Reading, writing, and thinking about reading and writing have helped me learn to move through the world, to survive, and most importantly, to love.
The usefulness of reading, writing, and thinking about reading and writing are probably why I became an English major. And then an English teacher. And then an English Education professor. Learning to love is what matters to me about the discipline of English.
Thinking about the Act 3, Scene 4 of Hamlet has helped me learn how to love.
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My favorite lines of dialogue from Hamlet are in Act 3, Scene 4.
Hamlet has finally confronted his mother after accidentally killing stupid Polonius. Things in Elsinore are falling apart fast. Hamlet should probably flee. Instead, Hamlet sits his mother down and tells her this:
you shall not budge; You go not till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you.
Hamlet uses words to set up a mirror for his mother. He tells her about the ways she has hurt him and the ways she has hurt herself. She does not like hearing the things Hamlet says. After he is finished, Queen Gertrude tells Hamlet this:
O Hamlet, speak no more: Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct.
This is my favorite exchange in Hamlet because it is about telling the truth no matter what it costs. Love requires truth. So learning to tell the truth is important even if it hurts us to speak it. Learning to hear the truth is important even if it hurts us to hear it.
The truth is that all of us have black and grained spots on our souls. Put differently, all of our souls are dirty. Love requires us to accept the black and grained spots on the souls of others. Love requires us to accept the dirty spots on our own souls and the souls of others. Love requires honesty.
Honesty demands we say and hear things that hurt to say and hear. Hamlet says things that hurt to say and Queen Gertrude hears things that hurt to hear. This is a moment in Hamlet when love is stronger than witchcraft. Something powerful can happen in this moment. Unfortunately, this honesty is fleeting. Queen Gertrude falls back on her fear of the truth, Hamlet is confused in his pursuit of the truth, and witchcraft defeats love as it sometimes does. Death wins.
It makes me sad when witchcraft defeats love. It makes me sad when death defeats life.
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So much of my writing is about trying to say things honestly. As I get older, I’m trying to hear things honestly too, even if it means I have to look at the black and grained spots on my soul. There are many black and grained spots on my soul.
I don’t write about the black and grained spots I see on other people’s souls to hurt them, I do so because love requires me to understand the way that others have treated me, and I’ve decided love is the only thing that matters. God is love and I am challenged to love others as I love myself. Loving others and loving myself requires me to see, accept, and move with the black and grained spots on my soul. My writing, as it gets more honest, is about serving love.
I don’t want things I write or say hurt other people, but holding up mirrors is important if we want to serve love instead of witchcraft. Witchcraft steals, kills, and destroys. Love creates. Love improvises. Love last forever. Nothing else does.
Unlike Queen Gertrude, I choose love instead of witchcraft. Love requires us to see the black and grained spots on our souls. None of us are clean.
I’m learning how to love. My writing helps. My singing helps.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 