Season 1 Extra, Episode C | The Bard's Blueprint: Shakespeare and the Foundation of American Governance

How can the words of a 16th-century playwright possibly hold the key to understanding American governance today? The answer may lie in the very heart of classical education—a time-tested foundation for thoughtful leadership and civic responsibility. Shakespeare’s plays, brimming with powerful depictions of power, virtue, and moral conflict, weren’t just created to entertain; they were crafted to challenge the mind and educate the soul.

In this episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon sits down with Dr. Carol McNamara, the director of the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education, to unravel the profound connections between Shakespeare’s works and the values that shaped our nation. Together, they explore how classical education, particularly through literature like Shakespeare’s, illuminates the role of governance, virtue, and civic engagement in a thriving democracy. Dr. McNamara reveals how Shakespeare’s exploration of political regimes, from absolute monarchy to the Roman Republic, sheds light on the complexities of leadership, while also emphasizing the importance of an informed citizenry.

Could it be that by revisiting the classics, we find the very principles that can guide us toward better governance? Tune in to discover how the timeless wisdom of Shakespeare and classical education can shape the leaders of tomorrow, and why it’s more relevant than ever in understanding our civic duties today.

In This Episode

• (00:40) Introduction to Dr. Carol McNamara
• (00:59) Overview of the Great Hearts Institute
• (02:40) Expansion of classical charter schools
• (04:04) Importance of a holistic education
• (06:18) Formation of character in education
• (07:35) Integration of knowledge disciplines
• (08:55) Adaptability in education
• (10:15) Shakespeare's political project
• (12:43) Exploring alternative regimes in Shakespeare
• (15:18) Commercial republic and difference
• (16:44) The civilizational struggle
• (17:46) Shakespeare's perspective on regimes
• (18:20) Shakespeare's exploration of tyranny
• (18:50) Mixed regimes in Shakespeare's works
• (21:04) Historical context of Coriolanus
• (22:10) Coriolanus and political tragedy
• (24:02) Lincoln's appreciation for Shakespeare
• (26:34) The role of ordinary citizens in Much Ado About Nothing
• (27:49) Shakespeare's unique talent
• (29:50) Ordinary life and comic potential
• (31:47) Closing remarks

Notable Quotes

• [03:52] "I think the demand for classical education is only going to grow as parents demand better education, better discussion, better study of books for their children." — Dr. Carol McNamara

• [05:19] "Classical education is about the formation of the human person, involving the education of the mind through the study of ideas, literature, and moral philosophy, but also the formation of human character." — Dr. Carol McNamara

• [18:20] "Everybody wants to claim Shakespeare as their own, but for me, what matters are the plays and the arguments in the plays." — Dr. Carol McNamara

• [20:56] "He wants us to realize that politics always comes back, that we always have to pay attention to the demands of politics." — Dr. Carol McNamara

• [28:53] "Shakespeare wants to say that ordinary life sorts itself out in a way that doesn't have to be tragic; we can just choose to live well and be happy." — Dr. Carol McNamara

Our Guest

Dr. Carol McNamara is the Director of the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education, where she leads initiatives to renew classical education. Previously, she held key roles at Arizona State University, including Senior Director at the Center for Constit

Transcript

Intro: [00:00:00-00:00:37]

We the people, we the people, we the people do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 

Matthew Brogdon: [00:00:37-00:00:59]

Welcome to This Constitution. I'm Matthew Brogdon, and I'm joined today by a very special guest. I've got Dr. Carol McNamara with me, who is the director of the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education. Carol, welcome to This Constitution. Tell us a little bit about the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education and what you all do.

Carol McNamara: [00:00:59-00:01:58]

Well, the Great Hearts Institute for Classical Education is essentially a think tank dedicated to the study and discussion of classical education. We gather close to 800 people every year at our national symposium to talk about classical education, run workshops on pedagogy and curriculum, and bring in speakers who address the big ideas at the heart of classical education.

