soliloquy, were undoubtedly
anxious to hear Baxter read it. But he delayed their en
joyment. Whether he consciously built their anticipation
and impatience is uncertain from the transcripts, but he
digressed for several long minutes. First he described
other, less professional, presentations:
202
You've heard it; it's been rowdily burlesqued
on a thousand stages, in films, on television.
People have read this. It has been mouthed by
bedeviled grammar school children on Fridays in
little red schoolhouses and, no doubt, much better
done on Fridays in reinforced concrete ones in the
twentieth century. But everybody knows this
speech.
And let's have again the curious adventure
that comes to those who reread Shakespeare. I
hope you will find it a little different this
morning, as it will be different the day after
tomorrow when you read it again. (A-108-109)
Still Baxter was not ready to begin the speech it
self. He digressed again, this time to discuss the rela
tionship of Shakespeare to the audience, the "you out
there," finally saying, "Let's listen to this tired old
speech" (A-109). And still he was not ready. This time, he
discussed Hamlet's philosophy and his attitude and his
rationality and the reason for them (A-110) as Baxter saw
the reason. And then, at last, after this long introduc
tion, holding the audience always "at the ready," Baxter
began to deliver the famous soliloquy.
Other forms of suspense, of foreshadowing, of
building up anticipation or expectation were used fre
quently by Baxter; indicating that Baxter the Speaker was
highly skilled in the art of oral reading, of lecturing,
and of story telling.
203
Voice
From analysis of the sound track, this writer felt
that Baxter's natural speaking voice, mostly in the bari
tone range, was pleasant and easy to listen to, but that it
could not be described as exception. His articulation was
distinct and his pronunciation was accurate without sound
ing overly precise.
One aspect of his style of delivery was subject to
more disagreement among the students at California State
College at Long Beach than any other item: "fumbling--
fluent--gushy," where the scores were 19--40--10 respec
tively.
This researcher concluded that the most unusual
feature of Baxter's vocal delivery was his ability at all
times to sound forceful, or urgent, or excited, and yet not
lose his overall conversational effect. This rather rare
ability seemed to result from his manner of varying the
rate, loudness, pitch, and quality of his voice. The
excitement was maintain intentionally by Baxter. He wanted
to "read these plays" with
. . . the members of the wide television audience
who will see it and hear it in their own homes
. . . as vital and fresh literary adventures . . .
Your lecturer hopes that these telecasts will be a
204
pleasant and exciting experience. If it is not,
he extends his condolences and apologies. But it
will not be Shakespeare's fault. ®
Baxter has been criticized by some of his profes
sional colleagues for overdoing this unusual vocal activ
ity, for making everything sound exciting and urgent. It
may well be that the criticism is justified on the profes
sional level. However, the students who flocked to his
classes, and the audiences who gave his programs the rat
ings which were documented in Chapter I--and which, in
turn, brought him further television commitments--would
probably defend him, for this variety gave his lectures a
sense of immediacy and excited interest. Only one of the
Long Beach students, for instance, felt that Baxter was
weak, while sixty marked "forceful” on the index of Bax
ter's personality characteristics.
Use of cadence
One of the techniques which Baxter discussed in the
interviews had to do with "changes of pace and pitch, and
the rising and falling business, the slow fadeout" (C-30).
^Baxter, Shakespeare on TV.. op cit., pp. 1-2.
205
His own use of rhythm, he felt, was achieved "instinctive
ly," and analysis of the lectures confirmed that it must
have been. He could not have planned his tempo in advance
when he had only an outline of the things he would say and
11
was unable to adhere to the outline. Although he knew
that rhythm was planned in advance by some speakers, he
said, for himself, "I can't imagine ever planning this
thing and drawing out a score for me to follow--musical
tunes for me to play, and so on" (C-31).
This did not hold entirely true for his oral read
ings, for it has been shown that he believed, in this case,
that a foreknowledge of the book or play or poem was essen
tial in order to read it with the proper "breaks in thought
or rhythm" (C-10), and to "have the cadence in your head"
(C-10). He was emphatic in his opinion that to read with
feeling and emotion, to convey the thoughts of the author
succinctly and do justice to them, the reader must know
where each new idea, each pause, each emphasis was placed
on the page being read.
11
See , pp. 169-171.
206
Onomatopoeia
Whenever it could be utilized, Baxter quite obvi
ously enjoyed onomatopoeia. He must surely have shaken up
his studio audience of technicians --just as he shook up
class after class of college students--with: "And the
ghost yearns toward him. And at that moment, 'rr rrr rrr,'
the cock crows" (A-13) and Baxter imitated a rooster at
dawn. Another example of this technique was the loud
"boom" (A-31 and A-55), which accompanied the draining of
12
the "last drop" of ale in the king’s cup. Again, the
"blblblbl" (A-118) to illustrate Hamlet's gibberish and the
"brrrrrr" which indicated how a "lesser dramatist" [than
Shakespeare] might indicate a rapid recitation (A-98) were
sound effects obviously relished by Baxter.
These various vocal sound effects that Baxter cre
ated were part of his studied dramatic technique. They
undoubtedly contributed to the accusation hurled at Baxter
of being a "ham," but, as Baxter said, "I accept that hap
pily” (C-20). From the success of the series, it must be
assumed that his audience accepted it happily, too.
■^See supra, p. 200.
207
Summary
All of the factors in Baxter's background and
training from his undergraduate days on through the years
were preparation for his later ability and success as a
speaker, lecturer, and oral reader. This chapter has
chronicled his development and his philosophy, and illus
trated his relatively simple method of preparing his talks
--simple in that his technique apparently was more a matter
of evolution than education. In its analysis of Baxter's
gestures, and his colorful and varied use of language and
vocal effects, this chapter has concluded that these ele
ments undoubtedly contributed in large measure to his suc
cess on television.
CHAPTER VI
SYNTHESIS: "SHAKESPEARE ON TV"
AS A COMMUNICATION EVENT
In the preceding three chapters the process of
analysis was applied to Baxter the Man, the Scholar, and
the Speaker. In this chapter the process of synthesis is
undertaken. "Shakespeare on TV" is viewed as a communica
tion event in which all the ingredients are interrelated
and interdependent. A discussion of the nature of communi
cation events follows, therefore, for the purpose of
orientation and of establishing a common understanding of
the approach used.
The Nature of Communication Events
The word event is used in this study to mean a hap
pening, or an on-going, or a dynamic process. The word
communication is used to denote the transmission and
reception of signals or symbols. It therefore follows that
208
209
any communication event is located within certain definite
boundaries of time and space. This deceptively simple
logical statement is extraordinarily difficult to apply to
the actual observation of communication events, such as
"Shakespeare on TV."
The original series comprised eighteen 45-minute
programs broadcasted at weekly intervals during a period of
several months. Each of these telecasts might be termed a
communication event. Although the objection might be
raised that each telecast consisted of numerous "smaller"
events, if this argument were carried to its logical
extreme, then every sentence, or word, or phoneme, or ges
ture might be called a separate communication event. An
opposing line of argument might be that the apparent
boundaries of time and space for each of the 45-minute pro
grams were artificial because a great deal of essential and
relevant activity both preceded and followed each program.
In fact, it might be maintained that the true beginning of
these programs went back at least as far as the time during
which Shakespeare wrote his plays. From the standpoint of
cause and effect under this latter line of argument, there
fore, Baxter's programs had no traceable beginning or fore
seeable ending. It was concluded that the time and space
210
boundaries of any communication event must be specified
arbitrarily.
In specifying the limits of the communication event
used for this study "the beginning" was arbitrarily chosen
as the time when Baxter began his thinking and other
preparation for the lectures comprising "Shakespeare on
TV." "The ending" was arbitrarily chosen as the time when
the investigator concluded his inquiries regarding audience
responses to the original telecasts and to the reruns of
kinescopes.
However, even the above rough boundaries had to be
used flexibly. For example, the analysis of Baxter's
preparation of these lectures required going back to his
earlier Shakespearean studies, his early teaching and other
experiences, and the like. And in analyzing the effects of
this series the investigator had to consider subsequent
invitations and performances by Baxter on various televi
sion programs.
Another set of difficulties illustrated the complex
nature of communication events. Each program might have
been arbitrarily specified as a separate event on the basis
that it was selected as such for viewing by most of the
audience, but this seemed too arbitrary--at least for
211
purposes of the present study. Some of the objections were
(1) that Baxter's background, experiences, and preparation
could not be compartmentalized into eighteen discrete
units; (2) that during the lectures Baxter often made
cross-references to his other lectures; (3) that KNXT had
scheduled the lectures as an interrelated series; (4) that
some of the audience viewed the lectures as a series; (5)
that some of the audience viewed only part of any given
program; and (6) that the reactions of many viewers did not
end with the mere reception and perception of a program.
The difficulties of delimiting a communication
event were foreshadowed in Chapter II when a communication
model was cited: "Who, says what, how, to whom, and with
what effect?" This multiple question suggested the value
of the concept of diversity within unity. It also sug
gested the value of combining the techniques of analysis
with those of synthesis.
In the three preceding chapters techniques of
analysis were applied. What were the principal character
istics of Baxter the Man? What were the principal charac
teristics of Baxter the Scholar? What were the principal
characteristics of Baxter the Speaker? The impossibility
of separating these various characteristics into discrete
212
categories was indicated. The value of undertaking to
analyze the "who, says what, how" into major elements or
ingredients was also emphasized.
In this chapter the values of the gestalt or field
approach are emphasized. Techniques of synthesis are
applied (description and evaluation in terms of interaction,
overlapping, and interdependence). Thus the "how" of a
speaker's delivery is considered, not only in terms of
voice, language, and physical action, but also in terms of
the electronic extensions of these visual and auditory
stimuli. The "to whom" is considered in terms of the
unusual characteristics of a mass television audience--
millions of people in extremely small personal groupings.
The "with what effect" is considered in terms of the inter
stimulation and response among two, three, or four people
viewing a program in their living room--not in terms of the
interstimulation and response among thousands of people
attending a public meeting in a large auditorium or coli
seum.
For convenience in organizing the remainder of this
chapter the word synthesis (and some approximate synonyms)
has been utilized. And three major captions have been
used: Communicator, Medium, and Audience. The intended
213
emphasis is upon the dynamic interactions which comprise a
single process unifying speaker(s) and listener(s).
The Communicator
The principal communicator of ’ ’Shakespeare on TV"
has been analyzed in terms of important details such as his
early training and career, his personality characteristics,
his knowledge of Shakespeare, his approach to scholarship,
his physical appearance, bodily action when speaking on
television, his voice, articulation, use of language, and
methods of lecture preparation. Most of his viewers, how
ever, would never dissect him in this fashion; they would
instead view him as an integrated whole or gestalt. What
kind of gestalt did Baxter present? And how did the many
details of this complex and often contradictory man blend
together into an integrated whole?
The most important commonality among the many
facets of Baxter the Man, the Scholar, and the Speaker
appeared to be this: Baxter thought of himself and con
ducted himself first and foremost as an educator, as a
schoolteacher. He stated this in various ways and with
varying degrees of emphasis, but always he held to his
belief that he was a "schoolmaster." He was proud of it
214
and spoke in glowing and dynamic terms of the importance of
the teaching profession. In an interview he advised "any
student, anywhere, who is going into teaching" to realize
that "this is the most necessary function that a human
being can perform for this republic" (C-42).
As far back as 1949, Time magazine interviewed him
in connection with an article about his Christmas readings.
He is reported to have said that as soon as he could after
taking his Master's degree at the University of Pennsyl
vania he "headed for Cambridge University, there 'to walk
over door sills that had been worn by 600 years of students
and to sit in lecture rooms where Marlowe and Milton had
sat.'" But it was not for the purpose of becoming a
scholar. "'I'm just a schoolmaster,'" he said, adding as
he is reported so often to have added, "'the last of the
sentimentalists.'
He did not consider teaching an easy career for the
man who entered into it with an abiding willingness to
share and to help his students to a deeper understanding.
"I have tried to make my students feel," he said. "This
is, of course, an agonizing business, because you are
^"Sentimentalist," Time, December 26, 1949, p. 31.
215
doomed to fail if you set your sights very high" (C-18).
At another time he remarked that "in teaching, one is
embarked upon something--and I say this unashamedly--almost
priestly in its function" (B-5).
We have seen that he had an eagerness to share his
accumulated knowledge about Shakespeare, and this eagerness
made him a vibrant, enthusiastic teacher. "I don't want
them [the students] to be aware of me," he had said. "It's
the subject they're learning, not the professor." But
obviously his students were indeed aware of him; they could
not artificially separate the professor from his subject.
Neither could Baxter--he was constantly coloring his sub
ject matter with his personal reactions to it. Thus, in
the first Hamlet lecture he read the opening scenes, fre
quently breaking in upon himself to be sure that his view
ing students understood what was happening, gesturing,
acting out the parts with sure descriptive deftness. When
Baxter announced: "He's going to make an announcement"
(A-20), referring to Claudius, it was because he wanted to
transmit a touch of the eagerness he felt. Then he read
the line or two from Shakespeare and again broke in to
2Ibid.
216
build the enthusiasm of his listeners: "Just watch how he
leads up to the point" (A-20), he urged, putting explicitly
into practice his concept that the teacher should "extend
people's emotional eyes" (B-5) . At one point he suggested
how his audience should react as he interpreted a scene,
"It always seemed to me magnificent!" (A-150). And fre
quently he made remarks such as "Now this is a wonderful
speech" (A-91).
Baxter's integrity, too, as a Man, a Scholar, and
a Speaker blended into his integrity as a teacher. "I
deplore a man who is nothing but the jobber, the whole
saler, or the retailer sometimes, of the learned facts of
his profession" (C-20), he said. "He may be a very valu
able fellow for those who are already learned in the sub
ject," Baxter admitted, but he felt that such a teacher was
not suitable for "the television audience out there" (C-20).
The way to teach "English literature, either in the class
room or on television" (C-19), Baxter emphasized in an
interview, is to "experience it in their presence, in a
sense" (C-19). As Baxter, the communicator, stood before
the cameras to conclude his second Hamlet lecture, his
integrity as a teacher was shown as he told his audience:
217
I want you to understand this and be able to
translate the squiggles on the page into pictures
in your own awakened mind.... I don't want to
tell you what to believe about the play. I have a
horror of that. But I hope to make it clear it's
a great and rewarding thing, this play. (A-64)
"The squiggles on the page" is an expression Baxter used
rather frequently throughout the lectures. He wanted his
students--whether classroom or television students--to
learn to make sense from the words on a page. He realized
that the meaning is in the person, not the squiggles.
"X think a teacher must never be a faker," said
Baxter (C-40), at the same time indicating his inherent
dislike of the faker in others. Baxter's admiration for
the villainy of Claudius because Claudius dared to admit
that he was a villain without rationalizing it has been
discussed previously. It was this honesty of opinion
backed by knowledge that gave him assurance when he faced
a class. "If you're ignorant," he urged, "accept the fact
and try to fill in the gaps of your ignorance” (C-40). As
he taught his students something of the background of the
play, something of the history of the characterizations, it
was always with the implied or stated desire that they
should embark upon their own voyage of discovery.
The Man and the Scholar were fused into a unit
218
ready to teach and capable of teaching. It was a unit
which deplored sham, a unit which said, "For a man to go
into teaching who hasn't filled his reservoir would seem to
me to be the sin of sins" (C-43); a unit which said to the
television audience, "you must see all . . . these people
. . . on the stage of your imagination" (A-66); "you must
meet any reading five-eights of the way . . . you have to
invade a book or play with everything that has happened to
you in your life" (A-67); a unit with every part of his
varied background ready to support or interpret a state
ment. This was the integrity of the Man, the integrity of
the Scholar, as it was the integrity of the teacher.
The compassion of the Man blended into the wisdom
of the teacher who could say to his class, "Youth is very
vulnerable. . . . it seems to me too terrible a thing to
be enforced upon the young" (A-92). And the wisdom of the
teacher fused with the flexibility of the Speaker who could
create an off-the-cuff description of Horatio as "the sort
of B-plus who doesn't suffer the agonies of an A" (A-41).
From everything that belonged to his past, from his
earliest days of earning a living, through his long years
of studying and teaching, whether it belonged primarily to
the Man, to the Scholar, or to the Speaker, Baxter found it
219
part of his reservoir as a teacher.
The element of his scholarship was an illustration
of the concept of himself as a teacher--it was one of the
ingredients important to the total synthesis. "I've never
been a formal Shakespeare scholar in the sense that I've
attended the meetings, belonged to the societies, and
written the papers" (C-25), said Baxter, and a certain
amount of wry smugness crept into his voice as he announced
with a touch of irony, "This, alas, I know to be a lack in
me, but curiously enough I've never felt it a fatal flaw
for my happiness" (C-25-26).
Except for the articles to be found in the Ency
clopaedia Britannica on Elizabethan literature, he claimed
never to have written anything in the way of a scholarly
paper. On the other hand: "this seems incredible, but it's
true," Baxter said, "that I was to have the distinction of
having talked to more people about Shakespeare than any
person who ever lived" (C-14). The scholarly articles, as
he saw it, would have made him a faker, because he had
"never pretended to be the Shakespeare expert the news
papers always call me" (C-24). His pride in his scholar
ship arose from such facts as that he had once "talked to
forty-three million people at one time" about Richard
220
III (C-16). This talk could be called "teaching" but it
was also "oral publication." To Baxter, teaching and
scholarship were fused.
For Baxter, the teacher and the Speaker were so
intertwined that when he was asked: "Do you think that
there are such concepts as the people in the School of
Education talk about and write about as basic principles
of good teaching?" (C-32), he brushed the question aside
with, "Golly, I suppose that they have them. Though in my
experience they very seldom seem to exemplify them in their
own discourse" (C-32). Then he launched directly into a
discourse on his own concept of the principles of speaking.
Having begged the question the first time, he was
brought back to the point with a specific question as to
whether he felt that "teaching in a predominantly lecture
course" was "almost synonymous with public speaking"
(C-34). His reply might have confounded professors in
schools of education, for he evinced no awareness that such
things as "principles of good teaching" existed. The sali
ent points that he made as he attempted to comment directly
on teaching principles reverted again to the principles of
speaking, for the most part:
221
It seems to me that in the lecture a wise
teacher should let the people know in the begin
ning what he intends to do. He should then pro
ceed to do it as a sort of expositor. Let's say I
was approaching the theory of evolution. I first
would try to let the people understand what I
meant by the term, continuity with change, that
all things come from the past somehow, but come
from the past through a series of subtle, impact
ing, and accreting changes, so that the end is
different from the beginning. I would let them
see that, then gather the evidences together: one,
two, three, four. I would come to the conclusion.
I would go back to the beginning and see if there
were any questions. . . . Teaching is any sort of
preaching where you're allowed to ask questions.
. . . Beyond that I know of no philosophy of
teaching. Really I do not. (C-34-35)
Quite obviously, Baxter never confined himself to
the "principles" of teaching--he just taught. He apparent
ly never said to himself, "I must remember to apply this
principle." If there is such a thing as a "natural-born"
teacher, it would appear that Baxter was one of the most
natural. He wanted--as an inner drive, not as a learned
rule--to impart in people a desire to become more know
ledgeable, for one thing. For another, he believed that,
more than facts and footnotes, literature was all "over
tones." As the Time reporter said:
To him the past is thrilling. Except for
coeds who knit in class, nothing irritates him
more than people who refuse to look back. "Any
one who thinks that the world began in 1921,"
222
he snaps, "has missed the boat as a human
being."3
Beginning with his reiterated statement that he
wanted his students to "experience" Shakespeare, he seemed
to approach his task almost "instinctively," to use his own
word. It is unlikely that he consciously would adhere to
teaching principles such as that the teacher should, for
example, "motivate" his students. Instead, his principle
was to impart his own enthusiasm so that his students,
intrigued by the excitement they saw in their teacher,
would set out to discover some of his enthusiasm in their
own understanding and appreciation of the literature he had
been "teaching" them.
A former student explained one of the kinds of
results Baxter achieved as a teacher. "I never learned
many specifics about any particular phase of English liter
ature in Baxter's classes," he said, "but he has my undying
gratitude for the interest he inspired in me. I can
attribute directly to my English Literature course with him
my interest in Chaucer." The man explained, "It was like a
flame that flared suddenly when, that first day, he read
3Ibid.
223
Chaucer aloud." As a direct result, he went on to a spec
ial study of Chaucer and later produced a film on the
Canterbury Tales, which is used today in Freshman English
courses to help students bridge their way back to Chaucer,
his medieval English language, and the poetry of his
4
writings.
It is from Baxter, and men like him, that others
have been able to develop their principles of teaching.
Baxter probably never took the time to study carefully the
criteria of education set down, for instance, by Osborn:
Truth, beauty, learning, observation, reason,
expression, and production, in their most compre
hensive forms, are the seven forces of progress,
and the factors of education.^
Osborn could have taken Baxter's lectures and analyzed his
methods, however, and shown how pertinently they fit into
the Osborn categories. The same might be said for the
£
principles proposed by Thorndike and Gates, by Yoakam and
^Maynard Smith, Administrative Head, Evening Divi
sion, Department of Cinema, The University of Southern
California, Los Angeles, January 10, 1965. Personal inter
view.
^Henry Fairfield Osborn, Creative Education in
School. College. University, and Museum (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1927), p. 195.
^Edward L. Thorndike and Arthur I. Gates, Elemen-
224
7 R 9
Simpson, by Justman and Mais,° by Mursell, or by any of a
number of other educators--writers who might each have used
Baxter as an example to illustrate their criteria.
Baxter, then, must be considered to have been a
good teacher by "instinct," by inclination, and by his very
attributes and aspects. He was, through the automatic and
unconscious synthesizing of the characteristics of Baxter
the Man, Baxter the Scholar, and Baxter the Speaker, an
outstanding and completely natural teacher.
He believed that the teacher should be articulate
and that his language should always have meaning, that
words should not be used with a lack of respect for them.
The teacher, and perhaps especially the teacher on televi
sion, should be as well-read and as well-rounded as pos
sible (C-42) because all "culture worthy of the word rests
upon exact knowledge. . . . The facts must be there under
mentary Principles of Education (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1929).
^Gerald Yoakam and Robert G. Simpson, Modem Meth
ods and Techniques of Teaching (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1949.
^Joseph Justman and Walter H. Mais, College Teach
ing: Its Practices and Potential (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1956)7
Q
James L. Mursell, Successful Teaching: Its Psycho
logical Principles (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.
225
every generalization that is worth-while” (B-ll). He
thought that it was necessary to acquire a great reservoir
of knowledge so that "in the few minutes of any talk, or
any lecture, or any broadcast, you deal out of that full
hand those cards you need" (B-ll). At the same time, he
shied away from "mixing pure entertainment with scholar
ship. Every inch the schoolteacher, he insisted that he
was merely in television, not of it."^®
Thus everything in his life and experiences that
had gone before his first television broadcast automatical
ly fused. He stood before the microphones and the televi
sion cameras as the principal communicator in "Shakespeare
on TV," ready to become the first link in a mass communica
tion chain to teach through the medium of commercial tele
vision. And from this fusion no man, least of all Baxter
himself, could separate the parts that had belonged to
Baxter the Man, Baxter the Scholar, or Baxter the Speaker.
The Speaker, who must be articulate and whose duty it was
to use words, must already have synthesized with the
Scholar, whose duty it was to use those words to present
■^Frances V. Rummell, "Box Office Professor,"
Television Age, August, 1956, p. 54.
226
his background of learning, and both must have been syn
thesized with the Man, who was an amalgamation of his
physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements.
The Medium
In considering the communication event of "Shake
speare on TV," it was felt that it would be important to
discover the interrelationship of Baxter to the television
medium--or channel. The deeper the search in an attempt to
find the interrelationship, the more certain became the
conviction that there was no action or amalgamation to
which one might point to say: "This is the synthesis."
When Baxter transferred from his classroom at the
University to his classroom in the studio he took with him
his personal assets--his broad scholarship, his fluent and
descriptive language facility, and his dedication to the
teaching profession--and he began in the studio where he
had left off in the classroom. It seemed unlikely from
his interviews or his lectures that he made much of an
effort to adapt to television. Any synthesis was, appar
ently, television synthesizing with Baxter. This was per
haps an overly naive viewpoint for it was unlikely that he
had not made previously some preparation for this communi-
227
cation event. This preparation, however, appeared to have
been rather small on his part. Rummell, too, pointed this
out:
Whether he is teaching 200 or two million at
one time, he prepares his students to visualize
the plays in their imagination as if they were
actually being performed.
Dr. Baxter's techniques of telecasting vary
not a jot from his classroom teaching. He even
carries his simple homemade props from his class
room to the studio--some maps of old London, a
beautiful replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
and little hand-carved figures to show the flow of
characters on and off stage. ^
We have seen how Baxter believed that he could not
"speak from a script" (C-9). Although he gave hundreds of
programs on radio and television, "for none of them have I
had a script" (C-9). Rummell concurred in this: "Since
Dr. Baxter never rehearses or uses a script, his television
12
viewers share in his twinkling spontaneity." His prepar
ations, as he said, consisted of a little four-by-six-inch
card on which he had jotted some notes. The director of
the show and the cameramen went through a rehearsal, but
did not commit Baxter to any previously planned movements
or actions. Instead, by the time he had come to the Hamlet
11Ibid., pp. 54-55. ^ Ibid. , p. 55 .
228
series, Baxter had become adept at indicating to the
studio personnel what he wanted his viewers to see. His
references to his model stage usually preceded his descrip
tion of the placement of the Hamlet characters so that the
director had already put a picture of the stage on the air.
Sometimes he was more direct: "I’d like to show you his
picture in a moment, as I conceive of him. Gentlemen, may
I have a picture of Polonius? There's Mr. Polonius as I
see him, in the middle of his web" (A-51).
His lack of a serious concern with the passing
minutes was documented in Chapter V. Without a script and
adhering to his usual practice of interpolating and ex
plaining as he went along, adding a touch of humor or
pathos or philosophy as he felt inclined, his televised
lectures appeared to be examples of "enlarged conversa
tion," a term used in most public speaking textbooks. That
he was sometimes "cued" by the floor manager to "wind up"
his talk at a point when he little expected it was also
pointed out in Chapter V. The exigencies of network sched
uling forced KNXT to hold his lectures to the time period
alloted to the program. Baxter had to cooperate and in
interviews said that this was almost the only concession
that he made to television:
229
Then you have the exigencies of time in tele
vision- -so short a time. If you're teaching a
class, you have them for forty minutes, or forty-
five, or fifty minutes, with the expectation that
they'll be back in a few days for another crack,
but not so on television where everything has to
be self-contained, and limited by its own time.
(C-37)
13
As previously reported, in an interview he dis
cussed at length his complete lack of interest as it con
cerned the camera:
Then you are told in television . . . that you
should look at the red light. I soon decided, "To
hell with the red light." If the red light was
interested in me it would find me. And I have
never bothered about the red light since. Having
two cameras, as in the great days of "Shake
speare," there was always a red light around some
where, and if they saw me, fine, and I have never
paid any attention. (C-16)
The red light apparently was interested in him and found
him. Obviously, too, from the kinescopes, he was con
scious of the red light, for he spoke into the camera when
it seemed to him to be appropriate.
Some preparation was, of course, necessary: to
remember to bring to the studio the props or visuals he
planned to use to illustrate a section of Hamlet which
would be discussed on a certain Saturday morning; to review
13
See supra, p. 157.
230
perhaps the section of Hamlet that might be covered in a
certain lecture, provided he could cover it in the pre
scribed time (which we have seen that he seldom did); to
arrive at the studio early enough before air time to permit
the production crew to make the necessary arrangements; and
to wear clothing appropriate to television teaching. On
the whole, however, it appeared that Baxter carried on in
his usual manner and to a very considerable extent let
television fit itself into his regular teaching techniques.
As Dr. Templeman, Chairman of the English Department of the
University of Southern California, said: "Dr. Baxter was
ready for television. It was, to a large extent, a matter
of television becoming ready for him."
Although Baxter made only a few concessions to
details of television broadcasting, he was well aware of
at least one major characteristic of the medium as applied
to teaching. In the early interview, in answer to a ques
tion about his view of "the relationship of speaking to
teaching" (B-6), he replied in part:
It's a terrible dilemma that a teacher faces
^Interview with Dr. William D. Templeman in his
office at the University of Southern California, June 2,
1963.
231
who feels things keenly. Sometimes one almost
envies the quiet little teachers, with a sheaf of
notes accrued over long years in a manila folder,
who go into class, and who quietly and quite un
moved go through the ritual of a given course.
The teacher must be part of what he does.’ He's
a speaker; he's in show business, to use an awful
phrase, because he's a three-dimensional person.
The teacher can be interesting; he can be a ham;
he can be eye-catching; and he can defeat his
purpose. How dangerously difficult a path this
is to steer! (B-7)
Thus, even in the classroom, Baxter felt that the teacher
was "in show business"; in front of his students, Baxter
felt that the teacher was "a three-dimensional person."
As a picture on a television tube, however, Baxter said in
a later interview in his home:
The teacher who appears on television, whether
he likes it or not, is in a sense in show business.
You're there; you're a two-dimensional figure mov
ing around the television screen, not a man behind
a desk talking. (C-19)
The Audience
Frequently during his lectures, Baxter spoke
directly to his television audience, addressing them as
"you," sometimes as "we," occasionally as "you and I." It
was obviously an effort to establish what is often called
"the active role of the listener." He recognized, perhaps
instinctively, the importance of speaker-listener interac
tion, and sought to stimulate this interaction.
232
In order to implement this interaction between him
self and his audience, and in order to help his listeners
understand the reaction--and the action--he expected from
them, he explained in the third lecture of his initial
series the role he wanted them to play. Part of this
explanation was stated in the study guide:
. . . many readers find poetry itself a stum
bling block. By "poetry" we mean a sort of writ
ing that is planned to release people's imagina
tions by speaking to their emotions through their
senses. . . .
No poet ever finishes a poem--for every person
who hears it or reads it finishes it for himself
in his own way. . . . The poet . . . is difficult
for those people who either (a) live a life of
carefully rationed emotion and refuse to let their
imaginations loose; or (b) feel that poetry is
unmasculine, unpractical, and un-American; or (c)
think it to be a fancy and left-handed way of say
ing something that could be said simply and direct
ly; or (d) are so constitutionally incapable of
being disturbed by any vibrant truth or beauty as
to approach the state of chemical inertness.
It is our hope that representatives of the
first three groups will follow this series of
telecasts, for they may find that a new mental
dimension has been added to their lives . . .
