FEMALE PROPHETIC FIGURES in SHAKESPEARE's PLAYS by ALAN
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“BECOMES A WOMAN BEST”: FEMALE PROPHETIC FIGURES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS by ALAN MORRIS COCHRUM Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2015 Copyright © by Alan Morris Cochrum 2015 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the helpfulness and professional dedication of my dissertation committee chair, Dr. Amy Tigner, in shepherding this work to completion. I am also grateful to Dr. Jacqueline Fay and Dr. Kevin Gustafson for their willingness to serve as the other members of my committee, and to Dr. Jim Warren, who along with Dr. Tigner and Dr. Fay served on my comprehensive-exams committee. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Penny Ingram for her help during the prospectus process. I received a great deal of support over the years from many relatives, friends, and fellow students, for whose encouragement and prayers I am grateful. I would also like to thank my children, Lindsay, Blair, Nathaniel, and Alexander; my parents, Morris and Bonnie Cochrum; and my late mother-in-law, Jimmie Frazier. And, most important, this project could not have been completed without the constant love and support of my wife, Dr. Jennifer Cochrum, DPT. Nov. 9, 2015 iii Abstract “BECOMES A WOMAN BEST”: FEMALE PROPHETIC FIGURES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS Alan Morris Cochrum, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2015 Supervising Professor: Amy Tigner This dissertation argues that female characters in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Henry VIII, Richard III, Macbeth, and 1 Henry VI function as prophets in the style of the Old Testament. In a culture that venerates Holy Writ but also devalues women, a dramatic exemplar wrapped in the mantle of a biblical prophet becomes a potential model for playgoers as well as an embodied critique. Paulina, Katherine of Aragon, and Margaret of Anjou condemn injustice, uphold the cause of the vulnerable, challenge the abuse of royal and spiritual authority, and frequently echo aspects of biblical figures such as Moses, Isaiah, and Amos. In so doing, these women and the plays of which they are a part highlight the ability of women to point out the misuse of political power as well as women’s vulnerability to marital wrongdoing—and their capacity to resist it. However, the plays also demonstrate that women, like men, are subject to the temptation to use force and power wrongfully; in yielding to that temptation, they compromise their ability to speak out credibly. In addition to female prophetic figures who “speak truth to power,” Shakespeare also creates characters who act as “false prophets”—Lady Macbeth, the Weird Sisters, and Joan Puzel promote the veneration of ambition and press the cause of political upheaval. Aside from clarifying the possibility of greater female agency and pointing out its potential pitfalls, this reading of the plays also underlines the complex iv picture of Catholicism that emerges on Shakespeare’s stage. Although 1 Henry VI and Macbeth echo fears of “popery” as a theological and political threat to an officially Protestant England, Henry VIII presents a positive view of a Catholic and Spanish-born queen, and Joan Puzel is a French antagonist capable of engending respect. This study thus enlarges academia’s understanding of the intersection of stage and Scripture, contributing to scholarship on women and religion in the early modern world. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Chapter 1 Introduction: “Haply a woman's voice may do some good” ............................... 1 Review of literature ....................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2 “He must be told on’t”: Paulina and The Winter’s Tale .................................... 31 “You know me, do you not?”: The question of identity ................................................. 32 “If I prove honey-mouthed, let my tongue blister”: Rhetoric ......................................... 37 “Haply a woman's voice may do some good”: Feminine persuasion ........................... 42 “These dangerous, unsafe lunes i’th’ king”: Royal relations ......................................... 49 “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?”: Tension and disorder in the court ......................... 56 “Stand betwixt you and danger”: Prophetic intercession .............................................. 60 “Ye shall trouble no wydowe nor fatherlesse chylde”: The vulnerable ......................... 62 “Yea, scandalous to the world”: Pointing to a higher standard ..................................... 64 “And see what death is doing”: Witness of doom ......................................................... 69 “I’ll make the statue move indeed”: Agent of resurrection ............................................ 74 Chapter 3 “A most poor woman, and a stranger”: Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII .......................................................................................................................... 84 “Thou shalt not oppresse a straunger”: Katherine as outsider ..................................... 85 “That thus you should proceed to put me off”: The wronged spouse ........................... 97 “You tender more your person’s honour”: Critiquing religious leadership .................. 105 “I’ll hang my head and perish”: The angst of a prophet .............................................. 108 “Saw you not even now a blessed troop”: Katherine the visionary ............................ 118 Chapter 4 “Say poor Margaret was a prophetess”: Margaret of Anjou in Richard III ........................................................................................................................ 125 vi “Why hast thou vnquieted me . ?”: The choric specter ........................................... 126 “Decline all this”: Margaret as calculating rhetorician ................................................. 136 “[A] sodayne vtter destruction shall come vpon thee”: Announcer of doom ............... 149 “To watch the waning of mine adversaries”: The prophetic as personal .................... 154 Chapter 5 “That I may pour my spirits in thine ear”: Lady Macbeth and the Weird Sisters as False Prophets ..................................................................................... 168 “Let vs go after straunge gods”: The Weird Sisters .................................................... 169 Macbeth as the Weird Brother .................................................................................... 183 “You shall be king”: Witnesses of dynastic change .................................................... 186 “Will come to know his destiny”: Dark narratives of prediction ................................... 196 “Mutual . helpe”: Lady Macbeth as prophetic guide ............................................... 206 “Fill me, from the crown to the toe”: Inadequacy and empowerment ......................... 212 Chapter 6 “And fightest with the sword of Deborah”: Joan Puzel in 1 Henry VI ............. 221 “A holy maid hither with me I bring”: the parodic Joan ............................................... 223 Balaam and Samson: the tragic Joan......................................................................... 238 Joan as Judith ............................................................................................................. 247 “For there shall aryse false Christes, and false prophetes” ........................................ 258 Chapter 7 Afterword: “So long as men can breathe” ...................................................... 267 Works Cited ..................................................................................................................... 271 Biographical Information ................................................................................................. 303 vii Chapter 1 Introduction: “Haply a woman's voice may do some good” The phrase “prophecy in Shakespeare” might conjure up a number of images: the Roman Soothsayer shouting, “Beware the Ides of March” (Julius Caesar 1.2.18); Richard of Gloucester smiling villainously over political suspicions induced by “drunken prophecies, libels and dreams” (Richard III 1.1.33); the unheeded Cassandra shrieking, “Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go” (Troilus and Cressida 2.2.112); Jupiter’s cryptic message to Posthumus: “When as a lion’s whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find . .” (Cymbeline 5.4.138–39); or Hotspur rolling his eyes about Owen Glendower’s talk of “the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies . And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff / As puts me from my faith” (1 Henry IV 3.1.146, 150–51). Likely to make an appearance, of course, are the Weird Sisters and their salutation: “All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter” (1.3.50). Far less certain to come to mind is Paulina’s assertion to Leontes that his mistreatment of Hermione “savours / Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you, / Yea, scandalous to the world” (The Winter’s Tale 2.3.117– 19); or Katherine of Aragon’s plea to her king and husband: “Sir, I desire you do me right and justice, / And to bestow your pity on me, for / I am a most poor woman and a stranger .