University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Fall 2010 Corpses revealed: The staging of the theatrical corpse in early modern drama N M. Imbracsio University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Imbracsio, N M., "Corpses revealed: The staging of the theatrical corpse in early modern drama" (2010). Doctoral Dissertations. 520. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/520 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CORPSES REVEALED: THE STAGING OF THE THEATRICAL CORPSE IN EARLY MODERN DRAMA BY N. M. IMBRACSIO Baccalaureate of Arts, Clark University, 1 998 Master of Arts, University of Massachusetts-Boston, 2001 Master of Fine Arts, Emerson College, 2004 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English September, 2010 UMI Number: 3430774 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT Dissertation Publishing UMI 3430774 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 1 7, United States Code. ProQuest® ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©2010 N. M. IMBRACSIO This dissertation has been examined and approved. \1 Dissertation Director, Douglas Lanier, Professor of English er, Professor of English -V-4-"' Rachel Trubowitz, Professor of English TC: Dennis Britton, Assistant Professor of English David Richman, Professor of Theatre and Dance May 25, 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a dissertation can be an especially isolating and lonely experience. However, I am grateful to have the support and encouragement of a wonderful community of friends, colleagues, and family. I would like to extend special thanks to... Professor Douglas Lanier: for continued support and assistance throughout my graduate career. My committee members: for being part of this project and its many journeys. Thanks especially Professors Dennis Britton and David Richman for their guidance and good humor. Professor Scott Smith of the Classics Department: for taking the time and interest in reading my chapter on Senecan translations and offering very helpful comments. Katherine Gillen: for her endless enthusiasm for my topic and willingness to read my chapters, drafts, and notes. Thank you for your patience, friendship, and never-flagging belief in my abilities. My dissertation writing group, especially Laura Smith: for reading numerous drafts in all their stages and offered continuous support and insights. My dear friends Abby Knoblauch, Tim Fitzmaurice, Mike Gutierrez, Brian Wilkins, Jeff Covington: I am endlessly grateful for their humor and love. I could not have survived the last five years successfully without such friendship. Walter Michael... and the monsters: for comfort, calm, and cuteness. The faculty, staff, and administration of the English Department, especially Janine Auger: for answering questions and finding loopholes. The helpful and friendly librarians at UNH's Dimond Library. Special thanks and gratitude to the Graduate School of UNH for awarding me the Dissertation Fellowship, a generosity that allowed me to finish my dissertation with full funding. Finally, and most importantly, thank you to my Mom and Dad, who only ever asked me to do my best. I have. I did. I will. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ¡? ABSTRACT vi CHAPTER PAGE 1. BRING OUT YOUR DEAD: REVEALING THE EARLY MODERN CORPSE 1 2. AUGURIESOFDEATH 30 3. CORPSE IN AN ALCOVE 53 4. PLAYINGDEAD 82 5. THE BODY IN PROPS 118 6. EPILOGUE: LAUGHING IN THE FACE OF DEATH 150 BIBLIOGRAPHY 154 ? ABTRACT CORPSES REVEALED: THE STAGING OF THE THEATRICAL CORPSE IN EARLY MODERN DRAMA by N. M. Imbracsio University of New Hampshire, September, 2010 My dissertation examines the theatrical depiction of corpses as both stage-objects for theoretical speculation and as performance phenomena of the early modern English stage. Investigating popular drama on the London stage from 1587 - 1683, 1 demonstrate that the performance of the dead body by the living actor (what I term the "theatrical corpse") is informed by early modern secular and religious polemics over the materiality of the body, the efficacy of performative behavior, and emerging theories of theatrical presence. Previously, literary scholars have approached the performance of death on the stage using the insights of psychoanalysis or medical science, arguing for a rise of the subject and a growing sense of the individual via the emergence of empirical science and anatomical dissection. By contrast, my dissertation focuses on the material realities of the performance event such as