"I understand a fury in your words, / But not the words."

Why is there so much rage in the world? Since I started making this podcast I have forced myself back to social media, in case you’re wondering why I reached that earth shattering conclusion. I left because I’d been wondering why my mental health seemed to have been deteriorating slightly and as soon as I stopped, it got better. Simplest experiment ever undertaken.

Anyway I came back to facebook because they have millions of fans following several Shakespeare pages and I thought ‘these are my people’, not realising that I’d still be getting the feed from friends I used to follow three years ago. And you know what? They’re still posting exactly the same enraging stuff they were posting back then.

Every now and then some new invention comes along that brings deep disorder to the world. It took around 10 years for the iPhone to revolutionise our lives, and turn us all into a giant universe of hunched miniature screen starers. Things moved a little slower in Shakespeare’s time but around a hundred years after Johannes Gutenberg had invented the printing press in 1440 it began to disrupt… well, everything. Like Steve Jobs the man was revered and reviled in equal measure.

There was no shortage of rage in Shakespeare’s time. And boy did that man know how to write it in a scene.

In this episode I look at the many aspects of rage and how Shakespeare shows it in the plays. There’s the performative rage of Henry V, proving that rage isn’t necessarily a moment of spontaneous fury, you can learn to switch it on in a moment. There’s nothing performative about Coriolanus. This man is a simmering cauldron of indignation, but it’s okay because that’s exactly what is needed for his chosen profession of soldier. His character trait that’s perfectly admirable in war isn’t quite such an asset in a politician.

But this episode isn’t all about kings and leaders. What about us. Like Coriolanus, we learn a lot about who we become from the actions of our parents.

There are many more ways in which rage can be triggered. So many possibilities out there. Whatever flips your switch, it’s almost always something that is caused by factors over which you no longer have any control. Or maybe you always had control and never realised until you lost it, possibly on account of your own stupid actions, you damn fool.

That’s you, King Lear, and also, if I admit it, me too. How? Listen on…

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