For the very few people utterly incapable of
the poetic experience (the representatives of "d",
the last group) we have only the best wishes for a
long life and a prosperous career. . , .
From the beginning of our reading together try
to see the plays on the stage of your imagination,
try to visualize the characters as real people,
and willingly seek to let the author say to you
233
what he has to say of "truth caught in terms of
beauty". ■ * - - >
One measure of his success in eliciting a positive
response from his audience to taking its role seriously
was found in many of the letters in his scrapbooks. An
other measure was his comment in an interview:
One thing that interests me, if I may intrude
at this moment, is the way that I've been received
by the people in Hollywood from the very begin
ning. . . . Furthermore, as I travel around the
country, I'm amazed to see how I, a very obscure
and humble school teacher in a second-rate univer
sity in the provinces, have somehow entered their
consciousnesses. It's a very gratifying thing.
When they think of me they think of books, and
that's what I had hoped. (C-39)
Because of the outward manifestations of this suc
cess, by the time he came to Hamlet at the end of the second
series of lectures he had a measure of confidence in his
ability to impart his enthusiasm to his viewers. "Suppose
we look at this play today and see whether it can again
write upon us in burning and moving words" (A-2). As he
set the scene in ancient Denmark for his audience, he threw
himself into his task with ardor--the task of teaching his
15
Frank C. Baxter, "Shakespeare on TV" (unpublished
Study Guide for English 356a; The University of Southern
California in cooperation with Station KTHE--Channel 28
UHF, n.d.), p. 11.
234
viewers to "experience" Shakespeare, not merely to under
stand it. "'The longer I teach literature,'" he is re
ported to have remarked to an interviewer,
. . . "the more I am convinced that a teacher
should not tell students about literature but
rather, when possible, let them experience it as a
living art, by reading or acting aloud in their
presence." ^
As he closed his Hamlet lectures he conveyed the same idea
to his audience. "You remember," he reminded them, that we
. . . began by wondering whether Shakespeare's
reputation was . . . the result of an academic
conspiracy. Had the school marms and librarians
and the self-consciously saved, the eggheads,
prims . . . conspired against us to tell us that
Shakespeare was somehow good for you, like a sort
of literary vitamin pill? (A-156)
"Well," he said, "we've looked at the plays, and what do
you think?" (A-156).
Baxter refused to admit that he had ever "talked
down to an audience" and insisted that if he wanted to use
"a five-syllable word" because it seemed to be the "only"
correct word, "by golly," he said, "I've used it" (B-9).
As he saw his language and vocabulary, he was at all times
maintaining due "respect for the spoken word" (C-41), but
as pointed out in Chapter V his picturesque speech and his
■^Ruromell, op. cit. , p. 54.
235
use of slang‘ d were both designed to bridge the gulf from
the scholar-speaker-teacher-source to the listener-student-
receiver.
You know that the necessity is put upon you
to be clear and to be cogent . . . so that what
you say . . . will not be obscure or baffling or
dull to the very humble. It's a hard thing to
do. (C-20)
Partially as a result of this attitude some of his col
leagues over the country called him "the Liberace of the
library" and criticized him, as a "reputable teacher," for
"selling out to the masses," but Baxter was unconcerned.
As Rummell put it:
One of the great paradoxes of America, he
knew, was its glorification of learning between
ivy-covered walls and the often simultaneous
ridicule of learning on the outside.^
He felt a deep sense of responsibility to interpret
for his audience those words and phrases which they might
not have understood. Since he made no attempt to read all
of Hamlet aloud, many of the dated and therefore somewhat
obscure words of Elizabethan language could not be trans
lated into the modern tongue. In those lines that he did
•^See supra, pp. 186-187.
18
Rummell, op. cit., p. 111.
236
read, he frequently paused long enough to insert the cur
rent meaning or interpretation of words or phrases into his
discussion. This desire to translate for his audience
buttressed his belief about the proper role of the teacher:
To deal with ideas, those ideas about the
world that men need to know to be ready and invul
nerable before the world, to seek for wisdom and
translate it into meaningful terms to people . . .
this is a tremendous business. (B-5)
He believed that no art could "ever be very signif
icant or very meaningful" that could not be "tied directly
to the experience of him who hears" (B-8), and he worked
consciously and conscientiously as the teacher-source to
"tie" the art of Shakespeare to the experience of his stu-
dent-receivers. It was probable that the actual "work"
that he did to achieve this communication was not a new or
different approach just because he was now using television
as the medium; rather it would appear that the time when he
had done the work had been during his years of teaching.
His success as a teacher had been established long before
his first Shakespeare broadcast; in fact, it was probable
that the opportunity to become a teacher-broadcaster was
the result of his success as a teacher rather than a cause.
The synthesizing process had, therefore, been established
between Baxter, the source, with his classroom students
237
before he transferred the process to his television stu
dents. This was undoubtedly one of the reasons why Baxter
believed that he should make very few concessions to the
television medium: his communication technique had already
been acclaimed a success.
This ability was all the more amazing when it is
realized that his audience was, to use Baxter's phrase, "a
random, mixed bag of people” (C-20). This Scholar had
communicated for years to a homogeneous "bag of people":
the university students enrolled in his classes. He could
expect that they would be fairly literate, that he could
communicate to them in thoughts and words which were famil
iar to them, that their intellectual level was sufficiently
high to enable him to talk to them as intelligent, thinking
people. Now, in "Shakespeare on TV" he was talking to
millions of people from all walks of life, with all levels
of intellectual interests and developments. How could this
man who had spent most of his professional adult life
cloistered in "the ivy-covered walls of learning" achieve
such rapport with the "mixed bag of people"? He had heard
that "the American age level is supposed to be 12, 13, 14
years," but emphasized that he had "never acknowledged that
in speaking on any occasion" (B-9). He felt that if the
238
speaker slanted toward an audience, he was "guilty of some
sort of salesmanship and I have never tried to be that sort
of salesman" (B-10). How and why did Baxter and his tele
vision audience achieve a sense of mutual identification?
His empathy and understanding of men and women has
already been noted, and it undoubtedly contributed immeas
urably to his ability to communicate. Another aspect,
however, was that--although he kept it as a carefully
guarded secret--hiS regard for the student body en masse
was not very high. As a teacher he longed to raise the
students' understanding of literature and spent years try
ing to make them "feel" the beauty and poetry of Shake
speare. His remarks during his lectures revealed that he
apparently felt that he had not been overly successful and
that he did not hold the students' level of sensitivity to
the beauty of literature in very high regard. As a matter
of fact, the lectures indicated this lack of respect to a
far greater extent than did his considered opinion as ex
pressed during the interviews.
For instance, he described Guildenstern and Rosen-
crantz, Hamlet's "old fraternity brothers from Wittenberg"
(A-78), as "spaceless air" (A-78) and said that he always
saw them as "the faceless undergraduates who conform to the
239
type established by their particular institution, so that
you can't really tell one from another" (A-78). Horatio,
another of Hamlet's "college friends," has "a survival
quality of normality" because he "doesn't suffer the ago
nies of an 'A'; he's better than a 'C'" (A-41). His com
ment in describing a reaction of Ophelia was, "Now this
would shake a Wellesley senior . . . No offense to Welles
ley. . . . I just meant a sophisticated lady of the world"
(A-75). Once, during an interview, when he was discussing
his Christmas readings in Bovard Auditorium, Baxter
referred to the student body with a touch of irony:
Of course, . . . the undergraduates never
patronized these things; very much as our under
graduates characteristically, with their magnifi
cently independent spirit of free enterprise,
never attend any lectures on campus unless they
are forced to--that's my experience with them
. . . (C-12)
Obviously, in none of these remarks does Baxter indicate
any great respect for the erudition of the college student.
He recognized the gulf that existed between himself as the
teacher-scholar and his students:
I know what a fallacious axiom I labor under
in life. I am a school teacher; I am a school
master. I teach at a college. And I stand there
and talk to another generation, and I have to
reach across a great gulf. It would be fatal if I
240
identified myself with them, and it would be im
possible for them to identify themselves with me.
For the battle of the generations . . . is a very
real one. Two sets of axioms! Two sets of points
of view! And it's hard to reach across. (A-91)
That he tried to reach across is evident. That he suc
ceeded better than he realized and better than most teach
ers was also evident from the crowds of students who sought
admittance to his classes and from the size of his televi
sion student body.
However, his success in reaching across to his
classroom students whom he did not hold in too high esteem
perhaps taught him how to communicate with his "random
mixed bag" of television students. It was conceivable that
he considered his viewers to be merely a larger group of
"faceless undergraduates."
The process of identification between Baxter as the
communicator and the student-audience therefore took an
unusual but familiar twist. Denying that he had ever con
sciously "talked down" to an audience, he nevertheless
admitted that it "would be fatal" for him to address them
as his equal. He pointed to the relationship that he could
accept: "I am a school master. I teach at college" (A-91).
Thus was the problem of synthesis solved with amazing ease:
he did not "talk down"--he taught--even as the synthesis of
241
Baxter the Man, the Scholar, and the Speaker inevitably had
as its crux the basic fact that Frank C, Baxter was a
school teacher.
A closed circuit educational television program is
usually intended to be viewed by specifically enrolled
students in a designated room at a predetermined time. Had
his course on Shakespeare been given on a closed circuit
directly to men and women in a college classroom, the lec
ture format of the programs would have seemed ordinary.
Had Baxter given the same lecture that he gave in
the classroom over one of the channels devoted to educa
tional television, it might have been expected that he
would capture those people who tuned in that channel
becfause they were interested in becoming better informed.
He would then have been broadening his audience from the
narrow range of students enrolled in a university to
include many listeners who wanted to learn but could not
attend the university. The range of their backgrounds and
educational achievements would have varied but they would
have shared the common interest in additional learning.
To capture the "random, mixed bag of people" to the extent
that he did, however, is the element that set Baxter and
his lectures on commercial television apart. Regardless
242
of what ratings were used, his audience was large enough
to "floor critics and prophets by proving that . . . he
could charm and delight viewers."^ The answer could only
lie in Baxter's self-evaluation that his purpose was to be
"entertainingly informative." People wanted to be informed,
to be taught. They could be entertained by comedians with
top ratings, but in "Shakespeare on TV," they could be
informed and have the information handed to them in an
amusing and entertaining manner.
The success of "Shakespeare on TV," as has been
shown, became a tribute to his ability to capture a large
enough audience, and to arouse an interested audience
response, that station KNXT, and later the CBS network,
wanted more of his lectures. Whatever Baxter discussed on
television, whatever books he brought to the attention of
his viewers, created a demand for the literature that
overwhelmed bookstores and libraries.
The Los Angeles City Library was the first to
beg to be tipped off in advance of his broadcasts
so that it could brace for the rush. "Even our
bookmobiles in the desert were stripped," the
county librarian said. A Fort Monmouth, N.J.,
■^Carroll O'Meara, Television Program Production
(New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1955), p. 339.
243
librarian said that soldiers following the Shakes
peare broadcasts had asked for lists of additional
reading. A New Yorker wrote, "Sir, you are break
ing me. I've bought ten new books this fall." A
Texas librarian told me, "He's the best pal the
libraries ever had."20
In order to present Baxter's personal approach to
teaching his vast audience, his remarks are reported in
full:
I remember one time, later, going on "Omnibus,"
and just as I was going to go on Alistair Cooke
said, "Do you realize that you are going to talk
to eighteen to twenty-three million people?"
which, of course, would curdle any man's liver. I
went out and did something for the time, but I was
terrified. The next day I said to an old property
man in Hollywood, a very wise and dear old gentle
man, "Yesterday I talked to twenty million people."
And he said, "Nonsense, son. No one has ever
talked to twenty million people. Never forget
you're talking to a little over two people. Two
and one-tenth people, statistically, seated on
their own terms in their own living rooms, and
you've come in there." Remember how Queen Vic
toria said she didn’t like Gladstone to come to
Windsor Castle because he always addressed her as
if she were a public meeting. I think that stead
ied me more than anything else, and I have never
tried to think of that audience which was at one
time forty-three million! I talked to forty-three
million people at one time on the first broadcast
of Richard III, which I did--six minutes introduc-
tion--for General Motors. Forty-three million
people! (C-15-16)
One other ramification of this communicator-audi-
o n
Rummell, op. cit., p. 111.
ence indentification which resulted in successful mass
communication should be noted. In Chapter III, on Baxter
the Man, it was called "complexity"; in Chapter IV, on
Baxter the Scholar, it was called "range of interests"; in
Chapter V, on Baxter the Speaker, it was called "language
and voice." By whatever term, the indication was that
Baxter was a man of tremendous personal breadth and scope
which appealed to the breadth not of individuals in his
audience but to the total breadth of the audience. Bax
ter's catholicity in reading, in vocabulary, in interests
touched areas of the catholicity of his total audience.
Each viewer could find some area of identification with the
speaker; each could relate to some of the references.
There was a heterogeneity within Baxter that correlated
with the heterogeneity of the "random, mixed bag of
people." It created a synthesis, a communion, a rapport.
He did not believe that television was a panacea
for all problems of mass education: "I cannot believe that
anyone becomes educated by anything that is so thoroughly
one way" (C-37), he said. He was convinced that it could
never take the place of the teacher in the classroom
because it provided no give-and-take, "no way for the human
245
9 1
mind to sharpen itself against other minds.' He felt
that television was a "magnificent tool for the teacher"
(C-37), but said, "I think that television education is a
fearful idea if you take it literally" (C-37. If, as he
said, "teaching is any sort of preaching where you’re
allowed to ask questions" (C-35), then it followed that,
from his point of view, he would have to confess that he
was preaching on television rather than teaching. But he
was averse to preaching and he wanted to teach, and his
attempt to solve the dilemma, therefore, was to recognize
that on television "everything has to be self-contained"
(C-37). He tried to anticipate the questions that might
arise; he attempted to define as he went along. With the
questions of thousands of past students ringing in his
ears, it is probable that he was aware of most of the words
of Hamlet that were unclear or confusing. His aim, in his
television teaching, was to pique "the imagination and the
curiosity of people" (C-37); it was to instill in his lis
teners "a sort of courage to read great books" and "will
ingly" to seek "much more profit--and much more fun--out
21Ibid., p. 112.
246
9 o
of this reading"; it was to induce them in their own
reading to "invest yourself and everything that's ever
happened to you in your lives" (A-32); to become for them
"a sort of catalyzer" that his students might have a "few
more tools in the kit" to understand the play and through
that understanding the experiences in their lives (A-65).
"I don't think I've ever educated anyone via television"
(C-39), he remarked somewhat ruefully. "Come to think of
it, looking back over forty years of teaching, I'm not
sure that I've ever even done it in the classroom" (C-39).
A lot of people out there are a little hungry
for something more than they've been getting and
they're glad to be nudged into reading. And that's
what I've been doing. I've been putting my shoul
der, my very puny shoulder, against the great
protoplasmic glacier of America and giving a
little nudge here and there. And I don't flatter
myself that any great changes have come about.
(C-38-39)
The above discussion shows that Baxter's
"Shakespeare on TV" was a remarkably good example of the
fact that communication is not something that the speaker
does all by himself, nor is it a process by which the ideas
of the speaker are "transferred" directly from his brain
^Baxter, "Shakespeare on TV," pp. 10, 11.
into the brains of the listeners. Students of speech long
have recognized that all a speaker can do is to arouse
processes of thought and feeling which the listeners must
carry through to completion. Baxter realized that he could
not tell his listeners the meaning of Hamlet; they had to
tell themselves. Baxter was specific on this point--his
purpose was to stimulate his listeners so that each person
would ’’ write his own Hamlet." Baxter's programs clearly
demonstrated that the listener's role is active, not pas
sive. More importantly, the kinescopes, together with the
descriptions of audience response such as the ratings, the
mail Baxter received, the other television programs he was
asked to give, the honorary degrees he received, the awards
conferred upon him by a great variety of clubs and organi
zations, the committees on which he was asked to serve,
and the newspaper and magazine articles and items about the
man and/or his programs, provided a dynamic case study of
details showing what happens when the roles of the speaker
and listener become interactive.
The Hamlet lectures also provided a vivid example
of the deceptively simple theory that oral communication
is a single process (or series of inherently related
248
processes). Baxter's programs provided a rich source for
investigating some of the enumerative complexities, inter
relationships, and interactivities that, taken together,
constitute the unified process illustrated by the various
communication models.
CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS
Summary
The general problem of this study has been to pre
sent a critical evaluation of Dr. Frank C. Baxter's tele
vision program, "Shakespeare on TV"--an educational program
presented first on a commercial television channel. The
working hypothesis of this study was that the program's
success could best be explained in terms of the mental and
emotional interaction between baxter and his viewers. In
order to test this hypothesis, the problem was divided into
two major parts:
1. (Analysis) What were the principal ingredients
of "Shakespeare on TV"?
2. (Synthesis) What were the principal interrela
tionships among these ingredients?
The problem was presented in Chapter I of this
study. That chapter also contained a discussion of the
249
250
significance of the study. Some of the various evidences
of Baxter's success with his television programs were pre
sented and discussed. Also in this chapter, the literature
which pertained to this problem was reviewed, and the chap
ter concluded with a presentation of the organization of
this dissertation.
Chapter II described the critical methodology that
was employed in this study. This chapter also described
the techniques, the materials, and the procedures employed.
In Chapter III, titled Baxter the Man, the physical
picture which viewers of "Shakespeare on TV" saw on their
screens was delineated first. This was followed by an
analysis of a few personality characteristics: enthusiasm,
integrity, and sensitivity. In a section headed "Complex
ity," Baxter's background was presented, followed by a
history of some of his television and oral reading experi
ences, a review of his artistic pursuits, and something of
his personal philosophy as displayed during the period
covered by this study.
Baxter the Scholar was the subject of Chapter IV.
His views on scholarship were presented, together with in
dications of his scholarly familiarity with Shakespeare and
his times. The extent of his reading and his attitude
251
toward it were discussed, as was the wide range of his
interests. His imaginative presentation of his material
and his ability to interpret Shakespeare in general and
Hamlet in particular were pointed out.
His background and training in public speaking and
oral reading were presented in Chapter V, Baxter the
Speaker. The method and extent of his preparation were
discussed, as was the part that gestures played in his
speaking. A considerable portion of the chapter was
devoted to a presentation of Baxter's use of language,
including the versatility of his vocabulary, his dexterous
use of imagery, his colorful and vivid expressions, his
ability to paraphrase, and his versatile use of slang,
humor, suspense, and cadence. This chapter also examined
Baxter's speaking philosophy.
Chapter VI delineated the nature of a communication
event. The aspects of Baxter presented in detail in the
three preceding chapters were then synthesized in terms of
the overall aspect of Baxter as a teacher. This chapter
also examined Baxter's relationships to the medium of
television and to his television audience.
Conclusions
Within the limits of the design of this study, a
number of conclusions about Baxter and his abilities and
techniques appears to be justified. Many of these have
been incorporated in the section of the study where they
were applicable. At this time, the conclusions previously
reached are combined with others not specifically stated.
Because of the heterogeneous nature of these conclusions,
and their--rin many cases--lack of relation to each other
except insofar as they are all elements of the total pic
ture of Frank C. Baxter, they are divided into their
appropriate chapter titles, enumerated, and stated as
briefly as possible.
Introduction
1. The outstanding conclusion reached in the first
chapter was that "Shakespeare on TV" was highly successful,
and that its "star," Dr. Baxter, was recognized as the
principal positive reason for the program's success.
Baxter the Man
1. Baxter's enthusiasm was an integral and spon
taneous element of his personality.
2. His integrity, from a personal as well as an
253
educational context, was an inherent part of his acute
insight; it manifested itself in his direct approach to the
presentation of his material.
3. Baxter's sensitivity was revealed in the lec
tures which showed that he felt the power and magic and
wonder of Shakespeare, that he loved and understood Hamlet,
and that he grasped the meaning and beauty of all of the
Shakespearean dramas.
4. Baxter's education ran a full gamut from "at
least half a dozen unimportant schools in Philadelphia"
through two degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, one
of them summa cum laude, to a Doctorate from the University
of Cambridge where he was a member of Trinity College.
This established a broad educational base for his later
career as a professor of English literature at the univer
sity level.
5. Baxter's artistic pursuits, which were numerous
and varied, revealed a versatility, a complexity of artis
tic interests, and an ability that outstrip those of
ordinary educators.
6. If "reading maketh a full man," Baxter was
indeed replete, for he was catholic in his reading tastes
and voracious in his reading habits; at the same time he
254
brought hours of pleasure to millions as he read aloud to
them from the classics or from Christmas stories and poems.
7. From an analysis of Baxter's philosophy as
revealed in the five Hamlet lectures, it can be concluded
that he admired intelligence and was impatient with stupid
ity; he considered himself to be a "gentleman and a schol
ar"; he admired men who faced themselves without rational
ization; he had a genuine understanding of the frailties
of human beings and a compassion for people; though he
considered himself to be a "simple man," by his analysis
of the complexity of others he relegated himself to the
"complex man" category; he believed that it was far better
to "act" good than to "talk" good; in his scholarship, he
showed that he was a humble man; he felt that a man must
be true to himself and to his dreams, but that he must face
reality honestly; one of his dreams was that of stirring
in others a desire for education; he was generous in that
he gave freely of his knowledge and his time; he had an
empathy and a warmth and a compassion for his fellow man;
and finally, as a result of his belief in the goodness of
people generally, he became a man who was wise and serene.
Baxter the Scholar
1. Baxter's ideas on scholarship were unusual in
that he preferred to "publish" his knowledge orally (sup
plemented by his own drawings and models); he did not pre
fer to publish written articles in professional journals
or deliver erudite papers at professional conventions.
2. Another measure of Baxter's scholarship lay in
his extensive knowledge of recent major productions of
Shakespearean plays as well as many of those not so recent;
and his ability to compare them and to analyze their
strengths and weaknesses.
3. The vividness of his imagery was obvious in his
manner of creating word pictures of the characters and a
physical setting for Hamlet.
4. Baxter's use of interpretation and interpola
tion in his reading of Hamlet aloud was extensive and at
the same time further evidence of his desire to make clear
the play to his audience.
Baxter the Speaker
1. Both his speaking background and his training
in oral reading and speaking were informal, with no educa
tional courses in either; he learned through his early
256
years in the Philomathean Society and he learned by doing.
2. His approach to his oral readings was to become
so thoroughly familiar with the material to be read that he
was able to read with a full understanding.
3. His preparation for his lectures was to make a
few notes on a four-by-six-inch card and to think about
what he would be saying; the conclusion must be drawn,
therefore, that for the rest he relied on his vast "reser
voir" of knowledge on the subject.
4. Because of his repetitive use of material of
the same type, sometimes couched in the same words and
phrases, it can be concluded that Baxter had a remarkable
memory for the most apt way to express an idea; that once
having used an expression or thought--and gained an audi
ence reaction that made Baxter believe that it had created
a successful response--he was able to recall that expres
sion for later use.
5. Baxter's lack of a prepared script often
resulted in a failure to cover all of the points listed on
his four-by-six-inch cards of notes; or, specifically in
his "Shakespeare on TV" lectures, to maintain the pace of
covering material which he had set for himself at the time
he prepared his study guides.
257
6. The gestures which Baxter used freely fell into
two categories:
a. Many were of the normal variety of uncon
scious or unplanned response to the things
about which he was speaking.
b. Other gestures were more consciously incor
porated by Baxter into his speaking and
were used to illustrate his interpretation
of his material--as when he imitated the
actions of a character as he believed they
might have occurred.
7. Baxter believed that a "full and flowing vocab
ulary" was important to a public speaker and he had a sin
cere respect for the accurate utilization of words.
8. From the color and vividness of his expressions
and phrases, it is valid to conclude that Baxter, with
ready wit and ingenuity, used the "deceptive and dangerous
implement" of speech with remarkable effectiveness.
9. The frequent use of slang expressions by this
master of English were for the purposes of holding the
attention of his audience, relating to his audiences with a
touch of commonality, and purposively creating a juxtaposi
tion of humor or comedy with erudition or beauty.
258
10. Humor, mostly a kind of gentle raillery, was
one of Baxter's most outstanding and most frequently used
techniques; coincidentally, his wit showed "in the mental
agility and readiness of the speaker."
11. One of the evidences of Baxter's mastery in the
art of speaking and oral reading was his use of suspense,
foreshadowing, or the build-up to heighten anticipation or
expectation.
12. Baxter believed that, to convey the concept of
authors to his listeners, the material had to be read with
a cadence appropriate to the mood of the writers.
13. The paraphrasing of the lines or content of
the material he was reading was done with such expertise
that only a detailed comparison of Baxter's words with the
original could reveal which were Baxter's and which were
the author's.
14. Onomatopoeia was a device used by Baxter, not
infrequently, and almost always with telling effectiveness.
15. His speaking philosophy consisted of his belief
that every subject presented its own treatment; he claimed
no knowledge of rhetorical theory; he said that he had no
formula that could be passed along to other speakers.
16. One of Baxter's precepts was that every
259
teacher, lecturer, or public speaker must have a vast
"reservoir" of material from which to draw, and it may be
concluded from the analysis of his lectures and the inter
views that Baxter exemplified this measure fully.
17. Despite his statement that he never "talked
down" to an audience, Baxter appeared to teach his audi
ence, to talk to people rather than with them, to share his
knowledge to enrich their understanding; his rapport with
his audience was, thus, the result of giving what they
needed rather than talking with them as his equals.
18. It appeared that Baxter intended to be com
pletely honest with his audience; that he sincerely re
sented speakers who used the joke technique to establish
the good will of an audience, and that he believed that
good will should come as a by-product because a speaker
had earned it rather than because of a conscious attempt
to create it superficially.
Synthesis
1. The major commonality that integrated all of
the facets of Baxter was that he was primarily a school
teacher, an educator.
2. The enthusiasm of Baxter the Han became an
260
integral part of his ability and success as a teacher.
3. Baxter's integrity, which was shown to be one
of the keys to his personality, was nowhere more amply
illustrated than when he was teaching others.
4. All of his life experiences were used by Baxter
as part of his reservoir as a teacher.
5. The sum of his capacities as a scholar of Eng
lish literature served to enhance his greatness as a
teacher, rather than to bring him academic fame through
authorship of scholarly articles.
6. Because he appeared to be completely and wholly
unaware of any of the generally accepted "principles" of
teaching or "principles" of education, it must be con
cluded that Baxter was a "natural teacher"--an educator who
had learned to teach by teaching.
7. Despite his protestations to the contrary, it
must be concluded that Baxter used a communication level
which he felt would reach the level of his audience.
8. His sense of his responsibility to interpret
Shakespeare in language understandable by his audience
underscored his belief that the role of the teacher was to
translate ideas into "meaningful terms to people,"
261
9. His success in presenting Shakespeare to stu
dents for many years was doubtless one of the reasons why
he made so few concessions to television; and the conclu
sion is inevitable that he was correct in his judgment.
10. Despite his empathy and understanding of
people, and despite his readiness to share his knowledge,
it would appear that a conclusion must be reached that
Baxter did not have a particularly high regard for the
intelligence of people in general, and of students and some
faculty members in particular; that he liked them is rather
obvious, but that he did not especially respect their know
ledge and scholarship appears to be just as obvious.
11. Some one or two or a few areas of the personal
breadth and scope of Baxter could be appreciated by virtual
ly each individual in his audience; thus, the heterogeneity
of interests and thoughts that were an integral part of
Baxter appealed to the heterogeneity of interests and
thoughts of the many individuals comprising his audience.
12. The conclusion that Baxter was successful in
relating himself effectively to his audience was substan
tiated in many different ways: the local ratings on his
program, "Shakespeare on TV," as reported by the American
Research Bureau, Pulse, and by popular magazine writers;
the report by the Educational Television and Radio Center
in Ann Arbor that eight stations participating in a survey
in January-February, 1955, all placed "Shakespeare on TV"
in first position; the fact that this Center reported that
many of the stations it serviced ran the kinescopes of
"Shakespeare on TV" a second time; the sale of four million
copies of the study guide; the fact that four schools con
ferred on Baxter the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters
and one school conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of
Fine Arts; the winning of the George Foster Peabody Award,
seven local "Emmy" awards from the Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences, and other awards from many different
associations, committees, publications, or groups; the
fact that the initial series of eighteen programs of
"Shakespeare on TV" was considered by KNXT to be suffi
ciently successful for them to arrange for a second series
of eighteen programs, and to follow this in turn by a third
series of eighteen programs; the scheduling by ninety-five
stations of the CBS network of Baxter’s locally telecast
"Now and Then" series; the other television programs, both
local and national, which Baxter has been scheduled to
give, either as the principal lecturer, the master of
ceremonies, or an integral part of the program format; the
263
committees on which he has been asked to serve or which he
has chaired; his mail which, during one period, ran to
about ten thousand pieces annually; the quantity of news
paper and magazine mentions of Baxter and his television
programs as evidenced by the clippings in his scrapbooks;
and by the reports of libraries and bookstores of the
public demand for books mentioned by Baxter.
13. No single facet of Baxter's complex background,
training, extensive reading, years of teaching, or person
ality or philosophy could be designated as the primary
factor which contributed to his success; rather, the inter
relationships of these elements created an individual--
primarily a "school teacher"--who became successful in his
chosen work.
14. The most pervasive conclusion is that Baxter
stimulated interactive thinking and feeling in his viewers,
i.e., he aroused in them a sense of active participation
and involvement as he and they together "experienced"
Hamlet.
Implications
Practical implications
Did this study of Baxter provide any practical
264
suggestions that might be helpful to future teachers who
may be called upon to lecture via television? Baxter him
self did not think that he had any formula that would be
very useful to other teachers. Nevertheless, throughout
the entire investigation there were two recurrent themes
that had implications for practical use:
1. The breadth and versatility of Baxter's inter
ests, activities, areas of reading and research, and modes
of oral expression appeared to correlate with the hetero
geneity of a large commercial television audience. In his
programs, his extensive knowledge of his subject was evi
dent, and his illustrations and allusions were drawn from
a wide variety of sources. Putting this point negatively,
Baxter's programs did not reveal him as a highly special
ized (or overspecialized) scholar whose knowledge was
limited to one or two narrow fields.
2. Baxter realized that, although a television
audience may comprise thousands or even millions of people,
they are not "a public meeting." Most of them are listen
ing in small groups of two or three people in the living
rooms of their own homes. Baxter sought to adjust his lec
tures to such small and intimate groups. At the same time
he avoided trying to become "cozy" or "pally" with viewers.
