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Shakespeare's Search for Tragic Form in the 1590S

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Shakespeare's Search for Tragic Form in the 1590S Shakespeare’s Search for Tragic Form in the 1590s LARA O’CONNOR A Thesis Submitted in Candidature for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cardiff University March 2016 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost my thanks must go to Martin Coyle, who has seen me through this process with skill, wit and dedication. I would never have started this thesis, let alone finished it without his patience, professionalism and sense of humour. I would also like to thank Rhian Rattray at Cardiff University who has guided this long-distance student through the mine-field of postgraduate education for the last number of years. My thanks must also go to my parents, Steve and Karen Pritchard, for firing and supporting my enthusiasm for Shakespeare and the theatre in the first place, as well as my brother Andy for providing a sense of balance through large parts of the last few years. Uncle Bustin also has been brilliant – we’ll always have Snowdon! Next, I’d like to thank my friends, including Branwen, Lou, Alan, Craig, Pete V de B and Juliet ‘the wind beneath my wings’ Booth. Especial thanks go to Vicky Hickman for keeping me largely sane, Aunty G for frankly having no idea of what I was doing but supplying bucket loads of fizz and perspective, Rachel Green for being actively interested and most particularly Angela ‘proof-reader extraordinaire’ V de B for just being superb in so many ways. Finally, I must thank Dr. Elizabeth Ford for starting me on this process in the first place, reading my work and, above all, empathy. Finally, my amazing husband, Patrick and squids, Squish, Eth, Seth and Boo. Your understanding, love and support means the world. Hopefully this will inspire you to reach your extraordinary potential - so this is for you all. ii A NOTE ON TEXTS Texts: Unless otherwise stated all general quotations from Shakespeare’s plays are taken from The Norton Shakespeare, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt, with eds. Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard and Katharine Eisaman Maus (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997; repr. 2008). Primarily, as highlighted in each chapter, I have used individual editions of The Arden Shakespeare, as these are fully annotated editions that allow on the page access to questions of sources, theatre history and textual history. Other editions consulted include The Norton Shakespeare as above, and individual editions of The New Cambridge Shakespeare and The Oxford Shakespeare. These are fully referenced in the thesis. Modernisation: In reproducing passages and quotations from the early texts, I have followed the conventions of early modern spelling and punctuation in most cases, changing only letters which ease reading: ‘i’ becomes ‘j’; ‘u’ becomes ‘v’; the long ‘f’ is changed to an ‘s’. Illustrations: Plates containing facsimile reproductions of various pages cited in the thesis from the early editions of Shakespeare’s plays are collated in the Appendix. iii SUMMARY Starting from David Bevington’s observation that ‘Shakespeare’s disparate ventures into tragic expression in the years prior to 1599 suggest that he had not yet found the model or models he was looking for’,1 the current thesis explores four early tragedies in terms of their experimental nature: Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II and Julius Caesar. Central to the thesis is how metadrama in these plays point towards an exploration of tragedy that is marked by the intermingling of genres and sources. The thesis argues that each of the four tragedies under discussion is creatively imaginative in the way it involves adding a fresh perspective to tragedy and its mixing of genres. The thesis begins by arguing that in ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, the play-within-the play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare mocks the amateur staging of tragedy which he seeks to revitalize, starting with Titus Andronicus as a bloody revenge tragedy uneasily mixed with poetic language. Chapter Two suggests that Romeo and Juliet explores some of the ways in which comedy collapses into tragedy, while Chapter Three asks questions about Shakespeare’s use of history as a source for tragedy in relation to Richard II. The final chapter concentrates on Julius Caesar as a ‘broken’ play, examining the role of the ‘hero’. Each chapter examines a number of features, including the blending of genre types, the creation of the tragic ‘hero’, unsatisfactory endings as well as metadrama. Finally, Hamlet is seen to incorporate many of these experiments, and thus to lead on to the later tragedies. 1 David Bevington, ‘Tragedy in Shakespeare’s Career’, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Tragedy, ed. Claire McEachern, 2nd edn. