Performative Language and Social Status in Shakespeare's Plays
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Performative Language and Social Status in Shakespeare’s Plays by Roderick Hugh McKeown A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy English Department University of Toronto © Copyright by Roderick Hugh McKeown 2013 Performative Language and Social Status in Shakespeare’s Plays Roderick Hugh McKeown Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2013 Abstract This dissertation attempts to clarify some aspects of the operation of speech acts as they relate to power, authority, status, and rank in Shakespeare’s plays. At its core, it consists of three arguments. The first is that the ultimate index of power is the ability to have one’s words felt. That power then may translate – in terms that are neither simple nor fixed – into authority, rank, and status. The second is that such assertions or deployments of power (unless authorized by broad cultural consensus) are almost always met with resistance, and that consequently the assertions most likely to succeed are those that are least visible. The third point brings the first two together. If speech acts are often a means of asserting and exercising power, then paradoxically those speech acts that are least overt will be those most likely to succeed in that assertion: speech acts that are indirect, off-record, ambiguous, or perlocutionary. Bearing these arguments in mind, I will consider the operation and either the frustration or fruition of social ambition in Shakespeare’s plays, particularly his comedies. The plays bear out the pattern that speakers who make subtle, incremental assertions of status, by means of exploiting expectations of speech acts and genres, can then consolidate those incremental assertions into more enduring changes in status. ii Acknowledgments The process of writing this dissertation has not been brief, and any project as long-lived as this must acquire some debts. Acknowledging those debts, while it will give me some pleasure, will not acquit what I owe. The first and most obvious debt is to my very dedicated thesis committee. Lynne Magnusson’s work first persuaded me that there was still something new to be said about Shakespeare, even in the early twenty-first century, and her faith that I could find that something kept me working through many obstacles. Jill Levenson has supported and encouraged my work since my undergraduate days, and her encyclopædic knowledge and keen eye for detail were an incentive to raise my game – and supported my efforts to do so. Christopher Warley’s forthright commentary saved me from one major error, and countless smaller follies. I have benefitted enormously from the institutional support offered by the University of Toronto, especially its English department. At different times, and in different capacities, both Alexander Leggatt and Elizabeth Harvey served as role models and sounding boards. David Galbraith, my first English professor and finally my departmental examiner, never failed to alternate judiciously between enthusiastic encouragement and sly, pointed criticism; there was no middle ground. I owe him a lifetime of Vietnamese lunches. The colleagues in my cohort were an unusually cohesive and collegial team; they form the core of a larger group of early modern scholars (plus a few ringers) whose work has challenged and inspired me – and whose solidarity has buoyed me up. Within and beyond the University of Toronto, that group includes Susan Bond, Piers Brown, Rob Carson, Darryl Domingo, Erin Ellerbeck, Noelle Gadon, Chris Hicklin, Brett Hirsch, Alysia Kolentsis, Katie Larson, Chris Matusiak, Kelly Minerva, Sarah Neville, Erin Piotrowski, Joel Rodgers, Dimitry Senyshyn, Marilyn Simon, Rachel Stapleton, and Laura Stenberg. Before I thank the last group of colleagues, there is an important group of civilians. Between encouragement and bullying, between support and threats, the following people fed me, gave me a place to stay while engaged in research or conference travel, proofed a stretch of dissertation, lent me a dog to walk, or indeed occasionally hired me, and I could not have iii finished without them. My thanks thus go out to Kamal Al-Solaylee, Cleo Boyd, Rachel Chan, Cary di Pietro, Amber Dolman, Jane Freeman, Burke Heather, Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic, Heather Kelly, Cynthia Messenger, Matt Mills, Richard Oakey, Carrie Reid, Jeff Richardson, Lawrence Saltzman, and Tim Worgan. As always, there is a sanctum sanctorum. Candice Bogdanski, Erin Dolgoy, John McQuillen, and Virginia Lee Strain were the indispensable friends, the allies without whom I could never have done this. If all humanities scholars are as generous, as rigorous, and as humane as those four, the discipline is in good shape. My final thanks, and my first, must go out to my parents. Blame my mother: in 1982, she first admonished a North-American toddler with an unfortunate gift for mimicry not to imitate the accents of his neighbours on an army base in the United Kingdom, as it might hurt feelings. Social distinction, and its unreliable processes, suddenly became interesting to a two year old. Once the damage was done, she took great pains to remind him that academic life was remarkably solitary. In this she was right, but her good work was undone by the uncommon generosity of those I have named above. My father, too, deserves blame and praise: blame for teaching me that if I could argue a position (however eccentric), I could hold it. Praise for… well, actually, for the exact same point, providing me with my first lesson in paradiastole. So it is in gratitude to my parents for their encouragement, for their financial support, and for their willingness to make sure every reference had an entry in the works cited, that I dedicate this thesis to them. (The dedication includes, of course, both blame and praise.) The remaining errors, follies, inadequacies, typos – and all other such things of darkness – I acknowledge mine. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v Chapter 1 – Introduction: Having a Body and Being Felt .............................................................. 1 Chapter 2 – “A word and a blow”: Duelling, Insult, and Social Status in Romeo and Juliet ...... 25 Chapter 3 – The Regulation of Jesting in Much Ado About Nothing ............................................ 83 Chapter 4 – The Winner’s Tale: Paulina’s Appropriated Authority in The Winter’s Tale ......... 128 Chapter 5 – Riddles and Vows, Contracts and Contingency in All’s Well That Ends Well ...... 186 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 223 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 226 v Chapter 1 – Introduction: Having a Body and Being Felt ’Tis pity... That wishing well had not a body in’t Which might be felt, that we the poorer born Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes, Might with effects of them follow our friends... (All’s Well 1.1.181-86)1 In a few short lines, Helen expresses her frustration with her sense of powerlessness, derived from her low-born status, teases out the relations between social and economic power, and gives modern theorists of class and social capital a run for their money. Her observation that “the poorer born” are bound up in wishes that have “not a body” in them delineates with remarkable precision the operation of rank, status, authority, and power (or, to use an anachronistic concept, class) in early modern England. Helen’s five lines isolate a key metric of power that applies both in early modern England and today: whether a person’s words and actions carry weight. In linguistic terms, can a person deploy speech to effect change, to change his or her environment, to get what he or she wants? Can a speaker, to put it another way, do things with words? Can that speaker deploy felicitous speech acts? This dissertation attempts to clarify some aspects of the operation of speech acts as they relate to power, authority, status, and rank in Shakespeare’s plays. At its core, it consists of three arguments. The first is that the ultimate index of power is the ability to have one’s words felt. That power then may translate – in terms that are neither simple nor fixed – into authority, rank, and status. The second is that such assertions or deployments of power (unless authorized by 1 Unless otherwise noted, all references are to the Oxford World’s Classics editions of the plays. 1 2 broad cultural consensus) are almost always met with resistance, and that consequently the assertions most likely to succeed are those that are least visible. The third point brings the first two together. If speech acts are often a means of asserting and exercising power, then paradoxically those speech acts that are least overt will be those most likely to succeed in that assertion: speech acts that are indirect, off-record, ambiguous, or perlocutionary. Bearing these arguments in mind, I will consider the operation and either the frustration or fruition of social ambition in Shakespeare’s plays, particularly his comedies. The plays bear out the pattern that speakers who make subtle, incremental assertions of status, by means