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Sources and Transmission of the Celtic Culture Trough the Shakespearean Repertory Celine Savatier-Lahondès

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Sources and Transmission of the Celtic Culture Trough the Shakespearean Repertory Celine Savatier-Lahondès Transtextuality, (Re)sources and Transmission of the Celtic Culture Trough the Shakespearean Repertory Celine Savatier-Lahondès To cite this version: Celine Savatier-Lahondès. Transtextuality, (Re)sources and Transmission of the Celtic Culture Trough the Shakespearean Repertory. Linguistics. Université Clermont Auvergne; University of Stirling, 2019. English. NNT : 2019CLFAL012. tel-02439401 HAL Id: tel-02439401 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02439401 Submitted on 14 Jan 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. University of Stirling – Université Clermont Auvergne Transtextuality, (Re)sources and Transmission of the Celtic Culture Through the Shakespearean Repertory THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PH.D) AND DOCTEUR DES UNIVERSITÉS (DOCTORAT) BY CÉLINE SAVATIER LAHONDÈS Co-supervised by: Professor Emeritus John Drakakis Professor Emeritus Danièle Berton-Charrière Department of Arts and Humanities IHRIM Clermont UMR 5317 University of Stirling Faculté de Lettres et Sciences Humaines Members of the Jury: Professor Danièle Berton Charrière, Université Clermont-Auvergne (tutor) Professor John Drakakis, University of Stirling (tutor) Professor Martine Yvernault, Université de Limoges (reporter) Professor Marie-Françoise Alamichel, Université Paris-Est Marne La Vallée, (reporter) Doctor Angus Vine, University of Stirling Doctor Nora Viet, Université Clermont-Auvergne 8 November 2019 © Céline Savatier-Lahondès For Philippe and Nicolas For Zof, and Fred ABSTRACT Key words: Shakespeare, Celtic, Motifs, (Re)sources, Antiquity, Rhizome This dissertation explores the resurgence of motifs related to Celtic cultures in Shakespeare’s plays, that is to say the way the pre-Christian and pre-Roman cultures of the British Isles permeate the dramatic works of William Shakespeare. Such motifs do not always evidently appear on the surface of the text. They sometimes do, but most often, they require a thorough in depth exploration. This issue has thus far remained relatively unexplored; in this sense we can talk of a ‘construction’ of meaning. However, the cultures in question belong to an Ancient time, therefore, we may accept the idea of a ‘reconstruction’ of a forgotten past. Providing a rigorous definition of the term ‘Celtic’ this study offers to examine in detail the presence of motifs, first in the Chronicles that Shakespeare could have access to, and takes into account the notions of orality and discourse, inherent to the study of a primarily oral culture. The figure of King Arthur and the matter of Britain, seen as the entrance doors to the subject, are studied in relation to the plays, and in the Histories, the analysis of characters from the ‘margins’, i.e. Wales, Ireland and Scotland provides an Early Modern vision of ‘borderers’. Only two plays from the Shakespearean corpus are set in a Celtic historical context – Cymbeline and King Lear – but motifs surge in numerous other works, such as Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale and others. This research reveals a substrate that produces a new enriching reading of the plays. 3 4 RÉSUMÉ Mots clés: Shakespeare, Celtic, Motifs, (Res)sources, Antiquité, Rhizome Cette thèse explore les résurgences de motifs liés aux cultures celtiques dans les pièces de Shakespeare, c'est-à-dire la manière dont les cultures pré-chrétienne et pré-romaine des îles britanniques imprègnent l’œuvre théâtrale de William Shakespeare. Ces motifs n’apparaissent pas toujours de manière évidente à la surface du texte. Cela arrive parfois, mais ils requièrent souvent une analyse précise et approfondie. Cette question est jusqu’à présent restée relativement inexplorée ; en ce sens nous pouvons parler d’une construction de sens. Cependant, les cultures en question appartenant à un passé antique, il est possible d’accepter l’idée d’une ‘reconstruction’ d’un passé jusque là oublié. Basé sur une définition rigoureuse du terme ‘celtique’, cette étude examine en détail la présence des motifs, tout d’abord dans les chroniques auxquelles Shakespeare a pu avoir accès, sans oublier les notions d’oralité et de ‘discours’, inhérentes à l’analyse d’une culture avant tout orale. La figure du roi Arthur et la matière arthurienne, perçus comme la voie d’entrée dans le sujet, sont étudiés en relation avec les œuvres du dramaturge, et dans les pièces historiques, l’analyse des personnages venant des ‘marges’, i.e. le Pays-de-Galles, l’Irlande et l’Ecosse informent sur la vision pré-moderne de ces ‘frontaliers’. Seules deux pièces sont situées dans un contexte historique celtique : Cymbeline et Le Roi Lear, mais de nombreux motifs surgissent aussi dans d’autres œuvres telles que Macbeth, Le songe d’une nuit d’été, La tempête, Le Conte d’hiver et d’autres. Ce travail de recherche révèle un substrat qui produit une nouvelle lecture enrichissante des œuvres de William Shakespeare. 5 6 FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This investigation was encouraged by Professor Danièle Berton-Charrière, from the Université Clermont-Auvergne, whose research on the Celtic domain herself together with Professor Jean Berton provided an impetus, and by Professor John Drakakis, from the University of Stirling, who is currently involved in the revision of Geoffrey Bullough’s Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Humans cannot live without stories. We surround ourselves with them; we make them up in our sleep; we tell them to our children; we pay to have them told to us. Some of us create them professionally. And a few of us – myself included – spend our entire adult lives trying to understand their beauty, power, and influence (Stephen Greenblatt, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, 2017, p. 2). I would like to express my eternal gratitude and acknowledgment to my tutors Danièle Berton and John Drakakis, and to my husband, Philippe Lahondès. I would like to thank the University of Stirling, the Université Clermont Auvergne, and the Région Auvergne for their support. In France, the Doctoral School at the MSH and IHRIM Clermont, my research laboratory were very helpful, and I felt very welcomed during my visits in Scotland. Thank you to my school, Collège La Salle Franc Rosier, and to the Rectorat de l’Académie de Clermont, for providing me the two-month research leave without which it would have been difficult to complete this dissertation. Thanks, too, go to my family for their patience, and to all of you who encouraged and supported me in this fascinating research project. I am hugely grateful for your friendship and company as much as anything. 7 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... 3 RÉSUMÉ .................................................................................................................................... 5 FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................... 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... 9 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ................................................................................................... 15 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................. 17 INTRODUCTION The transmission of Celtic cultural myths, (re)sources and transtextual relations ......... 19 1. Definitions, chronology and geography ........................................................................... 25 1.1 Definition of the term ‘Celtic’ .................................................................................... 26 1.2 Myth ........................................................................................................................... 38 2. Difficulties and limitations ............................................................................................... 43 2.1 Celtic motifs in Shakespeare: why not studied before? ............................................. 43 2.2 Speculation on oral culture ......................................................................................... 48 2.3 Available data ............................................................................................................. 52 3. Methodological tools ........................................................................................................ 56 3.1 Transtextual relations and the notion of con-text: Genette, Barker and Hulme, Lake, Maingueneau .................................................................................................................... 57 3.1.1 Genette ................................................................................................................ 57 3.1.2 Discourse, con-text and confluence .................................................................... 59 3.2 Of the function of references to Antiquity in Shakespeare’s drama: Colin Burrow .. 61 3.3 Rhizome:
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