This year, our keynote speaker is Matthew Crawford, the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft, which discusses the importance of manual competence in education and classical learning. We aim to provide a big-tent event where everyone can gather and discuss the importance of improving K-12 education through a renaissance of the study of great books and classical education.

Matthew Brogdon:[00:01:58-00:02:40]

And you're connected to a system of charter schools that started in Arizona. Of course, you're at the Great Hearts Institute in Phoenix, right? There's such a concentration of great resources there. The School for Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, which is a great partner and peer to the Center for Constitutional Studies, is there at ASU. You were there at the foundation of SCETL, as we call it, right? And now you've moved over to Great Hearts. Phoenix has been ground zero for the expansion of the classical charter school movement, which has gained significant traction. I know it's strong in Arizona and Texas. Are there additional states where Great Hearts has expanded?

Carol McNamara: [00:02:40-00:04:04]

Great Hearts Academy started about 22 years ago and was really at the foundation of the classical charter school movement, providing a classical education that begins with Frog and Toad and Aesop's Fables and goes all the way through the Socratic dialogues, the American founding, and The Brothers Karamazov in their senior year. Students are led through the Socratic method, taught how to study great books, whole novels, and works of history. There was a big demand for this kind of education even 22 years ago, and now, especially since COVID, there's a growing demand for excellence and the classics in K-12 education.

Great Hearts started by creating this classical charter public school system in Arizona. It has expanded extensively in Texas, and now we have schools in Louisiana, in Baton Rouge. We have a K-5 school that's expanding into a 6-12 school as well. The sky's the limit. I think the demand for classical education is only going to grow as parents demand better education, better discussion, and better study of books for their children.

Matthew Brogdon:[00:04:04-00:05:19]

Sometimes we focus a lot on skills-based education. There's a lot of demand to educate students in specific skills oriented toward careers. For a while, American education, especially public education, gave short shrift to the reading of good books, the reading of an intellectual tradition that we've inherited—literature, moral philosophy, theology, art, architecture—and how these things create a civilization that supports something greater.

I often tell people that we have a capital "C" Constitution, a form of government that we adhere to, but that Constitution can only endure because it's supported by a small "c" civic constitution—part of our culture that sustains it. The Constitution can't create a culture or a civilization. It assumes that we already have a civilization committed to certain principles, values, and shared ideas that give us a basis for living together.

Carol McNamara: [00:05:19-00:06:35] ]

Classical education is about the formation of the human person. It involves educating the mind through the study of ideas, literature, and moral philosophy, as you just mentioned. But it also includes teaching students how to understand the natural world through science, how to count, and how to observe nature. The study of ideas across the curriculum is the aim of classical education.

In addition to the formation of the mind, classical education also focuses on the formation of character. What makes a good person? What does it mean to be formed with ideas of virtue, civic virtue, and human virtue? These are all topics that students at Great Hearts schools study and discuss in their humane letters seminars, for example.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:06:35-00:07:55]

We tend to segment the pursuit of knowledge, especially in higher education, but it pervades primary and secondary education as well. We divide knowledge into disciplines—science, humanities, art—as though they are entirely distinct endeavors. Classical education reminds us that these are all ways of understanding what human beings are, how to live a good life, and how we relate to the world around us.

Classical schools are known for their tripartite pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness—words we don't typically hear in discussions about undergraduate education or modern educational systems. This holistic approach seems immensely valuable.

Carol McNamara: [00:07:55-00:09:02]

It's interesting because when I talk to parents, they are concerned about their students graduating with marketable skills. But if you look at the tech industry, that's already starting to change. In tech or IT, you always have to be adaptable. The best way to become an adaptable learner is through a liberal education—an education that exposes you to great ideas, the Western tradition, and the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. This kind of education teaches you how to learn, how to discuss, and how to understand how the world works and how we govern ourselves in American democracy. It forms not only American citizens but also the leaders that American democracy needs for the future.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:09:02-00:10:15]

That's a great point and brings us to something I want to talk about specifically. Classical education, and your own scholarship, puts together the study of government—a very practical art—with literature. These pursuits, often seen as distinct, are not so separate. Your scholarship focuses on Shakespeare, so I thought it would be great to have a conversation about how reading Shakespeare can inform our understanding of good government and help us navigate politics.

