The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a Dramatic Type, 1600-1633
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THE OPHELIA VERSIONS : REPRESENTATIONS OFA DRAMATIC TYPE, 1600-1633 Fiona Benson A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2008 Full metadata for this item is available in the St Andrews Digital Research Repository at: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/478 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a Dramatic Type, 1600-1633 Fiona Benson A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of St Andrews School of English August 2007 ii ABSTRACT ‘The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a Dramatic Type from 1600-1633’ interrogates early modern drama’s use of the Ophelia type, which is defined in reference to Hamlet’s Ophelia and the behavioural patterns she exhibits: abandonment, derangement and suicide. Chapter one investigates Shakespeare’s Ophelia in Hamlet, finding that Ophelia is strongly identified with the ballad corpus. I argue that the popular ballad medium that Shakespeare imports into the play via Ophelia is a subversive force that contends with and destabilizes the linear trajectory of Hamlet’s revenge tragedy narrative. The alternative space of Ophelia’s ballad narrative is, however, shut down by her suicide which, I argue, is influenced by the models of classical theatre. This ending conspires with the repressive legal and social restrictions placed upon early modern unmarried women and sets up a dangerous precedent by killing off the unassimilated abandoned woman. Chapter two argues that Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen amplifies Ophelia’s folk and ballad associations in their portrayal of the Jailer’s Daughter. Her comedic marital ending is enabled by a collaborative, communal, folk-cure. The play nevertheless registers a proto-feminist awareness of the peculiar losses suffered by early modern women in marriage and this knowledge deeply troubles the Jailer’s Daughter’s happy ending. Chapter three explores the role of Lucibella in The Tragedy of Hoffman arguing that the play is a direct response to Hamlet’s treatment of revenge and that Lucibella is caught up in an authorial project of disambiguation which attempts to return the revenge plot to its morality roots. Chapters four and five explore the narratives of Aspatia in The Maid’s Tragedy and Penthea in The Broken Heart, finding in their very conformism to the behaviours prescribed for them, both by the Ophelia type itself and by early modern society in general, a radical protest against the limitations and repressions of those roles. This thesis is consistently invested in the competing dialectics and authorities of oral and textual mediums in these plays. The Ophelia type, perhaps because of Hamlet’s Ophelia’s identification with the ballad corpus, proves an interesting gauge of each play’s engagement with emergent notions of textual authority in the early modern period. iii DECLARATIONS I, Fiona Benson, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 100,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. date: 07.08.07 signature of candidate ……… I was admitted as a research student in October, 2002 and as a candidate for the degree of PhD in October 2003; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2003 and 2007. date 07.08.07 signature of candidate ……… I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of ……… in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. date …… signature of supervisor ……… In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration. date 07.08.07 signature of candidate ……… iv For my supervisor, Neil Rhodes v Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their generous financial support throughout both my Masters and my Doctorate degrees and for making postgraduate study possible for me. Special thanks are due to my supervisors Susan Sellers and Neil Rhodes. I am very grateful to Susan Sellers for all her guidance in my research into feminist theory and her enormous support and encouragement. I would like to thank Neil Rhodes in particular. This thesis began life as a survey of Ophelias from the Renaissance until the twentieth century; it ended up firmly rooted in the early modern period. I am very grateful to Neil Rhodes for supporting me with this new emphasis and for his expertise and invaluable help and support over the last four years. I would also like to thank Jill Plain for her early help and encouragement; both Susan Sellers and Jill Plain allowed me to audit the women’s writing course during my MLitt year, which was invaluable in preparing me for an academic degree. Thanks also go to Eric Langley for his help, encouragement and good humour throughout, and to Thomas Pettit for his interest and generous supply of information on ballad matters. Thanks go to the librarians of St Andrews University, Exeter University, the National Library of Scotland and the Bodleian. Thank you also to the secretarial staff at St Andrews School of English, especially Alexandra McDevitt. Finally I would like to thank Donovan McAbee for his kind hospitality over the last year as I commuted from Exeter to St Andrews, my parents Jane and David Benson for their love and support throughout this project and my husband James Meredith for his love, support and understanding, particularly during this final year. Thank you to James also for his assistance and expertise with Excel! vi Contents Chapter 1: “A creature native and indued / Unto that element.” Shakespeare’s Ophelia and the popular ballads……..................................1 Chapter 2: “To marry him is hopeless / To be his whore is witless.” The Jailer’s Daughter and the problematising of marriage in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen ………………103 Chapter 3: “[I]le run a little course / At base, or barley-breake, or some such toye, / To catch the fellow” … Lucibella and the revenge dynamic in Henry Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffman, or, A Revenge for a Father ………………………………………………….211 Chapter 4: Revising Ophelia: The Maid’s Tragedy and Aspatia’s “unpracticed way to grieve and die” ……………………………….257 Chapter 5: “Feeding the hungry appetite with steam / And sight of Banquet”: Penthea and the radical conformism of the anorexic hunger strike ……………………………………………..303 Appendix A: Data for the Popular Ballads …………………………………….354 Appendix B: Pregnancy in the Popular Ballads ………………………………...370 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………..378 1 CHAPTER I: “A CREATURE NATIVE AND INDUED / UNTO THAT ELEMENT.” SHAKESPEARE’S OPHELIA AND THE POPULAR BALLADS Introduction Gertrude’s messenger speech describing the drowning Ophelia has provided one of the abiding images of Hamlet and indeed, of early modern literature. She describes Ophelia born “mermaid-like” down the “weeping brook” with “[h]er clothes spread wide”, surrounded by fallen garlands “[o]f crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples” (4.7.175, 174, 173, 167).1 Crucially for this thesis, Ophelia is singing. As Gertrude tells Laertes: Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, As one incapable of her own distress Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element. (4.7.175-8) The “element” that Gertrude refers to is most obviously the water that Ophelia seems to be so oblivious to. However, this “element” is arguably also the old lauds that Ophelia sings, the ballad fragments that are so appropriate to her own 1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, Arden 3 (London: Thomson Learning, 2006). This text is based on the second quarto. All further references to this edition. 2 narrative. In fact, the more one reads Ophelia within a ballad context, the clearer it becomes that she is indeed “a creature native and indued / Unto that element,” a ballad daughter who moves in her own distinct, popular ballad genre, a genre that unfolds within the dominant revenge tragedy narrative, troubling and disrupting its trajectory. Previous critical interest in the relationship between the ballad corpus and the character of Ophelia in Hamlet has largely focused on the specifics of Ophelia’s mad ballading. Firstly, it has attempted to find sources for Ophelia’s act five ballad songs, a forensic exercise for which Peter J. Seng has provided the definitive study.2 Secondly, brief consideration has been given to the class implications of this mad ballading; it is inferred that Ophelia’s songs are “childhood recollections of a nurse’s songs”, evocative of a working class context, “a realm of childhood, of old, simple ballads sung by the spinners in the sun”, “not the aristocratic ayre, but crude songs of the common folk”.