Shakespeare in Another Sense: A Study of Physical and Textual Perception in Four Plays by Jennifer Rae McDermott A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Jennifer Rae McDermott (2012) SHAKESPEARE IN ANOTHER SENSE: A STUDY OF PHYSICAL AND TEXTUAL PERCEPTION IN FOUR PLAYS Jennifer Rae McDermott Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto 2012 ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates how the sensory body informs an audience’s reception, and perception, of Shakespearean drama. Specifically, I question the nature of subject/object relations through a comprehensive study of all five senses in Shakespeare. Positioned as mediators of knowledge between body and mind, the senses provide a means to examine the relationship between self-constituting subjects “in here” and exterior world objects “out there.” I believe that early modern authors, and Shakespeare foremost among them, used the liminality of the physical senses to test newly emergent ideas of inwardness and individual consciousness. My dissertation upends the sensory hierarchy assumed by Western tradition by arguing that smell, taste, and touch are crucial to theatrical experience; indeed, they invite a deeper form of theatrical receptivity through subject/object interpenetration than the senses of hearing or seeing. This is because sights and sounds distance the perceiving-subject from the perceived-object onstage, inviting us instead to reflect upon the theatrical medium that fills the divide. My project places the bodily senses and affective faculties in conversation in order to explore the sensory metaphors that motivate character judgements and plot understandings at a level of felt engagement. Braiding together early modern medical conceptions of the senses with literary analysis and stage history, my dissertation reconstructs bodily ii experience in the past on historically informed terms. Recognising the inherent diversity of perception, my chapters advance a set of original arguments: that palpation leads to jealous cognition through the skin-web in Othello, that colonial tastes merge with the pleasures of speech on the double tongue in Antony and Cleopatra, that the smell of blood harbours the infection of evil in Macbeth, and that sensory intelligencers subtly couple two media – read script and heard play – in Hamlet. In sum, by analysing how a modern appreciation of Shakespeare’s drama differs from the embodied perspective of earlier audiences, I hope to provide a new understanding of early modern subjectivity through early modern sensory experience. iii Acknowledgements My dissertation was generously funded by a Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarship awarded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, two University of Toronto Fellowships, and several research travel grants from Massey College, the School of Graduate Studies, and the Department of English. I am also grateful to the Modern Language Association, the Shakespeare Association of America, and the International Shakespeare Association (specifically their conference partner “The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust”) for their financial assistance in support of my presentations at the society gatherings. This project has benefited in countless ways from the exemplary guidance of my advisory committee. I wish to thank, first and foremost, my supervisor Elizabeth D. Harvey. Her incisive criticism, unflagging encouragement, and sage experience as a mentor, both personal and professional, deserves special recognition. I owe a similar debt to Jeremy Lopez, whose meticulous readings of my work and tough questions have not only strengthened my arguments but sharpened my thinking about audience response. I am very grateful to Jill Levenson for her rigorous attention to detail in appraising my chapters, and thank her especially for raising my awareness of textual variants and editorial concerns. The tone of my defence quickly transitioned from oral examination to critical conversation in large part thanks to the rich comments and intellectual generosity of my examiners. On that note, I would like to acknowledge the perceptive contributions of Katie Larson, Deidre Lynch, and my external reader Carla Mazzio. Our discussion will, I am certain, play a shaping role in iv my scholarship as I continue to publish in this sensory vein. I am especially appreciative of Carla Mazzio’s external report, which offers a wealth of suggestions for the future and opens up my claims into new and provocative avenues. My understanding of Shakespeare and the senses has been enriched by stimulating conversations with other scholars in the field. I have had the good fortune to receive audience feedback at numerous specialised conferences, such as the Arizona Centre for Renaissance and Medieval Studies session on “The Five Senses,” and at major international assemblies including: the Shakespeare Association of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Modern Language Association, and the International Shakespeare Association. I would like to thank Rebecca Lemon for organising