265
Research implications
1. The materials used in this study (e.g., the
kinescopes, tapes, and typescripts) might well be used by
students of education to discover how Baxter managed to
apply basic principles of teaching-learning to his tele
vision students. Attention has been called to Baxter's
attempts to compensate for the lack of immediate classroom
feedback, such as the anticipation of questions. Attention
has been called to some of the things that Baxter did which
appeared to have stimulated successfully the student viewer
to take a role of active participation. That they did was
evident in his mail response and the increased interest in
reading as reported by libraries.
2. Some of the materials used in this study might
also be analyzed by quantitative techniques and procedures,
e.g., listenability measurements, such as cloze procedure.
Or by means of a quantified content analysis. Such quanti
tative measurements might throw additional light on the
central question of this study: why was Baxter's "Shake
speare on TV" successful?
3. The materials might be evaluated by applying
some variation of critical method which would be different
from the method used in this study.
266
4. The implications of any communication model can
well be explored by applying the model to an actual commu
nication event, such as that which is provided by the Bax
ter kinescopes.
5. Other successful educational television programs
might be studied by any of the methods suggested above.
Comparisons might be made between these other programs and
Baxter's programs.
6. Studies might profitably be made of other pro
grams intended to be "entertainingly informative" which
were definite failures. What to do might well be con
trasted with what not to do.
In general, more research is needed on problems
concerned with television criticism. A tradition of
scholarly criticism needs to be developed. Such research
should help the gradual evolution of criteria for the eval
uation of television programs to be taught to undergraduate
non-majors and even (by means of television) to the general
American television audience.
APPENDIXES
APPENDIX A
Transcript of Baxter's Lectures
on Hamlet
(A-l)
APPENDIX A
HAMLET
May 1, 1954
Ladies and gentlemen, once again now today we come
to Hamlet at last, and I come to it with some trepidation.
It would be fun some day to talk to intelligent English-
speaking people about Hamlet if they had never heard any
thing of Hamlet before. But that's impossible. For all of
us, Hamlet is like a coin worn smooth by long usage. You
have heard Hamlet: you have heard it burlesqued; you have
seen it in the movies; you have seen it in I don't know how
many staged versions of the play; and, of course, it's
parodied, and it's kicked around, and yet we come back to
it again. What will it be like this time? I wish you'd
forget everything you have ever read, or heard, about
Hamlet. Will you forget everything that the pre-Freudians
or the post-Freudians have said about Hamlet and his mama?
Will you forget about the ghost? Will you forget about
269
everything and come into this as most of the groundlings, I
fancy, came to it, knowing only vaguely about this play and
its plot? True, there appears to have been earlier theat
rical activity involving the theme of Hamlet, Prince of
Denmark. Whether any given groundling knew the story it's
hard to say. But it must have been a very fresh and thrill
ing experience about 1600 when they gathered to hear this
play. They didn't know; they hadn't had the long tradi
tion that we have of the stage production of the pictures
of ancient actors, many of them very peculiar looking
people indeed, as they played this young prince.
Suppose today we look at this play and forget
everything that we know about it, and see whether it can
again write upon us in burning and moving words. I do want
those who are taking the course for credit to read very
carefully the chapter of introduction. By george, you'd
better! Read that chapter about the sources, about the
prior history of the Hamlet theme, and so on. Know that
very well. But, as for the play itself, let us start
fresh.
Now, remember that Shakespeare's Elsinore was a
never-never land. Again, like Shakespeare's Italy, so,
too, his Elsinore is not particularly Scandinavian. He's
thinking in terms of his old theater. All along in our
experience through these many lectures, I've tried to get
you to look at the old theater and see how this man, writ
ing for this theater, made use of the physical properties
of that theater for his purpose. It was the tool he had to
use and the only tool. There are two ways to read a play,
of course, out of this Elizabethan Age. One is to see it
on its own stage and there, of course, you see the tech
nique of stagecraft being employed realistically, using the
available tools. The other thing is, of course, to imagine
the Elsinore of the misty Scandinavian fog-ridden dusk, or
midnight, as this play opens. Try to imagine what it was
like up there on the cold battlement. What the Elizabethan
did was both, of course, for the barren stage was used only
as a tool by these old writers to evoke men's imaginations,
so that while it was the stage with its peculiar attributes,
still, with the investment of imagination, they went beyond
that and saw the lonely, cold, bitter cold, midnight ram
part of Elsinore and the watch coming to relieve the watch
and the general stir of things. The sense of urgency and
trouble in the land and the ghost.
So, let's begin the play! A man walks back and
forth across the stage with his halberd, back and forth,
(A-4) 272
watching, patrolling his watch. Suddenly he comes to port.
Who’s there ?
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
Long live the King!
Bernardo?
He.
You come most carefully upon your hour.
Many a sentry's been grateful.
You come most carefully upon your hour.
'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
Have you had a quiet guard?
Not a mouse stirring.
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
I think I hear them. Stand.
Again he comes to port.
Stand! Who is there?
Friends to this ground.
And liegemen to the Dane.
Give you good night.
0, farewell, honest soldier.
Who hath reliev'd you?
Bernardo hath my place.
Give you good night.
And so you have the new watch. You have Bernardo, Marcel-
lus, and Horatio, who's a gentleman; he's not one of the
soldiers of the guard, but he's come because something has
been said; something's been seen here; and this scholar and
gentleman comes to test this report that there's been a
supernatural visitor on the battlements at Elsinore.
What, is Horatio there?
A piece of him.
Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
This thing. '
I have seen nothing.
Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
Horatio is the gentleman scholar from Wittenberg who doesn't
believe a word of all this; and he laughs easily,
Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along,
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Tush, tush,
says Horatio,
'twill not appear.
Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.
"Well," says Horatio, "let's sit down."^
sit we down,
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Last night of all,
says Bernardo, who's very serious about this; he knows
what he's seen,
Last night of all,
When yond same star that's westward from the pole
Had made his course t1 illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one--
Suddenly they stop; they look; they break it off.
Look where it comes again!
For high on the battlements is the same figure, like the
king that's dead.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Now most of the books have footnotes saying that
^Throughout these lectures, Dr. Baxter has para
phrased instead of accurately quoting many of the speeches
in Hamlet. To distinguish all direct quotations of what
ever length from paraphrasings of whatever length, direct
quotations have been indented while the paraphrasings are
included in the text enclosed in double quotation marks.
you should decently address any medieval ghost in Latin.
Horatio, being a scholar, is fit. I wonder whether it
isn't, after all, a trust in knowledge in general. You'd
better handle this because you have read in the books about
what happens when one challenges a ghost,
speak to it, Horatio.
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
"Most like," says the gentleman, "most like."
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
And the ghost yearns toward them.
It would be spoke to.
says Bernardo.
Question it, Horatio,
Horatio comes forward with his arms out. That's a good
technique in addressing a ghost because you make the cross,
you see, with your body.
Question it, Horatio.
What are thou that usurp'st this time of night
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!
The ghost shakes its head.
It is offended.
See it stalks away.
Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
The ghost disappears.
'Tis gone and will not answer.
And, of course, the two soldiers immediately look at Hora
tio .
Horatio? You tremble and look pale.
Is this not something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
Is it not like the King?
As thou art to thyself.
Such was the very armour he had on
When he th' ambitious Norway combated.
This little bit is in no source of Shakespeare. He makes
this up; he wants to make us realize that the dead king was
a man of arms.
Such was the very armour he had on
When he th' ambitious Norway combated.
So frown'd he once when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
'Tis strange.
Thus twice before,
says Marcellus,
at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Horatio thinks.
In what particular thought to work I know not;
But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Good now, sit down,
says Marcellus,
and tell me he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday for the week.
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?
Who is11 that can inform me?
And Horatio, close to the court, with his fingers upon the
pulse, says,
That can I.
Now all this urgency of war. You remember how, in
Othello, it begins with the threatened war with the Turks?
The great fleet has put out; Othello's called from his
bridal night to take charge of this great fleet and go out
and attack the Turks and so on. Then, when the theme of
Othello develops, and the war is allowed to dissipate it
self, you have this sense of urgency and suspense with
which this begins. And so here. Why are the men so eager
to challenge the newcomer upon the parapet at Elsinore?
What's all this tenseness? What's all this watch? "Well,
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278
I can tell you,1’ says Horatio,
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear1d to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
this dead king,
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood siezed of,
--to be siezed of means possessed of; "seizen" is the
ancient sieze--
to the conqueror;
Against the which a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king.
And you follow this, of course; these two monarchs, Hamlet,
King of Denmark, challenged by Fortinbras, agrees to meet
him in single combat to settle who shall rule the two king
doms, the joint kingdoms. Each pledges the power of his
realm and, of course, Hamlet, the older Hamlet, defeats
Fortinbras and so Denmark rules Norway. And had it gone
the other way, Horatio goes on, then Fortinbras, the elder
Fortinbras, would have been the chief of both countries,
but it went to Hamlet, and so Denmark was the sinner. Then
he says:
Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't;
That's a fascinating little speech to study. You think of
World War II: Norway invaded with a heavy hand upon it, and
yet Norway, by its very geographical nature, has the skirts
of the realm, the peripheral, what shall say coastal area,
interrupted, I grant you, with fiords and with mountains
that come right down to the sea, but seaports, the skirts
of Norway, and the mount valleys, and you have a phrase
that might be out of the history books that will some day
tell about the twentieth century.
young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
The irregulars, the people you meet in Steinbeck's The Moon
Is Down, the underground that somehow the lawless resolutes
who manage to keep on fighting, who fight merely for the
food and diet just to live; that's all they need to keep on
fighting,
to some enterprise
That hath stomach in't; which is no other,
As it doth well appear unto our state,
But to recover of us, by strong hand
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And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost; and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
Now all this is expository; it's all introduction,
but we realize there's a tenseness now for the embittered
and frustrated Prince of Norway is trying to get back the
lands lost by his father in this single trial by combat.
Bernardo says,
I think it be no other but e'en so.
Well may it sort that this portentious figure
Comes armed through our watch, so like the King
and he points up to the battlements,
That was and is the question of these wars.
And Horatio says,
A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
And he's a scholar, and he says, "Even as Rome was in
trouble when the mighty Caesar fell; so things did squawk
and gibber in the streets and all sorts of supernatural
portents feared." And we needn't read all of this togeth-
er--and he says, "There are such things as this, that we
have seen."
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climature and countrymen.
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And suddenly the ghost appears.
But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.
And he steps forward and looks up at the ghost.
Stay illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
0, speak!
Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth
(For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),
Speak of it! Stay and speak!
And the ghost yearns toward him. And at that
moment "rr rrr rrrr," the cock crows, and the ghost starts
away. For ghosts have to go back to their terrible con
fines when dawn comes. So they miss it. Horatio isn't
able to get through to the ghost at that moment.
Speak of it! Stay and speak! -- Stop it, Marcellus!
Marcellus has a partisan, a long spear.
Shall I strike it with my partisan?
Do, if it will stand.
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
'Tis gone!
Bernardo, Horatio, Marcellus.
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
'Tis gone!
Now let's look at the old theater for a moment;
there's never any very good footnote on these three
speeches:
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
'Tis gone!
But may I wistfully suggest one? Let's go over and look at
the theater again for just a moment, and the theater with
which we've had so much to do. You remember, of course,
the theater with its balconies. Now it's a question, al
ways, what to do with a ghost. I don't think we want our
ghost to be too pally, to sit side-by-side on the chester
field with us. Ghosts are always better at a little dis
tance, a little aesthetic distance. It's better to have
them up and beyond and not have them right here. There is
a certain sort of Scandinavian ghost who stands beside you
at a bar--"skol, skol,” and then he isn't there. You see,
we don't like our ghosts. After all, as Mr. Dewey said
about ghosts, people very rarely see them. But everybody's
aunt has seen a ghost; you see, it's better to have your
aunt see it. It's a much more exciting ghost if your aunt
saw it at some distant place. Lift it up; put it beyond.
Now, I have an idea that the ghost was up here. The men
were huddled down here by this column. We imagine them to
be out in the wind-swept rather airy parapet at Elsinore.
They're huddled here, talking about all this trouble in the
land. What's it all about? The ghost appears here.
"There it is!"
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
says the fellow.
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
Do, if it will stand!
The ghost starts.
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
'Tis gone!
I don't know whether that's the way it worked, but
I think instinctively the artist would prefer to have the
ghost up here, than down on the level with these men.
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
I don't see how he could work it, but that explains the
speeches. It seems to me the ghost was here, starts away,
and the cock crows.
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
Shall I strike at it?
'Tis here!
'Tis here!
'Tis gone!
Again we have the two imaginative pictures of the
old stage which you and I have recreated for ourselves, and
the actual platform of imaginary Elsinore. Now this has
been a disturbing thing and by this time, of course, the
skeptical scholar, Horatio, is quite convinced that some
thing was there. He saw it and it's gone.
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Bernardo, I think, pulls his lip and is about to speak when
the cock crew; the scholar looks up at the empty parapet:
Yes, it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the mom,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Filmed as received
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Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th' extravagant
"Extravagant," you see, originally meant the out-wandering,
out-wandering things,
Th1 extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine; and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Last week we talked of poetry, the strange stir in
the blood, an evocation of the imagination. All this is
good stage stuff; so far, it has a tenseness and an emo
tional quality. But watch, when beauty suddenly flickers
out like a flame and falls again. It will come in this
speech and in the speech that follows it particularly.
Marcellus said,
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
And Horatio, the scholar, says,
So have I heard and do in part believe it.
And they look over the battlement, at the battlements of
Elsinore of our imagination, and dawn comes up slowly out
of the sea.
But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up; and by my advice
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
Aye let's do't,
"Oh, yes!" the boys all speak.
1 this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.
Now, in our theater, the curtain closes with the
splatter of applause, if only for the scene decorator, and
we look around, we enter the life about us, we read the
program if the light permits us, we talk to the person next
to us, but we have broken the spell; not so the old the
ater. There is no curtain; no intermission. No sooner
than they do go out, then flooding out from the back al
cove, that curtained part, flooding out is the court of
Denmark. Did they sit down? Hard to say. Probably they
stood. A man with a crown, a woman with a crown. You need
no program to tell you that this is the king and queen.
Over here, let us say, on this side of the stage, an old
man with a beard, that recurrent character in Shakespeare,
the old man who never knows what the score is, who views
with alarm, who finds the younger generation bound for
those eternal dogs, and so on. That old Gloucester charac
ter that we met, Father Capulet, old Brabantio, here he is
again with his beard. And he's there. Beside him, a
rather springtly, pleasant-looking young gentleman, a girl,
some other courtiers, people, attendants. But over here by
the bench that somehow we must postulate to be on the stage
by the column most of the time, over here on the other side
of the stage, a young gentleman, darkly dressed, sombre
garments, sits. The king, he with the crown, begins to
speak. Now remember! We don't know the story. We've
never met it before. We don't know the relationship of
these people, but the king begins to speak.
Now, historically, on the stage, of course, poor
Claudius has had a bad time because the actor manager, the
number one boy in the company, has always played Hamlet.
And since it's a long play, they cut the play. Claudius is
often pared down until he becomes a villain, a black-and-
white, utterly black figure of villainy and not a complex
man. Shakespeare wrote him as a complex man, and, indeed,
wretched fellow that he is, smitten with guilt, and a sense
of guilt, we'll be sorry for him before we're through be
cause we see him for what he is. We rather respect him
because he doesn’t play religious footsie, because he says,
"I cannot be saved because in my heart I don't want to be.”
And we admire, at least, a man who dares to face up to him
self, no rationalizations whatsoever. He's a wonderful
villain because he's done an evil thing. He knows it; he
has all the fruits of his evil action and he can't say to
himself hypocritically, "I shall build a church, or found
an orphanage, and thuswise free my soul. I can't pray,
because I know prayers do not go through when uttered by
men like me.” Watch him; he is a complex and wonderful
character, and he is an orator. What a senator he would
have made!
Let us pause for a moment and think for a moment
what a senator Claudius would have made: manipulation of
language, rich tides of oratory. He looks over the court
and obviously this is a formal occasion. He's going to
make an announcement:
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green
Just watch how he leads up to the point. Like a man who
might say, "Because of necessities quite beyond my control,
and because, although I am a man of deep and rich spirit,
and have a human heart as large as a barrel--because things
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are as they are and inflation has brushed us with its wing,
and recession has been rumored somewhere--I'm going to fore
close," you see! This sting like a scorpion's is in the
tail. And this is good political language. He comes to
the very end and then, at the very end, ping!--you get it!
Now watch this!
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Yes, you remember Gilbert and Sullivan's modified
rapture. Well, this is modified sorrow. One eye sorrow
ful, and the other on the main chance for ourselves.
Therefore
he reaches across and takes the queen's hand,
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Th* imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,
One merry eye, and one weeping one, which is an interesting
trick,
As 'twere with a defeated joy,
With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife;
And he looks around and covers himself here. "I didn’t do
this just of my own wish, but I had the approval of every
body."
nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know,
and he tells them about Fortinbras, young Fortinbras, who
with his irregular soldiers is trying to get back the king
dom of Norway. And he says to two of his courtiers, Cor
nelius and Voltemand, "I’m sending you letters to the old,
the elder statesman of Norway, who will curb this rebellion
of his nephew if we, if you, get this letter to him." He
says, "Don't say anything beyond what this letter tells
you." He's the king; there's no doubt about it. Cornelius
and Voltemand go and now, as they go, dressed as they are
for riding, you can see it. They bear his letters.
He turns to the dapper young man who's on the side
of him again, and he says,
Now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
So we have a young man on this side, dapper courtier--he's
generally played by the ninth man in the company--and it's
too bad, for Laertes never gets a fair break. He's really
a very decent fellow. He doesn't know; he can't see into
an anvil very deeply; he's a very young man, but to make
him just a sort of nuisance, gadfly, is a mistake. He's a
splendid stalwart young fellow. He stands here. Remember
that there's a lonely figure of another young man put in
opposition to him in balance--the old stylized way of the
stage. Over here this lonely figure. We don't know who
these people are yet; we're getting it slowly. The king and
queen, Laertes this young man is called. And now the king,
in a very kingly and gracious way, says,
Now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
Which is very kingly and gracious indeed. And Laertes
comes forward; I think makes knee to the king.
The head is not more native to the heart,
the king goes on,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
This is the old man whose beard glows like a neon light.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
And the young man says,
My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
So here's a young man studying the arts of life; he
wants to go back to Paris where, historically, these arts
have long been studied both at the undergraduate and post
graduate level. He's to go there and study the arts of
life. He wants to go back. Now, remember that--how often
in these plays we have seen an almost stylized balance,
like bookends. In the first scene of these plays, Laertes
over here. "I wish to go back to France." And the king
says,
Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition, and at last
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.
Which, added up, means "yes." And the king says,
Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
And suddenly the whole field is reversed, for he
turns over here. Laertes has made his leg, drifted back
into the crowd here. Now, the lonely man over here. The
king, newly certified in his position, newly married to the
widow of the dead king (we've learned all that), turns and
he looks over here and says,
But now, my cousin
Now "cousin" means kinsman of any degree, really kinsman.
Well, he is the boy's nephew:
my cousin, Hamlet, and my son--
Hamlet says,
A little more than kin, and less than kind!
And that’s an Elizabethan pun, for kind has the two mean
ings: you do things according to kind, that's according to
nature, to the genus, to the species you represent, accord
ing to your kind; and, of course, kindness, the kindness of
the heart.
A little more than kin, and less than kind!
This is said sotto voce. The king can't hear it, but you
and I hear it there in the pit and up in the balconies; we
hear it across the years.
A little more than kin, and less than kind!
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
"All the rest of us have built the death of your father
into our lives with one dropping and one auspicious eye,
with a modified rapture. We have taken this sad news. Why
do you still grieve?"
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
"The clouds"--he1s using a figure of speech, and Hamlet
picks it up and turns it back to him.
Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun.
Now, I’ve always resented people who shambled up to
me and said, "Brother, can you--?" followed by some query.
"Brother!" Brotherhood is something not easily granted, it
seems to me. I doubt if I should even like to have them
call me cousin, although we are told that everyone who has
an English name is at least a twelfth cousin of everyone
else who has an English name. Still, it's a remote cousin-
ship. "Brother, can you spare a dime?" Well, the dime may
be available, but not brotherhood, if you don't mind. Let
us claim only the common brotherhood of men. But to call a
man "son" in this situation is something of a risk. "How
fair is our cousin, Hamlet, and our son?" "You're in the
clouds." "No, I'm too much of a son," says Hamlet, which
is a nice little judo chop, it seems to me, of a rejoinder.
"Too much of a son." The queen leans forward.
Now, forget all that you ever read about the queen;
or that J. Arthur Rank has told you; or anybody else; or
the essay in the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly. Just
take it as a mother, will you, for a minute? We'll talk
about this later. I'll have to deal with it. But she's
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interested in her son, which is, of course, very dangerous.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Denmark is the king, of course. He's Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Ay, madam, it is common.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Seems, madam?
Remember how in Lear people picked up people's words and
turned them back like an edged tool against them?
Why seems it so particular with thee?
says the queen. And he says,
Seems, madam?
"Seems" is appearance. "Seems?"
Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show--
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
The king feels now that he must field the ball, you see.
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296
fTis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
It's in Emily Post, just how far--
for some term
To do obsequious sorrow.
And the next morning, you needn't. You see, it's all
there; it's the way of men. Every father dies, and then
the son weeps according to the statutory period--then
breaks out in a new pastel suit.
But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool1d;
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers.
And "still" means ever and always. It still does in Shakes
peare .
and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father;
He's trying it on for size a second time.
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think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
Laertes: "May I go back to France?" "Why, of course."
"May I go back to my studies in Wittenberg?" where Hamlet
was no doubt majoring in philosophy. The king doesn't say,
"No," because that's not a nice thing to say if you're a
king. He says,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
As in the House of Parliament, when a question is
asked, the answer: his majesty's ministers go into a huddle
and when they come out, the answer is either "yes" or "no,"
but that wouldn't be formal enough so in the House of Par
liament, the minister responsible for answering the ques
tion will rise on question-day and say, "The answer to the
interrogatory is in the negative," which is really a very
nice parliamentary way of saying "no." "Your desire in
going back to Wittenberg, your intent is most retrograde to
our desire."
You get the balance of these two men? This man
doesn't matter; he can go. But this young Prince, with his
broody moodiness, would he be safe out there in a German
university far away, where he could think his thoughts un
watched? The king says,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
which means "no," but very fancily.
And we beseech you,
he says, we
bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Now this "son" business, after all it takes two to
make a father and son relationship. Hamlet has not
expressed himself as very eager to accept this adoption.
The queen, however, interposes,
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet,
I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Now, isn't that interesting? The king has said,
"You can't go back," and the mother tries to save face, I
think, for the son won't agree to stay. "Won't you please
stay?" What else can he do? The king has said, "It's
retrograde to our desire to have you go." "Won't you
please stay with us?" says the queen, which seems to be
very natural, very slight point, but there it is. And
Hamlet looks at them. He stands and bows, I think, and
(A-31) 299
look what he says:
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
The king siezes it. He has a handle now.
Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come.
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder.
A very interesting custom, that. The king pro
ceeded to drink at the table. He would raise this great
flagon to his lips and begin to drink. As he did, boom!
went the last drop; you see, that famous last drop to which
Danish ale was notoriously good and, boom! Later on we'll
hear of this custom. It will be used most ingeniously for
dramatic theatrical purpose in this play. And out they go,
leaving Hamlet alone. And Hamlet left alone will think,
as any man left alone will think. Hence our necessity for
being with people at all times.
To be alone and Hamlet thinks, and when he thinks,
we hear him think; we enter into his psyche here; we get
the first, the first of the great soliloquies.
0 that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
To be a three-dimensional man and yet to feel inside like a
supernatural person out of my soul, the way things are this
evil dross of the flesh, why not purge it, sweep it away?
And we get the first of the soliloquies. Now we'll come to
Hamlet, and we'll see much of him. This is just the begin
ning of the play.
Reading ahead, will you read quietly? Try to invest
yourself and everything that's ever happened to you in your
lives. In this--how can I footnote this?--don't ignore any
speech, no matter how slight. Later on in the play, I'll
show you some burning magic in two little short speeches,
each scarcely more than a phrase. You miss things. Try
to imagine it in the Elsinore of your imagination. Next
week when we meet, we'll see Hamlet, read him, and hear
him; get into him; understand him for the first time.
Thank you so much. That's all for today.
(A-33)
HAMLET
May 8, 1954
Ladies and gentlemen, once more back to Hamlet.
Now you remember last week we had seen Hamlet in his rela
tionship to the king and queen pretty well established--the
lonely figure, the only one in mourning, the court so
quickly adapting itself to the new regime that they cut the
period of mourning short. The king has married the widow
of the dead king. A new era has come to Denmark. But
intransigent, intransigent and unadapted, is poor Hamlet,
who can't make that step that other men find so easy to
take. We have found the king making the best of a bad
situation. He can't persuade Hamlet to act as a son; still,
when he makes it very clear that Hamlet is to remain in the
kingdom and not return to Wittenberg to school, the uni
versity, Hamlet yields because what else can he do? The
king says, "Why this is a fair and splendid thing you're
doing," which is irony, of course. Then the king says--and
301
this is where we paused last time--
in grace whereof
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell
And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.
That's a rather kingly exit. They go out, the whole court,
leaving Hamlet alone.
Now this business of the "King's rouse," we'll meet
it later. Shakespeare plants it here because later, when
we least expect it, there will be a roll of drums and the
roar of cannon, and it will mean that the King of Denmark
is draining his great stein of beer in some toast. It'll
come when we least expect it. Watch!
And so Hamlet is left there after this somewhat
noisy exit speech of the king's. The court goes out and
here we find Hamlet alone.
Now if I were, I suppose, a real professor of Eng
lish, I should tell you a great deal of what one thousand
seven hundred and fifty-six different people have said
about Hamlet. As I suggested when we began the study of
this great play, it would be better to forget everything
that everyone else had said and just look at this. Cer
tainly I don't want you to accept what I say as gospel in
this matter, for it seems to me that Hamlet is a play that
(A-35) 303
every man, in a sense, must write for himself.
Now Hamlet is alone, and immediately Hamlet has a
soliloquy. The soliloquy is, of course, something that we
don't like on our stage. We don't accept it as a good
stage convention, that a man should talk aloud; rather we
think that some sort of psychotherapy is indicated for the
person who is too voluble alone. True, a man hitting his
thumb with a hammer may break the silence, but that a man
should go into a long philosophical discourse when alone
doesn't seem to us quite natural. Yet in the Elizabethan
stage, and for centuries thereafter, this convention was
maintained, and it's very helpful. Really, we get around it
in various ways. We have someone to whom the man may talk,
or we have him using the telephone, without which, of
course, modern drama would be bankrupt. Without the tele
phone and the cigarette box, a great shackle would be
imposed upon modem drama. Well, in those days, they
accepted this, and why not? Now we have seen how, in the
British film on Hamlet, when Hamlet had the great "To be or
not to be"soliloquy, he was motionless; he didn't utter
anything; he sat there alone on the top of the parapet
looking down at the sea beating itself to froth at the base
of this precipitous cliff, but in the sound track we heard
what he thought and, of course, that's very natural because
men, when they are alone, will think. That's why so many
people find it difficult ever to be alone--because it's
dangerous to think, and it's very uncomfortable. It's un-
American, so don't think. Don't think, because if you
think, you see two sides to the questions, and life is so
much simpler if you see one. Now in this play, Hamlet is
matched for a minute against Laertes in this first scene.
Later on the great juxtaposition and balance will be
achieved between Fortinbras, the splendid young manly man
of action, who is able to act easily because after all he
sees only one side of any question. I recommend that to
you as a way of life. You get things done. But if you
think that the other fellow has a point of view, then
you're limited for action. I don't think Mr. Hitler ever
conceived the possibility of another point of view, nor did
Mr. Mussolini, nor do our current enemies realize that per
haps there is a middle course. We'll speak of this a lit
tle later in another connection.
Now Hamlet is a complex man. It isn't easy for him
to say: "Well, father's dead; one father's as good as
another. Let me take father number two. Let me adapt my
self for sheer effectiveness in living, lack of friction,
to this new deal." He can't, because he feels deeply and
because he's a complex man. Now the British film was in
furiating at this point, for it began by saying, you remem
ber, that this is a play about a man who could not make up
his mind, reducing Hamlet to the level of a spinster in a
cafeteria poised with pretty trepidation between this plate
and that. Hamlet has so much mind that it is very diffi
cult for him to make it up easily. People who make up
their minds quickly very often have very little to work
with, because to think is to embrace complexity in this
world, and to accept it as one of the endless and charac
terizing phenomena of human existence.
Now, poor Hamlet thinks when he's alone. That
statement, by the way, at the beginning of that British
film, that this is a play about a man who can't make up his
mind, seems to me to be the most sinister threat to Anglo-
American relations since the Bosjzon Tea Party. I still
wake up in the middle of the night and think about the
absurdity of that. No, no! Hamlet's mind is made up when
he gets the evidence, but he will not make up his mind
until he's sure and this is not a wrong thing but it's a
very dangerous thing to exist that way in the world. As we
shall see, people like Hamlet are very vulnerable.
(A-38) 306
So, here's the first of the great soliloquies when
he's alone. He thinks,
0 that this too too solid flesh would melt.
He's very lonely, Hamlet. I suggested to you earlier, and
some of your letters utter loud wails of protest, that men
are essentially alone. They must be because, as the poet
says, "One soul known is life achieved." You can't know
people; you're too complex. People can't know you. Every
man is an island. Ah, yes, he's an island in an archipel
ago but he's none the less an island. And so Hamlet walks
a long road alone, a weary road--sad, thoughtful, very
civilized, very sensitive, a gentleman. But he walks the
road alone. That road that every man somehow must walk.
Now we see him, face to face with a situation in
life that is not endurable for him.
0 that this too too solid flesh would melt,
--that I could be reduced to atoms and be blown about by
the winds of this world--
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His cannon 'gainst self-slaughter! 0 God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
(A-39) 307
Now this is Shakespeare's developed style. He
knows that people do not think from A to Z consecutively,
but that you and I and all men--and the greater, the more
complex the man, the more erratic is his thought pattern--
in sense, he thinks this way, swinging back and forth. The
things suggested out to the suburbs and back, and thinks
forward, not from A to Z, but by an amazing series of
glinting cross references and ricochets. That's the way
you think. Sometime play this trick upon yourself when
you're reading a book. Put a piece of paper in some--any--
place further in the book and forget it. And then, sudden
ly, as you're reading the man's book, you come to that
piece of paper. And ask yourself what you've really been
thinking about in the last twenty minutes. You'll get the
surprise of your life. Ostensibly you're reading the book;
but you're all around it, and that's natural. That's what
you should do because no book means anything--this play
means nothing--unless somehow you document it by building
in it illusively the references, the things you have known,
the people you have known. Now I hope you have never felt
this way, but many men have.
