The Great Chain of Being

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The Great Chain of Being
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• Shakespeare and Elizabethan Philosophy

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The Basics

• An Elizabethan philosophy popular in
  Shakespeares time
• Worked its way into literature and entertainment
• Primary focus of Great Chain
• Everything on earth and in heaven is linked and
  orderly
• All people and things have their place in a grand
  scheme
• Gave sense, order and meaning to life

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The Great Chain
God (Perfection)
The most heavenly beings placed at the top of the
chain (seated at the Foot of God)
Angels (Intuition)
Man (Existence, Growth, Passion, Reason)
Animals (Existence, Growth, Passion)
Plants (Existence, Growth)
The basest creatures are at the bottom, furthest
away from God
Minerals (Existence)
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Links in the Chain

• Each separate link (or sub-class) in the Great
  Chain bears its own inner hierarchy

• Seraphim
• Cherubim
• Thrones
• Dominions
• Powers
• Virtues
• Principalities
• Archangels
• Angels

Angels (Intuition)

• Roses are the greatest in the Plant hierarchy
  gold, silver, diamond in the Mineral, etc.

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The Human Link

• Most important was the hierarchy in the Human
  chain
• A chain of social status and power
• Status in the Great Chain is immutable, being
  forged by God, especially at the top
• Royal Absolutism

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The Human Link
The monarch (Queen Elizabeth) sat atop the human
link, closest to the Angelic and thus closest to
God.

• The lowliest serf would be at the bottom of the
  hierarchy, closest to the Animal link and thus
  furthest from God.

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Okay, great - so what?

• It is in this human chain which we find many of
  the elements of interest to Shakespeares plays
• Especially as the plays apply to royalty
• Often, displacement within the chain (a king
  giving up his God-given power) leads to suffering
• King Lear
• In turn, tampering with the Great Chain (through
  betrayal, murder, etc.) can lead to chaos
• Hamlet

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• O, when degree is shaked,
  rankWhich is the ladder to all high
  designs,Then enterprise is sick! How could
  communities,Degrees in schools and brotherhoods
  in cities,Peaceful commerce from dividable
  shores,The primogenitive and due of
  birth,Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres,
  laurels,But by degree, stand in authentic
  place?Take but degree away, untune that
  string,And, hark, what discord follows!

From Act I, Scene 3 of Troilus and Cressida
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Dont Mess With The Chain

• This chaos fits in with the Elizabethan ideas of
  status mobility (or the lack thereof)
• In other words, serfs remain serfs and do not
  become nobles, etc.
• God has established the Chain, and since God is
  perfection, so is the social order
• Chaos is punishment for tampering with the Chain,
  and is not limited to the monarchy
• The King and Kingdom are one as the monarchy
  suffers, so do the people and vice versa (a theme
  of Oedipus the King and Hamlet)

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SOURCE

• This PowerPoint from
• http//phuhs.org/teachers/bradleysc/Downloads/Grea
  t20Chain20PP.ppt