staging, sets, and performance objects. In so doing, my dissertation reveals the theatrical corpse on stage—much like the early modern corpse off stage—to function as an active narrative agent beyond its death. vi CHAPTER 1 BRING OUT YOUR DEAD: REVEALING THE EARLY MODERN CORPSE IN THE GRAVE, FROM THE PULPIT, AND ON THE STAGE At the end of 3.4 Hamlet exits his mother's closet "tugging in Polonius," whom he has just inadvertently killed through the arras. Hamlet admits that he will "lug the guts" (210) and "draw" the dead man "toward an end" (214) and he seems to head toward the tiring house with the body.1 The stage direction detailing Hamlet's exit varies in description: in Quarto 1 Hamlet "exits with the dead body," in the Folio he tugs the body in—the verb "tug" connoting the struggle and effort required of the action. In both of these scenarios we are presented with the challenge—and possible awkwardness—faced by the actor playing Hamlet in getting the body of the actor playing Polonius off stage, and the unceremonious nature of the operation is highlighted in those two texts' directions. But why? Why does Shakespeare call attention to what can easily be left behind? Why does the playwright encourage his audience to direct their attention to the leaden materiality of Polonius' body? Why does Hamlet not just cover it up again with the arras and walk off? Why must he address it, saying "This councilor/ is most still, most secret, and most grave,/ Who was in life a most foolish prating knave" (21 1-13), before dragging it out? What function can Polonius' body possibly have in this scene, as it lies dead for over 180 lines of dialogue and waits patiently through a ghostly apparition?2 1 All quotes referto William Shakespeare, Hamlet, The Arden Shakespeare, ed. Thompson Ann and Neil Taylor, 3rd ed. (London: Thompson, 2006). 2 The original actor who portrayed Polonius (John Heminges) likely had experience with this sort of patience. Polonius admits in 3.2 that he was an actor himself, at one time playing Julius Caesar who was "killed i'th/ Capitol. Brutus killed me" (99-100) to which Hamlet immediately replies, "It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there" (101-2). The puns on Brutus/brute 1 As this short scenario from Hamlet demonstrates, characters who have "died" in their roles on stage present a basic dramaturgical quandary: what do you do with them since they embody inaction? How are "living corpses" performed on stage? And how do other characters treat them? How can you convince an audience that what they are seeing on stage—a living breathing actor—is, in fact, a dead person? Or are they merely a signifier of death; a sign that we recognize as a sign? Despite the many practical concerns over staging corpses, the early modern theatre seems especially intent on repeatedly portraying dead characters—and calling deliberate attention to them. With such portrayals one cannot help but notice the proliferation of dead bodies on the stage, whether through the re-appearances of corpses, or through character resurrections, or through the dismemberment of the corpse and a diffusion of its severed parts. This sense of movement originates from the practical theatrical challenge of staging a corpse, i.e. the need for the corpse to either be disposed quietly or placed strategically in a scene. I argue that, concurrent to this practical regard of the corpse, the early modern staging of the theatrical bodies choreographs the cultural anxieties over the meaning and influence of the dead body in post- Reformation England. Despite the fact that London popular drama between 1580 and 1642 includes over one hundred examples of stage directions indicating a corpse, mostly dealing with the introduction and removal of corpses, theatre scholars have only nominally considered the performance issues raised by corpses.3 Noting that the presence of the corpse provides a particular concern in early modern theatre, Mariko Ichikawa argues in his article "What to do with a Corpse?" that, "the removal of dead bodies from the stage was a theatrical necessity, owing to the absence of a and Capitol/capital exist in all versions and likely allude to Shakespeare's recent Julius Caesar (first performed in 1599) in which John Heminges probably played Caesar and Richard Burbage (now Hamlet) was Brutus. In this sense, the audience may see "double" when they recognize that the actor has played both roles. Especially since Polonius lies bleeding throughout the closet scene, a fate similar to Caesar's in Act 3.