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems to me all the uses of this world!
(A-40)
308
. . . 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
Now his mind swings out; he looks out the door whence the
king and queen have just departed.
That it should come to this!
But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not between the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears--why she, even she
(0 God! a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle;
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. 0, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!
For he hears people coming.
Now one of the exciting things to me about Hamlet
is this--and you see this for yourself, you see it in all
men--that, while statistically we pretend to exist--Myrtle
K. Statistic, living at 411 East Statistical Boulevard,
with certain documented existence--yet we know that Myrtle
K. Statistic is never the same to any two people. For men
take color, women take color, from the people with whom
they associate. You know that in some groups you are
thought highly of. Really, you rise to the occasion. With
other groups you are less than yourself, perhaps, I don't
know. But you're different; you know that. You're differ
ent with different people.
Hamlet shows that beautifully, because he is such a
complex and sensitive man that he seems almost chameleon
like to take color from people with whom he finds himself.
We'll see how different he is with the king, with his
mother, with Polonius, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
with these boys--these good normal citizens who have come
to find him to tell him. This is a very nervous thing to
tell a man: that they have seen his father's ghost, the
ghost of his dead father.
In come now the scholar, Horatio, Marcellus, Ber
nardo and, of course, the best man in this play from the
point of view of durability is Horatio. He's the sort of
"B-plus" who doesn't suffer the agonies of an "A"; he's
better than a "C," but he has a survival quality of normal
ity. Horatio, the college friend and student of Hamlet,
and then the two soldiers, Marcellus and Bernardo, whom we
saw last week on the battlements. He says,
(A-42) 310
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!
In come these people, and immediately he puts on a face--
face number twenty-seven. I don't know; you know the
trick. Here come young men, his peers, his sort of people.
Hail to your lordship!
And I think Hamlet just answers, seeing these fellows
dimly.
I am glad to see you well.
Horatio!--or I do forget myself.
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
Sir, my good friend--I'11 change that name with you.
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcel
lus?
Than I think he sees Marcellus. He knows him.
Marcellus ?
My good lord!
I am very glad to see you.
Bernardo he doesn't know, apparently, so he reaches across
and says,
Good even, sir--
See, he's different with all of them. Horatio, Marcellus--
Good even, sir--
Three different men.
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
(A-43) 311
Don't you see a man in his situation feeling so
lonely and so hemmed in, so vulnerable? Anything new that
happens must immediately have an explanation. "Why have
you come so pat in this time of my distress from Witten
berg? Faith, what makes you from Wittenberg?" Horatio
shrugs.
A truant disposition, good my lord.
I would not hear your enemy say so,
says Hamlet.
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
Horatio says, somewhat dryly, X think,
My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
Hamlet says,
I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio.'
says Hamlet,
The funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father--methinks I see my father.
(A-44) . 312
The boys jump, you see, at this; "Where, where?" they say.
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Now it's Horatio's duty, as the scholar and the
spokesman for this trio, to tell Hamlet what they've seen.
Horatio leads into it indirectly, like any normal citizen.
I saw him once. He was a goodly king.
He was a man,
says Hamlet, paying one of the greatest of compliments in
life.
He was a man, take him for all in all.
I shall not look upon his like again.
Think of the irony of that--with what these fellows
have seen! They look at each other, I think, and Horatio
blurts it out.
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Saw? Who?
My lord, the King your father.
The King my father?
Season your admiration
--your amazement; "admiration" means amazement--
for a while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
They nod their heads.
(A-45)
313
This marvel to you.
For God’s love let me hear!
says Hamlet.
Two nights together had these gentlemen
(Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch
In the dead vast and middle of the night
Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
Appears before them with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father.
These hands are not more like.
"Than that and that." You see? Now the naturalness of
this always impresses me. Hamlet is not going to have a
long speech. He has to build this thing into his life.
But where was this ?
My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.
Did you not speak to it?
My lord, I did.
Horatio says, "I meant to speak to it, but at the crowing
of the cock it fled."
'Tis very strange,
says Hamlet.
(A-46) 314
'Tis very strange.
As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.
Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.
Hold you the watch to-night?
We do, my lord.
Arm'd, you say?
Arm'd, my lord.
From top to toe?
My lord, from head to foot.
Then saw you not his face?
0, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up.
His visor.
look'd he frowningly?
So Hamlet quizzes them. What was he like? Pale,
red, and so on? "How long did he stay there?" This is a
very nice little touch. Horatio says,
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
Count a hundred. And the others say,
Longer, longer.
As all witnesses do; time is a very difficult thing to
gauge.
Longer, longer.
(A-47)
Now when I saw't.
315
says Horatio.
His beard was grizzled--?
says Hamlet. "Yes, as it was in life." And he finally
says,
I will watch to-night.
Perchance 'twill walk again.
I warr'nt it will.
Hamlet's knuckles are white, I think.
If it assume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace.
Now he looks off stage.
I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So, fare you well.
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.
Our duty to your honour.
And they bow.
Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
Now Hamlet is alone again. Marvelous, that old
stage in its simplicity! Hamlet is alone. Where? It
doesn't matter, but Hamlet's alone. He's had this ter
rible, strange, moving, and disturbing news.
(A-48) 316
My father's spirit--in arms? All is not well.
I doubt some foul play. Would the night was come!
Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
Now, "foul deeds." What "foul deeds"? Hamlet has--
Later he'll say, when he hears the truth, "0, my prophetic
soul." In short, not only the--what he calls the--"inces-
tuous and too hurried wedding" annoys him, but he's not so
sure about the death of his father, apparently, you see.
Foul deeds will rise,
which is an indication that this has occurred to him: that
his father's taking off was a little too quick, a little
too pat, a little too convenient for Claudius, his brother,
who is the new king. Out they go. Out he goes.
Now remember, there's no curtain here, no ripple of
applause, no break in the imaginative investment. In comes
the young buck we saw in the first scene, young Laertes,
who has been given permission to go back to France. Per
mission, of course, denied Hamlet to go to his university.
But back to France Laertes can go, and he's dressed for
traveling, with his cloak and his pouch and his hat and his
sword. He's all ready to go. With him, a girl we saw
dimly in the first scene, background. And this young man
and this young woman: who are they? We don't know yet. We
know Laertes, but we don't know the girl. As always, this
stage will tell us; this theater will tell us, without
benefit of program. "My necessity--" I'm sorry--
My necessaries are embark'd. Farewell.
And, sister,
See! You're told!
as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.
Do you doubt that?
she says. Laertes looks off stage.
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
"Don't take him seriously, my sister." And he goes into a
long speech here.
And he goes into a long speech here. Finally,
"Don't, don't believe anything he tells you. Don't listen
to his importunities, for he is a prince. He cannot choose
who will be his wife. He can't choose her, because he's a
prince. The state must choose, and any vows he makes are
worth nothing more than the air that is necessary to utter
them," and she's rather stricken by this. This is a very
pretty sort of speech and it's a little too long that
Laertes makes it at this point--if you've studied in your
book; and by George! you that are taking it for credit
better--you'11 find it a little too long. I've never been
able to accept Laertes with a friendly handclasp until I
saw Margaret Webster's production of this, and the way she
did this I suddenly liked Laertes for the first time. For,
as Laertes began to utter this advice, he suddenly realized
that he was getting pompous, like his father, Polonius, and
he stuck his stomach out and imitated his father's manner
so that in the end she giggles and says,
I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.
0, fear me not!
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
A double blessing is a double grace;
And he bows to his father.
Now I wish that I didn't have to say this about
Polonius--don't write me letters about Polonius, please,
will you. My mind is made up, and unlike Hamlet, I'm a
simple soul and see only one side of this--but I think
Polonius is awful. He is most quoted. Scarcely a week
goes by but what some person palpitatingly calls up on the
telephone to say, "Where can I find that tremendous state
ment: 'To thine ownself be true'?" And I have to say it's
in this play. It's put on the lips of an old duffer who is,
in every way, a double-crosser, a schemer, a plotter, a man
who baits a trap with his own daughter, a man who sends a
spy to check up on his own son, in Paris, who likes the
lefthanded approach--what he calls, "assays of bias."
"Don't attack any problem this way but get around it, you
see. Find out what the neighbors are saying; get in on
things that way." I wish this sort were dead in the world,
but alas, I could document his reincarnation. Really, I
feel he lives by innuendo, he lives by machination, he
likes schemes, he likes plots, he's an old spider in the
middle of a web; that he is a good servant of the state I
have every reason to believe. For, after all, statehood,
it seems to me, historically demands a sort of low cunning
on the part of men. So PoloniusI I'd like to show you his
picture in a moment, as I conceive of him. Gentlemen, may
I have a picture of Polonius? There's Mr. Polonius as I
see him, in the middle of his web. Immediately he begins
to give good advice.
Now I grant you that there's a certain sort of man
who says, "Think," and his employees are made to look at a
sign and "think." And I often visualize these poor devils
sitting there, with whatever the gods have given them in
the way of equipment, endeavoring to do this. "Think!"
"Be honest!" Well, there are very few people in the world
who have chosen to be dishonest, but the complex web of
things that catches a man and makes him what he is; life is
not so simple that you can follow these things. Be wise,
be wise all of you; see? Now, he's the sort who likes to
give advice in this sort of back-of-a-postcard motto form,
and he says,
There--my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character.
Write it down.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
You see, all this is pretty good; only, when you
get to the end--if a man followed all this, he would be a
cold-blooded shark among men.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
That's a good safe principle in some ways. "Never lend
because you lose a friend; never borrow because you make an
enemy. Keep out of it." Now, I could make a point that
this is un-American, certainly, for our nation is built
upon what is called credit. Without installment buying,
where would television be--either in substance or in
(A-53) 321
instrument? Yes, all this is good; and yet it's like Lord
Chesterfield's advice to his son, which I recommend to you
to read in order that you may know what not to tell your
own children. He says-- Oh, we'll skip some of this--
Beware of an entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
That's good sound advice.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.
Have you not known people that have a great reputation by
wisdom, for wisdom, by merely standing still and being
silent? Yes,, that helps. "Don't say very much, but listen
to everything."
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy;
Get a good tailor, son, you see, if you would be a man; get
a good tailor. And goes on with this, and he says,
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Well, immediately our financial structure collapses.
And this above all--
And here! Don't write to me about this, now. I'm incor
rigible, but when you say to a man:
to thine own self be true
I'm not so sure what you're saying to him. Poor Eddie
Slovic on another extreme! John Dillinger! Ponze!
Hitler! What is the self to which you're to be true? The
self is not a pure essence, uncontaminated; but men are
mixtures of all sorts of things. Be true to what? The
dream of yourself? I would accept that, but I say you
can't push this very far. Now, don't write to me about it,
because I'll send your letters to each other.
To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Now, what infuriates you about all this good advice
which is so moral, so pious, on the surface, whether it be
philosophically tenable or not--it's moral and pious on the
surface--it's that he, in himself, in his conduct, as we'll
see, is capable of almost every sort of double-crossing, of
almost fiendish ingenuity and hunting out the wrong way of
doing things from the point of view of the gods. We'll
meet this. And finally, Laertes says, "Remember well what
I have said to you," to his sister. And immediately, of
course, the father says, "What did he say to you?" as soon
as Laertes has gone, and she must tell him. And he finally
says, "Yes, that's good advice." He says,
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This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to' t, I charge you. Come your ways.
And she's a girl of another century and another time. "I
shall obey my lord," and they go out.
And immediately, with right on their heels almost,
from the opposite door, comes Hamlet, with a cloak; his
friends, with their spears and their armor. They're going
up to the battlement. They're on the battlement, for:
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
says Hamlet.
It is a nipping and an eager air.
What hour now?
I think it lacks of twelve.
says Horatio.
I heard it not. It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
There's a moment's silence, and then, boom! The
drum and the cannon. You're not expecting that. "What's
that?" says Horatio. "The King is drinking." Now, the
philosopher is a man who, garnering all these facts, all
these individual minutiae of human experience, endeavors to
make a pattern. Philosophers are system-builders, imposing
generalizations upon chaos, as I said to you before, in
another connection. The philosopher tries to keep this up,
and by the same token, once the generalization is arrived
at, the philosopher likes to see how it works here and
there, so the philosopher is both a builder of generaliza
tions and a deducer from generalizations of specific appli
cations. See how Hamlet's mind works. He says, "Here's
this custom, this strange business. The king drinks and
the cannons go off. They laugh at us in other countries."
And immediately that general statement, that single state
ment, leads to a generalization. So it is, he says, in
human nature. That a man may be ninety-nine per cent per
fect and have but one little flaw, and yet the world meas
ures him in terms of that flaw. He gets all wound up in
the psychological idea. So are we! What good theater this
is I For a moment, we've been almost shocked by the sudden
cannonade when we expected a ghost. And how, when we're
interested in this philosophic idea which Hamlet develops
at length, suddenly,
Look, my lord, it comes!
And, high on the parapet, is the ghost, and down
there is Hamlet and his friends.
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Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee.
And Hamlet advances, cross-armed, toward him.
I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. 0, answer me!
Now let's go to the old theater for just a moment
and see how, on Shakespeare's stage, this scene was prob
ably played. I think it shows the old stage in its versa
tility very interestingly indeed. Remember in the 3-D
diagram here which you've seen so often, the three balco
nies? Now last week I said that the ghost probably appeared
up here, and that the men are down here, the real three-
dimensional living men? I think Hamlet and his friends
come in here, walk across, say, to this side. They talk.
And suddenly, the ghost appears here, comes in this way.
The ghost beckons, and as he beckons, he walks across here,
and so finally he's standing here and beckoning off stage.
Hamlet goes over here. The boys have recoiled from the
ghost--his friends, Marcellus and Horatio, here--over here
is Hamlet, looking up--and they say, "Don't follow him, my
lord, because ghosts are often phantoms from hell and not
what they seem to be at all, but demons leading men to
destruction. Don't go with him, Hamlet, sorely proud."
And he says,
I'll make a ghost of him that
stops me
lets me!--
And so they remain, these boys. The ghost goes out. Ham
let goes out this door. Then, there's a moment's hesita
tion where the boys say, "This is awful. He may be lured
to his destruction. Let us go."
They go out this way whereupon, I think, in the old
stage, the ghost appeared up here and Hamlet here. They
walk, each to the center of the stage at his own level, and
Hamlet and the ghost talk. Then, when the ghost goes,
Hamlet remains here. Back come the boys pursuing him. As
I said last time, there's a curious dichotomy here. You
must think of it on the old stage; it's only fair to the
author. And at the same time you must imagine Elsinore and
the battlements and the grey fog and the lonely void. He's
shaken his comrades loose, and now he's there with the ghost
so let's jump to that for just a moment.
"Let's follow him," the boys say. They rush off
and Hamlet comes in from the side of the stage with the
ghost above. And Hamlet:
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Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I'll go no further.
Now, for the first time, the ghost:
Mark me.
I will.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Alas, poor ghost!
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.
Speak. I am bound to hear,
says Hamlet.
So are thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
What?
I am thy father's spirit.
And so this goes on. We can't read it here togeth
er; time is so brief. But the ghost tells him his story.
It's a very interesting ghost. You recognize in it a two-
dimensional human being, somewhat lost in the ectoplasmic
essense. Out there, a ghost that speaks of my fair-like
body, and so on, which apparently he misses in the spirit
world, but he. says it was given out that I did it acci
dentally. No, he says, "I was murdered, and the serpent
that did sting me now wears my crown." And Hamlet says,
(A-60) 328
"o, my prophetic spirit,” and the ghost says, "You must
seek revenge for this." "Ah, yes," says Hamlet. Hamlet
pledges to the ghost of all this, and finally the ghost
fades away and Hamlet is alone.
0 all you host of heaven! 0 earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up.
And the ghost has said, "Remember me."
Remember thee ?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted glove. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
Foolish, old records--
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied here,
And they commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
And he looks off stage.
0 most pernicious woman!
0 villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables! Meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and the smile, and be a villain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:
It is 'Adieu, adieu! Remember me!'
1 have sworn't.
This to the winds and the darkness and the disap
peared essence of the ghost. And suddenly the boys rush
in, swords in hand.
(A-61) 329
My lord, my lord!
Lord Hamlet!
Heaven secure him!
And so on. Hamlet is strangely, almost hysterical
ly beside himself at what he has seen. He can't tell the
boys, you see, because the King of Denmark is a murderer.
He can't tell them that. So what will he do? X think he
stalls for time for a few minutes. He says,
What news, my lord?
Hamlet says, "Wonderful, wonderful!"
Good my lord, tell it.
Now, you will reveal it.
Nor I, my lord, by heaven!
Nor I, my lord.
And Hamlet says--I think he's stalling, you see,
trying to think what he1s going to do:
How say you then? Would hear of man once think it?
But you'll be secret?
Ay, by heaven, my lord.
And their eyes are out on stalks like lobsters. I mean,
this is, and this is the great secret he imparts to them.
There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.
And Horatio says, dryly,
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There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
Why, right! You are in the right!
says Hamlet. He's not going to tell him a thing, very
wisely. This is too dangerous knowledge to be shared with
anyone, you see, or so, without more circumstances, at all.
And now I think he pulls himself together.
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;
You, as your business and desire shall point you,
And this is one of the most tremendous lines in the play
coming up, I think. Think what he's put upon his soul: the
great necessity of revenging a dead father. And in this
world of Hamlet, the only revenge must be through more
blood; and his hand, the hand of the scholar, to hoe to the
fashion of the mold of form, now must be bloody with overt
horror. And he says,
Shake hands and part;
You, as your business and desire shall point you,
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is; and for my own poor part,
Look you, I'll go pray.
And Horatio looks at him, and he knows he's not
coming clean about all this, you see.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
I am sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, faith, heartily.
There's no offence, my lord.
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is,
--a very curious person to swear by--
but there is.
(A-63) 331
And so he says now one thing--and this is very im
portant to your understanding of the play--"Don't tell any
one any of this,1 1 he says, and he makes them swear that they
won't, and that's a very curious thing of delight to the
groundlings. It's rather irritating to us, as they move
about swearing here, and the ghost from underneath says,
"Swear, swear," and Hamlet says, "Rest tranquilly," and so
on. They swear, and then he says one more thing. Horatio
says,
this is wondrous strange!
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come!
Here, as before,
"Never tell anyone what you have seen of all this." And
then he says,
How strange or odd so'er I bear myself
(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
to put an antic disposition on),
That you, at such times seeing me, shall never
With arms encumb'red thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As 'Well, well, we know,' or "We could, an if we would,'
Or "If we list to speak,'
"We could tell. Never let--Never let on that you know that
I am being mad purposely or that there is reason. An awful
thing happened at midnight in the fog on the battlements to
make me different from other men. Just accept me for what
I am, and don't think that you understand why I shall put
this antic disposition on, the feigned madness; it will be."
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And so they do, and then he says,
So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you;
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t' express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. 0 cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together.
And so they go.
Now, we've got a little done in this play. I must
ask you to read ahead in around what I've said. I want you
to understand this and be able to translate the squiggles
on the page into pictures in your own awakened mind. All
of that, yes. I don't want to tell you what to believe
about this play. I have a horror of that. But I hope to
make it clear it's a great and rewarding thing, this play.
And, as I said to you, every man makes his own Hamlet, and
two thousand years from now they'll be reading this play.
I fancy what they see will not be what we see today, but
what they need to see, and what Shakespeare with a curious
wisdom that is a part of genius, put here for them to find.
Nuggets progressively to be excavated by time. Each person
receives what he wants from this play. Next week we'll con
tinue with this. That's all for today.
(A-65)
HAMLET
May 15, 1954
Again we turn to Hamlet. Now I worry about you,
and I worry about Hamlet, for fear that these little nib
bling treatments that I have to give the play in these
hurried colloquies that we have of a Saturday morning are
both unfortunate. I feel that X am not doing right by
Hamlet in an age where digests and predigested reading are,
alas, increasingly the rule. I hate to contribute to this
sort of thing. My part in your life, ladies and gentlemen,
is that I hope Irm a sort of catalyzer, that I'd like you
to read this play. If you'll just listen to me--oh, that's
thin stuff, but I hope that in listening to me, you'll have
a few more tools in the kit by which you can pry open the
meanings of this play, that you may understand it, that you
may feel it. For that's part of this experience, of course,
that you should identify yourself with this man, this
lonely man, this bright and golden boy who, by force of
333
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circumstances not of his own gendering, finds that he must
tip the world right, that world which, alas, foils the
hands too often of those who touch it. Now I wonder how
you visualize Hamlet. I said all along that you must see
all--see all these people that we've met since the first
semester of these lectures began--that you must see on the
stage of your imagination these as three-dimensional peo-^
pie, and furthermore that you must not only see this upon
Shakespeare’s stage, because he wrote this in a particular
sort of stage, but you must go beyond that and see Elsinore,
or the battlefields of France, or whatever the poet tries
to evoke in your imagination.
Here's the first of all. Hamlet's a rather plump
and somewhat elderly gentleman at the time this portrait
was taken, and I must regret to inform you that I feel he's
the sort of man who is always plump. What sort of Hamlet
did he make, I wonder. But don't you see that this is part
of the great illusion of this theater, that he might come
out as old as can be, but if we willingly suspend our dis
belief, we see this man in playing the part of a young
prince. We know that he's old. We know that he's fat. We
know that he is not the young prince physically. And yet,
let's step beyond that and listen to the evocative words
and, using him merely as the tool, to see the Hamlet of our
imagination. There have been many strange-looking Hamlets.
I had hoped to bring you more, but I think that maybe this
is enough. This is a nineteenth century Hamlet; yes,
here’s another one, about 1850; one of those famous play
bills of about 1850. You know, it doesn't really matter,
once you enter into the illusion of the theater and say,
”1 shall see what I choose to see here, and so this sad and
obviously aging lady is the vernal Juliet, if I would have
it." So I can't say this to you too much: that you must
meet any reading five-eighths of the way. Only a very
humble man regards reading as the trick of translating the
squiggles on a page into meaning that the traffic is one
way. Of course, you have to invade a book or play with
everything that has ever happened to you in your life. You
have to document it and to make it three-dimensional and
your own will.
Let's go back to the play. We talked last time
about the character of Polonius, and some of you have writ
ten me about it, that Polonius is, after all, not a very
nice old man. Let's face it. He has that--well, Bertrand
Russell once spoke of the people who confuse a moral vocab
ulary with a good life--and while his platitudes have a
certain worldly wisdom about them, how to get on in the
world, and while he is absolutely sure of himself, he is,
nonetheless, an old duffer. And he is cruel and stupid in
his attitude toward people, as we'll see. I want to read
the beginning of Act II a little bit with you.
You remember that Laertes has been given the privi
lege of going back to school in France and so has left.
Now! That's fine! His father spoke for him--at least gave
the king his sanction for the going of his son. Laertes
has gone. And then Laertes checks up on his son in Paris.
We presume Paris. He checks up on his son, a notoriously
dangerous place for vulnerable young gentlemen from Den
mark, or Dakota, the left bank, and so he sends his servant
to spy on him, and Polonius enters with a servant. He's
clearly a servant. He has the blue coat of a servant,
probably, and he has the patch and the traveling hat, and
he’s clearly going somewhere. And old Polonius says,
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
I will, my lord.
You shall do marvell's wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behaviour.
My lord, I did intend it.
Like master, like man; like man, like master.
(A-69) 337
Marry, well said,
says Polonius.
very well said. Look you, sir,
Now one admirable thing he might say, "You're going
to Paris to check up. Go see Laertes, see how he is," and
that would be an honorable thing for a father to do. "Drop
in on my son and say 'hello.' See how he is; let me know."
That isn't the way Polonius works. There are people in
life who like the left-handed approach, who like machina
tions, devious strategems, progressively think that way, a
skewered drift toward truth. Now he says, "First inquire
about him, ask about him," you see. Now,
Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
And thus, 'I know his father and his friends,
And in part him.' Do you mark this, Reynaldo?
Reynaldo, all ears,
Ay, very well, my lord,
'And in part him, but,' you may say, ’not well.
But if't be he I mean, he's very wild
Now, what a nasty father to say to them!
(A - 7 0 ) 338
But if't be he I mean, he's very wild
Addicted so, and so'; and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him--take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
Wild oats of a good and bland cereal type! This is
fascinating! The servant wonders just what is defined;
just what is a wild oat, you see.
As gaming, my lord.
Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,
Drabbing. You may go so far.
Which raises a very interesting speculation. There
seems to be a little less of the master of men, and the
adulteration of food. Really, these are wild enough.
My lord, that would dishonour him.
Faith, no,
says Polonius,
as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency.
And that is utterly fascinating. It's Lord Chesterfield
again. "Permit your indiscretions, but save the surface,"
like the paint manufacturers: save the surface and you save
all, you see. The way of the gentleman in the world.
Don't wear your heart upon your sleeve, and certainly don't
(A-71) 339
wear your past record, but preserve the middle course.
That's the desideratum in life. Yes, but that isn't ex
actly what he means. But don't let it show. You see?
That's not my meaning. But breathe his faults so
quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.
But, my good lord--
Wherefore should you do this?
Ay, my lord, I would know that.
Marry sir, here's my drift.
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.
A justifiable dodge, you see.
You laying these slight sullies on my son
Slight sullies! He's really running the gamut of possible
wild oats.
As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' th' working.
Mark you,
Your party in converse, him would you sound,
Having ever seen the predominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd
He closes with you in this consequence:
Now think of Polonius, fat little Polonius, with
his hands about his equator, perfectly sure of himself, you
see:
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He closes with you in this consequence:
'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,1 or 'gentleman'--
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country--
Very good, my lord.
And then, this little stroke of genius here:
And then, sir, does 'a this--'a does--
What was 1 about to say? By the mass, I was
about to say something! Where did I leave?
And the good servant who has followed him says:
At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,1
and 'gentleman.1
"Ay," says Polonius,
At 'closes in the consequence'--Ay, marry!
He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman.
I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,
Or then, or then, with such or such; and, as you say,
There was gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse;
There falling out at tennis'; or perchance,
'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'
Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.
See you now--
And here's the man. I read this for a purpose.
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
"Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth!" The
left-handed way of the provacateur, the nastiest of treat
ment of man and man, of father and son.
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and assays of bias,
Left-handed treatment!
(A-73) 341
By indirections find directions out,
So, by my former lecture and advice,
Shall you my son. You have me,
Which, of course, means, "You get me?" "I get you," says
the servant, and so he goes, master and man in perfect
understanding.
And no sooner has the servant gone than in comes
Ophelia. Now, of course, we must say much about Ophelia
in the next two lectures. Ophelia is a victim. Shakes
peare knows the great truth, that when great people fall,
lots of people are hurt. So this is a dear, gentle, rather
simple, loving girl. That she and Hamlet love each other
is havocly attested by all. That is said in this play.
His strange treatment of her we must look at next time.
Now Ophelia comes in, all of a dither, poor girl. And she
comes to her father:
My lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
With what i1 th1 name of God?
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Now see this in your imagination!
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,
Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
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As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors--he comes before me.
And so Hamlet comes in, you see. He's all twisted
with excitement, laces which hold him together all unlaced;
so he comes in and looks at her. Now Hamlet has told the
men on the embattlement as he left them, "If perchance I
act strangely from now on, don't you say anything about it.
Just keep silent. Don't say anything about what we saw on
this terrible night upon the foggy parapet. Now, don't
tell anyone. If I do act strangely, and if I do act
strangely," and here he comes, acting strangely.
Why, it's very clear, ladies and gentlemen, he's
not mad. But don't you see? He knows the great truth that
he's a prince, and by supernatural prodding, he has been
given a tremendous duty to right a fearful and bloody
wrong, and he must taint his hands with blood, princely
hands as they are. He must touch this crass world. And
he knows, being the wise fellow that he is, that he will
never be the same. He can't drag her down with him, don't
you see? So he must break that off. He must act strange
ly. That she will be alienated. Later on, when we see
them together, we'll see the truth of this. Polonius sums
it up, makes his snap judgment, and in the way of this
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character we've met in so many of the plays, the old man
with the beard, he will never change his dogma.
Mad for thy love?
My lord, I do not know,
But truly do I fear it.
What said he?
Now think of this, if you're a tender young thing!
This man coming! Hamlet--
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so.
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
And with his head over his shoulder turn'd
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,
Now this would shake a Wellesley senior; this would shake
anybody!
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,
For out o' doors he went without their help
And to the last bended their light on me.
No offense to Wellesley. I was just picking that
out of the air. Don't write me about that. I didn't mean
anything, honest. I just meant a sophisticated lady of the
world. Poor Ophelia did not--Well, she's never been any
where. And suddenly, this man does this crazy and strange
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thing. And, of course, she rushes to her father.
Come, go wi th me.
says Polonius.
I will go seek the king.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
"Assays of bias," left-handed ways of getting at the truth.
This thing has been heard of in the public print, getting
at truth the left-handed way.
Now that's how he does it. She is told here, you
remember, that she is to have nothing to say or to do with
Hamlet. He's told her that before. She has sworn that she
would to her father, and now he says,
Have you given him any hard words of late?
And she's a proud little lady.
No, my good lord; but as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied his access to me.
You see the little trap he lays for her, just as he
lays this complicated trap for his son in Paris.
That hath made him mad.
says Polonius.
I am sorry that better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him. I fear'd he did but trifle
And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy!
(A-77) 345
And this is so real! How this aches, almost, when
you think of it! The power of people to explain and excuse
themselves to themselves; this is a cruel and stupid thing,
and he missed the guess all along. And now he says, for
giving himself,
It is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, we go to the King.
This must be known, which, being kept close, might
more grief to hide than utter love, and he goes. And don't
you see, I made a mistake, the mistake, a very cruel mis
take, but old people are permitted to make mistakes, so
it's all right with Polonius. He's going to make one lit
tle left-handed maneuver too many before the play goes much
further. He's going to bait one more trap, and we'll see
what happens. Now he goes out the side door.