We primarily think of Shakespeare as a writer of literature, but your work suggests that Shakespeare was involved in a political project. Could you tell us a little about Shakespeare's political project? What was he up to?

Carol McNamara:[00:10:15-00:12:44]

It's an interesting question because we read Shakespeare for the beauty of his language, his poetry, and his stories about love. But it's also important to see that Shakespeare had a political project. He lived in England under an absolute monarchy and observed the instability of that institution. If absolute monarchy is unstable, how should we govern human beings? This seems to be Shakespeare's political project.

In the English history plays, Shakespeare studies the instability of the British monarchy. For example, in Richard II, the monarchy is based on divine right, but we see how easily it can be overthrown. By the time we get to Henry V, Shakespeare presents Henry as perhaps the apex of the British monarchy. Henry prepares himself through a careful education, lives among the people, and becomes a great king. But even he succumbs to dysentery five years later, leaving an infant son on the throne. This demonstrates the unpredictability and instability of monarchy.

Shakespeare explores alternative regimes—republics, empires, and different forms of government. For example, in The Merchant of Venice, he examines a commercial republic in Venice. Shakespeare's political project is the quest to study different ways people govern themselves and whether these alternatives are viable for England and humanity.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:12:44-00:13:16] 

What are some of the alternatives Shakespeare explores? You mentioned Venice. He also spends a lot of time with Rome. Most people are familiar with Mark Antony's speech from Julius Caesar: "Friends, Romans, countrymen." Shakespeare writes extensively about Rome and Italian city-states. Could you pick one and help us understand how Shakespeare uses these counterexamples to think about better forms of government than absolute monarchy?

Carol McNamara: [00:13:16-00:15:57]

Well, you're right. He does look to the ancients for examples, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, which is a play we often go to see. It has the form of a modern-day romantic comedy. He explores the idea of a mixed regime, a mixed political organization where you have a leader and bring in the people—both the commoners and the nobles—and you arrange them in a way that they can live together peacefully under a regime that is not an unstable monarchy.

That's one example of him exploring how to put together the different parts of the city into one political society that can live together more or less peacefully. Another example is his study of what you just referred to, the commercial republic in Venice, which claims to be a regime that transcends politics.

In The Merchant of Venice, his most controversial comedy, it doesn't seem like a comedy in the end. No one dies, but through The Merchant of Venice and Othello, he's looking at the ways in which a commercial republic can address the problem of difference.

In Othello, you have a military man who is a Moor. How can he fit into the commercial republican regime? Or in The Merchant of Venice, of course, you have Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. How can the regime accommodate this kind of person? And, as it turns out from the way these plays end—with Shylock being compelled to convert to Christianity or Othello's unfortunate demise—it seems that these plays suggest that such a regime can't truly accommodate difference.

So, in a way, you could say that Shakespeare might have been very interested in the American experiment, where we try very hard and, for the most part, have succeeded in accommodating and adapting to differences, including them in a way that prizes toleration. Mm hmm. Sometimes, lately, we've been despairing over whether we can overcome our polarization, but I think it’s hard to find another way of life or political experiment that has been as successful as the American one.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:15:57-00:18:16]

You know, that's a great point. We sometimes forget how contingent and uncertain the whole American enterprise has been, especially with a diverse—especially a religiously diverse—political society. Of course, we’ve struggled mightily with race in American political history, but there have been examples of regimes living with racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity.

