An exploration of what constitutes the literary arts – plus all the ‘troubled hearts’ and demons that accompany it – through the lens of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?

Only the monsters do not have troubled hearts.
Life is for troubled hearts. Art is for troubled
hearts. For my whole life, Hamlet has been
a bridge between. Hamlet’s ‘Now, mother,
what’s the matter?’ is life on earth. Something
is always the matter, and not just for mothers.
(As I write this, the Angelus rings.) Every
character in Hamlet is troubled, there are
no monsters in it. I render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s — everything is
troubled there and, if I am lucky, Caesar
is troubled. I render unto God the things
that are God’s and feel — want to feel? Do feel —
that God is troubled. I also render unto art.
But I have no idea what art is. What
Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’ is. What
the luminous chaos of The Portrait of
a Lady is. What The Pilgrim’s Progress is.
My feet knew the way before I opened
the book: that just before the gate to heaven
is yet another hole to hell.

Under Trump, the world-class centre for performing arts is one of many US cultural institutions changing beyond recognition. Will others buckle?

A year ago – just a year ago – the Kennedy Center in Washington DC was a world-class centre for the performing arts. It had a resident opera company, respected artistic teams, and a run of the acclaimed musical Hamilton to look forward to. It had a bipartisan board that upheld the dignity of an organisation that, since it was conceived of in the mid-20th century, had been treated with courtesy and supported by governments of both stripes.

How quickly things unravel. Donald Trump inserted himself as chair of the organisation soon after his 20 January inauguration, dispatched the hugely experienced executive director, and installed his unfortunate loyalist Richard Grenell to run it. This former ambassador to Germany might have wished for better things; at any rate, entirely inexperienced in the arts, he seems utterly out of his depth. Things have unravelled. Artists have departed the centre in droves. Hamilton pulled out. So have audiences. In November, Francesca Zambello, the artistic director of the Washington National Opera, told me that ticket sales had tanked for the opera. Analysis by the Washington Post showed it was the same pattern across the centre.