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Liquid Assets: the Functions of Forgetting In LIQUID ASSETS: THE FUNCTIONS OF FORGETTING IN SHAKESPEARE’S SECOND HENRIAD by JONNI KOONCE DUNN Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON DECEMBER 2012 Copyright © by Jonni Koonce Dunn 2012 All rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An awareness of how much I owe to so many people humbles me even at this time of deep personal satisfaction. I am hopelessly indebted to Kevin Gustafson, whose serendipitous remark about forgetfulness and whose indefatigable encouragement and cogent advice while supervising this project have been indispensable. The other members of my committee, Jacqueline Stodnick and Amy Tigner, are also due my heartfelt gratitude, the former for prodding me through Anglo- Saxon English when I wanted to drop out, and the latter for insisting that I foreground my own arguments. Other members of the UTA faculty who generously shared their knowledge with me throughout my graduate study are Johanna Smith, Stacy Alaimo, the late Simone Turberville, Tom Porter, Laurin Porter, and Rajani Sudan. I will resist the temptation to thank every teacher I ever had, but Dr. Joe Cash, formerly of Abilene Christian University and recently retired from McNeese State, deserves my thanks for reading my essay aloud in 1965 and kindling a lifetime interest in English. My children, Cassel Dunn Talley and E. Fletcher Dunn, have been enthusiastic supporters of my academic efforts, sacrificing in their own lives to see that I complete this long-desired goal. I am grateful to my late dear mother, Genevieve Vickers Koonce, who taught me to love reading, and my extraordinary father, Phil Barrett Koonce, who taught me not only the value of perseverance but also, through his confrontation with Alzheimer’s, the deepest meaning of forgetfulness. I thank my husband, Riley Dunn, for his unflagging encouragement and love that have been more instrumental in my achievements than he knows. My sincerest acknowledgement is the debt I owe to God, who “makes my feet like the feet of a deer; He enables me to stand on the heights.” (Psalm 18:33). November 8, 2012 iii LIQUID ASSETS: THE FUNCTIONS OF FORGETTING IN SHAKESPEARE’S SECOND HENRIAD Jonni Koonce Dunn, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2012 Supervising Professor: Kevin Gustafson This dissertation examines Shakespeare’s second historical tetralogy, in which the playwright employs forgetfulness despite its pathologized position in early modern culture and its seeming incompatibility with history. In Richard II , the King’s forgetfulness attempts self-stabilization while his sustained forgetfulness, in response to the historical sublime, results in tragic poetry. Nietzschean ideas of judicious forgetfulness and plasticity, Langerian concepts of comedy, and the Andersonian notion of a unifying national amnesia inform a comparison of the functions of forgetfulness for Henry IV, Prince Hal, and Falstaff in 1 Henry IV . In 2 Henry IV forgetfulness first deploys in the figure of Rumor, who uncovers the constructed, amnesic nature of history, and then in nostalgia that mirrors national amnesia, and culminates with the rejection of Falstaff. In Henry V the forgetful official history given by the Chorus is contrasted with the play’s action, forgetfulness of guilt proves essential to the King’s pursuit of greatness, his amnesic rhetoric to his army functions to craft a “band of brothers,” and the benefits of judicious forgetfulness are shared with Katharine by Henry V. Often using images of liquidity, Shakespeare foregrounds the beneficial role that forgetfulness plays in the negotiation of life’s traumas, in the achievement of greatness, in the creation of national unity, and in historiography itself. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………………iii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................... iv Chapter Page 1. EARLY MODERN FORGETTING, HISTORY AND THE SECOND HENRIAD……………………….. ............................................................ .1 1.1 Memory and Forgetting in Early Modern England ........................................... .3 1.2 Early Modern Views of History and Historiography ......................................... .9 1.3 Forgetting in Shakespeare: A Scholarly Opportunity ..................................... 13 1.4 Critical Views of the Second Henriad ............................................................. 17 1.5 Founding Principles of the Argument ............................................................. 22 1.6 An Overview of Chapter 2 Richard II .............................................................. 23 1.7 An Overview of Chapter 3 1 Henry IV ............................................................ 25 1.8 An Overview of Chapter 4 2 Henry IV ........................................................... 28 1.9 An Overview of Chapter 5 Henry V ................................................................ 29 2. RICHARD II .................................................................................................................. 33 2.1The Abridged Richard...................................................................................... 34 2.2 Unsettling Historiography: Uncertainty and Making Choices ......................... 36 2.3 Double Amnesia: Fair Succession and England’s Landlord .......................... 38 2.4 Forgetting and the Shattering of Identity ........................................................ 42 2.5 “Who Do You Think You Are?”: Richard and Experimental Identity .............. 48 2.6 Language, Literature, and the Creation of Tragic Art ..................................... 49 v 2.7 “Whose Idea Was This in the First Place?”: Richard Jump-Starts the Future .................................................................... 51 2.8 The Historical Sublime and Forgetting ........................................................... 53 2.9 “He Thinks He’s Jesus Christ!” Richard and Christological Identification ....................................................... 61 2.10 Richard and Self-Incrimination ..................................................................... 64 2.11 Richard Onstage: Self-Disintegration as Performance Art ........................... 66 2.12 “The Lamentable Tale of Me”: De Casibus to Take Away ........................... 70 2.13 “And Now for Something Completely Different”: York Family Values ...................................................................................... 72 2.14 The Tragic Artist Talks About His Work: Imagery and Timing ..................... 73 2.15 “But Will It Play in Peoria?”: Richard II as History ........................................ 75 2.16 “What Just Happened?”:The Meaning of Richard’s Death .......................... 76 3. 1 HENRY IV .................................................................................................................. 79 3.1 “The Center Cannot Hold”: Decentralization in 1 Henry IV ........................... 80 3.2 Why Nietzsche Now? .................................................................................... 81 3.3 What Nietzsche Says About History and Forgetting ..................................... 82 3.4 Shakespeare’s New Deployment of Forgetfulness in 1 Henry IV ........................................................................ 85 3.5 Forgetfulness at the Court of Henry I V .......................................................... 87 3.6 Falstaff: The Poster Child for Early Modern Forgetfulness ...................................................................... 95 3.7 “If You Have to Explain It, It’s Not Funny”: Falstaff and Comic Theory ........................................................................... 96 vi 3.8 The Play Extempore: The Best Days of Their Lives ................................... 100 3.9 Hal and His Own Private Forgetfulness ...................................................... 102 3.10 The Long-awaited Encounter: Hal vs. Henry, Who Never Sees It Coming .................................................... 106 3.11 Forgetfulness at Shrewsbury: Separation and a Unified Account .............................................................. 110 3.12 Hal, the Best at Being Vast ........................................................................ 113 4. 2 HENRY IV ................................................................................................................ 115 4.1 Rumor and False History ............................................................................. 116 4.2 The Eternal Sunshine of the Perpetual Present .......................................... 119 4.3 “No, Really. Who’s Dead?” The Blurring of History and Fiction .............................................................. 120 4.4”Old Men Forget”—And That’s Really Important .......................................... 121 4.5 Goodbye to the Boar’s Head and Falstaff ................................................... 124 4.6 “Take Him Out!” “Leave Him In!” Critical Response to the Rejection ............................................................. 127 4.7 Andersonian Imagined Community ............................................................. 136 5. HENRY V .................................................................................................................... 140 5.1The Apologetic, Patriotic Chorus ..................................................................
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