Shakespeare and the Naval Academy

Forget Denmark. Once again, something may be rotten in Annapolis — or at least amiss. I say “once again” because I have previously written about the plight of Naval Academy Professor Bruce Fleming. He is enjoying an indefinite, paid sabbatical at taxpayer expense. (“Firing back with some follow up,” May 28, 2021; “Unexplained exit of Naval Academy Critic,” Sep. 23, 2018) I now have it on reliable authority that the academy’s English Department is considering scrapping their required course in Shakespeare for the English major.

I’m predicting heavy seas ahead for that English Department. But an adequate understanding of why the English faculty may be hazarding their vessel will require a brief review of the military-civil relation at USNA and an oversimplified course in contemporary literary criticism.

The Naval Academy is unique among the three major federal service academies. It has a predominantly civilian faculty. This works well in the engineering and science departments. The English Department, however, has long had a fraught relationship with the military hierarchy. Major literary works tend to encourage questioning authority and received truth. And the Naval Academy is nothing if not an authoritarian, hierarchical institution. The kind of young person who thrives in that environment, moreover, is one respects and doesn’t question authority — so much so that he or she tends to be intolerant of those who do question. A smug sense of superiority over other countries and culture is also prevalent at the Naval Academy. When I taught there, a midshipman complained to the administration that a civilian colleague’s world literature reading list was “inconsistent with Naval Academy values.”

Now on to Shakespeare and literary criticism. From the Naval Academy, I went on to a state college. A young faculty member there once remarked that “We fetishize Shakespeare.” I emphasize “young” because he was tuned in to a mode of au courant literary criticism that focuses on — i.e., “deconstructs” — how traditional works of literature reflect the structures and preconceptions that serve the purposes of those in power. The liberal idealogues in today’s English departments also tend to reject what they term an “empty aestheticism.” They scorn works that are artful but lack a serious and politically correct purpose. They extol works that express and illustrate how far short of our ideals we fall. Minority voices are especially favored. (More about that anon.) It is also fashionable to deny that there is anything such as a universal human condition. They believe that everything we think, do, and feel is conditioned by the structures of those in power in any given society. It’s all about politics — not truth and beauty.

As for me, I earned my PhD in a traditional English department committed to appreciating literary works on their own terms. We focused on what writers have to say and how well they say it.

Still, that young colleague of mine did have a point. We shouldn’t scorn contemporary voices because they don’t measure up in scope or aestheticism to Shakespeare’s works. But we shouldn’t discard Shakespeare either. It has been said that, next to God, Shakespeare created our world. More than any other figure in English literature, he encompassed the scope and dilemmas of human existence. And he did so artfully, managing to appeal to popular and high-brow audiences.

I suspect the newer members of the academy’s English Department want to make room for more contemporary voices. Some our most brilliant writers today, however, do dwell on what’s wrong with America. Remember the colleague I mentioned above, whose reading list was called into question? That, and how Bruce Fleming became persona non grata, convince me that USNA’s military hierarchy is no more tolerant and open-minded than when I was there. Probably less so now that we live in the Age of Trump. I can foresee a steady stream of midshipmen complaining to the administration that their English professors are assigning readings and saying things in class subversive of “Naval Academy values.” Should that come to pass, pity the department chair caught in between the faculty and the military command.

“Why should I care about what’s happening in the Naval Academy’s English Department?” you may be asking yourself. Especially if you have no connection to the academy. There is the obvious answer: As a taxpayer, you’re helping to fund what goes on there. But, as a famous Annapolis graduate, the late Admiral James Stockdale acknowledged, what got him through over seven years as a POW in Vietnam was not USNA’s engineering curriculum or his evasion and survival training. It was what he learned of philosophy and literature throughout a two-year sabbatical from his Naval career at Stanford University. What he learned there enabled him to remain stoical and to hold firm to his moral principles — unlike so many of the tragic figures he had read about in literature and history.

Obviously, Stockdale was an officer after my own heart. As I’ve written in the past — and it bears repeating — America needs military officers whose mental and moral horizons transcend the institutions they serve. The best way to instill that is to give officer candidates an adequate grounding in the humanities.

For my part, I would have all Naval Academy midshipmen--not just the English majors--read, discuss, and really think about a few of Shakespeare’s tragedies. “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” and “King Lear” in particular come to mind. They provoke serious thought about the consequences of unwise, unethical, and self-serving leadership.

This is not to say the English faculty at USNA should exclude contemporary and marginalized writers from the curriculum. All officers need an open-minded understanding of the society they’re charged with protecting and the young people they will lead. But, as Stockdale’s experience epitomized, the literary and philosophical works that have stood the test of time, and which focus on the perennial problems of the human condition, are more likely to foster resilience in the face of extreme adversity.

Contact Ed Palm at majorpalm@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Ed Palm: Shakespeare and the Naval Academy