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'What Is the Cause of Thunder?' ‘What is the cause of thunder?’ A Study of the Storm in King Lear by Jennifer Mae Hamilton A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Arts and Media Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of New South Wales 5 October 2012 ii Abstract This thesis offers a new interpretation of the storm in King Lear. The overarching argument is that when the storm’s material presence in the drama and its cosmological implications are given due consideration, both the play’s critical and performance history and the text itself are meaningfully complicated. From this perspective, this thesis unearths an important historical shift in interpretation: in 1606, the storm was a radical meteorological event that broke with conventional representations of the weather and challenged the perceived relations between the heavens and the earth. By means of a complex confluence of historical forces, it is now considered a symbolic adjunct to an entirely human conflict. Through a review of the play’s critical and theatrical history alongside a close reading of the text, this thesis approaches King Lear from a transhistorical perspective in order to investigate the marked change in the significance of the storm and reanimate its material function in the drama for today. Part One maps changes in the meaning and representation of the storm between 1606 and 2012 with regard to the cultural and cosmological significance of the weather, as well as artistic tastes and practices, in order to assess changes to the representation and interpretation of the storm on stage. Drawing on the notion that the storm is a structurally integral meteorological event, Part Two offers a reading of the storm’s material role in both the eponymous character’s journey and in the overall drama. The storm is shown not to be a symbol of Lear's emotions or mental state; instead, Lear's willing and shameless exposure of his mortal 'body natural' to the meteorological storm facilitates his famous paroxysm. By demonstrating the storm’s structural centrality to the drama, Part Two also argues that its role in triggering a crisis in the kingdom is akin to a ‘natural disaster’. By revitalising the storm’s significance as a meteorological event and rethinking the meaning of Lear’s important question – ‘What is the cause of thunder?’ – this thesis addresses an intriguing gap in Shakespeare scholarship at a time in history where the causes of thunder are being questioned once more. ii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the professional, intellectual, financial and emotional support of a range of different individuals, groups, institutions and organisations. I want to take the opportunity to thank them all here. First and foremost, I need to thank my supervisor, who unfortunately did not survive to see the completion of this project. The late Associate Professor Richard Madelaine: thank you. You politely forced me to take the path of least resistance on this journey into the messy history of King Lear. I respect your scholarly rigour, your relentless questioning and dogged attachment to the theatricality of Shakespeare’s work; without this, my thesis would not be what it is today. Secondly, I would like to thank my co-supervisor, Dr Meg Mumford, who stepped in after Richard’s passing and helped me to completion. Her fresh eyes, careful reading and provocative questions came at an integral stage of the process. Also, thank you to my proof reader, Dr John Golder. I gave several work-in-progress presentations of this research that were integral in shaping and refining my argument; I need to thank those who took time out to involve themselves in my work. Firstly, thanks to the staff from the Department of English at the University of New South Wales who attended my major seminar presentation. I thank them for their interest in my topic despite discursive differences and their energetic and erratic challenges to my thesis. Secondly, Dr Liam Semler and the members of the Early Modern Literature and Culture group at the University of Sydney for welcoming me into the fold and giving me timely feedback on my first chapter in the final stages of this thesis. Thirdly, I would like to thank the members of EASLCE and ASLE-UK who attended my presentations in Bath (UK) and Antalya (Turkey), their attention to the environmental and non-human dimensions of the text proved to be a source of encouragement on this unconventional path. I would like to thank the staff of several archives where I spent countless hours researching for the middle chapters of the thesis. Thanks to Christian from the Bell Shakespeare Company, Cheryl from the Max Reinhardt Collection and Madeleine from the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I would also like to thank Craig Martin, who generously sent me the final proofs of Renaissance Meteorology before it was published and whose work enriched the historical complexity of important parts of my argument at a late stage. I would also like to thank the director Benedict Andrews and the actor Greg Hicks for their insider comments on my work along the way. My travel and research was funded by a series of bursaries from both ASLE-UK, the Graduate Research School of UNSW and also a special prize from the UNSW research centre. I would like to thank these organisations for their financial support, which enabled me to pursue this project. I also wish to thank my peers, colleagues and friends, who have supported me personally throughout what has been a difficult time of life. Dr Carl Power bore the brunt of the emotional, psychological and physiological challenge that is involved in spending four years out in Lear’s storm; his ongoing commentary on the thesis, his insistence on the value of brevity and his pursuit of clear expression of complex ideas is part of the fabric of this work, and it is with much love and respect that I record my thanks today. Drs Demelza Marlin, Michelle Jameison, Laura Joseph and Kate Livett and Ms Viv McGregor have all influenced my work in powerful ways over the years iii and for that I thank them. Also, people who supported my ideas in other ways or enabled me to pursue other dimensions of my work in a more creative or experimental context I thank you: Daniel Brine, Bec Dean, Nat Randall, Bruce Cherry, Teik Kim-Pok and Emma Ramsay (from Performance Space) Astrid Lorange and Aden Rolfe (from Critical Animals) Leland Kean and Lucinda Gleeson (from the Tamarama Rock Surfers Theatre Company) and Kate Blackmore, Frances Barrett, Pia Van Gelder, Tom Smith and Marian Tubbs (from Serial Space). I would also like to thank my bike for helping me to get to and from the office each day. Although it might seem strange to thank a machine amidst a list of people, my bike occupies an important place in my life. The energy, strength and vitality generated through my relationship with my bike made the process of researching, writing, editing and refining this thesis physically possible. Finally I would like to thank my family. To my mother, Maggie Hamilton: thanks for your ongoing love and friendship and your energetic and passionate nature. This has kept me strong throughout the course of this project and enabled me to stay on track despite the adversity. Also thank you for all the dinners, breakfasts and lunches you cooked me when I came to visit and work towards the end of this project. To my father, JJ Hamilton, who died during the course of writing the thesis. Dad was not a Lear-like father; in fact he demanded very little from me and used to take me out walking in storms. I wish he could see the completion because he was the one who encouraged me to love storms, to dance wildly in the mud and celebrate the majesty of wild weather. Thanks to my maternal grandmother, May Schubert, who also died during the course of this thesis just shy of one hundred. She was the matriarch in my life; she gave love generously albeit conditionally, and constantly kept me on my toes. Thanks also to my cousin, Rebecca Hamilton, whose work as a scholar, activist and journalist is a constant source of inspiration. And finally, I am overjoyed to thank my one big love, Craig Johnson, who I met during this project. I never thought I would have the privilege of being so thoroughly enriched by love, let alone find it while surrounded by the death and detritus of a thesis project on King Lear. I thank you CMJ, for being you, for helping me through the end of this process and for so lovingly opening your life up to me. I am excited to share the future with you. iv This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my Supervisor, Associate Professor Richard Madelaine (1947-2012), my maternal Grandmother May Schubert (1910-2010) and the man who encouraged me not to be afraid of storms, my dear Father John James Hamilton (1941-2009). Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither; Ripeness is all (5.2.9-11). v vi Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. 1 The Distinction Between the Storm and Lear’s Mind Part 1: A Historical Overview of the Storm Chapter 1 …………………………………………………………………………. 20 A Cosmological Cataclysm: Early Modern Meteorology, Dramatic Weather and King Lear’s Idiosyncratic Storm 1.1. Aristotelian Meteorology 1.2. Dramatic Meteorology 1.3. The ‘Storm and tempest’ in King Lear 1.4. The Purpose of the Storm 1.5. Shakespeare’s Idiosyncratic Storm 1.6.
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