And immediately, you remember--no break here!--for
from the other door, and probably from the alcove in the
back there, flood forward the people of the court: the king,
queen, and attendants. Now, with these two attendants, we
meet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I don't know how Shakes
peare meant us to take Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
They're necessary here in the story, and it's impossible to
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tell one from the other. I know how I always see them, as
though spaceless air, as--forgive me, and don't quote me
now on this--the faceless undergraduates who conform to the
type established by their particular institutions, so that
you can't really tell one from another. These are people
who blend with the particular environment. I use colleges
because I'm closest to them. So that you can't tell this
is a picture, by the way, of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
before you. It's the same boy you'll notice later when the
king says, "Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern,"
The queen, hedging, I think, against error, says, "Thanks,
Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz," and there they are!
his old fraternity brothers from Wittenberg.
The king says, "Welcome," to them, and explains
that he has sent for them and they're to come because Ham
let has been acting strangely and the king wisely thought
that someone of his own age would be good for him. But
you know perfectly well that the king's guilty conscience
is at work here. He's got to use every tool by which to
pry into Hamlet's secret and, in a sense, here again, you
have "assays of bias," a little left-handed way of getting
at truth. Take him out and entertain him, have fun with
him.
At that moment, in come the ambassadors who brought
this war to its conclusion. It had its point; it had the
importance, as we saw, creating the tense atmosphere of the
first scene. Now it's no longer needed, just as the war in
Othello was allowed to dissipate after the main plot had
been developed. This main strife. And so Hamlet. The
war's over, and we hear no more of "all that post haste and
romage in the land.1 1
Now Polonius takes the most immediate moment to
tell the king what he has learned about Hamlet's curious
conduct. The king is interested but is not particularly
convinced. Hamlet has a letter; Polonius has a letter that
Hamlet has sent to Ophelia. It's a silly sort of letter
with a curious verse, and Hamlet is obviously playing this
mad game. It's one way, you see, that he may continue
living in the society a little more safely, on point of
vantage. He, too, is guilty of a little left-handed "assay"
toward truth. Let them feel that his perplexity, perhaps,
lies more deep than it really is until he can be sure for,
as I said last time, he must be sure this ghost-- He,
and Horatio, and any of the scholars, even Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern in their freshman year, had read about ghosts,
who were really demons from hell assuming even saintly
guise and luring people. Spencer knew about it. Sidney
knew about it, and wrote about this sort of thing. Every
body had the idea that victors, visitants from the other
world, were not what they seem. Although they may be white
and beautiful and unspotted and charming, yet they may be
demons from hell sent to lure men to their destruction. He
must be sure. He must be sure with something more than the
supernatural prompting before he can close in on the king.
Poor fellow, you see.
As I said to you last time, the trouble with Hamlet
is that he has too much mind. He wants to be sure he's a
reasonable man. He's what men ought to be. Fortinbras
would have slain the king and thought about it on Tuesday,
or gathered his evidence afterward. In a topsy-turvy Alice-
in-Wonderland world of ours that sometimes happens. Make
the charge, and prove it if you can tomorrow. And that's
what this Hamlet can't do--because he's a gentleman and a
scholar.
The king is very doubtful about this. The queen
listens with great interest, and then Polonius says, if
you have the standard text, this is page 620, and if you
haven't it's Act II, Scene 2, line about 160-ish, in there
somewhere. Act II, Scene 2, Polonius says;
You know sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
The great entrance hall--
So he does indeed.
says the queen.
At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.
Isn't that a hideous phrase? Bait the trap for the tiger!
Bait it with a kid!
I'll loose my daughter to him.
You've seen his attitude toward his daughter. This is the
clincher!
Be you and I behind an arras then.
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
In short, if I'm not right about the source of his trouble,
he's mad for my daughter's love--
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm for carters.
And the king says, "We'll try it." Suddenly the
queen says, "Look!" for in comes Hamlet reading a book.
Seriously, thoughtfully, you see, the poor wretch comes,
reading, and Polonius says,
Away, I do beseech you, both away!
I'll board him presently.
Well, by now, of course, the battle line is drawn.
We know who is on which side. We know that Hamlet is the
lonely figure in the middle and that it is for his soul,
his salvation, his life, his happiness, his sanity, that
all this battle is waged. One one side, the king, with
Polonius, his minister. On the other side, wistfully, and
at a distance, Ophelia, and the queen somewhere there, too.
But hovering above and behind, always behind to Hamlet's
consciousness, the figure of the ghost. Here he is, caught
in the web, and the ghost always there back of his mind.
Now Hamlet-- One of the delightful and amazing
things about this character, looking at it as a sheer lit
erary creation, is that Hamlet, as I said to you before,
takes color from his surroundings. When he talks to "A,"
he somehow meets "A" more than half-way. Hamlet has that
very human chameleon tendency we all have of being differ
ent with different people, different with different groups.
The very tenseness or degree of tenseness, or the flavor of
a gathering that we enter, determines how we shall be--what
particular one of the ten thousand masks in the closet we
may use. Now watch Hamlet. We've seen him with some
people very chilly, very haughty, very truly the Renais
sance prince with the king; a little more bending with his
mother, but not still rather chilly. And suddenly here
comes Polonius. Now Polonius, with his sententious laby-
rinthian rhetoric, Polonius with a whited sepulchre,
doesn’t fool Hamlet now. That's how Hamlet treats him.
It's wonderful. What he does is take this old duffer and
put him into a sort of a mental spin by refusing to be
logical, following one thing after another.
Give me leave.
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Now, the fun must be here that Hamlet never looks up from
his book.
Well, God-a-mercy.
Do you know me, my lord?
Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
Now, of course, Polonius, a little bit--
Not I, my lord.
Then I would you were so honest a man.
says the prince.
To be honest, my lord?
Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to
be one man pick'd out of ten thousand.
Now that's something Polonius likes. You could
write that on a card and put it on a desk. "Think!" "Do
it today." That sort of man has something. You could
write it on a card. You could put it in the house organ
for March 21st.
To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
pick'd out of ten thousand.
That's very true, my lord.
Now Hamlet gives him a joke that sends him spin
ning, I think.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a
god kissing carrion--Have you a daughter?
I have,
says Polonius.
Let her not walk i' th1 sun. Conception is a blessing,
but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend,
look to't.
Now Polonius comes down to the groundlings, the
winds, the gods.
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
Yet he knew me not at first. He said I was a
fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone! And
truly in my youth I suff'red much extremity for
love--very near this.
Which is one of the funniest lines in the play, somehow.
I'll speak to him again.--What do you read, my
lord?
Hamlet hasn't looked up from his book, I'm sure.
Words, words, words.
What is the matter?
Now the matter is what the policeman says when
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there's a little altercation. "What is the matter?"
What's the subject? Which is called, in the Bronx, an
argument, in which there is mayhem and trauma. "What is
the matter?" And, of course, matter is also substance.
"What is the matter of the book?"
Between who?
says Hamlet, as if he meant an altercation.
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.
Slanders, sir;
Now, of course, in directing this play on the stage
of your imagination, you must have Polonius shaking his
beard, touching his face, at just the appropriate moment.
For Hamlet says, "The matter of the book?"
Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that
old men have grey beards; that their faces are
wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and
plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful
lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All
of which, sir, though I most postently and
powerfully believe, yet I hold it not honesty
to have it thus set down.
Now watch what he does! Polonius is following
this; it's more or less logical. And here comes the joke!
for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am
if, like a crab, you could go backward.
And Polonius says,
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354
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.--
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Into my grave?
Indeed, that is out o' th’ air.
says Polonius. Aside,
How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness
that often madness hits on, which reason and
sanity could not so prosperously be delivered
of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive a
means of meeting between him and my daughter.--
My honourable lord,
he says to Hamlet. He still hasn't looked up, I'm sure.
He has been walking back and forth.
I will most humbly take my leave of you.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more
willingly part withal--except my life, except
my life, except my life.
Fare you well, my lord.
He starts off, and Hamlet looks up, I think, and
says,
These tedious old fools!
So he is with Polonius, whom he obviously detests.
And suddenly coming toward him--and puts his finger between
the book and marks the page--and he can't believe himself,
are his friends from Wittenberg. Now you remember when he
met Horatio he said, "What are you doing here?" because
he's fearful. "Why, why are you here? What were you sent
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for?" That is his question. Now, to these two boys,
Polonius says,
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.
God save you, sir!
says Rosencrantz, tweedy class of ’87, Wittenberg, indis
tinguishable from his friend.
My honoured lord!
My most dear lord!
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guilden
stern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye
both?
As the indifferent children of the earth.
Happy in that we are not over-happy.
They talk back and forth. It's almost a comedy of
manners talk. It's bright and spicy, young men of the
world meeting. They have coterie jokes in common, and this
is a little rowdy, and they talk like young alumni meeting.
Finally Hamlet says,
Let me question more in particular. What have you, my
good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune
that she sends you to prison hither?
Prison, my lord?
Hamlet says,
Denmark's a prison.
Then is the world one.
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That's the sort of thing that strikes fire from
Hamlet's imagination. Remember, I told you, the philoso
pher who takes the general statement and sees the particu
lar applications of it, and that other task of the philos
opher which is to survey all the individual phenomena of
the world and arrive at generalizations that explain them?
So that when this man says, the world is a prison, "Ay,"
says Hamlet,
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards,
and dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.
The two boys look at each other.
We think not so, my lord.
Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either
good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me
it is a prison.
Now this is very interesting. What will be the
explanation? Immediately these worldly young men think
Hamlet lacks opportunity for advancement. Somehow he's not
whirling straight up to the sun.
Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow
for your mind.
And Hamlet looks at them, and this is wonderful!
And this is as true as true!
0 God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count my
self a king of infinite space, were it not that
I have bad dreams.
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The older I get, the longer I live, the more I'm
convinced that Hamlet says that readiness is all to meet
life for. I have reserves. I'm a free man. I can brood.
No prison could hold that.
Now you know how people go to Europe often, don't
you? And come back. And have really very little in the
knapsack when they return, because you can't go to Europe
and have it write upon you as if you were white paper. You
have to meet an alien culture, or a distant and different
culture, with some foreknowledge of it that you may under
stand it. Otherwise, you merely find that it's well. Many
Americans have come back from foreign travel--and some of
you will this summer--convinced that the world is really
very full of foreigners, which I think is a profound truth.
But you have to, as in reading, as I said to you in the
whole complex of life, you have to bring as much to it as
your expect it to give you. And Hamlet knows.
To be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of
infinite space,
But here, within this long box, there are horrid things.
"I have dreams," Hamlet says, and they laugh at him. In a
minute he says, "Why do you do this?" "Well," they say,
"you're feeling, so you won't enjoy the players that are
coming."
And this, of course, is a fascinating episode--the
coming of the players to Elsinore. And in this Shakespeare
gives us one of his occasional--once rather frequent--
comments, little skewed comments often upon the actors and
acting, the quality of the profession that he himself fol
lowed, the acting of his own day. Here is, of course, the
most extensive treatment of this we will meet in several
passages. Now, Hamlet is interested.
First, just a little bit I'd like to read before we
get into that. Hamlet, you see, is worried about them, why
they are here, so pat.
But in the beaten way of friendship, what makes you at
Elsinore?
And they look at each other.
To visit you, ray lord; no other occasion.
Says Hamlet:
I am even poor in thanks; but 1 thank you; and sure,
dear friends, my thanks are too dear a half
penny. Were you not sent for?
See the trick? He springs it on them.
Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining?
He looks from face to face. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
look at each other, but Hamlet is there watching them.
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Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me.
Nay, speak.
What should we say, my lord?
Why, anything--but to th1 purpose. You were sent for;
and there is a kind of confession in your looks,
which your modesties have not craft enough to
colour. I know the good King and Queen have
sent for you.
To what end, my lord?
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you.
Now this is a wonderful speech. I know what a
falacious axiom I labor under in life. I am a school
teacher; I am a school master. I teach at a college. And
I stand there and talk to another generation, and I have to
reach across a great gulf. It would be fatal if I identi
fied myself with them, and it would be impossible for them to
identify themselves with me. For the battle of the genera
tions that we saw in King Lear, in Romeo and Juliet, is a
very real one. Two sets of axioms! Two sets of points of
view! And it’s hard to reach across.
And Hamlet says: "You're not Polonius' boys; you're
not the King's. You're my own sort. By the consonancy of
youth." That's a delightful phrase: youth to youth. And,
of course, all the world its guild; it's linked together
for the suppression of youth. Youth is very vulnerable.
We hear too often quoted Bernard Shaw's comment about youth
being too precious a thing to be wasted on the young, but
it seems to me too terrible a thing to be enforced upon the
young. I wouldn't want to go through that again for any
thing. Now, he says, "Here we are, young people." Curi
ous I They're in an early world they didn't make. "Aye,
stranger, and afraid in a world I never made, aye." A
youngster, afraid, and in a world I never made. "By the
consonancy of our youth, tell me, come clean," says Hamlet.
"Were you sent for?" That's a wonderful speech. Let me
read it.
let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship,
"by our old fraternizing back there at Wittenberg, by the
rights of our consonancy, chiming together like two matched
forks of equal tune and pitch, like two plucked strings,
by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of
our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear
a better proposer could charge you withal, be
even and direct with me, whether you were sent
for or no?
Rosencrantz says,
What say you?
to Buildenstern. And Hamlet says,
Nay then, I have an eye of you.--If you love me, hold
not off.
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361
Guildenstern gulps hard:
My lord, we were sent for.
I will tell you why.
says Hamlet,
shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,
--this is, "anticipate your disclosure," you see, "of the
truth"--
and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no
feather.
"Whatever else they make you swear; he would not have
broken it, IT11 tell you."
I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my
mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and
indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition
that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me
a sterile promontory; this most excellent can
opy of air, look you, this brave o'erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with
golden fire--why, it appeareth no other thing
to me than a foul and pestilent congregation
of vapours. What a piece of work is man!
There's the study of studies; the complex thing we
call man, faced with fifteen billion cortical cells, and
the infinite possibilities, the strivings, the complexity.
What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how
infinite in faculties! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an
angel! in apprehension how like a god! the
paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this
quintessence of dust? Man delights not me--no,
nor woman neither,
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They laugh at him.
Why did you laugh?
They say, “What lenten entertainment you'll take
from the players, for clearly you're not in the mood for
this sort of thing." And Hamlet says, "He who plays the
king will be most welcome." There's more than meets the
eye here. "He who plays the king will be most welcome.
His majesty shall have tribute of me." Here we find
stuffed characters out of the romantic stage of Shakespeare's
day. Of course, you must have a king.
the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target;
--"shield," you see--
the lover shall not sigh gratis;
--Shakespeare's lovers always sigh, "sighing like a fur
nace," one of the tender passions--
the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall
end his part in peace;
And the humorous man, is, in a sense, the bedeviled man,
some obsession, you see, and he'll laugh. He'll be up
lifted and be all right.
the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are
tickle o' th' sere;
That's a very interesting phrase, means hair-trig
gered, really--the people who are hair-triggered, the
groundlings in the pit will laugh at anything. He'll make
them laugh, those whose wit, whose laugh is "tickled o' th1
sere and the lady shall say her mind freely." Isn't that
amazing, when you think of all Shakespeare's young women--
the ones we met in the comedies, they're all bright articu
late ladies--and they say their minds freely. It's as if
Shakespeare were reviewing the collected works of W.
Shakespeare. It seems to me, in all of this, or the blank
verse of Hawthorne, what players are they? Then we hear
Shakespeare giving his opinion of the child actors. Do
read this carefully.
I remember one scene, a very famous child actress
in a part, and oh, she was darling. And then I happened to
catch the face of an elderly character in the background
looking at her. And that glance, which I hope no one else
saw, there boded no good for the child actor. Yes, it is
so. And actors always find things which are extraordinary,
and really not particularly of the theater. Now, of course,
you'll find some child actors will act magnificently, we
know that, but often it's just the sweet little kid, boy,
girl, whatever it may be, just for its own sweetness and
cuteness, and the actor hates to play against the kitten,
even a human one. And Hamlet, as a professional actor,
looks at the recent dominance in the public eye of the
child actor. He doesn't like it.
Now we must get on with this play. I can only nib
ble at little bits and suggest things to you. I don't care
whether you agree with me. That isn't the point. This is
just what I feel as of this day, about these particular
things I read to you.
Do read your own play. The play that you read
today will not be the Hamlet that you read tomorrow or next
year.
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365
HAMLET
May 22, 1954
Ladies and gentlemen, last week we reached the
moment in the play where the players arrive at Elsinore and
Hamlet greets them. Now, again, I express my sadness at
not being able to read all of this with you, because if I
were a wise man, I would say nothing, and just let Shakes
peare talk to you. But--we have to do what we can in these
hurried meetings.
1 do want to call your attention to this again:
that Hamlet takes color from his surroundings, and he
adapts himself as people must do in the world. When he
greets the players, you see, he's a different Hamlet from
any Hamlets we've yet met in the play. He's a prince--not
with condescension, greeting these commoners, but with just
the right amount of brotherly kinship somehow. They're
human beings; he's still the prince; but he greets them.
After all, manners are a social lubricant. They're the
attributes people have by which they can live with their
fellow man with a minimum of friction and pay that concat
enation of personal attributes which enables them, somehow
to recognize and accept the ego of others. And Hamlet is
nice with these people. Do study those speeches; they’re
extremely interesting.
Then he says to them, "Come, let's hear a sample
of what you can do. Let's hear a passionate speech.” And
the first player, whom Hamlet has known:
What speech, my good lord?
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never
acted; or if it was,
"the play failed. It was an excellent play, sophisticated
and civilized and sensitive; people liked it, but"
'twas caviary to the general
"and so it failed."
Now watch this. Psychologically this is extremely
interesting, it seems to me. Hamlet has heard this speech
a long time ago. Now a lesser dramatist might say, "It
went like this, Brrrrrrr," right through. But look at
Hamlet, fumbling for it; he remembers it, but only half.
And then, once he gets the momentum started, then the words
come briskly.
If it live in your memory, begin at this line--let me
see, let me see:
"The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast--"
'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:
"The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal.
And so, once he gets into it--and this happens to
you and to all men--once he gets into it, then the words
seem to come, and he finally reaches the end of the speech.
And he's whipped himself up into a sort of delightful pas
sion about this. And suddenly he looks around, I think,
rather embarrassed, and says, "But so proceed you." And
old Polonius says,
Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and
good discretion.
And the first player picks it up:
"Anon he finds him.
Striking too short at Greeks."
And so we reach the story of the fall of Troy as
told in this somewhat fulsome bland verse. It's hard not
to believe that Shakespeare is doing anything but satiriz
ing some of the rather high-falutin language of a certain
sort of Elizabethan play. All this is rather super-heated
blank verse, but it's full of a sort of stage passion.
And, indeed, the player comes to the moment where he talks
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about the sad, final moments of the great queen of Troy,
Queen Hecuba. Her sons are dead, her daughters slain or
carried off; the husband, Priam, dead; and all of Troy dust
and ashes. And the player gets so, in the part here, that
he begins to weep, and he comes to the end. And Hamlet
says, "This is amazing."
. Now the players go out, shepherded by Polonius, and
now Hamlet is alone. This is a great soliloquy. I shall
read it to you. Follow it please, in your texts.
Now I am alone.
He looks offstage, through the side door the players have
gone out, and he says, this player,
0, what a rogue and peasant slave am i!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That, from her working, all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit?
To his imaginative investment of himself.
And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
A legendary queen who never lived.
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
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And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing! No, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made.
He says, "I must be a coward. Were any man to insult me,"
I should take it! for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver1d and lack gall
To make oppression bitter,
Now he looks out of the door towards the king, who's out
there, we feel.
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites,
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Then he suddenly realizes he's being the actor again.
0, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must unpack my heart with words
A fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About my brain!
"About! I must think!"
Now he's said to the player, "Can you speak some
lines I'll give you? Some new lines in the old play?"
"Yes," says the player. So Hamlet's had ready in mind.
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"About my brain! Let me stop this emotional, melodramatic,
verbal horseplay, and think," he says, "about it, and
about."
I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murther of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him
"I'll probe him"
to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil; and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasant shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
This is the most misquoted line in all Shakespeare:
the play's the thing
which is generally taken to mean, "There's no business like
show business," which isn't exactly what Shakespeare had in
mind. This play is the trap with which I'll trap this
guilty king.
Now, the next scene is extremely interesting. As I
told you when you began, keep your eye upon the king, the
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king who gets treated so shabbily in so many professional
versions of this, because the actor manager who plays Ham
let has Claudius cut down to size. But Claudius is a com
plex and interesting person in himself. I rather admire
him, villain that he is, because he doesn't rationalize his
villainy. He says, "I've done an evil thing. I wish I
could be a happy king." Like Lady Macbeth, to be queen of
something, to have power over something, but to be safely
so. And neither the Macbeths nor the Claudiuses are too
safe. And so the king is uncertain, miserable. Hovering
over him is danger. Everywhere he turns, he's threatened,
for his kingship's only a hollow thing until it be made
legitimate, until somehow the danger at least of Hamlet,
who suspects something--the king's worried about him, he's
set his spies on Hamlet--unless that can be averted his
kingship will be a very hollow thing--ashes to his taste,
or salt. And he's miserable.
And so he admits Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. We
have seen them last time. They're brought in to see what
they can find out about Hamlet's trouble. And now, after
Hamlet has had this tremendous
0, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
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soliloquy, he goes out.
And immediately--remember, in the old stage--there
enter from the side door, and perhaps from the back alcove,
there flood forward the people of the court: the king, the
queen, old Polonius, his daughter Ophelia, and Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern--Guildenstern, Rosencrantz, it doesn't
matter. Here they come. And the king says,
And can you by no drift of circumstance
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
And Rosencrantz says,
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
And Guildenstern:
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
And the queen says,
Did he receive you well?
She might know that Hamlet would receive anyone
well, of course, for, as we have seen, he has every manner
of a man.
Most like a gentleman.
But with much forcing of his disposition.
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Niggard of question, but of our demands
Most free in his reply.
And the queen says,
Did you assay him
To any pastime?
Did you take him bowling; did you take him out to the lat
est double feature to get his mind off things?
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
"were coming."
"Ah!”
"And he has arranged for them to give a play, and he
wants you to attend."
And the king thinks that's a very good idea. Ham
let now has a little hobby, something to keep his mind off
whatever is oppressing him. And Rosencrantz and Guilden
stern leave. And now we come to the mousetrap.
So often in Shakespeare you have a point-counter-
point. Hamlet has just said that he is laying a trap, and
now these individuals are laying a trap for Hamlet. Keep
your eye on Polonius again. The king says,
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
--meaning confront--
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Ophelia.
Her father and myself (lawful espials)
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
If't be the' affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.
Polonius, you remember, with a fixed idea--the old
Brabantio character--says, "Oh, of course, he's made for my
daughter."
And the king's conscience makes him wonder. "No.
He knows something else." The king's very lonely here;
he's as lonely as Hamlet. He's got to test it.
And so Polonius has arranged this little trap.
Polonius is great at this sort of thing, as you've seen.
Pretty soon he'll lay one trap too many. But that's to
come.
And now, I think, in the old stage you have that
central alcove with its arras, tapestry. You have the two
side doors. Hamlet comes in reading quietly, by himself,
with a book, and they hide, I think, around the two ends of
this curtain at the back of the stage. I have no doubt in
the Elizabethan theater, for the benefit of the ground
lings, the heads may have appeared around the side of the
curtain to remind us that here is the king and here is
Polonius, listening to all this.
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Now, first, I must plant this, however. The queen,
as she leaves, says,
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
Madam, I wish it may.
This is one of the most wistful and sad little
speeches in the play: "I hope so."
Now, Polonius, the stage manager:
Ophelia, walk you here.--Gracious so please you,
Your grace, you see, the king,
We will bestow ourselves.--
So they hide.
Read on this book,
says Polonius,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.--
Today he would suggest knitting, I think.
We are oft to blame in this,
'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
Look at this unestimable old man, who somehow
grinds a pious, moral platitude out of a most immoral
affair. And the king hears this. Polonius has said, "Read
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a book," and, of course, that's a respectable venture in
our day--almost a forgotten one--but, you see, she's read
ing a book, and that will explain why she is alone. Polon
ius says, "Yes, often in life we give a specious semblance
of virtue whereas vice hides behind it." And the king
takes that personally. This speech is often cut in stage
presentation, but the king by himself, over by a column,
the king says,
0, ' tis too true.'
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
0 heavy burthen!
1 hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord,
says Polonius, wagging his beard.
I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.
And so they go, each around his edge of the arras curtain.
And here comes Hamlet!
Now, I-- I feel very humble and not a little fright
ened at reading this speech with you, for if there is one
thing that has been worn smooth, it is this speech of Ham
let's. You've heard it; it's been rowdily burlesqued on a
thousand stages, in films, on television. People have
read this. It has been mouthed by bedeviled grammar school
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childreh on Fridays in little red schoolhouses and, no
doubt, much better done on Fridays in reinforced concrete
ones in the twentieth century. But everybody knows this
speech.
And let's have again the curious adventure that
comes to those who reread Shakespeare. I hope you will
find it a little different this morning, as it will be dif
ferent the day after tomorrow when you read it again.
Because, somehow, Shakespeare--a very wise man about life--
and he seemed to know a great many things that most people
are not yet ready to get. But as you live, and as experi
ence of things, of books, of reading, of affairs, of
people-~as you grow in your perceptions and in your sensi
tivities and in your background of allusiveness--when you
come to Shakespeare you bring, so to speak, a different
curved mirror this time, and you reflect something that you
never met before. Let's listen to this tired old speech.
Try to imagine that you've never heard it before.
And Hamlet comes out, the lonely boy, reaching, as
he feels, the moment of his great, great act that he must
do. He doesn't trust his act. He knows that he must do
this. He knows that--you know the old saying that in the
Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king--well, in a
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vile, stupid, evil, senseless world, the sane man is mad.
And Hamlet's very lonely, and he can't act until he's sure,
unlike Fortinbras, who would cut Claudius' throat from mas
toid to mastoid, and think about it next Tuesday. Hamlet
can't. He has to be sure, because he's a rational man.
He is what men should be: sensitive and thoughtful. And he
is very alone. And he thinks suddenly, "I could skip this
so easily. With a bare needle, a bodkin, I could skip all
this. So easily step out and close life's door behind me."
To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die--to sleep--
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die--to sleep.
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
All the poets from time immemorial have seen sleep
as a little image, a model of death, a miniature model of
death. For we sleep, we go into unconsciousness, we rise
again in the new birth of the new day. And in men's little
death, which is sleep, they dream dreams, often horrid and
soul-racking. How much more terrible must be the dark
dreams, he says, that may come in the sleep which is the
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379
greater sleep called death. And that slows us up; that
gives us pause.
There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th1 unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death--
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns --puzzles the will,
And make us rather bear those ills we have
That fly to others that we know not of?
The Indian sign language is often very graphic and
very beautiful. The Plains Indians--the Sioux and the
Ojibway--had the sign, Death, the blow down under and up.
And this is the question mark, that undiscovered country.
To step into the unknown. "Oh," he says,
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
And the philosopher, Hamlet, suddenly stops, for
there is Ophelia, planted there as the bait, reading her
book.
Soft you now!
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The fair Ophelia!--Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins rememb'red.
And she sees him, embarrassed. She knows she's the
kid put in the trap to catch the thief.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
And so on.
Now, we'll catch this in a minute. I thought you
might be very interested to hear how this sounded, accord
ing to the conclusions of modern science, how this sounded
in Shakespeare's own day, when our modern English had not
yet been born. It so happens that this year one of the
events of Shakespeare scholarship of this particular year
is the coming of this book by Professor Halge Kokeritz, of
Yale University, called Shakespeare's Pronunciation. And,
also, Professor Kokeritz read into a record some of the
speeches. I'd like you to hear him read this speech we've
just gone over in the language of Shakespeare's day. Now,
of course, this is a tremendous scholarly business. They
study puns, they study rhymes, they study the British writ
ing, of crude spelling of foreign names. And, with a thou
sand clues, piece out what they feel to be the pattern of
Shakespeare's speech. Suppose we hear Professor Kokeritz,
of Yale, read "To be or not to be" in the old language.
(The record was played here.)
Interesting? It sounds vaguely Irish, doesn't it?
And, incidentally, it's much less, oh, barbaric, than pre
vious attempts to capture the ancient speech. It's a much
sounder book; I recommend it to your attention; it's ex
tremely interesting.
I had hoped that we could have a little time to
have read--Professor Kokeritz to read some more. Perhaps
next week we'll be able to do it. But I do want to get on
with this tremendous scene that lies before us. The record
can be obtained from Yale Press, if you're interested, and
I think this sample has given you some idea of what the old
speech was like.
Now, here we come to it. This is a tremendous
scene. I've only seen it done adequately to my mind once
on the stage, and I'll tell you about that in just a moment.
But just think of this cat-and-mouse situation. The guilty
conscience of the king--he's here. The shrewd, Machiavel
lian, low cunning of Polonius. These two men behind this
arras, listening. And the boy and the girl--the simple,
gentle Ophelia, one of the victims, of course, ground under
the wheels of this terrible action. And Hamlet. As I said
to you last time, he had to put on that mad scene before
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the girl, because he can't drag her down with him. And so
they meet. Now, watch this. This seems to me very tremen
dous .
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins rememb'red.
And she looks up at him.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
You remember? Her father told her not to have any
thing to do with Hamlet. So she stops him.
How does your honour for this many a day?
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
They're embarrassed.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to re-deliver.
I pray you, now receive them.
And from her bodice, I think, she takes out this
little packet of letters and trinkets tied with a ribbon.
And Hamlet says,
No, not i!
I never gave you aught.
Now, it looks like a contradiction, but these little things
were nothing.
I never gave you aught.
"For 1 have that to give you which, could I give it to you,
would be a gift indeed, my heart, my love, myself, but
that's not for aught.
I never gave you aught.
My honor'd lord, you know right well you did,
--this pathetic little packet--
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich.
Now, Margaret Webster's direction of this was
inimitable. They were in each other's arms by this time,
looking at each other, very close indeed. And yet, and
yet, Hamlet knows that, while they may be physically,
almost, forming adhesions, there is a gulf between them
greater than the Grand Canyon, a chasm not to be bridged.
And so they talk, and they're together, and they're apart,
and they can never really be together. This is the last
time we shall see them, save for one almost hysterical
little moment before the play-within-the-play begins. From
then we shall never see them together until Ophelia lies in
her grave. And you know, Hamlet stumbles upon it.
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
"Take them, my lord." And I think Hamlet takes the
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things, brushing them aside. And he looks at her, right
into her eyes.
Are you honest?
"Can it be," I think he is saying, "that anybody could be
honest in this world?"
