Marx and Shakespeare

Last semester, I was in British Writers I, and we naturally spent time on Shakespeare and his plays. Specifically, we read "Twelfth Night," and I was shocked to realize to what extent class informed the work. Malvolio is essentially a villain because he is a social climber. From the very beginning of the play this is set up as being one of his central faults, and is the reason he is the target of the prank that forms the center of the subplot. this discovery led me to wonder how much of Shakespeare's work was informed by class consciousness and conflict.

As a side note, the very idea of a twelfth night is rather intriguing, from a Marxist perspective. The Shakespearean twelfth night had its origins in the Roman Saturnalia, which was essentially a holiday of inversion. Fools are made kings, and kings are made fools. Why would such a rigidly class focused society highlight this tension? Why did Shakespeare choose to focus upon it in the subplot of this play?

Also note that "Twelfth Night" is not the only Shakespearean play in which a social climbing is looked down upon. In "Julius Caesar" the sin of Cassius and Julius is specifically ambition, the "hungry look" identified in Cassius's eye. Antisemitism is obviously a major part of "the Merchant of Venice" but so is disdain for a rising middle class--Shylock practices usury (making loans with interest) which is a fundamental part of modern capitalism. Shakespearean literature can be seen as supporting the pre-capitalist superstructure, and is thus hostile to what would eventually become the bourgeoisie.

Continuing on the theme of class struggle, many of his plays are about the upper classes, and feature lower class characters only tangentially. This is despite the fact that theater, during Shakespeare's time, was essentially popular entertainment. Consider the rude mechanicals in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," for example. Even when Bottom's curse is removed, he could never be with Titania--she was a fairy queen, after all.

Again, also note that many words we now associate with negative traits (villain, knave, rude) were originally terms for the lower classes, while words with positive traits (noble being the most obvious example) derived from the upper classes. (See the Oxford English Dictionary for more examples)

Shakespeare is not the only reading where one can find a shocking amount of classism. I've seen class-based interpretations for Harry Potter, after all. Have any of you ever found unexpected class-based themes in a work that you hadn't seen before?