Religious difference has been such a pervasive problem, especially in the world of the Founders. They, like Shakespeare, would have been looking at the experience of the Mediterranean world, which, coming out of the Middle Ages, was rife with conflict between Muslims, as the term used in Othello—Moors, to describe Othello—and Muslims rooted in North Africa and the Middle East, stretching over into what we now call Eastern Europe. These groups fought wars of conquest in southern Europe for a time, ruling Spain and much of Italy. And then, there was a civilizational struggle between Islam and Christianity in many of those places. Of course, Jews were often caught in the middle, just as Shylock is.

Then, on top of that, we had the Protestant Reformation sometime around the 1500s and 1600s. Christianity itself became internally divided, which led to further divisiveness. So, we have Shakespeare looking at the experience of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Mediterranean world, while the Founders were looking back at the experience of the Protestant Reformation.

The solution to much of this seemed to be for the regime to “pick one.” For example, Spain would have a Catholic regime, while the Netherlands would have a Protestant one. Does Shakespeare find any hope, I guess, for solving that problem? I mean, he doesn't have the benefit of being able to look forward at the American founding, but does he give us any ground for hope that you can build some kind of political order that would solve that problem?

Now, he himself sort of knows this. He lives in a Protestant country, and his wife is Catholic, right? Is he married to a Catholic? Is that Shakespeare's story? Or maybe it's that people sometimes argue that he was perhaps a closet Catholic.

Carol McNamara: [00:18:16-00:21:04]

There are debates around that, so maybe there's a personal struggle there too.

Everybody wants to claim Shakespeare as their own, and for me, none of that entirely matters because what matters are the plays and the arguments in the plays. I'm not sure we could say that Shakespeare settles on one particular kind of regime because I think he explores all of them.

I think he rejects, if we read Macbeth, we see that he rejects tyranny, for example. Lincoln said that Macbeth was the best play as far as he was concerned because it explored ambition—the tendency toward the desire to rule and how it can go wrong. It’s instructive for anyone in possession of ambition. And we know Lincoln was ambitious.

But I think there are plays where Shakespeare seems to think there might be more of a solution. I think A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which seems to be one of the lightest of Shakespeare's plays, actually provides this notion of a mixed regime, where you balance the different parts of the city.

I think Shakespeare explores that through his Roman plays as well. He seems to be a fan of the Roman Republic and the turmoil, the give and take between the citizens who begin the play and the aristocrats. He demonstrates through Coriolanus the remarkable adaptability of the Roman Senate, their ability to give the people just what they need to keep the regime stable.

But we know that Coriolanus and political ambition are present, and we wonder how long that can endure. He takes us through Julius Caesar and all the way through to Antony and Cleopatra and the establishment of Augustus as emperor. We know Shakespeare understands that regimes change, and there’s a cycle of regimes. So even if he hopes for a stable regime, like the Athenian Republican democracy—this mixed regime—he knows that these things tend to change. They are affected by the humans in charge and by circumstances. But he does seem to favor a regime that is subject more to the rule of law than to individuals, unless, of course, it's Prospero and you have a philosopher-king.

But even there, with Prospero as the Duke of Milan, he wants us to realize that politics always comes back. We always have to pay attention to the demands of politics.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:21:04-00:21:21]

So, whenever he looks to the ancients like Rome, you cited Coriolanus, then Julius Caesar, and then Antony and Cleopatra and Augustus.

And to give that context, Coriolanus is deep into the history of the Roman Republic—Republican Rome, where there are no kings.

Carol McNamara: [00:21:21-00:21:41]

In fact, they had just—what’s at the heart or the foundation that Shakespeare doesn’t talk about in Coriolanus, but we know, is that they’ve just expelled the Tarquin kings. So what unites the people and the nobles is their opposition to kingship. And at that moment, that memory is still very fresh for them.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:21:41-00:21:48]

And in that moment, Coriolanus himself is a Republican hero. He had been a soldier, right?

Carol McNamara: [00:21:48-00:21:53]

He is a soldier. He is the soldier. They need him. It’s a dangerous neighborhood.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:21:53-00:22:10]

That’s right, but it’s a tragedy. It doesn’t turn out well. Why? Because Coriolanus winds up... But, you know, he’s this great Roman hero, and he’s part of the Republic. But if I remember the play correctly, he winds up betraying Rome...

