Hospitality in Shakespeare

Hospitality in Shakespeare: The Case of The Merchant of Venice , Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens Sophie Emma Battell A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of English, Communication and Philosophy Cardiff University 2017 Summary This thesis analyses hospitality in three of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596-7), Troilus and Cressida ( c. 1601-2) and Timon of Athens (c. 1606-7). It draws on ideas from Derrida and other recent theorists to argue that Shakespeare treats hospitality as the site of urgent ethical inquiry. Far more than a mechanical part of the stage business that brings characters on and off the performance space and into contact with one another, hospitality is allied to the darker visions of these troubling plays. Hospitality is a means by which Shakespeare confronts ideas about death and mourning, betrayal, and the problem of time and transience, encouraging us to reconsider what it means to be truly welcoming. That the three plays studied are not traditionally linked is important. The intention is not to shape the plays into a new group, but rather to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s staging of hospitality is far - reaching in its openness. Again, while the thesis is informed by Der rida’s writings, its approach is through close readings of the texts. Throughout, the thesis is careful not to prioritise big moments of spectacle over more subtle explorations of the subject. Thus, the chapter on The Merchant of Venice explores the sounds that fill the play and its concern with our senses. Other chapters similarly approach the plays not as exemplars of hospitality but as illuminating problems posed by the complex nature of what it means to be welcoming. The second chapter on Troilus and Cressida explores the vulnerability of guests and hosts to one another on and off the battlefield, while the last chapter on Timon of Athens argues that the emphasis Shakespeare places on death and mourning problematises the play’s gift economy and its representation of hospitality. Finally, the conclusion glances briefly ahead to The Winter’s Tale ( c. 1610-11) and the relationship between hospitality and forgiveness. But there are no easy answers to the problem of hospitality in the late plays either, since they, too, remain caught in the dilemma of what it means to be welcoming. i Acknowledgements My first and greatest thanks must go to my supervisor, Professor Martin Coyle, who is one of the many wonderful teachers at Cardiff University who first sparked my interest in Renaissance literature many years ago. Over the last few years, Martin has been unfailingly supportive and encouraging of this project, a genuine pleasure to work with and an inspirational friend and mentor. I am fortunate to have been part of a network of excellent medieval and early modern scholars within the English department. In particular, I am grateful to Professor Ceri Sullivan who read and gave feedback on early drafts of this thesis, and to Dr Megan Leitch who has let me be part of some interesting discussions with her MA students over the last few years and has also given much valuable advice on academia in general. Dr Irene Morra, Dr Liz Ford, Dr Rob Gossedge, Professor Carl Phelpstead and Professor Helen Phillips have all offered their support and encouragement throughout the project and have made me feel welcome inside this research community. I am grateful to Dr Johann Gregory who encouraged me to begin my PhD in the first place and who has been a trusted friend for over a decade. I would also like to express my warmest thanks to Dr Mark Truesdale and Dr Sheri Smith, both of whom have been tremendously generous with their time and advice, particularly in the final stages. Other friends and colleagues within the wider English department have helped a great deal. I especially wish to thank Professor Neil Badmington who gave helpful feedback on large sections of the thesis and offered encouragement during the annual review process. Dr Chris Müller made numerous suggestions on the contemporary reading and I am appreciative of his support. Thanks are also due to Dr Emma West, Dr Catherine Han and Dr Tom ii Harman, who all offered advice on the practicalities of finishing a thesis. I would like to thank Rhian Rattray who has given me so much practical support over the last few years and has been so positive about this project. I also wish to thank Julie Alford, Dean Burnett, Nathan Heslop and the staff from the Arts and Social Studies Library. I am grateful to the School of English, Communication and Philosophy for awarding me funding to present my research at conferences both in the UK and further afield. I would like to thank my father John Battell for his unwavering support and interest in my research. It is no exaggeration to say that this thesis would have been impossible without his help. Dr Chloe Preedy and Dr Varsha Panjwani have not only offered their advice on all things early modern, but are dear friends. They have supported me and this project in many ways over the last few years and I owe them my thanks. I am so grateful to my partner, Aidan, who has listened to everything, read everything and improved everything. Finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my beloved grandmother, Margaret, who sadly passed away before I completed my PhD, but who has informed and inspired all of it. Lastly, and on a more personal note, I would like to say once again how grateful I am both to Martin and to the English department in general. To say that this PhD got off to a difficult start is perhaps an understatement. After a very happy few years of undergraduate study in English Literature at Cardiff University, I began a PhD at a different institute supported by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Having produced eighty thousand words of writing, at an annual review meeting at the end of the two-year period I was informed that the project was not coming together as hoped and that I should withdraw from the programme with immediate effect. It took several years to collect my thoughts and to want to research again, and when I began my PhD at Cardiff in 2012 I was not sure that I had another eighty thousand words in me. The fact that I did is testament to Martin’s formidable support as a mentor an d to my friends and colleagues at Cardiff and my family who believed in me and the project long before I did so myself. The last five years have been extraordinarily rewarding and I have found again a love of research which I believed had been lost forever. Thank you to those who helped. iii Contents Introduction Hospitality in Theory and Performance 1 Staging Domesticity in Early Modern Plays 7 Food for Thought 13 The Ethics of Hospitality 17 Recent Scholarship on Hospitality 22 The Present Thesis 27 Chapter One Listening for Welcome in The Merchant of Venice 30 Thresholds of Hearing in Early Modern Culture 34 The Lottery of Hospitality 41 Shylock’s Sober House 49 ‘Hearing applause and universal shout’ 65 Legal Hearings 70 Disharmony 82 Chapter Two Wartime Encounters in Troilus and Cressida 91 Hospitality and Disarmament 97 iv ‘Time is like a fashionable host’ 112 ‘O, these encounterers’ 126 Blended Knights 134 Invasion 146 Chapter Three Economies of the Gift in Timon of Athens 155 Feast 158 ‘Thou weep’st to make them drink’ 169 Parasites 183 Hospitality and the Natural World 190 The Gift of Mourning 206 Conclusion 214 Bibliography 218 v Introduction Hospitality in Theory and Performance This thesis developed from an initial interest in how stage directions functioned across early modern drama and, specifically, how they were used to create a sense of domestic environment. In Act III of Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness , for example, the stage direction reads: ‘ Enter three of four servingmen [including Spiggot the Butler and Nicholas], one with a voider and a wooden knife, to take away all, another the salt and bread, another the tablecloth and napkins, another the carpet; Jenkin with two lights after them ’. 1 I began by thinking about how commonplace domestic objects such as knives, napkins, and trenchers acquired new meaning when they were brought into the theatrical space, and how entrances and exits supplemented the ordinary with moments of heightened emotional tension. Yet as my research advanced, I became convinced that something of more philosophical importance was happening on stage during moments of encounter. It seemed to me that the dramatic practicalities of getting characters on and off the stage and into confrontation with one another was, in Shakespeare’s plays, a means to investigate pr oblems of an ethical nature. Intriguing questions began to arise not only of how hospitality was 1 Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness , in Three Elizabethan Domestic Tragedies , ed. by Keith Sturgess (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985), III.ii.0.SD. 1 performed in Shakespeare’s theatre, but also about what was at stake during moments of encounter with outsider figures. With this as my starting point, I offer here a sustained analysis of how hospitality is performed in three of Shakespeare’s more troubling plays: The Merchant of Venice , Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens . The thesis seeks to demonstrate how Shakespeare’s presentation of hospitality go es far beyond simply introducing characters to one another or to the audience, becoming instead a site of rich theatrical inquiry about what it truly means to give hospitality to another person.

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