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 51-70 (p. 57). iv CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i A NOTE ON TEXTS ii INTRODUCTION Part One Shakespeare and genre ………………………………… 1 I A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the tragic………………………………..5 archetype of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ Part Two Metadrama: Origin and development of the term 11 I Lionel Abel and Anne Righter……………………………………………... 12 II Calderwood, Gurr and Stern……………………………………………….. 16 Part Three I Shakespeare at work ……………………………………………………... 23 CHAPTER ONE Titus Andronicus: Origins and Early Innovation 27 Part One I Classical Influences: Seneca and Ovid …………………………………… 29 II Senecan Overtones ………………………………………………………… 30 III Ovidian Overtones ………………………………………………………… 35 Part Two Metadrama, metapoesis and the language of tragedy 42 I Metadrama ………………………………………………………………… 43 II Marcus’ speech …………………………………………………………… 47 III Metamorphoses and the meta-literary moment …………………………… 52 IV Sidney and the ‘sweet violence of a tragedy’ ……………………………... 58 Part Three Intertextuality and theatrical precedent 65 I The Spanish Tragedy ………………... …………………………………. …….. 66 II 1602 Additions and Titus Andronicus ………………………………………… 68 III Aaron, the Vice and the Playwright ……………………………………… 71 Part Four The sense of an ending 75 I The End …………………………………………………………………… 75 II Conclusion….……………………………………………………………… 78 CHAPTER TWO Romeo and Juliet: A Hybrid Tragedy 80 Part One Sources 82 I Romeus and Juliet ………………………………………………………………… 83 II The creation of the ‘clowne’ ……………………………………………… 90 Part Two Tragedy, comedy or romance? Genre and the shape of the play 93 v I Mercutio and the Nurse …………………………………………………… 94 II Romantic Convention ………………………………………………………99 III Structural patterning ……………………………………………………… 107 Part Three The Place of the clown 110 I A specific clown: ‘Peter’ or the ‘Serving Man’ …………………………… 111 II The Lamentation scene …………………………………………………… 112 Part Four The Language of tragedy and the place of poetry 117 I Linguistic profligacy ……………………………………………………… 118 II The sonnet, poetry and metadrama ……………………………………… 120 Part Five Intertextuality and the ending 125 I The Capulet tomb and Ninny’s tomb ………………………………………126 II ‘Concord in discord’: Titular changes from ‘conceited’ to ‘lamentable’ … 128 III Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 131 CHAPTER THREE Richard II: History Becoming Tragedy 133 Part One Textual differences and their generic implications 134 I Quarto and folio …………………………………………………………… 135 Part Two Generic mutability: Holinshed, Hall and Daniel 138 I The Mowbray-Bolingbroke quarrel ……………………………………… 140 II ‘This Sceptered Isle’: John of Gaunt ………………………………………145 III Bolingbroke’s Return ……………………………………………………… 149 Part Three Richard as tragic martyr 152 I Creating the Tragic Impetus ……………………………………………… 153 II Daniel and the construction of pathos …………………………………… 155 III Shakespeare’s Queen ……………………………………………………... 159 Part Four Metadrama, metatext and the language of tragedy 163 I Metadrama, metatext and Barkloughly Castle …………………………… 164 II Pomfret Castle and Richard’s soliloquy ………………………………… 167 III The language of tragedy ………………………………………………… 169 IV The Deposition scene …………………………………………………… 175 V Intertextuality and the influence of Woodstock ……………………………… 180 Part Five The role of death 186 I Aumerle and the issue of comedy ………………………………………… 186 II Richard’s death …………………………………………………………… 188 III Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 191 CHAPTER FOUR Julius Caesar: A Broken Tragedy 192 Part One History, genre and metadrama 194 I History and Caesar ………………………………………………………… 195 II Ideas of history, tragedy and theatre in 1.2 ………………………………... 198 III How to stage a murder: Metatheatricality and Roman values …………… 202 IV The assassination as a performance ……………………………………… 206 V The orations ……………………………………………………………… 209 vi VI The death of the poet ……………………………………………………… 216 VII The supernatural as part of the theatrical paradigm ……………………… 220 Part Two Structural parallels: Plutarch and the idea of the hero 224 I Brutus and the idea of the hero …………………………………………… 225 II Antony: Hero and Revenger ……………………………………………… 232 III Structural and scenic parallels …………………………………………… 235 IV Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 240 CONCLUSION 243 APPENDIX 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY 264 1 Introduction Part One. Shakespeare and Genre This thesis starts from David Bevington’s observation that ‘Shakespeare’s disparate ventures into tragic expression in the years prior to 1599 suggest that he had not found the model or models he was looking for’.1 Put slightly differently, the main argument of the following pages is that Shakespeare’s early tragedies are a deliberate experiment in form, a searching out of different kinds of tragedy. Colin Burrow argues that ‘the category ‘tragedy’ was very elastic in this period’2 and suggests that ‘Shakespeare’s own conception of what might be achieved by a play which its printers might want to call a tragedy kept on changing.’3 Underlying
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