Carol McNamara: [00:22:10-00:22:11]

Somehow.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:22:10-00:22:10]

So...

Carol McNamara: [00:22:11-00:24:02]

This is the genius of Shakespeare—to show us the tensions in every regime.

So Rome is a Republic, and there’s the balance that I was just discussing between the citizens and the senators. The first scene in Coriolanus is a conversation between citizens. They’re the first characters we see in the play, and Menenius, who is one of the senators, is willing to go out and talk among the people. He tells them this long, long story, and they keep saying, “Can’t you finish your story already?” But it’s a story that’s meant to calm the passions of the people and engage them in a conversation.

And the problem of Rome is the problem of Coriolanus. Coriolanus is a soldier. He’s what we would call a noble and good man, except that he doesn’t know, as Menenius does, how to converse with the people. He doesn’t have that characteristic of condescension. Condescension, in the good sense, which means that you know how to converse with those who are not quite on the same level, but maybe who have the same ideas, the same idea of nobility.

And so Coriolanus is unwilling to give the people what they need in order to maintain the equilibrium in the Roman Republic. Rome needs Coriolanus to defend it. It needs noble and valiant soldiers like Coriolanus to defend it, but it also needs the Coriolanuses of the world to understand the necessity of prudence and prudential interaction with the common people to keep that balance sustainable.

And the tragedy of Coriolanus is his inability to interact with and to know how to converse prudently with the people and to lead the people.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:24:02-00:25:31]

So I’m reminded—you mentioned that Lincoln loved Shakespeare’s plays and would have read... we know he read Julius Caesar and Saul performed Macbeth and Hamlet, and so forth. I was recently rereading a biography of George Washington and was reminded that his favorite pastime was attending the theater, right? As well. And loved Shakespearean plays. He was a great gentleman, too. Even though he did not get a liberal education, he didn’t get to go to a classical school, he did imbibe a great deal from the theater, including Shakespearean theater, about this.

And so perhaps learning how bad political leadership or poor forms of government end in tragedy was a very useful experiment. And of course, the great joke with all the Roman plays is that, you know, Julius Caesar, which everyone’s familiar with, almost everyone dies either by assassination or suicide. Seems like things are not going well with Rome, even though it is the great example for so much of the American founding. They love Plutarch, they love Livy, they love these histories of Roman Republican heroes.

Whenever we have the ratification debates, they all adopt pen names like Brutus, Publius, and Cato, which all appeal to this. But you mentioned the commercial Republican Venice. I was reminded, too, of course, Much Ado About Nothing, which most people have probably seen, one of the theatrical versions or one of the cinematic versions of this, you know, like Kenneth Branagh’s version.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:25:33-00:25:45]

And there, you don’t seem to have much in the way of politics at all. I mean, there’s a Duke, there are various public officials. There’s really a bit of a doofus of a police officer, right?

Carol McNamara: [00:25:45-00:25:47]

Right. There’s always a comic character.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:25:48-00:25:50]

Yes. There’s always a comic character. Even in...

Carol McNamara: [00:25:50-00:25:57]

Macbeth, there’s a porter who’s a little drunk, right? There’s a moment of levity.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:25:57-00:26:49]

Sure. So there’s comedy or humor in every regime, even in the midst of tragedy, in a way.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:26:03]

But I’m reminded of Much Ado About Nothing because it’s actually the people who solve the problem in that play, which has a whole problem with, you know, a bit of a plot and a great deal of division. There could be a lot of bloodshed in this play, right? I mean, it could be Romeo and Juliet. It could be Julius Caesar. But instead, you wind up having a priest and a barely competent police officer who solve the problem, which tells us a little bit about Shakespeare’s view of Republican life. Maybe just having a healthy city with healthy families and a healthy civic life, and sort of people just doing their job like Dogberry, this goofball of a police officer, might actually result in things turning out okay.