the seminar on “Shakespeare and Science” (SAA 2011), and the seminar participants: Jean-Francois Bernard, Liza Blake, John D. Cox, Mary Thomas Crane, Stephen Deng, Allison Kay Deutermann, Katherine Eggert, Jean E. Feerick, John Garrison, Joe Keener, Allison Kellar Lenhardt, Scott Maisano, Carla Mazzio, and Henry Turner. I would also like to thank Wietse de Boer, Holly Dugan,Wes Folkerth, Brett D. Hirsch, Laurie Johnson, David McInnis, Tanya Pollard, John Sutton, and Evelyn Tribble, as well as the anonymous peer reviewers at Early Modern Literary Studies for their reflections on my research. An abridged version of my fourth chapter on eyes and ears in Hamlet already appeared in print in the “Embodied Shakespeare” special issue of Early Modern Literary Studies, and I would like to acknowledge the general editor Matthew Steggle for the journal’s permission to allow that material to appear in the dissertation. My evidence for the dissertation was unquestionably deepened by my research trips to the Newberry v Library in 2011 and the British Library in 2008, and I would like to thank the librarians and staff at these libraries for their help with the rare book collections. I could not have completed this dissertation without the mentorship, support, and camaraderie of my colleagues at the University of Toronto. My writing group – Tony Fong, Spencer Morrison, and Kailin Wright – provided editorial suggestions, helped to spark insights, and shared together in the frustrations and triumphs of the dissertation experience. A special place of gratitude is reserved for Claire Battershill, who not only proofread the final dissertation product but who became a preparation partner at the critical defence juncture. The Massey community of graduate students and senior fellows was a constant source of inspiration and academic nourishment. I greatly value George Logan and Maggie Kilgour as mentors, role models, and friends. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all my friends! Finally, I must acknowledge my greatest debt of all – that to my supportive family. My husband, Travis Chalmers, has been a pillar of support throughout my graduate studies, helping me though his patience, good humour, and steadfast love. I am immensely grateful to my father, Ralph McDermott, who nurtured my love of literature, who made me believe that anything is possible if I put my mind to it, and who reminded me, with wisdom, to “enjoy the ride.” Above all, I wish to thank my mother who listened to me read aloud every word of this dissertation, and who gave me the strength to find my voice in writing by living as such as strong example herself. I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Patricia McDermott, my “better ear” (AC 2.1.31). vi Table of Contents ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv TABLE OF CONTENTS vii LIST OF FIGURES viii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE 26 “Palpable to Thinking”: Palpation, Cognition, and Webs of Touch in Othello CHAPTER TWO 75 A Taste for the Exotic: Incorporation, Colonisation, and the Double Tongue in Antony and Cleopatra. CHAPTER THREE 125 “The Smell of Blood”: The Olfactory Atmosphere of Macbeth CHAPTER FOUR 182 “Amaze Indeed the Very Faculties of Eyes and Ears”: Sensory Intelligencers in Hamlet WORKS CONSULTED 236 vii List of Figures Figure 1 “Tactvs” woodcut by Georg Pencz 37 from the series The Five Senses (1544). By permission of the British Museum. Figure 2 The Rainbow Portrait (1600) by Isaac Oliver. 182 By permission of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House, England. viii INTRODUCTION “[The senses] have always been, and remain now, among the most difficult to understand of all things human. Because they are the medium through which we perceive, they cannot easily be perceived themselves. Being our conduit to reality, they stand somehow apart from, behind, above, or around reality, never visible on its surface. We can look through the spectacles, but when we take them off to examine them, we become too blind to see them” – Mark Caldwell How is reading Shakespeare a sensory experience, and how does his language evoke sensations that change an understanding of the play? This question is the starting point of my dissertation, which examines the role of the five senses in Shakespeare’s art. My project has a twofold aim: revivifying the historically- and culturally-specific associations carried by each sense that shaped play meaning for his earliest audiences and exploring how those bodily sensations continue to resonate with us today as they materialise on the page and in performance. Indelible physical impressions are left as marks within the play-texts just as a phonograph records sound or as a fingerprint registers touch.1 For example, the practice of reading Shakespeare’s words aloud begins to recover a heard past through the cadences of lines, the rhythm of meter, or the way vowels and consonants combine to place particular demands on our lungs, diaphragm, and vocal chords in delivery. Listening to these acoustic cues, however, provides only one piece of the full sensory puzzle.