Are you honest?
My lord?
Are you fair ?
What means your lordship?
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
I think he’s holding her off from all this. And they play
the Renaissance word game that sounds like two of the young
gentlemen talking.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with
honesty?
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner trans
form honesty from what it is to a bawd than
the force of honesty can translate beauty into
his likeness. This was sometime a paradox,
but now the time gives it proof, I did love
you once.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so
innoculate our old stock but we shall relish
of it.
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We are what we are, we mortal men, and the seeds that are
in us are bad.
You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so
innoculate our old stock. I loved you not.
I was the more deceived.
And he looks at her. What is left in the world for
her? He knows that he'll be vulnerable from now on. He's
going to do a frightful thing. Maybe peace will never come
to him. Like Orestes, he may be pursued through life by
Furies. But who knows what structure will come tumbling
down around him when he kills the King of Denmark? And
he says,
Get thee to a nunnery!
Now, I think Shakespeare means, "Get thee to a nunnery!"
Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself
indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me
of such things that it were better my mother
had not borne me.
And he half turns away from her.
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more of
fences at my beck than I have thoughts to put
them in, imagination to give them shape, or
time to act them in.
And I think she clings to him. "no, no, no!"
We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy
ways to a nunnery.
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And there's a little noise behind the arras.
Where's your father?
he says.
All this has been sane. All this has been logical.
But now he knows it's a trap, and the poor girl is wretched.
She knows what she's done. She's betrayed him, so to speak,
in being the bait, the inarticulate bait, here. And he
says,
Where's your father?
At home, my lord.
Which, of course, is a li-e.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool nowhere but in's own house.
"blblblblblblblblblb1,1 1 and he goes into this mad business
of his, you see.
0, help him, you sweet heavens!
says the girl.
If thou dost marry,
says Hamlet, and he's aping the mountebank, this sane mad
ness that he puts on like a motley garment,
I'll give thee this plaque for thy dowry, be thou as
chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go,
farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry
a fool; for wise men know well enough what
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monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go;
and quickly too. Farewell.
And he's leading her on, being as zany as he can.
0 heavenly powers, restore him!
And now Shakespeare makes one of his many, many
comments on painting by women. Women painted rather lush-
ly. This, of course, was a tip from the old queen.
1 have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God
hath given you one face, and you make your
selves another.
I think he chucks her under the chin.
You jig, you amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's
creatures
I know a woman in San Marino who has a pet name for her
icebox. Hamlet says, "That sort of thing! Women! Women!
Women!"
God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance.
Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made me mad.
I say, we will have no more marriages. Those
that are married already--all but one--shall
live;
This is a dangerous and threatening thing to say.
the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go!
And he storms out and leaves her standing there,
and the king and Polonius come from around the curtain.
And she says this tremendously interesting speech:
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388
0, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue,
sword,
Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th' observ'd of all observers--quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy.
Blown youth
--the full rose, the fully developed flower--
Blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy.
Madness.
0, woe is me
T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
And now, in cold prose, so to speak,
Love ?
says the king. "Humph! Didn't fool me for a moment.
There was a moment in there where it changed."
his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt
--which means "suspect" in Shakespeare nine times out of
ten; "I do suspect"--
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the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger; which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
Now, to remind you, you see, this is the dynasty of
King Canute. Back there, where the Danes were the titular
powers in Eastern England, ^
he shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute.
Haply the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Now this looks very interesting! A reversal! Had
he been sensible, why did he not let Hamlet go back to
Wittenberg originally? Ah, but there's more here than
meets the eye. In sending Hamlet to England, it is the
king's plan, as you will see a little later, it is the
king's plan to send with him a letter asking his loyal
liegeman in Britain to execute the bearer of the letter as
promptly as possible. And so, when letting Hamlet get
away, he's not letting him get away at all, but sentencing
him to something terrible. It shall be!
But Polonius is hard to convince. The old
Gloucester-Brabantio character, the old man with a beard
who knows it all,
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yet I do believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.--How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.
The trouble with a man like Polonius is that he likes being
what he is.
You need not tell us
--"We know. We heard it."--
My lord, do as you please;
But if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief. Let her be round
--forthright--
with him;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you,
One more trap, and, of course, this is going to result in
the death of Polonius, because he's going to hide behind
the arras. "I'll hide again." The little left-handed man!
"I'll hide again."
So please you,
"where I'll be placed," he says,
in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
It shall be so.
says the king. And as they start out, I think he pauses at
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the side door and has this last couplet--that couplet which
so often means the end of the scene. And it's a good exit
line:
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
And they go out.
And in comes Hamlet from the side--Hamlet with the
players--and Hamlet gives his famous advice to them. We
can't read all of this; it is a very, very interesting pas
sage; it's about the only major clue we have to the quality
of acting in Shakespeare's day. It's hard for us to be
lieve that with boys playing girls, with the tremendous
rapidity of their performances, putting a play like this
within two hours, two hours and a half, a play which, in
our modern way of staging would take five hours--it's hard
to believe that the acting could have been our sort of act-
ing--couldn't have been in the modern theatre, with its
pauses, its natural rhythm. There is beautiful rhetoric,
moving rhetoric, exciting rhetoric, to provoke your imagi
nation. You deck your own play, you contemplate for the
passage of time, and so on, but it isn't the stage, the
action of which is geared to the normal rhythm of normal
living, so that many people have come to the conclusion
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that in Shakespeare's day the acting was more or less
stylized, not too subtle; the thing was to deliver the
words clearly. The stage picture was incidental to that
picture which the audience had to evoke in its own imagina
tion. And here Hamlet says, "Don't saw the air; don't do
all these things; take it easy. Be natural as you can.
And don't let the clowns ad lib; hold them down with a hard
hand. Let them follow the script."
It's all good advice, and you must read it. We
haven't time for this. The players go; in come Polonius,
Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. And we hear that the play
will soon be given. Hamlet is very pleased: the king and
queen are coming that night.
Then he is left alone with Horatio, and this is one
of the most interesting speeches in the play. Out of all
the world, there is one man with whom Hamlet feels a sort
of consonance, a kinship, and that is Horatio--good, solid
Horatio--one of the few men who will survive the holocaust
of this play.
Horatio,
says Hamlet,
thou are e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
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How does a young man take a remark like that? One
often finds that he can bear insults with more equanimity
than compliments, I think. How do you ride with these
pleasantly sugared punches in life? And he is
e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.
And, of course, Horatio says,
0, my dear lord!
Nay, do not think I flatter;
syas the prince. And think of the bitter irony of this.
"I'm a prince, ho, ho, a hollow prince."
do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be
flatter'd?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurb pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.
And again, you see, Hamlet's difficulty is that
he's thoughtful. Whenever he has an individual circum
stance, he tries to see the general principle which governs
it. Whenever he meets a general principle, he looks for
individual manifestations of it. So here's this. He says,
"Now, why should I flatter you? No! Flattery is given
where there is something to be got by flattery." And he's
led out into this. In short, it's very difficult for him
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394
to get at what he has in mind here. And he says, and now
he comes to it,
Dost thou hear?
"Listen to this, Horatio," he says,
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself.
And I think the very cumbersomeness of the language
there is embarrassment, somehow. It's very hard for a man
to say, "Of all the men I've ever met, you are what I think
a man should be." It's as embarrassing to say as to hear,
and Horatio finds it difficult to hear as Hamlet is to say
For thou hast been
As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Has ta'en with equal thanks;
"You have the equanimity of soul which was the
Roman desideratum for all men." Or, Plato's "assured men
tal grace with all men." He says, "You have that and you
can meet what comes in life. Good for you," says Hamlet.
"Uniquely of man, you have these qualities."
blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core.
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395
And, in all the plays of Shakespeare, you will find
people are vulnerable because of a passion that, becoming
an obsession, sweeps them along. Hamlet says, MFor the
equipoise, all these things in man that I seek, and in you,
Horatio, I've found them."
Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
And then he's embarrassed, I think.
Something too much of this!
There is a play to-night before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
So, apparently, he has confided in Horatio.
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe my uncle. If his
--hidden--
occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.
--in criticism of his appearance; what he did.
Well, my lord.
says Horatio,
(A-128) 396
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
So we come to the moment of the play. Now, of
course, in the limitations of time, we can't read all of
this, and those of you who will be with me next week, I
hope that in the meantime you will read the rest of the
play very quietly and steadily. Read it several times, if
possible.
So far, I've given you some background and, I hope,
some catalytic help to your understanding and appreciation
of the play. We'll devote a good deal of the final hour of
this course of lectures to the end of Hamlet, when next we
meet; and then I would like to give you some few general
conclusions on the course as a whole.
Meanwhile, do keep up with your reading, and get
the trick of reading this aloud so that you can get the
fine and full flavor of the blank verse.
Well, that's all we shall do today. See you next
time.
(A-129)
HAMLET
May 29, 1954
Once again to Hamlet, ladies and gentlemen. And
again I must despair. If we only had time to read this
blow by blow it would be so much more profitable but, of
course, we have had to skip and must skip most atrociously
today.
We come to the part where Hamlet, having met the
players, having arranged for the extra material to be put
into the old play that he may test the king, realizes that
he must really confide in someone. Obviously he has told
Horatio a little bit about the ghost and now, alone with
Horatio, he says, "I must have some help. Here, you sir,
of all men, that are closest to me.” This is embarrassing
for one man to say to another, and Hamlet blurts it out.
For thou hast been
As one, suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;
A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
397
(A-130)
398
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
"Will you watch the King? Observe my uncle as this play is
o ri
given I
Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face
And after we will both our judgments join
To censure of his seeming.
And Horatio agrees. And if you'll think of this
old stage to which I have most wistfully sent you time and
time again, to think how these plays were staged in Shakes
peare's time, it's almost irresistible to have Horatio go
and stand by one of those columns, lean against it with his
arms folded and, I fancy--in my direction, at least,
imaginative direction as it be--he does not move during the
whole action of the play until, at the end, when the king
has been swept out, he's tired of passion and this dis
turbance .
All the court has gone, and Hamlet is alone, almost
hysterical. Hamlet, with the observed effects of this
play. Horatio still stands there.
(A-131) 399
"Did you mark him?"
"I did," says Horatio, and it seems to me that
Horatio is the good calm fellow, the only one in all the
world to whom Hamlet can turn--that lonely boy we met be
fore.
I wish we could look at the play together. I wish
we had lots of time. As a matter of fact, 1 wish I could
act out the dumb show for you. But, alas, that can't be.
And finally the play is over, and the king has read
the riddle. He has seen the parallel between his crime and
the crime in the play, and he storms out. And Hamlet, as I
say, is almost hysterical. Horatio agrees with him that
the king was deeply moved, more than would have happened by
anything else, but deep in "occulted guilt."
And just at this moment, as they are talking, ex
changing their opinions, in come the ineffable Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
Sir,
says Hamlet,
a whole history.
The King, sir--
(A-132) 400
Ay,
says Hamlet
what of him?
Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd.
With drink, sir?
No, my lord; rather with
--anger--
with choler.
Your wisdom
says Hamlet,
should show itself more richer to signify this to the
doctor; for for me to put him to his purgation
would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
And Guildenstern and Rosencrantz look at each
other.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and
start not so wildly from my affair.
Hamlet looks at Horatio:
I am tame, sir; pronounce.
The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of
spirit hath sent me to you.
You are welcome.
"sir," says Hamlet. You see, he detests these boys now;
he doesn't trust them in any way. The "consonancy of
youth," and all that, is forgotten. They are clearly on
(A-133) 401
the king's side, on the side of evil, and Hamlet holds them
off. And, in a way, he gives them the Polonius spin.
"Your mother has sent me to you."
"You're welcome." Which leaves a man utterly
speechless for a moment. And they talk, and Hamlet says,
"To give you a simple answer about my difficulties, my wit
is diseased; I am not myself." And they try to work on him
to get him to talk.
And, at that moment--and this is what is called
audio-visual education--a servant passes with an armful of
recorders--these straight wooden pear-wood flutes. Hamlet
takes one and he says to the boys, "Play on this."
"We can't, my lord."
"It's very simple," says Hamlet.
"We have no skill, my lord."
"But try it anyway. It's the simplest thing in the
world. You see, it discourses most excellent sweet music."
"We can't do it."
And I think Hamlet reaches the recorder and slaps
the palm of the servant and goes out with it. And yet,
says Hamlet:
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me!
You would play upon me; you would seem to know
(A-134) 402
my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note
to the top of my compass; and there is much
music, excellent voice, in this little organ,
yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you
think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will, though you
can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
And here comes Polonius.' It seems almost as if
Hamlet's cup is overflowing. Here comes Polonius:
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.
And Hamlet has his last moments with Polonius, to
put him into the spin we have observed. Mentally, Polonius
is easily spun by so agile a mind as Hamlet. Hamlet takes
him off now. Think of the old stage, open to the sky.
Hamlet takes him down right to the edge of the apron and
points up, and this demonstration shows how pliant, how
opportunistic, how insincere Polonius is.
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a
camel?
By the mas s,
says Polonius,
'tis like a camel indeed.
Hamlet looks at Horatio, I think.
Methinks it is like a weasel.
Now Polonius' mental processes can be seen like the
entrails of a tropical fish.
(A-135) 403
Methinks it is like a weasel.
It is back'd like a weasel.
Or like a whale.
says Hamlet. And the pliant Polonius says,
Very like a whale.
Then the great non sequitur which gives Polonius his final
veering, I think:
Then will I come . . . by-and-by.
and Polonius goes.
And Hamlet says,
'By-and-by' is easily said.--Leave me, friends.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern bow and go out.
Horatio looks at him for a moment; he, too, goes.
And now Hamlet is alone; as Houseman has said, "If
you could sleep and if you could drink all the time, life
would not be so bad, but at times men are awake and sober,
and in those moments they think." And Hamlet, when he is
alone, must think. And we have another soliloquy.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!
And he: "I must as the ghost told me: not be harsh with her.
I must be firm, but I must not be harsh." And out he goes.
(A-136) 404
The king immediately enters and the magic of this
old stage, where scene is thrown against scene with immedi
ate juxtaposition, no curtain, no clatter of applause, and
a break-- Immediately Hamlet goes out, in comes the king,
shaking his head.
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range.
The king says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "Prepare
yourselves immediately and take him to England, for I am
sending him there." And, of course, in the treachery of
the king, the king knows now that he must remove Hamlet.
The secret orders are sent to the allies--to these feudal
serfs in England--that they must immediately kill Hamlet.
So Hamlet is to go with these two boys to England to his
death and that will help tremendously the king's sureness
upon his throne.
Polonius comes in; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go
out. Polonius enters;
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.
Behind the arras
--the tapestry--
I'll convey myself
To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home;
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
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Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed
And tell you what I know.
And this is the happy moment where Polonius has his
last ambush and his last little lefthanded assault on
truth. And, of course, he hides behind the arras and, as
you remember by your past reading of this play, and the
reading that I hope you gave it last week, he will be
stabbed and will die behind that arras where he was con
cealed .
Now, here's a great speech, too often cut in the
production. For, as I have said to you before, so much of
this play has to be cut on the commercial stage because of
the limitations of time, because we demand a more natural
pace in actions than, perhaps, the Elizabethans did. We
have our intermissions, and so on, so something has to be
cut. And, alas, often because of the vanity of the actor-
manager who plays Hamlet, Claudius is somewhat cut down to
a stock villain. But Claudius is, in a sense, admirable,
this dark man, because he doesn't rationalize, you remember,
as Iago did. lago had a most complicated set of reasons
for his villainy. Claudius says, "I wanted the crown and I
wanted the queen!" And we rather admire a man who doesn't
(A-138) 406
fool himself or seek with a specious gloss of--well, you
remember Bertrand Russel once spoke of those who confuse a
moral vocabulary with a good life. This man's immoral. He
knows he’s doing this awful thing but he doesn't fool him
self. He doesn't kid himself about it. "I've done this
thing," he says.
Thanks, dear my lord.
Polonius goes out to this last ambush and the king
has this soliloquy:
0, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
Cain and Abel! Cain, his brother's murderer!
Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow?
Remember Macbeth? After all, he says, "Since mercy,
divine mercy is promised us, I am a fit candidate for it.
I qualify for it as one in need of mercy; will not mercy
rain down its gentle rain and sweep away the blood from
this hand?"
(A-13 9)
407
Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
I qualify.
And what's in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall.
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, 0, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn?
As I say, wicked as he is, he's somehow admirable.
In this, he says just what form would my prayer take?
'Forgive me my foul murther'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murther--
My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain th1 offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling; and there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.
In the last great bar of justice, there is no
amendment behind which a man might crawl. He must testify
against himself. And, "Can I?" he says. He's rather
admirable. There's a sort of blasted honor here in him.
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
0 wretched state! 0 bosom black as death!
0 limed soul, that, struggling to be free
Art more engag'd!
Like a little bird caught in the sticky lime on the twig.
(A-140) 408
Help angels! Make assay.
Bow stubborn knees;
And he sinks, facing the door, I think to the right; he
sinks in an attitude of prayer, bending his back.
Bow stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
All may be well.
And he kneels. And at that moment Hamlet comes in
from the opposite door. Now of all cooperative attitudes
for a murder, this is perhaps the most cooperative--to bend
one's head forward, outline the intercostal spaces. And
Hamlet comes in with his rapier, and he says,
Now might I do it pat,
and this is really a key speech. The simple belief! We
referred to Ihis last week, in the J. Arthur Rank production,
that Hamlet is a man that can't make up his mind. One
yearns to quote,
my offence is rank
at this point, but one restrains himself. That Hamlet is a
man who can't make up his mind! Why, he and Horatio, or
any other man could quote so many examples of people who
have been lured by false ghosts. Spencer wrote about it;
everybody wrote about such things as this. The fair form
that really masks in the skies the black heart to lure you
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to your destruction. Furthermore, just think what Hamlet
is facing. He himself is facing damnation, to join his
father in this dark and troubled shade, because he is going
to murder a fellow man, a kinsman, and his king. He knows
that. That's why he couldn't take Ophelia with him, you
see, but had to get her loose somehow. And he can't cer
tainly send Claudius to a better life, to a better here
after, than that his father has endured.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,
Unh, unh. The sword goes back. This would not be
recompense. Is this uncertainty of mind? Rather, a great
certainty, for the reasonable man confronted by this. He
sees. Now Fortinbras would, of course, have lunged for
ward, found the third inter-lumbar costal space--or what
ever it is--thrust his rapier home, and the following
Tuesday said, "By George, I sent him to heaven." But Ham
let is a reasonable man. He's what men should be. He
thinks. And here, of course, thought stymies him, baffles
him, because he realizes that what he would be doing would
be the greatest of all favors to men: to provide them a
ready-made gang plank to heaven. For a man killed in an
attitude of prayer, of course, is in a state of grace. So
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he must wait for a better moment. He acts fast enough; he
acts quickly enough, really.
Now you have the scene with the queen. This you
must read, of course. You have the murder of Polonius be
hind the arras, the movement and the voice, and Hamlet
thinks it is the king and runs it through. Poor intruding
fool, you've intruded once too often your little left-
handed Machiavellian machinations. For the last time you've
done this little left-handed thing, and the arras curtain
falls and Hamlet lifts it as it covers the body of Polonius
from us.
And then he talks to his mother and brings home to
her the great and horrid thing. And, for the first time,
she hears the word "murder." And it's very clear that
Shakespeare wants us to realize that the queen, though mar
ried to the new husband with extreme desterity and celer
ity, quickness, was not part of the murder, of the greatest
sin of all.
And Hamlet leaves her, finally, and she is shaken
by all this. And he goes out.
Hamlet is, of course, sent to England and we have a
very curious scene, generally omitted by sheer necessity in
the hurry of a modern production, where Hamlet, cloaked and
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on his way toward the sea and the ship and England, sees
suddenly an army marching across a corner of Denmark--a
great army. We meet Fortinbras for just a moment and real
ize that here is the masculine extrovertive Fortinbras.
And Hamlet detaches the captain in his procession, and
says, "Where are these people going?"
"Oh, we're going to straighten out a little bound
ary. It's a matter of honor between nations."
"Important land?"
"No, I wouldn't farm it; I wouldn't own it," says
the man. "It's nothing but honor."
And Hamlet sees this army going. They're going to
die, a lot of these men. They're going to be hurt. They're
going to be starved, beaten upon, and they're going for
what?--to straighten out a dotted line on a bit of unprof
itable territory on a map.
And Hamlet, you remember, always, as I said to you,
is the philosophic poet; that is, the thinking and sensi
tive poet; he sees in everything a figure of speech, so to
speak, to be read as a riddle. Here's an army, and he
says,
How all occasions inform against me
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
(A-144)
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
And he goes on with this, and then he says,
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate, and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
They're going. What for? For a slight thing. And
just as he heard the player and waid, "What's Hecuba to him
or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her?" now he says,
"Look at these men, fired by no tremendous and personal
passion, going out, as cold soldiers, to fight a cold war
for honor. And I," he says, "'unpregnant of my dreams,'
and I am delaying what I should do."
And then we have the sad scenes with little Ophe
lia, sad little Ophelia, with her flowers--rosemary and
rue--and she sings her mad songs and it's one of the most
touching things. And as you read this again, do. look at
the attitude of the queen toward Ophelia. All through the
play, I think that's something to watch.
Then, curiously enough--and this is the one weak
thing in the plot, always it seems to one--you have an
almost fairy tale adventure in which Hamlet is taken from
the ship through a curious adventure. He comes back to his
land; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go on their way to
(A-145) 413
England. And, as Hamlet tells Horatio, he opened their
dispatches while they were asleep, and found out what was
really to happen to him. And so he has just changed the
phrase to read that these two, Rosencrantz and Guilden
stern, are to be executed. Sealing it with his old father's
ring, he sends them to their dark destiny and out of our
play forever. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Guilden
stern and Rosencrantz--they go now back to England.
And you have this scene. I don't know what punish
ment I deserve for not reading it to you, where Hamlet and
Horatio stand by the grave. And this, again, is Shakes
peare's mature genius! A scene in which, unlike almost
like anyone else you could think of whoever wrote, he is
able to mingle the most deep and moving passion with crude
horseplay; with noisy verbal wit, the clowns argue whether
this person is to be buried. We don't know who it is yet.
We suspect that it is Ophelia. Hamlet coming in will not
know that poor Ophelia's dead, and that's part of the irony
and the agony of the scene. The clowns debate whether a
person suspected of suicide--even suspected!--may be buried
in holy ground. And they debate.
And in comes Hamlet with his friend, Horatio, and
they walk up to the grave. And you know Hamlet now well
enough to know that this will not be just a hole in the
earth of certain dimensions, but that grave is to be read
by him like a room. It's something that stirs his imagina
tion, and he'll comment on it, and he'll philosophize some
how about that small home, this little bit of earth. I
think one of the most disturbing things in the world is to
go from Paris to the Hotel Les Invalades and look at the
tomb of Napoleon. What a tremendous building! What a tre
mendous dome! And what a little stony box, thick walled!
At that, you feel the hold of the pregnant ashes that, for
better or for worse, changed all of history. So little a
thing to have been in its day, so dynamically potential!
So little a handful of matter of the world to have been so
great!
And Hamlet, you see, faced by the grave, can't just
say, "Oh, yes. They're burying someone. A lovely morn
ing." Hamlet's too deeply moved by all these little com
ments that life will make upon life, that he must read it
so. And so, advancing to the grave's edge, he says to the
clown,
Whose grave's this, sirrah?
And the gravedigger says,
Mine, s ir.
(A-147) 415
And he sings happily at his work:
0, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
Hamlet says,
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.
You lie out on't, sir.
He's cocky. He's right out of Elizabethan time. He's not
in medieval Denmark, I assure you. As a matter of fact,
you'd meet him tomorrow, were you to be in London. He's
Sam Weller. He's the cobbler in Venice, in the Rome of
Julius Caesar. He's that eternal flip, noisy, ungrammati
cal, utterly irreverent type that you meet in all English
fiction and in English life.
You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is
mine.
Thou dost lie in't,
says Hamlet, proving he's a Renaissance young gentleman,
given to word fencing,
to be in't and say it is thine. 'Tis for the dead, not
for the quick; therefore thou liest.
'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again from me to
you.
Now, how do you ask this person? He wants to get
the answer, obviously. "Whose grave is it?" got him
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nowhere.
What man dost thou dig it for?
For no man, sir.
What woman, then?
For none neither.
Who is to be buried in’t?
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's
dead.
How absolute the knave is I We must speak by the
card, we must know his line; we must know the right ap
proach
or equivocation will undo us.
And he talks to this man. "How long have you been
in this job of gravedigger?" And the man tells us in such
a way as to give us an idea of how old Hamlet is. I leave
it to you to figure that out. You'll get a surprise if you
haven't done it.
And then, of course, the sad and humble little pro
cession comes in, for Ophelia is only doubtfully allowed to
be buried in this holy ground. And with the truncade is
broken incomplete rights of the church, for she's suspected
of suicide--poor mad girl who died there in the pond. And
Hamlet sees this. And you have the somewhat dramatic
theatrical business with his jumping in the grave and
wrestling with Laertes.
And the next scene, of course, we realize the ten
sion. And Laertes has come back. Laertes is determined
that the murder of his father and the death of his sister
will be avenged. And the king says, ’ ’ Wait, wait!"
And then Osric comes in and again Shakespeare does
what we have seen him do so often at the most tense moment
of a play. Remember in Anthony and Cleopatra? We never
read that together, but it's there for you to read. Some
day. At the very end of that play, where everything has
gone wrong for Egypt--Anthony is dead, Cleopatra stands
there and we know that we have reached the end of her life--
Shakespeare brings in a comic peasant with a yammer-yammer
comedy, just like this gravedigger. We have a moment's
release, and then tragedy flows back in again. No one has
ever dared to put in immediate juxtaposition these two
diverse and antithetical things--deep passion and laughter
--the way Shakespeare has.
Osric is the sort of man that Shakespeare obviously
detests. One of the sorts of men. We know that he de
tested school teachers, which I view with somewhat mixed
feelings. He detested peasants. He detested crowds. He
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loved the lord and respected lordship as an essence in men.
We know that he hated a fop, a little mincing sort of badly
calcified person. Shakespeare never got tired of laughing
at such. And in comes this highly perfumed and exquisite
little court twerp to convey a challenge from Laertes to a
duel. Not a duel to the death, but a fencing match. And
he speaks in such elaborate and tremendously ornamental
language that Shakespeare, out of the sheer deviltry that's
in him, imitates him and goes one step beyond this fellow,
speaking so obscurely and in such a lefthanded manner that
Osric can't understand him. It always seemed to me magnif
icent. Horatio, of course, stands by and listens to all of
this.
"I'll fight, of course," says Hamlet. And here's
one of these lines in Shakespeare that do you not read very
carefully, you have to miss. He says--Hamlet says, "Why,
of course. Why, I'll fight him."
And Horatio looks at him levelly; more in Horatio
than meets the casual eye. He says, "You will lose this
wager, my lord." For there are times in life when all
stars seem to be wrong for a man, when he feels that now,
at last, he has come to whatever destiny awaits him; that
you can't turn back at that point--the point of no return.
(A-151) 419
Hamlet has been living on borrowed time. Horatio
knows too much of the story now to view this with much
equipoise. It's like the gambler who, having gambled
everything, borrows, hypothecates his boss's funds, and
says, "On this throw will I place all."
Now I have no doubt that people get away with this
often and, of course, we don’t hear of them. The experi
ence of man is that the things that rule the air seem to
say, "Look at this little man who has gone off to Las Vegas
with the firm's kitty, who is staking it all on this
throw." And the forces of evil, or whatever they are,
nudge each other and say, "Watch him throw a three and a
two," which isn't much help, come to think of it.
There are times when a man feels that he has
reached the point where this is the throw. And Horatio is
wise enough, this student and friend, to know that Hamlet
has been riding for a fall--the rational and sensitive man
who is going to meet the crassly realistic Laertes. "I
think you'll lose this. Now." That's important for some
thing that comes in a moment.
They do come to the moment of the match, and they
fence. And Laertes, of course, treacherously has used a
foil unbuttoned, a foil without the protective little
button; furthermore, a foil dipped in a hideous and a
frightful poison. Something happens. It doesn't go quite
as the king intended, for he had prepared a poisoned draught
for Hamlet. And the queen drinks it. And Laertes say,
"I'll get him on the next pass." And the king says, "I do
not think you will." Just like Horatio, you see. Now the
king: "I do not think you will."
And so it comes to the end. The king is dead and
Gertrude is dead and Hamlet is dying. The rest is silence.
And Horatio says,
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
And the rest is anticlimax. In comes the Briton,
the ambassador from Britain, who says, and I think this is
a magnificent ending,
The sight is dismal;
which seems to me more British than almost anything you
could think of:
The sight is dismal;
And here comes normality. And Fortinbras, the good
solid extrovert, has the last word and the play is over.
The rest is silence.
We read so little of this together, but I hope I
(A-153) 421
have given you enough, particularly in the preliminary lec
tures, to make the reading of it fun and possible for you.
And so we come to the end of a year’s study of
Shakespeare together. You remember, this semester we began
with the play of Henry the Fifth, England's hero-king--
Shakespeare's only hero, as he's been called--the great son
of Henry IV, who fought the French and brought, so all men
thought, the One Hundred Years War to an end, and the Bat
tle of Agincourt in 1415. But, alas, it was not to be.
Only in the middle of its very triumph, you remember, Henry
married Katherine of France, and they and the little son,
Henry VI, who was destined to be a very unhappy king and in
whose reign--the weak king--England was plunged once more
into civil war. And France was lost again. But in Henry
the Fifth we met Lewellyn and those amazing officers of the
British general staff. We met Pistol. We heard of the
death of Falstaff--a great deal of eloquence, some poetry,
and a great deal of fun.
The second play of this semester was Much Ado About
Nothing, a play the plot of which was not too serious or
important and, indeed, somehow ethically not quite defen
sible for, you remember, Claudio, who still worries me, got
that lovely girl. It's fun to watch because of Dogberry,
(A-154) 422
the foolish magistrate, and his foolish constable, and
above all for the witty sparring of the Lady Beatrice and
the gentleman Benedict. The beginning of the comedy of
manners, man's mind balanced against woman's mind with, I
think, the woman's mind generally having the edge. We
shan't go into that, but there it is, the comedy of man
ners, which after the Restoration in 1660, was to be the
basic art form of the theater in comedy for so long, and
which survives to our time in Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, the
day before yesterday, and a host of other people with witty
by-play of civilized people in polite society.
