In a 1930 speech given at Amherst College Robert Frost advocated for "education by poetry" for, as he says, "education by poetry is education by metaphor." Poetry, Frost says, not only expands our mental vocabulary but further gives that language credibility by imposing on it boundaries, by instructing us on just how far our comparisons can go. Were Beth Kressel more familiar with Frost's argument perhaps she would not have used the greatest of all poets, William Shakespeare, as a means to compare former King Henry V with current President George W. Bush.
That both he and King Henry rose from youthful indiscretion to the height of political power would no doubt please President Bush in the comparison. That Prince Hal tried on the king's crown while his father lie dying would probably suit Bush much less. That Prince Hal once punched a very old man almost certainly would please Bush not at all.
Henry's battles at Agincourt were in the service of conquest — indeed, Henry thought he had rights to the French throne and set out to claim what he saw as his birthright — whereas Bush's battles at Kabul are ostensibly in the service of defense. America in 2001, unlike England in 1415, unfortunately didn't have the advantage of staging the first offensive.
After Henry disguised himself as a soldier to find out how his troops truly felt about the upcoming battle, as dissention grew in the ranks, he famously wished for not "one man more" to steal the glory from "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." After the World Trade Center was attacked, as citizens wondered if there were other targets, Bush famously disappeared from sight. Looking out for "we few" became looking out for number 1 as Bush, unlike Henry, could not embrace the dual aspect of his post, could not see his life as far less important than the office it represented.
In the months since September 11 many find the most comfort from comparisons to past events: "The attack on New York was like the attack on
Pearl Harbor," "The Taliban is like the Mafia," "President Bush is like Henry V." We are comforted by the words we choose and, yet, are angry at the inadequacy of these words to describe our true feelings. Our metaphors, it seems, can only go so far. Ms. Kressel invites us to recall Shakespeare's assertion that "All the world's a stage." If so, we must be careful to use our dialog wisely or we risk rendering even our most meaningful descriptions, as Shakespeare adds, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Shawn Adler is a Rutgers College junior majoring in English and psychology.
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