For the Love of Roseanne Cash and William Shakespeare

Remember this classic from one year ago?

Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear.

— rosanne cash (@rosannecash) March 14, 2020

Roseanne Cash

I wasn’t the only one to retweet this well-meaning but deeply misguided message. It got rapid traction, as artistic souls sought to remain optimistic diving into a quarantine we thought might last weeks. Almost immediately, Cash got pushback from netroots scolds accusing her of shaming anybody who couldn’t knuckle down. In that beloved interwebs tradition, a single tweet spiraled into massive contention.

One year later, who proved right? I ask, knowing that, in the last twelve months, my attention span has dwindled so much that I have difficulty sticking with one-hour TV dramas, much less reading and writing. These tasks, once easy for me, have become laborious; even writing and editing this blog essay has felt gruelling. Superficially, I feel inclined to blame myself for having accomplished little this year.

Thinking about it, though, I realize Roseanne Cash and I have made a fundamental attribution error. Shakespeare didn’t write King Lear during lockdown because everything was locked down; he wrote it because he was William Shakespeare. That may seem oblique, so follow me.

Cash, and by extension I, assume we all could be Shakespeare. We assumedly could shake off the circumstances in which we exist, immune to pressures like family and economy. But Shakespeare didn’t write in a vacuum. King Lear probably debuted in 1606; Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre became the official royal company, the King’s Men, in 1603. While writing King Lear, Shakespeare was part of the royal household.

Centuries of literature teachers tacitly presumed Shakespeare wrote for the sheer moral pleasure of writing. We’ve learned to assume that Shakespeare didn’t write for money, that he didn’t have rent or groceries, that he lived in a glassed-in world of pure art. Roseanne Cash, daughter of a country music legend, maybe assumes everyone has that same freedom, and could hypothetically just be free by thinking it. Maybe she doesn’t realize not everyone can.

These presumptions are, partially, economic. I don’t want to get quasi-Marxist, but Roseanne Cash has never lacked a safety net. She’s certainly had pressures: she has children, and house payments, and her own career. But I question whether she’s ever needed to see art, and the time required to create art, as a commodity. That is, has she ever needed to see art, and time, as scarce resources we purchase by trading away other opportunities?

William Shakespeare

Don’t mistake me, I don’t resent Cash the liberty to take pleasure in her work. Our go-go economic structure denies many people that liberty. We should aspire to, not resent, Cash’s ability to take pleasure in her work. Too many hard-working citizens today lack liberty to worry about nothing, go to museums and concerts, and enjoy their families. The world should have more, not fewer, Roseanne Cashes in it.

My point is, art arises from its context. Shakespeare wrote to get paid, because Tudor-Stuart theatre was a lucrative business. Groundlings didn’t do theatre as high art; Shakespeare made his living as a producer, and wrote so his company would have content. King Lear was a growth industry, the Marvel Cinematic Universe of its day. That matters, because our bodies and brains adapt to the stimuli we give them.

Working in the factory, I initially struggled. Assembly line work involves strenuous multi-part operations which only seem straightforward. But over months and years, tasks formerly difficult and painful became second nature; my brain adapted to assembly-line stimuli. Teachers make teaching look easy because they’ve spent years teaching. Same with carpenters, comedians, and chefs. Their brains and bodies have adapted to the stimuli.

The defining stimulus of quarantine-era America is hard work for vague, distant reward. Those like me, privileged to avoid furloughs, adapt to returning home knowing we’re stuck inside. No concerts, theatre, museums, or art. Others don’t even receive the reprieve of work, trapped with the unchanging stimuli of households, screen time, and ennui. Because we lack expectation of reward other than not dying, our brains lose significant creative ability.

Shakespeare wrote King Lear during lockdown, and Roseanne Cash probably wrote some damned fine songs, because their circumstances rewarded such productivity. Most of us don’t have that. We’re doing okay to keep our utilities paid and kids alive. And we’ve adapted to that, in ways capitalist enthusiasm can’t account for. For months, I reprimanded myself for this, because ingrained capitalist morality insisted I had to.

Therefore the question I have to ask myself is: what stimuli am I allowing into quarantine? And how can I improve them?