The third play, of course, was the great tragedy of
Othello. the lonely black man who, by his ability and his
preparation and his experience, is summoned by supercynical
Venice, the perfumed and spoiled darling of Venice, to
fight their war for them. This great black alien never
near touching the charmed circle of Venetian society! See,
we have Othello never, never entering the charmed circle.
And Desdemona coming out to meet him far more than, per
haps, a lady should, for she goes five-eights of the way.
And they're married. And then the evil Iago, disappointed
of preferment, planning his elaborate strategy, his mind
technique, until great Othello, the greatest man in the
(A-155) 423
play, a good and simple man, is corroded by the evil of
jealousy until he murders his dear and quite unhappy wife,
who does not understand any of this. As always, in trag
edy, Othello sees what he has done, and while he is not
saved at the end in any way, at least he sees how evil he
has been and sees the flaws that have brought him to this
destruction guided by his own hand. A play with very lit
tle humor--a sort of dry humor in the character of Iago and
his speeches--but with great poetry, great eloquence, tre
mendous play atmospherically.
And then last of all, the greatest of all, of
course, is Hamlet. And Hamlet is the lonely intellectual
in a most unintellectual world. The man must think. A man
who feels the tones of things, the overtones and the under
tones, which are the triumph and the real reward of a rich
mind. Hamlet, with the king and the queen flanking him in
the play, and the humble little puppet, Ophelia, and the
evil--the man with the moral vocabulary and a most immoral
mind--Polonius, and hovering over all of this the ghost,
the supernatural, which animates all of this action and
drives Hamlet to his despair and to his revenge and to his
death.
Now all of these plays have been read only in part
by us. I've tried to talk about the people and tried to
make you read them, and that's our prime question. All of
this we began, you remember, what seems to me several eons
back, by wondering whether Shakespeare's reputation was,
after all, the result of an academic conspiracy. Had the
school marms and librarians and the self-consciously saved,
the eggheads, prims--had they conspired against us to tell
us that Shakespeare was somehow "good for you," like a sort
of literary vitamin pill? Without it, you developed symp
toms. You have to have it to be saved, in the egghead
sense.
Well, we've looked at the plays. And what do you
think? That is your business. But it seems to me a man
would be very insensitive who, having gone through these
great things, would not feel the power and the magic and
the wonder of this great man. Not a learned man! Not even
technically a gentleman. A very humble fellow. But what
he expressed in nature! Who reached out and, surveying the
world of men and women, of ambition and love and hate, gave
us a great commentary on these things which rule men's
lives.
Where, again, to sum it up, is Shakespeare's great
ness? First, that he people the world with a whole race of
(A-157) 425
his own creation--men and women more real than most of the
phantoms we meet at Seventh and Broadway, in your town or
ours; strong wonderful visible people, whose motives and
whose backgrounds we understand, whose choices, hungers,
whose despairs, are all recognizable by us. He peopled the
world with a race of his own begetting. Second, he ran the
whole gamut of humor, from the most rowdy slapstick sort of
humor to the most delicate and elusive imaginative wit.
Third, he's a poet, and he made such comments on life that
are calculated to stir our imaginations and set them out on
that strange disturbance, that colorful and emotional exper
ience we call poetry. He's a poet who ran against the
whole gamut from the most delicate fancy to the most deep
and soul-disturbing stuff. Then, fourth, he's a very wise
man about life, and he made comments. You remember the
Irishman--I referred you to him--who liked Hamlet because
it was so full of quotations; what the Greeks like, sen-
tentia, little wise comments on life that can be taken out.
Yes, this is true about life's experience. And last of all,
ladies and gentlemen, he wrote some plays that are pretty
good plays as drama.
I hope this has been enjoyable to you and, of
course, I wish that I could know you new people out there
who see these kinescopes. They've already been in Hawaii.
They will be in many places in our own country and, I hope,
in Canada. I wish I could know you all. I'm very humble
about all of this. My defects are obvious; I apologize for
them. But I do not apologize for having seized this oppor
tunity of talking to you out there in the islands of the
sea and in the hinterlands of this country about this very
great man and his works.
And so we come to the end of our course. Thank you
and good-bye.
APPENDIX B
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK C. BAXTER
SEPTEMBER 17, 1958
APPENDIX B
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK C. BAXTER
SEPTEMBER 17, 1958
John L. Healy interviewing
Dr. Baxter at his office,
University of Southern California
Q: How would you define teaching?
A: The great literature of the world, in fact all of art,
represents not facts, but facts and experiences re
flected in the mirror of a personality. The artist is
like a curved mirror that reflects much, selects some
things, and brings all of this to a focus. Now, teach
ing is an art if it's anything. It can be a science
in part, of course. It must use scientific and logical
procedures, but like art itself, like any art, the art
of teaching must represent experience passed through
the filter of a personality. And the teacher, it seems
to me, has to feel with all of his being, with all that
has ever happened to him, with all that he is, those
428
things he would expound and make clear to his listen
ers. Of course, in the art of poetry we have one of
the most difficult, and in a sense, most dangerous of
the arts. To criticize poetry one must be, to the best
power that works within him, a poet. For, like the
original artist who reflected life and made it signifi
cant to his hearers, to his listeners, in short, he has
to be as truly an artist as the man who created the
work of art. Like Hamlet, for instance, which is the
matter of our discussion here. Now, in doing this, it
seems to me, the teacher, as I say, must draw upon all
that he has known, all of which he is aware, not only in
the realm of the intellectual, but even more important,
in the realm of feeling! For since this is poetry, and
poetry is in the last analysis a matter of overtones
and suggestions, I do believe the teacher must feel in
overtones and suggestions.
Do you think that there are such things as applicative
principles of teaching?
I do believe that the principle of concreteness is a
very great one. Men's minds and hearts and feelings
are best reached, not through pure intellectual ap-
proach, but through the sensory. Our imagination by
its very etymology is imagery. "Imagine a nation." We
move people most deeply by speaking to their imagina
tions, by giving them the materials that image; the
concreteness, the smells, the sounds, the sights, the
feelings, the savors, the heat and cold of things. You
can’t do this on a purely intellectual level.
When you look at the great speeches that have moved
me, I think that you find these principles ring true.
A man talking on a mountain in the middle East to a
group of peasants speaks best in parables--the grain
of mustard seed, the buried talent. This is the way to
teach. To teach through the appeal to men's imagina
tions. Webster, who cunningly and determinedly sought
the moving image. I think the great speeches I can
remember had imagery. Think of Churchill's talks to
the British people in their hour of agony! Think how
concrete it all is! How it does feed the imagination
with those blessed concretenesses upon which the imag
ination can work! I think that this is the common
denominator through all the history of speech.
Can you tell me some of the things that influenced you
in going into teaching?
In his preface to his strange and fascinating transla
tion of the Odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia said: I feel
that I am gifted by the Gods in a very curious way to
undertake this translation of the Odyssey. I have
sailed the ships of the middle east; I have hunted with
the low and I have killed lions. I have slept in
desert tents; I have been a besieger of cities--this
is all paraphrase of course. I have been a besieger
of cities. I have fought side by side with the nomads
of the ancient world. He says I have killed many men,
like Ulysses--Tennyson's Ulysses--a part of all that he
has met, all that he has ever known.
Then I feel that, even in my humble way, I've had
certain experiences which have slanted me toward teach
ing and, of course, in Shakespeare I found my heart's
home here. I've worked all my life since I was ten at
many strange things. The first six years I was a
water boy--a cloakroom boy--under Oscar Hammerstein's
Manhattan Opera House in Philadelphia while still in
grade school. All those nights--and meeting this
flamboyant dream which is opera. I began to see the
wonder and magic of acting. All of this was part of
my formative years. And then I had to fight for an
education--night school--and it was all very precious
to me and made me feel that in teaching one is embarked
upon something--and 1 say this unashamedly--almost
priestly in its function.
To deal with ideas, those ideas about the world
that men need to know to be ready and invulnerable
before the world, to seek for wisdom and to translate
it into meaningful terms to people, whatever one can
garner of a few seeds of wisdom that are the end prod
uct of any life--this is a tremendous business. To
extend people's emotional eyes and let them live more
abundantly vicariously through interpreting for them
the magic of the great words and situations of a great
artist like Shakespeare--these are tremendous.
I saw something of the First [World] War and saw
many men who should not have died under various circum
stances. All that was a most tremendous experience for
me. A man's part of all he has known and he feels.
Sometimes as he looks at his students, if he's a
teacher, God.' God.1 Can they be awakened to the wonder
and tragedy and excitement of being alive? All life
is, in a sense, a tragedy because a man only grows to
his fullness of powers to find that they slip from him.
To let people see that in literature they have gathered
handfuls ready at hand for them to make them wise and
make them safe. Of course, we’re part of all we've
known!
I have seen men die, and I’ve begotten children,
and between those two epoch-making parts of any man’s
life much has happened to me, believe me. That has, I
hope, given me some treasury to draw upon, some illu
sive background, some accrued reservoir of experience,
of events and ideas and feelings, and a discipline of
mind and feeling that I think a teacher has to have. I
wish I had another fifty years at this.
How do you view the relationship of speaking to teach
ing?
Now one of the most deceptive and dangerous implements
ever invented by man was, of course, speech. You know
how one can make of speech so artistic an art as to
defeat one’s purpose--the elocution of the old days:
"It is the time when lillies blow and clouds are high
est hung in air." That sort of thing is, of course,
an anathema to us and quite justly. Today it's a
terrible dilemma that a teacher faces who feels things
keenly. Sometimes one almost envies the quiet little
teachers with a sheaf of notes accrued over long years
in a manila folder, who go into class, and who quietly
and quite unmoved go through the ritual of a given
course. The teacher must be part of what he does.'
He's a speaker; he's in show business--to use an awful
phrase--because he's a three-dimensional person. The
teacher can be interesting; he can be a ham; he can be
eye catching; and he can defeat his purpose. How dan
gerously difficult a path this is to steer.' Knowing
that he is there, a three-dimensional person, he must
not let himself obtrude and, of course, it's a danger
to me not to bounce around and be myself all over the
place. And yet I can't altogether feel that what I
have to offer is independent of myself and the way I
say things and the way I feel things.
I feel that, in using speech, I use it extempo
raneously, never with script; but that doesn't mean I
haven't ideas and that I haven't marshaled them or
haven't made some arrangement of them. But the speech
is just the harpsichord upon which I play a tune, and
I hope that I play fair with the man who wrote the
script--his music.
What is the relationship of the experience of the lis
tener to art?
Of course, no literature, I think, no art really, can
ever be very significant or very meaningful that cannot
be tied directly to the experience of him who hears.
This is a very troubled time that we live in. Far more
perplexing, far more troubling than our students can
quite realize. They don't realize that we have been
through, in my lifetime--that my generation has been
through--the greatest upset the world has ever known.
At every sector of human concern old gods have been
swept away, old principles have been swept away, and we
are in every sense landless men, faced by problems we
find very difficult to solve.
Look at Hamlet. There are very few thinking men
who do not identify themselves with Hamlet now and
again, and again, as they go through life. Art, art
must be attacked always, I think, because we must deal
with problems that vex and burn and sting and scourge
men, and give Cien either comfort or keys, rooms, magic
formulas by which to live.
Should the speaker's vocabulary be adapted to the
audience?
When ultimately I stand before that last inventory
before Saint Peter, I'll have very few things wrapped
up in an old handkerchief to present in advocacy of my
candidacy for admission to that last great matricula
tion. But one thing I will be able to say: "Saint
Peter, Sir, I have never talked down to an audience.
If I wanted to use a five syllable word because it
seemed to be the only, the right, the just, the apt,
and the inevitable word, by golly, I've used it I And
if the American age level is supposed to be 12, 13, 14
years, I've never acknowledged that in speaking on any
occasion." Speaking in these hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of broadcasts I have made over television and
radio, no, I've never talked down, I've never con
sciously adapted anything I've ever said to an audience.
But I've talked to myself. And I sometimes wonder
about the great speaking of the world--whether we are
not permitted to overhear rather than to listen to it.
For if a man doesn't satisfy himself and talk to
himself, if he slants toward an audience, then he's
guilty of some sort of salesmanship, and I have never
tried to be that sort of salesman.
Sometimes you feel that the great speakers have
been effective, the great artists have been effective,
not because they were good, in quotation marks, but
because they were a mixture of good and evil. A know
ledge of evil is sometimes very handy in dealing with
the world as it is; a consciousness of one's own sin is
calculated, I think, to be very valuable to a man at
times. I don’t know about this business of character,
but I know that there are ethics of speaking. To be
meretricious, to be evasive, to be glittering in a way
that conceals meaning is not to play fair with the
materials that you read or about which you speak, with
the ideas. These are sins just as truly as great as
any in the seven deadly of the ancient canon.
I always hate the speaker to work on me, to play
up to me, to slant for me, to jolly me. No, I think
that you have to hold to whatever you consider best
according to the power that works within you.
(B —11) 438
Q: How does the speaker’s background of knowledge affect
his speaking?
A: As a matter of fact, culture is an intellectual process
of great depth. I think that all culture worthy of the
word rests upon exact knowledge. I think fact, good
hard little facts, demonstrable by test and retest,
underlie any of the true serenity of a point of view or
balance of feelings and equipoise of soul that we call
culture. I think that knowledge, good knowledge, a
great reservoir of it, knowledge of the exceptions--
not dogmas, you see--and shibboleths--but a knowledge
of the yea and nays of things, the two-sided, the
22th, 22nd power, that one has to know as much as you
can. Then, in the few minutes of any talk, or any
lecture, or any broadcast, you deal out of that full
hand those cards you need. But you have more in re
serve, always. It seems to me that sagacity is the
power of generalizing satisfactorily on fact. The
facts must be there under every generalization that is
worth while, and good, and provable. There must be, so
to speak, an underlying pyramid of facts.
Q: Do you believe that the ability to speak is learned?
Any man who speaks in public isn't natural. Those
teachers who would have us believe that to stand up and
talk is as natural as anything could be--it isn't
natural, there is a hostility there. Therefore, there
must be an inculcated good will. It can be meretri
ciously won by beginning with the story of two Irish
men, or "there was a parson down south who said," or
"the two little boys." That sort of thing always
infuriates me. The determined attempt to be pally with
us by working on our good humor.1 No, no! Of course, a
great speaker, a successful speaker, has to strive for
good will, but he must get that as a byproduct. Like
most of the good things of life, like citizenship and
all that sort of thing--parenthood--it can best be
taken, not by direct assault but by induction. You get
the good will, I think, because you deserve it. You
get it because you deserve it, not because you con
sciously build it. I’m always furious when someone
works upon me to get my good will. I think that it is
something achieved as a byproduct rather than by direct
frontal assault.
APPENDIX C
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK C. BAXTER
OCTOBER 21, 1962
(C-l)
APPENDIX C
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK C. BAXTER
OCTOBER 21, 1962
Interview conducted jointly by
Dr. Milton Dickens and John L.
Healy at Dr. Frank C. Baxter's
home, 1614 Camden Parkway,
South Pasadena, California
October 21, 1962
Q: As you know, Frank, this study was concentrated upon
the five lectures on Hamlet given in the spring of
1954. I can't imagine a proper dissertation without
telling the reader a little of what you look like. How
old were you in the spring of 1954?
A: Having been born in 1896--which makes me a Victorian--
I guess I was about fifty-eight, wasn't I, when these
Shakespeares got on the air?
Q: And the next question is also mundane: how tall were
you?
441
(C—2) 442
A: In my prime I was six feet exactly, but I seem to have
shrunken in upon myself in my senility, so that I’m
about a half inch shorter now.
Q: Could you give us an estimate of your weight in the
spring of 1954?
A: I think I weighed about 195 pounds. I'm down a little
from that--quite a good deal, I think--but I have held
my weight steadily for the last forty years.
Q: I think everyone would like to know when, approximate
ly, you found yourself for the first time in a public
performance of any sort.
A: That's pretty hard to say. I remember after the first
World War, I found myself, to my great amazement, in
college through some inadvertent loophole in the Admis
sions Office of the University of Pennsylvania. I got
in on a mental test, and it seems to me almost at that
moment I found myself talking somewhere or other about
something. The great thing for me in college between
1919 and 1923 was a literary society. At the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania, in 1813, there was founded the
Philomathean Society. Ten years later an upstart
called the Zelosophic Society, in 1823, was founded.
We scorned them, of course, always. Besides, they
stopped during the Civil War and we kept going right
through. Of course, I didn't get into the society un
til after the battle of Antietam, and was not seriously
affected by this. But you know, that was the greatest
single thing in my education--the college literary
society. I wish everybody in college and in univer
sities today could have such a group as we then had.
And, very curiously, out of the thirty-five or forty
men I knew in this literary society, where we talked
and talked and talked--we did nothing but talk, we
talked all Friday, and talked the dawn up the next
morning, sitting on the edge of the roof of Old College
with our feet hanging out into space; we talked about
the only things that young men can talk about after
all: religion, sex, science, art, and politics; we
talked, how we talked!--and I think any readiness of
speech came from those years--out of those thirty-five
or forty men I knew, it's amazing how many great and
eminent men came. I think all of us would recognize
that it was in the give-and-take of that literary
society--! say every college student should know such
(C-4) 444
a thing--that we got what readiness we had. A chairman
of the War Labor Board, the Field Secretary of the
A.C.L.U., a senior editor of the Saturday Evening Post,
half a dozen college presidents, many great professors
including the greatest Shakespearian in America, Alfred
Harwich of Harvard, Mark Goodstine who writes musical
comedies in New York, Herb Beberman who is one of the
Hollywood "Ten," incidentally--for better or for worse
we learned how to talk in those days, and I could go on
giving you the names of these men. Minister from Pan
ama to the United States, this was one of them; one of
the great physiologists in the country who, at the age
of thirty-six, received an honorary doctorate in sci
ence from Yale for his work in the electric potentials
of the layers of the skin--these people all grew through
that speaking and talking and the sharpening of our
minds against the toughest of stuff ever designed for
that purpose: the sharp and tough minds of other
people. I owe a great deal to that speaking there, and
I would like to have that mentioned in this disserta
tion: the Philomathean Society, still going on, and
generations of people profiting as I profited from
that.
(C~5) 445
Q: In addition to the public speaking in the Philoraathean
Society, did you have any oral reading or acting as a
part of the work?
A: Yes, I was in many one-act plays. Of course, in 1920
you had the great epic of the one-act play in American
colleges, and I was in all sorts of things from Eugene
O'Neil to, oh, the Provincetown School--in general, all
sorts of plays. And some larger productions we gave at
Decker. Play? Thomas Decker's Old Fortunatas. I
acted as Prospero in the Tempest and I took every op
portunity to do that sort of thing, and all that has
been tremendously profitable for me.
Q: In your mention of acting in the Tempest. was that your
first contact with Shakespeare so far as performance on
the stage is concerned?
a; Yes, that's the first time. Though I did, very curi
ously, for eight long weeks, "supe" with Mantel who
came in, I think my senior or junior year, to Philadel
phia as he came each year. He was the last of the old
full-throated, abdominal ranters of the nineteenth
century school. Old Robert Mantel. Not a very good
company and not very good Shakespeare. But he was a
stock commodity, and for eight long weeks I "suped."
And for a couple of delirious nights, thanks to the
second grave digger having taken an "alcoholiday," as
Freud says, I became second grave digger. I think that
probably was my first appearance, in Shakespeare. A
very inadequate second grave digger who helped dig poor
Ophelia's gravel I did it, I imagine, in a very carnal
way. And that was my first attempt to do Shakespeare
"on the boards," as the saying goes.
What year was that?
Oh, dear. That must have been 1921--somewhere in
there.
In addition to participating in the literary society
and taking part in some university plays, did you have
any of what we ordinarily describe as formal courses in
public speaking, oral reading, or acting?
No, I never had any such courses really. Of course,
such departments were rather rare and looked down upon
in my day. It was just as journalism and many other
things were,and just as television techniques in col
leges are still regarded askance in 1961. In fact,
there, speech was just coming in. John Dolman--you
remember him, of course--who wrote a speech book and a
book on play production, and so on--John Dolman had a
struggling little department; but I never had any for
mal instruction in speech. Though, curiously enough,
after I graduated from Penn in 1923 and went into the
English Department, I found it necessary to take a
section or two each year of public speaking--a subject
of which, formally, I knew nothing and, I regret to say,
still know nothing.
Well, now, this describes the years around 1920, Tak
ing the period of, let's say, about, well the period
shortly before 1954, and referring to practical experi
ence in public speaking, oral reading, and acting, and
to radio and TV, could we have some dates and possibly
just a detail or two?
Very interestingly, in the very early days of radio, I
had some work on radio at Philadelphia, station WOO
Wanamakers. The radio station consisted of a very
inadequate microphone behind a large rug which blocked
off one corner of the carpet department at Wanamakers
and I did give programs on there consisting largely of
reading recipes, weather, and local news notes, and
advice to the love-lorn from the Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin. I did not succeed very well, never was given
any permanent commitment, but it was interesting to have
been, in a sense, a pioneer in radio, or at least to
have come in the second boat. All through the inter
vening years, until television hit me like an avalanche,
I did a great deal of talking. Oh dear, how I talked--
on everything! I did a great deal of what might be
called public service programming for the University,
speaking in various meetings and, of course, I began to
build up a sort of clientele among clubs and so on. In
the days when no one was paid very much money, it was
necessary for us to augment our income as best we
could, and at the drop of a suggestion I would be in
Santa Barbara talking to sixty matrons with hats, quite
inadequately and, from their point of view, quite un
necessarily, I'm sure. But for thirty-five dollars,
let us say, I would go to Santa Barbara and eat out my
heart. I did that sort of thing for years.
Referring now to your Christmas programs in Bovard,
please give us your idea of the differences, if any,
between public speaking, extemporare speaking, and
reading from the printed page.
Of course, it's impossible, it seems to me, except for
a very gifted actor of long experience, to read from a
printed page and have, in the timbre and the timing of
his voice, exactly the same cadences of free and ex
temporaneous speech. It can be done, but inevitably
the very fact that your eye energy is invested in fol
lowing the lines, it seems to me to inhibit the free
and easy flow of speech. I have found that when peo
ple say, "You're to speak to us next Tuesday. Do let
us have the copy of your speech two days in advance,"
I say, "I'm afraid we can't do business, because I
can't speak from a script." I've given, of course, on
television and radio, many hundreds of programs, but
for none of them have I had a script. My philosophy in
this, as in speaking, is to think about the subject,
draw up a sort of skeletal outline of points--maybe
just one side of a four-by-six-inch card is enough for
an hour and a half talk, as far as I'm concerned--
then I think about it in advance, and so fill the
reservoir that I know I'm not going to empty the
reservoir but I know more than I'm going to say; I
know what I talk about, I hope--and then with this
simple outline, with a beginning and an end indicated,
I begin to talk. It's the only way that I can do these
things, really. Commencement speeches, television pro
grams, lectures on books, people, and ideas in history,
whatever it may be, I find that I must do it this way.
It's just my way of doing it, Milton. I can’t write
it out in advance. Of course, modern reporters have
lost their cunning. They can't take down a speech and
get the salient points. They're only happy if you give
them the whole thing in advance. They're a decadent
race, really. I don't know about reading from a book;
I think it's a different technique, I think, again, it
has to begin with an absolute familiarity with the
material so that when you come to the end of the line
you know what's coming. You have the cadence in your
head; you don't fumble over it. I think, in each case,
you can only do this if you have the full reservoir to
begin with. In the case of the printed page you have
to so familiarize yourself with the page that you know
where things come, where the breaks in thought or in
rhythm come, the full stops and the partial stops, the
rising inflection and the lowering inflection. You
get that almost instinctively by reading and reading
and understanding what the man has written. Then when
the time comes to read aloud, the book is not really
being read but the book is being used as a sort of a
prompter for something which has already pretty well
established itself in your senses and your conscious
ness as a set of cadences. Selah. I have spoken.
I take it, then, that what you’ve just described is the
approach you did use in your annual Christmas readings,
which we haven't yet quite covered. So perhaps you
would summarize those readings from your point of view.
It's very amusing. Even when I was teaching as a pup
instructor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1923,
'24, '25, in there, every Christmas, being a senti
mentalist and a Dickensian, I read Christmas Carol, a
book which I know pretty well by heart now from long
immersion, I read it in honor of Christmas and for my
own delight. When I came to S.C. in 1930, I began to
read the Carol in an hour version of my own, knowing
what to skip, what to include, what to bridge over.
Then, gradually, I began to read other things. And
then about, I guess, about twenty-three years ago, I
began to read prose and verse around Christmas, about
Christmas. First in the classroom, just telling stu
dents or posting on the board that I would read, say,
late in the afternoon before Christmas on a certain
day. Attendance began to grow; the classroom got too
small; we moved somewhere else; and then finally, of
course, came to Bovard [Auditorium]. In the first
years we might occasionally fill the ground floor, but
generally we had perhaps six or seven hundred people
there, and then slowly it grew and became something of
an institution at S.C.--an institution where there are
no institutions really, just a few traditions. I
became, in my way, a sort of hoary, antique tradition.
Of course, Milton, the undergraduates never patronized
these things— very much as our undergraduates charac
teristically, with their magnificently independent
spirit of free enterprise, never attend any lectures on
campus unless they are forced to--that's my experience
with them--but the alumni came back. Some old ladies
and some old gentlemen out of my past never missed
these readings for over fifteen, eighteen, and maybe
twenty years. Very gratifying to have these people.
And then townspeople called up, so that our phone was al
ways busy early in December with people calling up,
(C-13) 453
asking when the Christmas readings would come. You can
imagine the gratification of my ego to become a sort of
an institution. I hope that someone will pick it up
and carry it on in the future. Last Christmas we had a
ceremony, but I had to miss it, being I was ill. I had
hoped that there would be a bridge between my announced
retirement from this, a year ago, and the future. Un
fortunately I could not be there for part of the bridge.
So let's hope that the new deal will build upon the old
one, and someone will carry on this tradition with his
own set of readings of prose and verse.
Q: We've been talking about your practical speech experi
ence after your student days and prior to what you
called a little while ago "the avalanche of televi
sion." I'm sure everyone would want to know some
details about the first time, if you happen to remember
it, that you appeared on television and when and where
and what the program was.
A: Yes. Interestingly enough, I had appeared on televi
sion in the early experimental days before there was
anything but closed circuit, or perhaps only a few
outside stations to receive programs: at Bixel Street,
Seventh and Bixel. I was on a few programs, and that
was 'way long ago, before the War, and I knew nothing
of television. In fact, I had seen only one television
program through a shop window until I went on televi
sion [in 1953], Then I went on television after a few
days' notice to give the series for credit, the first
semester of "Shakespeare on TV," not knowing that I
was destined to make, before I was through, nearly
seventy programs of Shakespeare, of forty-five minutes
each, and that I was to have--and this seems incred
ible, but it's true--that I was to have the distinction
of having talked to more people about Shakespeare than
any person who ever lived. Which is now very true: I
have talked about Shakespeare to more people than any
man who ever lived. It came about in a very haphazard
way. One of the local stations wanted to put a college
course for credit on the air, so they came to the
University and they looked around and they talked to
certain teachers. And these being men of discrimina
tion, they refused to do it. And when I was asked I
fought, kicked, and scratched, and held off for about
eight seconds before I plunged into it, and of course I
have been at it ever since.
(C-15) 455
Very interestingly, I learned a great deal in
those first experimental, what were really very tenta
tive and experimental, days for me on "Shakespeare on
TV." Certain axioms emerged. First was this: it is
nonsense--it is death in life--to think of the vast
audience that is out there. I remember one time, later,
going on "Omnibus," and just as I was going to go on
Alistair Cooke said, "Do you realize that you are going
to talk to eighteen to twenty-three million people?”
which, of course, would curdle any man's liver. I went
out and did something for the time, but I was terri
fied. The next day I said to an old property man in
Hollywood, a very wise and dear old gentleman, "Yester
day I talked to twenty million people." And he said,
"Nonsense, son. No one has ever talked to twenty
million people. Never forget, you're talking to a
little over two people. Two and one-tenth people,
statistically, seated on their own terms in their own
living rooms, and you've come in there.” Remember how
Queen Victoria said she didn't like Gladstone to come
to Windsor Castle because he always addressed her as
if she were a public meeting? I don't think you can
talk to two people in their living rooms as if they are
a public meeting. I think that steadied me more than
anything else, and I have never tried to think of that
audience which was at one time forty-three million! I
talked to forty-three million people at one time on the
first broadcast of Richard III, which I did--six min
utes' introduction--for General Motors. Forty-three
million people.1
Then you are told in television, you should, rf’ ;
you are a beginner, that you should look at the red
light. I soon decided, "To hell with the red light."
If the red light was interested in me it would find
me. And 1 have never bothered about the red light
since. Having two cameras, as in the great days of
"Shakespeare," there was always a red light around
somewhere, and if they saw me, fine, and I have never
paid any attention.
Do you know how I do this, Milton? For my own
comfort, I talk to the men on the set. People don't
realize, who are watching television, that the lonely
figure is not alone at all, but that perhaps from
twenty to fifty men may be watching him. On one occa
sion I counted ninety men who were engaged in ali the
complicated technical businesses that make television
possible. I talk to those people. In fact, once or
twice I have talked to them to such a point that they
have forgotten the time and we have run over--much to
the consternation of the networks, because they had to
cut us down. But everyone was interested in the sub
ject, as I was interested, and I have just talked to
them. Forget the audience, because that is a chilling
thing, if you think of all those millions out there.
It is very humbling, but you dare not think of it as
you talk. Excuse me, I do go on too far, don't I?
Now turning our thinking for a moment from what it has
been up to this point--sheer description of what hap-
pened--we are faced with the necessity of trying to
account for some of the results. I recall hearing,
probably apocryphal, I don't know, of the president of
a competing university talking to his senior faculty
members. This was during, I think, "Shakespeare on
TV," and he said, in exasperation, to his faculty,
"Isn't there one of you who is enough of a ham to get
up there and do what Baxter does?" In other words, he
was voicing an opinion that I have heard elsewhere.
When anyone asks just how did these programs happen to
turn out so successfully, it is easy to over-simplify
and say, "Well, it's just his personality." What do
you think about that?
