Shakespeare: The Conservative's Mentor

Conservatives are deeply divided about what exactly it is we are meant to be conserving. Some would point to the free market. Others to the U.S. Constitution. Still more would likely argue that we must preserve a certain cultural heritage. All these are, without doubt, vital aspects of Western civilization, and all are under threat today. Conservatives are right to defend them.

But I want to propose a much more specific answer to the question of what we should be conserving—namely, three long narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and 39 plays—the complete works of William Shakespeare. 

I do not mean to say that Shakespeare was a conservative as such, nor, God forbid, a Republican. What I intend to argue is that the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon is the founder of our civilization and that his works remain its beating heart. He did not give us an ideology to spread, but rather held “up a mirror to nature.” Shakespeare, perhaps more than any other author, can help the West recover the reality we have been shunning in these long, revolutionary times.

Sir Roger Scruton once wrote an essay about another world-shaking literary figure, titled “T.S. Eliot as Conservative Mentor.” “Eliot’s life began with a question: the question of modern life and its meaning. His literary work was a long, studious, and sincere attempt to provide an answer,” Scruton wrote. “In the course of this enterprise, Eliot reshaped the English language, changed the forms of English verse, and produced some of the most memorable utterances in our literature.” Conservatives should look to Eliot, he argued, because Eliot provided a model for returning to the transcendent moral order challenged by liberal modernity. His poetry and criticism are signposts out of the Cave in which our culture has languished.

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