Theorizing an Etymological Dictionary of Shakespearean Characters. (2009) Directed by Dr
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BESHERE, ROBERT C., Ph.D. “What’s in a Name?”: Theorizing an Etymological Dictionary of Shakespearean Characters. (2009) Directed by Dr. Christopher Hodgkins. 184 pp. Just like Shakespeare's seemingly endless play on the word "will" in his sonnets, the names of his characters themselves hold context clues in their linguistic, historical, mythological, and teleological roots. These context clues inform readers, scholars, and even directors and actors of elements of the characters' personae, behaviors, and possible involvement in the plot. The dissertation will propose that Shakespeare reverses a derivation of character in which authors first determine a form for a character’s name that does not necessarily reflect the character’s purpose. Shakespeare, instead, creates a purpose-driven form, in which his characters’ names reflect their individual functions in the plots. The characters' names are journeys for themselves, whether they earn the name's meanings or, not unlike the great tragic figures, fall from the grace, glory, and power that has been afforded to and associated with their names. All the while, Shakespeare is investing in the "psychology of the audience," having the audience witness and join the journey rather than dictate the journey's destination at the outset. Thus, Juliet's inquiry -- "What's in a name?" -- carries much more than just a bemoaning of unfortunate and unlucky circumstances. Her inquiry inadvertently reveals the overwhelming potency of names, an indication that Shakespeare himself held nomenclature and the process of naming as a paramount practice in determining character. This dissertation theorizes a dictionary that categorizes all of Shakespeare’s characters and explores the etymological roots of each, as well as cultural, historical, mythological, and religious allusions that the names contain. "WHAT’S IN A NAME?”: THEORIZING AN ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF SHAKESPEAREAN CHARACTERS by Robert C. Beshere A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2009 Approved by __________________ Committee Chair To Mom. I’m here because of you. iii APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair__________________________________ Christopher Hodgkins Committee Members________________________________ Jennifer Keith _______________________________ Hephzibah Roskelly _______________________________ Michelle Dowd ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee _________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to my dissertation advisor Dr. Christopher Hodgkins. Our meetings shed light on much of the research that is present in the following document. I also would like to thank the members of my committee: Dr. Jennifer Keith, Dr. Hephzibah Roskelly, and Dr. Michelle Dowd. Your support and guidance during the process is and always will be greatly appreciated. Thank you all for helping me during this invaluable learning process. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. A DICTIONARY DEFINED ................................................................................1 II. REVERLY AND FOOLERY: ONOMASTICS OF THE COMEDIES .............38 III. FALLS FROM GRACE: TRAGIC ONOMASTICS .........................................67 IV. ALTERNATIVE PASTS: ONOMASTICS OF THE HISTORIES AND ROMAN PLAYS .................................................................................96 V. MAROONING, MYSTERY, AND MIRACLE: ONOMASTICS OF THE ROMANCES .................................................................................127 VI. A DICTIONARY DILENEATED…………...……………………………....157 WORKS CITED………………………………………………..………...…………….166 APPENDIX: AN INDEX OF SEVERAL OF THE “B” NAMES…………..…………171 vi CHAPTER I A DICTIONARY DEFINED JULIET: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. … ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. (Romeo and Juliet, 2.1.75-86; bold mine) Juliet’s famous inquiry to the night sky at the opening of Act 2 reveals much more than an excited adolescent girl’s infatuation. It also expresses specific concern for an epic feud, the repercussions of which have tarnished two good families’ names in a noble Italian city. Through this, the audience learns that this play has very little room for the love and kinship that Juliet and her beloved wish to share. They are trapped in a world where their families’ spite for each other dominates the action. They are only physically together in five scenes and they share a fraction of the dialogue in the play.1 The play boasts over 2000 lines of dialogue, yet the titular characters are physically present with each other for barely ten percent of its action. Finally, and perhaps most evocatively, the 1 Only one scene of which contains the two together at the outset: 3.5. However, they only share 59 lines within it. The other four scenes are: 1.5 (for a mere eighteen lines); 2.1 (for 179 lines); 2.5 (for 21 lines); and 5.3 (in which they share no lines of dialogue but are in the same place for only 85 lines). 2 characters’ names only appear together in the same line once. And it is the last two lines of the entire play: “For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo” (5.3.308-9). Textually, they are not physically together until the very end of the play in the last, effusive breath of the actor playing Prince Escalus of Verona. The opening sonnet also indicates the feud as the major plotline within the play. The first four lines paint the backdrop against which the “love” story is set: Two households both alike in dignity In fair Verona where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. (1.0.1-4) This action dominates the piece, with Romeo and Juliet’s amore occurring in secret. The scenes mentioned before happen after hours, behind closed doors, in the nooks and crannies of the story. Furthermore, only a handful of other characters (including the Nurse and the friars) know of their trysts, love, and marriage. Their story is made bare to Verona and the world only after it is too late. However, Jacques Derrida indicates to us that through the power of names and nomenclature – ironically the very force keeping them apart – Romeo and Juliet live eternally to love one another. “Romeo and Juliet…missed each other, how they missed each other! Did they miss each other? But they also survived, both of them, survived one another, in their name through a studied effect of contretemps: an unfortunate crossing, by chance, of temporal and aphoristic series” (Derrida 417). But it is their names, their identities, which allow them to escape finally to be together. Romeo and Juliet escape to 3 our world (our imaginations when we read or see the play), where they can exist as the paragons of eternal love. This escape, of course, is the supposition and meaning we have placed on their existence. Engraved in our culture is the supposition that if someone loves a “Romeo” or a “Juliet” then that person is his or her one true love, regardless. Yet the play would have us believe that their togetherness is not possible, that the characters’ love and lust for one another is secondary and, in some ways, does not even exist due to the other characters’ ignorance. However, it cannot be denied that these two names now are synonymous with eternal, unrestricted love. We forget the “Montague” and the “Capulet” and think only of the adolescent attraction that blossomed into the greatest love story ever told on stage. Within this well-known tragic love story, Shakespeare also greatly emphasizes the power of nomenclature. Thus, Juliet's inquiry -- "What's in a name?" -- holds much more than just a bemoaning of unfortunate and unlucky circumstances. Her inquiry inadvertently reveals the overwhelming potency of names, an indication that Shakespeare himself held nomenclature and the process of naming as a paramount practice in determining character. Simultaneously, her speech also displays how Shakespeare could hobble language and just as quickly take away the power afforded to names. Ironically, the names "Capulet" and "Montague" thus have turned out to matter tragically, but only in the world of the play. We forget their surnames when we think of the tragic lovers, thus answering Juliet's inquiry. But, since Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, such an answer comes at a high cost. Once again, Shakespeare shows the inherent duality and even 4 polyvalence in their multiple connotations, aural and visual puns, and socio-cultural meanings such as slang or jargon in all language, all words. Essentially, it is naïve to assume that Shakespeare was not operating similarly with proper names. He works with names the exactly as he does with common words of all parts of speech. Just as he blurs the connotations of words, he too plays with the assumption that characters’ names in dramatic art are either fixed, arbitrary, or both. Proper names are malleable and can change meaning like any other part of speech in an ever-evolving language such as Early Modern English. Thus, Shakespeare answers the question that his tragic heroine poses with a resounding, “whatever we want to be in it, whatever we make of it.” “Montague” and “Capulet” carry meanings of feuding, separation, and impossible reconciliation as well as their etymological roots; all of these meanings are paramount to the action of the play and, therefore, keep the tragic lovers apart.