Well, the personality business aside, everyone knows in
our college experience there have been some teachers
who have been marvelous dispensers of encyclopedic
fact; they have been almost like this very tape--a
physical mechanism to record all that they have read
or known or met and hand it back, but adding very lit
tle of themselves. Since you have asked me to talk
about myself, I must say, perforce, egotistical as it
might sound, I have always felt in teaching literature
that I was not merely giving them the bones, the dates,
the learned little facts about these things, but rather
tried to make my students feel that literature was very
little if it was not a criticism and an evaluation of
life; that literature is not meaningful to any man who
cannot build it into his own daily and personal life.
And I have tried to make my students feel--as well as
to understand intellectually. This is, of course, an
agonizing business because you are doomed to fail if
you set your sights very high, but it is the only way I
know to teach a fine art. If I were teaching painting,
I would have done it the same way. "Look,1 1 I say.
•'See this. Feel this. Understand this. Note this.”
And my philosophy of teaching English literature,
either in the classroom or on television, is that I
experience it in their presence, in a sense. I try to
make a mutuality, a sharing of experience in this. So
that, say it as you will, I guess that I am a ham, in
that I wear my heart on my sleeve. If I read a verse
that is moving, damn it, I am moved by it, and I refuse
to read it as if it were merely printed ink words on a
printed paper page. It seems to me that if I were
teaching music I would do the same thing. I don't know
how else to handle it. The important thing about lit
erature is that it is a fine art to me. If I were
teaching zoology, as I once did, I would not feel this
degree of personal involvement.
And I think, in a way, that it is the personal
involvement that makes the actor successful. The
teacher who appears on television, whether he likes it
or not, is in a sense in show business. You're there;
you're a two-dimensional figure moving around the
television screen, not a man behind a desk talking.
You're a picture— he's part of it; hence, gesture,
(020) 460
change of pace, the use of visuals. I've specialized
more than anyone else in the country, I fancy, in the
range of visuals, using miniatures and models and
interesting effects, trying to make colorful and vi
brant physical visuals that would illuminate the point,
never as gimmicks, but always somehow as necessary and
vital illuminations of what is said.
I suppose I am a ham, and I accept that happily.
I think that the exciting people on television are
rather hammy. I deplore a man who is nothing but the
jobber, the wholesaler, or the retailer sometimes, of
the learned facts of his profession. He may be a very
valuable fellow for those who are already learned in
the subject, but when you're talking to the television
audience out there, think of the random, mixed bag of
people you have. Not that you go for the lowest common
denominator, which is the horror of television today.
You know that the necessity is put upon you to be clear
and to be cogent and to be scholarly--let1s use the
word--so that what you say will not be challenged by
the intellectual and it will not be obscure or baffling
or dull to the very humble. It's a hard thing to do.
(C-21) 461
Q: I’m glad you used the word "scholarly," because that
was the next line of the discussion that I wanted to
introduce. I remember in one write-up, at least, in
Life magazine I believe it was, the phrase was used
with regard to you, "as scholarly as he is witty."
Quite apart from the wittiness, let’s think about the
fact that according to them, at least, the program was
scholarly. Now I suppose there are two ways of ap
proaching this. One would be just the bare facts that
we probably should include, and the other would be your
opinions. We might start with the bare facts, which
would be your formal education. Here I am aware, of
course, that we have recourse to Who's Who. but that’s
overly abbreviated. I wonder if next you would sketch
your formal education in the sense of schools attended,
degrees achieved, and anything else of just a pure
factual nature.
A: Yes. This, of course, you can get more briefly from
the University press release, but I can run through it
briefly. Primary school in at least half a dozen very
bad and separated, unimportant schools in Philadelphia.
One semester of high school, and then I went to work.
I worked, all those years in Philadelphia before the
war, the first war, at a big corporation in Philadel
phia. I went to night school and took things which
drove my employers to a fury. Instead of taking book
keeping and accounting and all those things I should
have been taking as a bookkeeper, I took Latin and
French and geometry and college algebra. The result
was that when, suddenly, after World War I, the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania announced that it would accept any
veterans whose education had been interrupted on a con
ditional basis, I rushed out and, in a fit of sanity,
took a mental test which let me get into college. That
was my preparation--a milkshake and a mental test sud
denly, twenty minutes' notice I had of this exam by
picking up an old newspaper which said the exam would
be given. So I got in. Because I had always been able
to draw a little bit, I found myself drawing pictures
for the 2500logical museum, and later for the archeolog
ical museum, resulting in three trips to the Painted
Desert. But the formal education was AB Pennsylvania,
1923, summa cum: I then proceeded to my MA at the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania in English, At the end of that
period I had been teaching half the time at Swarthmore,
as well as full time at Pennsylvania. I had saved
enough money to marry a red-headed lady from German
town; we went to England where we spent three years.
Eventually, of course, I received a degree from the
University of Cambridge, where I had been a member of
Trinity College, but my dissertation was not quite com
pleted when we left England. I had an extra year of
graduate work in connection with a teaching assistant-
ship at Berkeley. After that, about 1930, I came to
the University of Southern California. To my great
delight, U.S.C. gave me a degree of Doctor of Letters,
so too did Ripon College, and Elmire College; the local
College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons gave me
a DFA. So that1s the limit of my academic attainments,
sir.
Since we’re concentrating on "Shakespeare on TV," I
think some discussion would be in order on the scholar
ly side of this series of programs. Here, of course, I
think people would be interested in knowing when and
how you first became interested in Shakespeare, and
what, through the period of years, you have done by way
of a study of Shakespeare--which, I imagine, is your
favorite subject.
Very curiously, of course, I did not teach Shakes
peare until relatively recent times--perhaps ten years
ago--because, as always at a university, these courses
are vested in someone who has had them for a long time.
"Shakespeare on TV" came about because the incumbent of
the Shakespeare courses died a year or two before, so I
had been teaching them. I have never pretended to be
the Shakespeare expert that the newspapers always call
me. I represent Shakespeare, Shelley, Shaw, and Com
pany south of the Tehachapi and east of Crenshaw. But
I found myself in Shakespeare up to my neck.
As a matter of fact, I had a great deal of study
in Shakespeare. First I came under the spell of the
famous Felix Schelling, the great Dr. Schelling, who
was one of the early American Shakespeare scholars. He
was one of the giants at Pennsylvania in my undergrad
uate and graduate days, and I took many many years of
Shakespeare with him. Later I was to study with the
great Sir Arthur QuiHer-Couch, and various other
people at Cambridge who were Shakespeareans. And, of
course, I saw a great deal of Shakespeare on the stage
at Cambridge, both amateur, semiprofessional, and pro
fessional companies. On ray return to this country, I
studied and did my thesis in the fortunes of Eliza
bethan drama, from their own times to the end of 18--
the nineteenth century--about 1890, following the ups
and downs, the forgetting and the reviving of Shakes
peare, and the slow growing of knowledge in the Western
world that there had been an Elizabethan school of
drama. That, of course, came extremely late. Most
people don't realize that the eighteenth century--in
Benjamin Franklin's time, of course--people knew noth
ing about the Elizabethans, really. And it was one of
the triumphs of the romantic movement that came to
them. No, I've never been a formal Shakespeare scholar
in the sense that I've attended the meetings, belonged
to the societies, and written the papers.
I've been a teacher, and have been quite content
to be academically disreputable at that point. As a
matter of fact, you see, I could go into television
without losing anything because I was already no longer
a virgin, a scholarly virgin, but was declasse. I was
already beyond the pale because I had never been the
formal scholar who writes about Spenser's grandmother,
or the obscure dates of obscure people. This, alas, I
know to be a lack in me, but curiously enough I've
never felt it a fatal flaw for my happiness.
I was going to ask you about that. At, I suppose, a
majority of universities, scholarship is equated almost
with publication of the nature you just described, and
I was going to ask what you thought about that. Is it
possible to be a scholar without these esoteric publi
cations? Can scholarship grow out of, or be a part of,
or something connected with, the university professor's
teaching? You said that you did not publish very many
things, and that it didn't make you unhappy. Reversing
the statement, would it make you unhappy if you were
forced to sit down at a typewriter and leaf through
notes on these old dates and things, and try to write
an article?
Getting into teaching rather late in life--as I did,
come to think of it, relative to my fellows--!'ve
always felt a sort of hypocrisy abroad. Do forgive me
here, this is perhaps mean, but when people say that at
this institution you must publish or perish--promotion
depends upon publication--I am enough of a historian to
know that this came about because when mass education
in America began; administrators--who are a pretty dull
lot, and insensitive lot, an unscholarly lot--the ad
ministrative mind being quite divorced, apparently,
from the perceptive mind, often the critical mind,
needed some quantitative measure of judgment. Here
they had a man who had published six papers. No one
had ever read them, except the man's wife perhaps and
a few colleagues who scorned them, but he'd written
six. He's better than the man who wrote three; he's
better than the man who wrote none. It isn't a matter
of wanting the energy to sit down to the typewriter.
God knows that I have spent a long time at the type
writer in my life, writing all sorts of things, but not
the sorts of things that make for scholarly promotion.
In short, I'm a very bad model to hold up to a young
man. A young man who goes into academic life must take,
the shilling, bite the bullet, and write the damn
papers. Because without that, you see, he doesn't have
to write papers that anyone reads--he just has to write
them! An inquiry as to the influence of Gray's Elegy
upon Byron's Manfred--no one, certainly not Gray and
Byron, is going to read that. No one will. But he
becomes a bibliographic entity, he becomes immortal in
a booklist somewhere. And the academic--the most
unacademic-minded administrator who wants to promote
his faculty--will go down the list and say he has
written the thing. No college president has ever read
one of these things, but it's something he can put in
his hand--and if he has fifty he can weigh them. I
deplore people who go to conventions because, as they
tell you, they want to meet the people in the field,
there's where the opportunities are to be seen. If a
man says to me, "I must write about Spenser's grand
mother because this is important to me, I'm doing some
thing splendid," I'm for him. Most scholarship in
America is a label of respectability worn by, in the
main--since this is life, let's be frank--worn by
mediocrity as a badge. I do go on. Sorry.
I had to ask you. If you're unwilling to have this
embalmed in the dissertation we'll leave it out. I
almost anticipated what your point of view might be
here.
Do let me make this clear. There is wonderful scholar
ship in the world which I applaud. There are men to
whom I doff ray cap with great and splendid willingness
because they are pursuing truth. They have a quest.
But most scholarship is a gesture--let's face it!--and
so often an extremely hypocritical gesture. I just
couldn't do it, temperamentally. Not that I haven't
burned my energy up--because no one has lived energet
ically and more abundantly than I have, no one has done
more things than I have, touched more lives, of that I
am store--but it's just that that sort of thing has
never appealed to me. To another man it might appeal,
and to another man, the "B-minuses"who haunt us, will
find in that some rationalization for their existence.
And I'm glad they have it--because they have so little
else, some of them.
I note that several questions I had put down here you
have already answered, so I'm going to skip now, chang
ing the subject somewhat radically. A half an hour
ago, or more, you discussed how you went about prepar
ing and giving what is ordinarily called a public
speech. Now the question I want to ask here is essen
tially this: do you feel that there have been certain
techniques of good public speaking, and do you think
you have used them consciously or unconsciously or not
at all?
I don't know. It's very hard to evaluate yourself. I
know that at one time I was accused of gesturing too
much, and I think I did. That I do less. I've never
used, save once or twice, a calculated gesture. At
times it's very effective. I know something of the
Indian sign language, and to give the Indian sign Ian-
guage for death is to present a very curious, graphic,
pictorial little poem, in a way. The gesture is tre
mendously interesting. Or the Indian sign language for
prayer, which is an eloquent gesture, might be a point
at which to start a talk. But in the main, automat
ically, unconsciously, instinctively, I gesture. But
it's part of the vibrance that I feel about the things
that I must talk about. And, of course, I'm lucky in
that I've never had to talk about anything that I
wasn't excited about. In my own television programs,
the selection of the material has been entirely mine.
I’ve talked about those things which seemed to me
exciting. Gestures flow from it.
As for changes of pace and pitch, the rising and
falling business, the slow fadeout, I think you do
these things instinctively. Certainly you don't plan
them. I can't imagine ever planning this thing and
drawing out a score for me to follow--musical tunes for
me to play, and so on--as some people do, I understand.
And, of course, nothing is, to my mind, more woeful
than the gesture which is noted on the side of the
manuscript: "At this point, hit the table,1 1 and so the
high school debater says, "And now we come to the all-
important third point" [Baxter bangs], with just that
awful little gap in there which shows that he has
known that the gesture is starred in the margin. If
you feel that way, you hit the table. But if not, you
certainly don't. I don't know that I have any tricks.
If I have, God help me, they're entirely instinctive,
Milton.
I don't know anything about speaking. I remember
one time hearing a famous statesman in Britain, who was
asked by an undergraduate, "What is your formula for
speaking so successfully, my lord?" And this man un
coiled like a tall boney cobra from his chair, and he
said, "Young man, I rise, talk rapidly, and when I have
uttered a sentence which seems to me to be rudely
grammatical I sit down." I'm afraid my philosophy is
scarcely more complex than his.
Let me change the subject rather radically once again.
You said a little earlier that you thought of yourself
primarily as a teacher. Do you think that there are
such concepts as the people in the. School of Education
talk about and write about as "basic principles of good
teaching"?
Golly, I suppose that they may have them, though in my
experience they seldom seem to exemplify them in their
own discourse. I don't know. It seems to me that a
speech must have a beginning and an end; that it must
have a certain pertinence to the occasion and to the
audience, and that it must be uttered, not from a mini
mal and surface knowledge of the subject, but out of a
vast reserve. Obviously, as I say, there must be a
beginning and an end; there must be development; there
must be logical sequence. But I don't know about reduc
ing this to a formula so that someone else can take it
over. I think that every subject presents its own
treatment.
I would say this: that a full and flowing vocabu
lary is no hindrance to a public speaker. One listens
to political prose at the time of elections, and he can
almost calculate the sentence beyond the next sentence.
But I think a young public speaker ■would do well to
study poetry for the concreteness of the imagery. I
believe that this is part of noble discourse, concrete
imagery. When someone says, "Life is all a checker
board of nights and days," as Omar Khayyam says),
you've got a simple image, and that's a thing a man
should strive for. I have a horror of people who tell
stories. "That reminds me of something that happened to
me on the way to the steam foundry," or whatever it is;
"That reminds me of the story of two Irishmen named
Moe and Abe," and so on--that sort of thing drives me
mad. I sit there and refuse to be entertained. On
the other hand, humor is a very wonderful and live and
magnificent tool to have in the repertory. It should
be encouraged, but not on the part of the man who's
humorless. Nothing is worse than the joke told by the
humorless man. Concrete imagery, the active verb, the
concrete noun! When a man says, "I intend to devote
myself rather consistently from this time on to the
furtherance of this purpose," and another man says,
"Tomorrow I'm going to begin to dig; I'm going to dig
and I'm going to drill; I'm going to use a stout shovel
and get to the heart of this thing," and the second
man, of course, gets your attention. The first man
wafts you into a pleasant and blessed divorcement from
involvement of any sort.
Well, now, actually I asked you to discuss principles
of teaching and you have been discussing principles of
speaking. I remember Lyman Bryson, at a meeting at
Syracuse University some years back, talking to a group
of our faculty. He stressed the importance of speaking
in relation to teaching. In fact, he said something to
the effect that, "as a teacher in the classroom about
all I do is talk." I wonder if your answer to the last
question indicates that--and if it does, okay, and if
it does not, okay--you feel that teaching in a pre
dominantly lecture course is almost synonymous with
public speaking; or, as I say, maybe you think not.
That's a very specific sort of public speaking. I did
get off of the track, and I realize it. I was talking
about the general thing. It seems to me that in the
lecture a wise teacher should let the people know in
the beginning what he intends to do. He should then
proceed to do it as a sort of expositor. Let's say I
was approaching the theory of evolution. I would first
try to let the people understand what I meant by the
term, continuity with change, that all things come from
the past somehow, but come from the past through a
series of subtle, impacting, and accreting changes, so
that the end is different from the beginning. I would
let them see that, then gather the evidences together:
one, two, three, four. I would come to the conclusion.
I would go back to the beginning and see if there were
any questions. My idea--and I do this every time,
Milton--in class I begin by saying, "Are there any
questions?" I once defined, making a parody of Sand
burg's "Thirty-Four Definitions of Poetry," I gave
thirty-four definitions of teaching. Teaching is any
sort of preaching where you're allowed to ask questions.
And I think that's part of it. My way of teaching a
poem--and this has been my business through the years,
really--is to talk about it, tie it into the man's
life, if that has any pertinence to the meaning and
significance of the poem. The first time I read the
poem without pause or break. Then, going back, I read
the poem almost line by line, making clear how all this
is fitting together, what it's all doing, making allu
sions clear, perhaps ancient words out of the past, or
phrases, making them clear. And, at the very end, I
try to read the poem again, unbroken, but with the men
tal baggage that the students now have, the second
reading, of course, makes sense. Then, "Are there any
questions?" Beyond that I know of no philosophy of
teaching. Really I do not.
Now I have had many first-hand reports from students
who have taken your classes at the University [Baxter
in the background: Don’t you believe a word of it.1],
and I have to believe them now, because they have told
me that you do conduct the course in such fashion that
they have ample opportunity for participation, for ask
ing questions. Now on TV, however, the very point that
you have stressed, the one of asking questions, is
physically impossible. Your viewers cannot ask you
questions--at least, not at the time. Maybe, I suspect,
you do get letters with questions. But this brings up
a very interesting point, and that is: in adapting
teaching to television, do you have suggestions as to
how to make the student viewer an active participant,
a questioner, if you will, even though he's not right
there to raise his hand, stand up, and say, "Well,
Dr. Baxter, there's just one point that isn't clear"?
Yes. Of course, I doubt if anyone can ever be educated
by television. I think that television education is a
fearful idea if you take it literally, but I think that
television is a magnificent tool for the teacher. I
think it can be used in closed circuits in classrooms,
and I think it can be used in other ways over the air.
I cannot feel that anyone becomes educated by anything
that is so thoroughly one way. Then you have the
exigencies of time in television--so short a time. If
you're teaching a class, you have them for forty min
utes, or forty-five, or fifty minutes, with the expec
tation that they'll be back in a few days for another
crack. But on television everything has to be self-
contained and limited by its own time. What you do,
then, is you bite off a smaller chunk to chew of any
thing in television. Furthermore, you anticipate the
question. You have to do that. You have to define as
you go along. You have to anticipate. It's quite a
different technique, it seems to me.
And I've always thought of what I've done on
television, not as teaching in any formal sense, but as
a piquing of the imagination and the curiosity of peo-
pie. Opening doors through which they, according to
the power that works within them, and their interests,
can go. Very interesting, for instance, to talk on a
certain book one time, and to have an irate telegram
from a bookseller the next day, a bookseller in Denver,
Colorado: "For God's sake never mention book without
telling us advance. Love." It's amazing, Milton.'
Just think, once I gave some programs on Homer, the
Iliad and the Odyssey. and had eleven hundred requests
for a reading list which 1 offered. A reading list on
the Homeric world. That's what you do. You drop
pebbles into pools, and the ripples go out. Some pools
are jellied and viscous and you get very few ripples.
But somebody out there gets the ripples, or I wouldn't
get the mail that I do, other people who lecture on
television wouldn't get the mail they do.
No, I think it's as someone once said, "Stars are
food for the fed." A lot of people out there are a
little hungry for something more than they've been get
ting, and they're glad to be nudged into reading. And
that's what I've been doing. I've been putting my
shoulder, my very puny shoulder, against the great
protoplasmic glacier of America and giving a little
nudge here and there. And I don’t flatter myself that
any great change has come about.
One thing that interests me, if I may intrude at
this moment, is the way that I've been received by the
people in Hollywood from the very beginning. They've
followed my fortunes, many with an almost devoted
application, and I've many firm friends among these
show business people who have been very nice. Further
more, as I travel around the country, I'm amazed to see
how I, a very obscure and humble school teacher In a
second-rate university in the provinces, have somehow
entered their consciousnesses. It's a very gratifying
thing. When they think of me, they think of books,
and that's what I had hoped. I don't think I've ever
educated anyone via television. Come to think of it,
looki-ng back over forty years of teaching, I'm not sure
that I've ever even done it in the classroom.
I have one last question. Naturally, at the end of the
dissertation, Mr. Healy will be expected to make what I
usually recommend calling a "series of implications"
from the study, as distinguished from the conclusions,
and I am sure that the most important implications in
this study would be answered somewhat by a question
somewhat along these lines--and maybe this is a ques
tion that is unanswerable, but I'll ask it anyway.
Have you any suggestions, not already given, to future
young teachers who may be asked to teach by television?
Oh, this-*-is an almost priestly function. I feel that
this has to be done very seriously, and I hope that I
can be wise in what I say.
I think a teacher, whether he's in the class in a
primary grade, or elementary grade, a high school, a
college, or a university, or on television, must never
be a faker. If you're ignorant, accept the fact and
try to fill in the gaps of your ignorance. Much of
what I hear in public service programming on televi
sion, much of what I've heard in classrooms, seemed to
come out of a rather--oh, I don't know--a rather humbly
filled knapsack. I think you must know your stuff if
you're going to teach anywhere. And if you lecture for
forty minutes on something, you should have enough to
lecture for four hours before you try it. As Hamlet
said, "The readiness is all." I think that's the first
readiness.
And the second is that one curse is put upon all
of us in American education in the last four genera
tions— say, three generations. It is this: the lack of
respect for the spoken word. The lack of belief in the
almost moral necessity of making words mean something,
and not using them without that meaning. The semantic
waste, the evasion, the slipperiness of political lan
guage, for instance, is a horrid thing.
Love and respect reading. You can only read
twenty thousand books if you read a book a day for
seventy years. In the Library of Congress there are
now perhaps thirteen million books. In the British
Museum, perhaps fifteen million books. The Moscow
Library has eleven million books. But you can only
read twenty thousand if you read a book a day. How
little that is.' The answer, in America, is to read
none at all, for only about one out of two adults in
America reads one book per year, although there have
never been books available so cheaply and easily. The
young teacher should read everything that he can--not
in his specific sector alone, but to get that width and
breadth, depth of culture, that width and breadth and
depth of knowledge about this whole world. Compre
hensively, the world of art, of science, of history,
(C-42) 482
of biography, of government--everything to make himself
as rounded as possible. I'm very tired of the process
that puts in the schools people who are curiously one
sided and polyfaceted in their--their disinterest.
God, the one-sided people!
I think the young teacher should be articulate
and, as I say, respecting his language he should be
well-read and as well-rounded as he can. I think a man
should carry a book with him at all times and never be
at a loss for something to read. It's amazing how much
you get read. You'll never read the whole thirteen
million, but you may approach the twenty-thousand.
Many people, of course, have read more than that. I
know a man who was once able to read two books a day.
In recent years, for one reason or another--I shall not
give you his name--he reads about five a week, but
that's about as far as he can get. He's very humble,
but he may make his twenty thousand, given a few years
of comfortable retirement.
Meanwhile, to any student, anywhere, who is going
into teaching, good luck to you, because this is the
most necessary function that a human being can perform
for this republic. We are an ignorant and uninformed
nation, I regret to say. Very few people can answer
you three questions on any subject before coining to the
end of their general information. I regret that this
is so, but I believe it. We must know. Citizenship
demands knowledge; parenthood demands knowledge. For
a man to go into teaching who hasn't filled his reser
voir would seem to me to be the sin of sins.
b i b l i o g r a p h y
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497
Audiences of Network Television Programs," The
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498
Brandon, James Roger. "The Relative Effectiveness of the
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lished Ph.D. dissertation, the University of Wiscon
sin, 1955.
Dunham, Morton D. "An Experimental Study of the Effect of
Two Discussion Techniques on Educational Outcomes in
a Beginning Educational Psychology Class Taught by
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1958.
Fraser, Thomas H. "An Analytical Study of 'Science in
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Francisco," Unpublished Master's thesis, The Uni
versity of Southern California, 1953.
Handleman, Stanley D. "A Comparative Study of Teacher
Attitudes toward Teaching by Closed-Circuit Televi
sion." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York
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Helmich, Russell E. "A Survey of Educators' Attitudes and
Opinions toward Television." Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, The University of Cincinnati, 1951.
Jakes, Frank Henry, Jr. "A Study of Standards Imposed by
Four Leading Television Critics with Respect to Live
Television Drama." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
the Ohio State University, 1960.
Knox, Albert Whitney. "An Experimental Study of Several
Methods of Teaching College Basic Speech Courses
with Emphasis on Conservation of Teachers' Time in
Varying Class Size." Unpublished Ph.D. disserta
tion, The University of Southern California, 1960.
Lynch, James E. "A Study of the Size and the Composition
of the Viewing Audience of an Educational Television
Program in the Detroit Metropolitan Area." Unpub
lished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Michi
gan, 1955.
499
McEvoy, J. Edward. "An Experimental Study on the Factor
of Eye Contact in Filmed Speeches." Unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Southern Cali
fornia, 1953.
Redding, W. Charles. "A Methodological Study of Rhetorical
Postulates, Applied to a Content Analysis of the
1944 Campaign Speeches of Dewey and Roosevelt."
Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of
Southern California, 1957.
Saettler, L. Paul. "The Origin and Development of Audio-
Visual Education in the United States." Unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Southern Cali
fornia, 1953.
Saullo, Charles Joseph. "An Investigation of the Practi
cability of Instruction by Television in the Medical
Curriculum." Unpublished Master's thesis, The Uni
versity of Southern California, 1954.
Scothorn, Robert A. "A Description of Some of the Viewers
Who Enrolled for Credit in 'Shakespeare on TV,1
Spring Semester, 1954." Unpublished Master's
thesis, The University of Southern California, 1955.
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vision, 'Shakespeare on TV,'" Unpublished paper,
Telecommunications 577, The University of Southern
California, 1962.
Walker, Jack H. "An Investigation of the Speech Factors
Influencing the Effectiveness of the College Teach
er." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University
of Denver, 1951.
Zaitz, Anthony William. "The History of Educational Tele
vision, 1932-1958." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
the University of Wisconsin, 1960.
Pamphlets, Bulletins, and Reports
Baxter, Frank C. "Shakespeare on TV." Study Guide for
English 356a; The University of Southern California
500
in cooperation with Station KTHE--Channel 28 UHF,
n.d. (Mimeographed.)
Baxter, Frank C. "Shakespeare on TV: Outline Guide. New
York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1954.
Carpenter, C. R., Greenhill, L. P., et al. "Instructional
Television Research Project, Number One: An Inves
tigation of Closed-Circuit Television for Teaching
University Courses." The Pennsylvania State Univer
sity, 1955. (Mimeographed.)
_______ . "Instructional Television Research Report, Number
Two: An Investigation of Closed-Circuit Television
for Teaching University Courses. The Pennsylvania
State University, 1958. (Mimeographed.)
Dreher, Robert E., and Beatty, Walcott H. "Instructional
Television Research, Project Number One: An Experi
mental Study of College Instruction Using Broadcast
Television." San Francisco: San Francisco State
College, 1958. (Multilithed.)
Erickson, Clifford G., Chausow, Hyman M. Chicago's TV
College: Final Report of the Chicago City Junior
College in Offering College Courses for Credit via
Open Circuit Television. Chicago: Chicago City
Junior College, 1960.
"Effectiveness of Television Instruction in Training Naval
Air Reserves, The." SDC Technical Report, 476-02-
52. Port Washington, Long Island: Department of the
Navy, Office of Naval Research, Special Devices
Center, 1952.
Fritz, M. F., et al. "Survey of Television Utilization in
Army Training." Human Engineering Report, SDC 530-
01-1. Port Washington, Long Island: Department of
the Navy, Office of Naval Research, Special Devices
Center, 1953.
Jackson, Robert. "Learning from Kinescopes and Films."
SDC Report, 20-TV-1. Port Washington, Long Island:
Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research,
Special Devices Center, 1953.
501
Kumata, Hideya. An Inventory of Instructional Television
Research. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Educational Television
and Radio Center, December 1, 1956.
Los Angeles Television Audience: An ARB Teleque Metropoli
tan Area Report. Washington: American Research
Bureau, Inc., January, 1954.
Lepore, Albert R., et al. "Instructional Television Re
search Project, Number Two: An Experimental Study
of College Instruction Using Broadcast Television.”
San Francisco: San Francisco State College, Fall,
1958. (Multilithed.)
MacLennan, Donald W., and Reid, J. Christopher. "Abstracts
of Research on Instructional Television and Film:
An Annotated Bibliography." Unpublished study,
April, 1964. (Multilithed.)
Rock, Robert T., Jr., Duva, James S., and Murray, John E.
"Training by Television: A Study in Learning and
Retention." SDC Report, 476-02-3. Port Washington,
Long Island: Department of the Navy, Office of Naval
Research, Special Devices Center, 1952.
Schramm, Wilbur. Educational Television: The Next Ten
Years. Stanford: The Institute for Communication
Research, 1962.
"Television Audience, The," The Multimarket Telepulse
Report. New York: The Pulse, Inc., November, 1953.
Interviews
Baxter, Frank C. Two taped interviews included in the
Appendix of this study; and various conversations
in his office at The University of Southern Cali
fornia and at his home, 1958-1964.
Alcine, William, Director of "Shakespeare on TV." Personal
interviews in his office at Columbia Broadcasting
Company, July 10, 1963, and August 1, 1963.
502
Schapsmeier, Frederick, Visiting Assistant Professor,
Department of History, University of Southern Cali
fornia, November 18, 1964. Personal interview in
Los Angeles.
Shaffer, William, American Research Bureau representative.
Personal interview in his office in Los Angeles,
California, July 15, 1963.
Smith, Maynard, Administrative Head, Evening Division,
Department of Cinema, The University of Southern
California. Personal interview in Los Angeles, Jan
uary 10, 1965.
Templeman, William D., Chairman of the Department of
English, The University of Southern California.
Personal interview in his office, Los Angeles,
June 2, 1963.
Miscellaneous
Baxter, Frank C. Collection of personal scrapbooks.
Dunniway, Willis S. "News Bureau Release on Dr. Frank C.
Baxter," News Bureau, University of Southern Cali
fornia, December, 1960. (Mimeographed.)
Richards, Gale L. , Associate Professor of Speech, The Uni
versity of Southern California. Pencil notes regard
ing Baxter's philosophy of speech, n.d.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Healy, John Lovejoy (author)

Core Title A Critical Study Of Frank C. Baxter'S 'Shakespeare On Tv'

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Speech

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Dickens, Milton (committee chair), Matthews, John (committee member), Richards, Gale L. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-172664

Unique identifier UC11359237

Identifier 6509977.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-172664 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6509977.pdf

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Document Type Dissertation

Rights Healy, John Lovejoy

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Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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