{"id":39374,"date":"2025-04-26T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39374"},"modified":"2025-05-20T22:09:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T22:09:49","slug":"i-were-but-little-happy-if-i-could-say-how-much-shakespeares-insights-on-happiness-have-held-up-for-more-than-400-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/i-were-but-little-happy-if-i-could-say-how-much-shakespeares-insights-on-happiness-have-held-up-for-more-than-400-years\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I were but little happy, if I could say how much\u2019: Shakespeare\u2019s insights on happiness have held up for more than 400 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cora Fox<\/a>, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is \u201chappiness\u201d \u2013 and who gets to be happy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2012, the World Happiness Report<\/a> has measured and compared data from 167 countries. The United States currently ranks 24th, between the U.K. and Belize \u2013 its lowest position<\/a> since the report was first issued. But the 2025 edition \u2013 released on March 20, the United Nations\u2019 annual \u201cInternational Day of Happiness<\/a>\u201d \u2013 starts off not with numbers, but with Shakespeare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn this year\u2019s issue, we focus on the impact of caring and sharing on people\u2019s happiness,\u201d the authors explain<\/a>. \u201cLike \u2018mercy\u2019 in Shakespeare\u2019s \u2018Merchant of Venice,\u2019 caring is \u2018twice-blessed\u2019 \u2013 it blesses those who give and those who receive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare\u2019s plays offer many reflections on happiness itself. They are a record of how people in early modern England experienced and thought about joy and satisfaction, and they offer a complex look at just how happiness, like mercy, lives in relationships<\/a> and the caring exchanges between people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to how we might think about happiness in our everyday lives, it is more than the surge of positive feelings after a great meal, or a workout, or even a great date. The experience of emotions is grounded in both the body<\/a> and the mind<\/a>, influenced by human physiology and culture in ways that change depending on time and place. What makes a person happy, therefore, depends on who that person is, as well as where and when they belong \u2013 or don\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happiness has a history. I study emotions and early modern literature<\/a>, so I spend a lot of my time thinking about what Shakespeare has to say about what makes people happy, in his own time and in our own. And also, of course, what makes people unhappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From fortune to joy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"A
Shakespeare\u2019s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Tony Hisgett\/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHappiness\u201d derives from the Old Norse word \u201chap<\/a>,\u201d which meant \u201cfortune\u201d or \u201cluck,\u201d as historians Phil Withington<\/a> and Darrin McMahon<\/a> explain<\/a>. This earlier sense is found throughout Shakespeare\u2019s works. Today, it survives in the modern word \u201chappenstance\u201d and the expression that something is a \u201chappy accident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in modern English usage, \u201chappy\u201d as \u201cfortunate\u201d has been almost entirely replaced by a notion of happiness as \u201cjoy<\/a>,\u201d or the more long-term sense of life satisfaction called \u201cwell-being.\u201d The term \u201cwell-being,\u201d in fact, was introduced into English from the Italian \u201cbenessere\u201d around the time of Shakespeare\u2019s birth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word and the concept of happiness were transforming during Shakespeare\u2019s lifetime, and his use of the word in his plays mingles both senses: \u201cfortunate\u201d and \u201cjoyful.\u201d That transitional ambiguity emphasizes happiness\u2019 origins in ideas about luck and fate, and it reminds readers and playgoers that happiness is a contingent, fragile thing \u2013 something not just individuals, but societies need to carefully cultivate and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, early in \u201cOthello<\/a>,\u201d the Venetian senator Brabantio describes his daughter Desdemona as \u201ctender, fair, and happy \/ So opposite to marriage that she shunned \/ The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation.\u201d Before she elopes with Othello she is \u201chappy\u201d in the sense of \u201cfortunate,\u201d due to her privileged position on the marriage market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the same play, though, Othello reunites with his new wife in Cyprus and describes his feelings of joy using this same term:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026If it were now to die,
\u2018Twere now to be most happy, for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Desdemona responds,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heavens forbid
But that our loves and comforts should increase
Even as our days do grow!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They both understand \u201chappy\u201d to mean not just lucky, but \u201ccontent\u201d and \u201ccomfortable,\u201d a more modern understanding. But they also recognize that their comforts depend on \u201cthe heavens,\u201d and that happiness is enabled by being fortunate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOthello\u201d is a tragedy, so in the end, the couple will not prove \u201chappy\u201d in either sense. The foreign general is tricked into believing his young wife has been unfaithful. He murders her, then takes his own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seeds of jealousy are planted and expertly exploited by Othello\u2019s subordinate, Iago, who catalyzes the racial prejudice and misogyny underlying Venetian values to enact his sinister and cruel revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
