Quote 19
His first night in the hermitage was, deliberately, a sleepless one. He spent the hours on his knees praying, now to that Heaven from which the guilty Claudius had begged forgiveness, now in Zuñi to Awonawilona, now to Jesus and Pookong, now to his own guardian animal, the eagle. From time to time he stretched out his arms as though he were on the Cross, and held them thus through long minutes of an ache that gradually increased till it became a tremulous and excruciating agony; held them, in voluntary crucifixion, while he repeated, through clenched teeth (the sweat, meanwhile, pouring down his face), "Oh, forgive me! Oh, make me pure! Oh, help me to be good!" again and again, till he was on the point of fainting from the pain. (18.31)
Passages like this one make it clear that John's need to punish himself stems from both his religious sentiments and from his investment in the Shakespeare texts of his childhood. Both extol the virtue of suffering, which helps to explain why John confuses the two in his mind.
Quote 20
"Do they read Shakespeare?" asked the Savage as they walked, on their way to the Bio-chemical Laboratories, past the School Library.
"Certainly not," said the Head Mistress, blushing.
"Our library," said Dr. Gaffney, "contains only books of reference. If our young people need distraction, they can get it at the feelies. We don't encourage them to indulge in any solitary amusements." (11.65-7)
Shakespeare is outlawed in this society for the same reasons that make John likes it so much (in this case, the fact that interacting with a text is a solitary activity).
Quote 21
The Savage shook his head. "Listen to this," was his answer; and unlocking the drawer in which he kept his mouse-eaten book, he opened and read:
Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be…
Helmholtz listened with a growing excitement. At "sole Arabian tree" he started; at "thou shrieking harbinger" he smiled with sudden pleasure; at "every fowl of tyrant wing" the blood rushed up into his cheeks; but at "defunctive music" he turned pale and trembled with an unprecedented emotion. The Savage read on (12.65-7)
For Helmholtz, Shakespeare isn't just about the language—it's about the subject matter. As he said earlier, one can only write piercingly if one is writing about things that matter. He recognizes from this passage that the text is doing just that—it's writing about passion, danger, and emotion.