Shakespeare on Power

On 11 February 2025 I went to the Bell Shakespeare evening “Shakespeare on Power”.

In 2024 I attended a similar evening run by Peter Evans, Artistic Director of the Bell, about Shakespeare on Violence.  It was excellent.  I particularly remember Peter describing that Shakespeare’s skill at incorporating antithesis in his metaphors.

Unfortunately, this year’s event was the antithesis of last years.  It was 5-person panel that every 5 minutes took a pot shot at either Trump or Dutton; there was a total lack of structure.

For starters there was no definition of Power.  In the Corporate World one expert on Power is Stanford Professor Jeffery Pfeffer.  His definition “Power is simply the ability to get things done the way one wants them to be done” is one of the best.

Even more interesting are Pfeffer’s 7 rules for climbing the ladder of power:

1) Get out of your own way.  Describe yourself positively and disregard any imposter syndrome feelings.

2) Break the rules.  Embrace moral ambiguity, frequently the end will justify the means. Accept that the world is full of imperfect people and ambiguous choices.

3) Show up in a powerful fashion.  Dress well, speak amd act confidently and convince people the opposite can happen.

4) Create a powerful brand.

5) Network relentlessly.  Relentlessly focus on building your power base using flattery when necessary.

6) Use your power.  Eschew popularity contests. To get along you do not need to go along. Leadership is not about winning popularity contests or being the most beloved person in a social organization.

7) Understand that once you have acquired power, what you did to get it will be forgiven, forgotten, or both.

According to Pfeffer people want to believe the world is just and thus if you behave by the rules, you will be rewarded. If you fail to follow the rules bad things will happen.  Unfortunately, this is also not true.  As long as you keep your boss (or bosses) happy, performance really does not matter that much and, by contrast, if you upset them, performance won’t save you, CEOs actually tend to put loyalists in senior positions – regardless of what past incumbents have accomplished.  Of course this is not what CEOs say in their biographies.  They gloss over the power plays they have had to make, overemphasize their positive attributes and leave out the negative qualities and behaviours.  It is not performance but politics that enables you to climb the corporate ladder.

What did Shakespeare think about Power?  Fortunately, one of the world’s leading experts on Shakespeare has written a book on this topic.  Stephen Greenblatt published Tyrant- Shakespeare on Power in 2018.  Greenblatt is the Cogan Professor of Humanities at Harvard and has written 14 books.  How a discussion on Shakespeare in Power could omit reference to this book is beyond me.

Fortunately, our local library had a copy.  The book is short, well written, and filled with creative ideas and analysis.  If you want to understand power it is mandatory reading.  Again and again as Shakespeare describes a situation your mind pops up with a modern equivalent.   What is more fascinating is that Shakespeare did not in his plays describe contemporary events.  To do so would be life threatening.  Instead he wrote about events and lives at least 100 years ago.  Greenblatt call this technique the ‘Oblique Angle/” and how it saved Shakespeare’s life on numerous occasions.

Greenblat begins by stating that Shakespeare grappled his whole life with the question of how it is possible for a whole country with its various institutions can fall into the hands of a tyrant.  “A King rules over willing subjects, a tyrant over unwilling.”  Tyrants govern not for their country but for themselves, they take np account of the public interest but only f their own pleasure.  The question is how do tyrants gain power.

Shakespeare’s first insight is how often those at the centre of power have no idea of what is going on and their views and beliefs are often divorced from reality.  This is particularly if person at the centre of the realm, the King, is weak.  Such is the case in King Henry VI.  The King is an untried youth, well-meaning but naïve.  He is surrounded by nobles who have a thuggish desire for power.

A second insight is how rapidly factions can harden into mortal enemies.  The example Shakespeare uses is the beginning of the Wars of the Roses.  Two powerful noblemen, the Dukes of York and Somerset are quibbling over a fine legal point and are unwilling to compromise.  They appeal to bystanders who prudently decline to decide.  York then says that those who are true born gentlemen pluck a white rose with me.  Somerset counters by picking a red rose.   The bystanders can no longer remain neutral and must choose.  The legal quibble is forgotten and the War of the Roses begins .  Each side has a blind belief to its symbol.

Greenblatt now begins his survey and recounts the stories of the various tyrants that have attempted and sometimes succeeded to the English and Scottish thrones.  The first tyrant he analyses is Richard, the Duke of York.  He decides his objective is to become King and cunningly uses a populist rebel, Jack Cade, to further his aims.   Cade is a true populist and an assertion he made 5 minutes ago will be denied with no qualms and fervent new emotional commitment.  The first item on Cade’s agenda is to destroy the rule of law.  “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Next Cade attacks education and literacy because he believes the educated elite have betrayed the people.  The irony is that these two factors have probably done more to help the poor than any other measure.

Cade begins to achieve his goal of killing the aristocracy.  He aspires to being a rich tyrant and having the right to sleep with all the women he can lay his hands on.   The rising chaos makes the outcome of the struggle for power completely unpredictable.  Richard seizes the moment and invades with an Irish Army.  Hi son and then Richard himself are defeated, captured and killed.

Often the dream of absolute rule is not the goal of a single person but a family affair driven by dynastic ambition.  And it happens here, the Yorkists find a new champion, Richard’s son Edward.  Determined to seize power at any cost he makes secret contact with the French.  Also legitimate current leaders cannot count on popular gratitude or support. So it happens to Henry VI.  Hi son his first killed and then he himself by Richard, Duke of Glouster.

This Richard becomes Richard III, the ultimate tyrant.  Greenblatt systematically analyses his personality in Chapter Four and then other Tyrants in the remaining six chapters.  Again and again he demonstrates the common characteristics: limitless self-regard, law-breaking, pleasure in inflicting pain, narcissism, arrogance, and grotesque sense of entitlement.  The book is well worth reading and every so often you recognise a description fitting a modern politician.

If you understand the Humm/7MTF temperament model, you quickly realise Richard III has very high Hustler/GoGetter and Politician components combined with a very low Normal/Regulator.   This profile is similar to that of President Trump.  On 28 February 2018 I published this blog analysing Trump using the 7MTF.  Does this describe Donald Trump?  The analysis has stood the test of time.  If you want to learn more about the 7MTF just go to my website.