James Earl Jones playing the title role and Jill Clayburgh as Desdemona in a 1971 production of \u2018Othello.\u2019 Kathleen Ballard\/Los Angeles Times\/UCLA Library via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Happy insiders and outsiders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOthello\u201d sheds light on happiness\u2019s history \u2013 but also on its politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While happiness is often upheld as a common good, it is also dependent on cultural forces that make it harder for some individuals to experience. Shared cultural fantasies about happiness tend to create what theorist Sara Ahmed<\/a> calls \u201caffect aliens<\/a>\u201d: individuals who, by nature of who they are and how they are treated, experience a disconnect between what their culture conditions them to think should make them happy and their disappointment or exclusion from those positive feelings. Othello, for example, rightly worries that he is somehow foreign to the domestic happiness Desdemona describes, excluded from the joy of Venetian marriage. It turns out he is right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Othello is foreign and Black and Desdemona is Venetian and white, their marriage does not conform to their society\u2019s expectations for happiness, and that makes them vulnerable to Iago\u2019s deceit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, \u201cThe Merchant of Venice\u201d examines the potential for happiness to include or exclude, to build or break communities. Take the quote about mercy that opens the World Happiness Report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phrase appears in a famous courtroom scene<\/a>, as Portia attempts to persuade a Jewish lender, Shylock, to take pity on Antonio, a Christian man who cannot pay his debts. In their contract, Shylock has stipulated that if Antonio defaults on the loan, the fee will be a \u201cpound of flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe quality of mercy is not strained,\u201d Portia lectures him; it is \u201ctwice-blessed,\u201d benefiting both giver and receiver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a powerful attempt to save Antonio\u2019s life. But it is also hypocritical: Those cultural norms of caring and mercy seem to apply only to other Christians in the play, and not the Jewish people living alongside them in Venice<\/a>. In that same scene, Shylock reminds his audience that Antonio and the other Venetians in the room have spit on him and called him a dog. He famously asks why Jewish Venetians are not treated as equal human beings: \u201cIf you prick us, do we not bleed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Actor Henry Irving as Shylock in a late 19th-century performance of \u2018The Merchant of Venice.\u2019 Lock & Whitfield\/Folger Shakespeare Library via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare\u2019s plays repeatedly make the point that the unjust distribution of rights and care among various social groups \u2013 Christians and Jews, men and women, citizens and foreigners \u2013 challenges the happy effects of benevolence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those social factors are sometimes overlooked in cultures like the U.S., where contemporary notions of happiness are marketed by wellness gurus, influencers and cosmetic companies<\/a>. Shakespeare\u2019s plays reveal both how happiness is built through communities of care and how it can be weaponized to destroy individuals and the fabric of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are obvious victims of prejudice and abuse in Shakespeare\u2019s plays, but he does not just emphasize their individual tragedies. Instead, the plays record how certain values that promote inequality poison relationships that could otherwise support happy networks of family and friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systems of support<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pretty much all objective research points to the fact that long-term happiness depends on community<\/a>, connections and social support: having systems in place to weather what life throws at us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And according to both the World Happiness Report<\/a> and Shakespeare, contentment isn\u2019t just about the actual support you receive but your expectations about people\u2019s willingness to help you. Societies with high levels of trust<\/a>, like Finland and the Netherlands, tend to be happier \u2013 and to have more evenly distributed levels of happiness in their populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare\u2019s plays offer blueprints for trust in happy communities. They also offer warnings about the costs of cultural fantasies about happiness that make it more possible for some, but not for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cora Fox<\/a>, Associate Professor of English and Health Humanities, Arizona State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cora Fox, Arizona State University What is \u201chappiness\u201d \u2013 and who gets to be happy? Since 2012, the World Happiness Report has measured and compared data from 167 countries. The United States currently ranks 24th, between the U.K. and Belize \u2013 its lowest position since the report was first issued. But the 2025 edition \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":39375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,15534,279,8025,292,7,10,38],"tags":[3550,10171,415,7608,885,891,886,860,1740,16328,8158,2595],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39376,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39374\/revisions\/39376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}