Reading Bezio’s piece was so intriguing, as I haven’t reflected on the relationship between leaders in fiction and in real life for a while now. Going through all my leadership classes this semester and 102 last semester, I was deeply grounded into the reality of leadership, and maybe some sprinkles of normative stuff. However, when the reading went over the historical context of Shakespeare’s Pericles with Brexit, I was brought back to my LDST 101 brain over a year ago.
The fictional leader that I most remember was from All the King’s Men, Willie Stark. He added color and complexity to the concept of populism, whether one should represent the people or work hard to be of a superior morality to the masses. We also explored Machiavelli, Utopia by Thomas More, Major Barbara, and so on. While it was such a riveting class, I definitely see how over time, some of what I learned will naturally diffuse, as I now have to deal with the complexities of modern leaders.
But this reading reminded me that a healthy balance can be met. You can appreciate literary leaders and their traits, but it must be kept within the historical place of their literary world, and we as people have to recognize how our modern issues and conflicts might not correlate in a super meaningful way to these literary works.
I think you bring up a good point that these connections are often neglected when we do not see them for a while – when we do not look at literary works for their insights into leadership. I think I might disagree with you on your concluding point – I would argue that literary works are grounded in their historical contexts – whether fiction or non-fiction – and that gives insight into the evolution of a nation and the ideologies of the people who live there. That is how Bezio was able to draw the connections between Shakespeare’s work and the Brexit vote in 2016.
I really like when you talked about when you said that we need to appreciate characters in their times. People may want to draw conclusions about the similarity between the character’s situation and one in modern times but there will always be differences and people need to address those differences when they are comparing.
Leadership in fiction can often be very interesting because it can indicate what people are looking for in our real leaders, and explore how bad or good leaders can shift the outcome of a crisis.