Carol McNamara: [00:26:49-00:29:50]

Well, I think that what you’re pointing to is so... It’s really interesting to consider that most playwrights are either comic playwrights, like Aristophanes, or they’re tragic playwrights, like Sophocles, for example. But very few, in fact, almost none, are successful except for Shakespeare in writing great comedy and great tragedy. Shakespeare is elevated above everyone in his talent to write great plays in both genres.

And I think that it’s fair to say that Shakespeare... the difference, if you take A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example, and Romeo and Juliet, these are plays that Shakespeare companies often perform one beside the other. For example, even the Utah Shakespeare company did that in Cedar City just a couple of years ago.

And they’re both plays about young lovers. And there’s a dedication to one another, but one is a comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the other is a terrible tragedy. What separates them? How are they different? In Romeo and Juliet, you have two very young lovers, and yes, there’s the sort of inappropriate interference of the priest that sort of leads them astray.

But one of the things that distinguishes them is that it’s one, it’s Romeo or bust, it’s Juliet or bust. There’s no alternative. There’s no time in which they’re distracted from one another. And so there’s only one ending, and they understand themselves as being dedicated to their love, whether it’s on earth or beyond, and nothing else will do.

Well, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you have four lovers, and there’s tragic potential at the beginning. I mean, Hermia has to decide whether she’s going to marry the man her father chooses for her or the man she loves. And so they escape into the forest, and you have these four lovers who are all mixed up, and, you know, there’s this fairy kingdom that gets involved, they get sort of traded among them. At the end, most people who go to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream couldn’t even keep the lovers straight. But in the end, the conclusion is that they each have a pair, and they’re each satisfied.

And I think you’re right that somehow Shakespeare wants to say that ordinary life sorts itself out in a way that doesn’t have to be tragic. We can just choose to live well. We can just choose to be happy, and we don’t have to have these terrible tragic endings. Tragedy is cathartic and satisfying in some ways, but comedy is the stuff of ordinary life, and Shakespeare sort of points us towards that kind of potential in our lives every day. We can choose to be happy. We don’t have to pose for ourselves these ultimate endings that end in tragedy and hate and terror and all these kinds of endings.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:29:50-00:30:59]

I’m so glad you brought that back to the sort of ordinary life perspective, because maybe that’s the connection to something like the American founding. Maybe that’s what’s so inspiring about Shakespeare—reading him as Americans and from the perspective of the American founding or the great statesmen of our early republic—was sort of setting up the priorities as healthy politics that protects human flourishing. It creates a space where people can live out the most important parts of life, which are not engagement in politics. They’re actually doing all the other activities of life.

And our political obligations come from a need to participate in a political order that protects all of those private endeavors that people have—those associations that are not simply about political power, but they’re about other things that human beings want to secure. And maybe protecting ordinary life is really the most important object of a healthy constitution. Maybe that’s what we figured out. And the point.

Carol McNamara: [00:30:59-00:31:43]

The point of classical education is to provide that realm in which we can pursue the richness of ideas through literature, through the study of history, in a way that informs human life and gives us examples about what we could do, what we could not do, and what we should not do. Examples to emulate that we read about through literature, and the negative examples we should avoid. Classical education explores all of those examples, all of those ideas, and teaches us how to navigate life through the study of those comprehensive texts that help us form ourselves into thoughtful, serious citizens and future leaders.

Matthew Brogdon: [00:31:43]

Well, thank you for joining us today, Carol. It’s been such a pleasure to chat with you about this, talk about Shakespeare, civic education, and look forward to seeing more of your work on this.

Carol McNamara: [00:31:54]

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Outro:

We’re just beginning to explore the rich legacy of America’s Constitution. If today’s discussion deepened your understanding, share this episode with a friend or student and subscribe to continue learning with us. For more insights and exclusive content, visit uvu.edu/CCS. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to exploring more with you on This Constitution, brought to you by the UVU Center for Constitutional Studies, home to Utah’s Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative.