UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY A Learned Audience: Spectators, Auditors, Shakespeare and Song by Paul L. Faber A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2009 © Paul L. Faber 2009 Library and Archives Bibliothèque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l’édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-54527-0 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 978-0-494-54527-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non- L’auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l’Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non- support microforme, papier, électronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L’auteur conserve la propriété du droit d’auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author’s permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privée, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont été enlevés de thesis. cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n’y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Abstract Faber’s thesis examines song references in Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and The Second part of Henry IV and how such references link to central issues in each play. He also demonstrates how Shakespeare, through clever dramaturgy, attempts to psychologically prepare his audience to perceive song references and the full extent of their implications. Faber argues that such preparation exposes Shakespeare’s view that all in his audience possessed similar critical “auditing” abilities regardless of education or social position. ii Acknowledgements A number of wonderful minds have shaped my experience for the last six years at the University of Calgary and, in their own way, colour this text to various degrees. I extend great thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Mary Polito who encouraged this line of inquiry early on and, through her consummate professionalism, innate positivity, and patient shepherding, inspired me to work as hard on this project as I have on anything in my life. I must also acknowledge here my father, Dr. Mel D. Faber and my wife, Amy Hinrichs, both of whom supplied relentless support as well as many insightful and, thankfully, sobering conversations as I chopped away. As this work represents my last academic endeavour at the University of Calgary, I would also like to thank the following: Dr. Michael T. Clarke, Dr. James Ellis, Dr. Jeanne Perreault, Dr. Mary Polito, Dr. Vivienne Rundle and Apollonia Steele, many of whose letters, I am convinced, were key to my placement with the ideal PhD supervisor in a fine institution, yet whose professional examples and many shades of grace, I am equally convinced, will benefit me far more. I must also offer thanks to the administrative staff at the University of Calgary English department: Barb Howe, Anne Jaggard and Brigitte Clarke for their everyday generosity and patience in their dealings with us all. Finally I would like to thank Dr. Katherine Zelinsky, whose great enthusiasm and fine teaching convinced me that the study of literature was something I not only could do but should do. iii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to all those who performed, listened, and criticized with me amidst the amphitheatres, nightclubs, arenas, hotels, cars and campfire light–the collage of spheres in which I was myself for twenty years of professional music. This entire effort springs from one moment in Shakespeare that I would never have recognized if not for all of you, in concert. iv Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………. ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………... iii Dedication……...……………………………………………………………….. iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………….. v Epigraph………………………………………………………………………… vi Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 1 Broadside Ballads: The Popular Song as Signifier……………………... 3 Song and Semiotics……………………………………………………... 8 Chapter 1. “Have You Heard the News?”: From Spectator to Auditor in The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet………………………... 16 Overcoming Acoustics?............................................................................ 25 Chapter 2. To Please All: Auditors, Spectators, and Songs in Hamlet…………. 30 2.1. From the Grave: “I Lothe that I Did Love”………………………… 34 2.2. At Each Ear a Hearer: “Jephtah, Judge of Israel”………….............. 39 2.3. What We May Be: Auditing the Spectacle of Ophelia…….............. 45 Chapter 3. The Taming of the Spectator: Act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night........... 73 Chapter 4. Marking a “Withered Old Knight”: 2 Henry IV…………………….. 92 4.1. Bad Apples…………………………………………………………. 92 4.2. Bad Apples II………………………………………………………. 101 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………. 111 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………... 116 v “This cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech list'ning.” William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew vi 1 Introduction Act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night opens to feature Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the first turns of one of Shakespeare’s more famous late-night bacchanals. Just after the call for wine, Feste enters hailing his comrades with the quip “Did you never see the picture of ‘we three’?”.1 His comment refers to a contemporary trick picture featuring two fools or asses heads–the implication being that the third is the viewer.2 Sir Toby’s response “Welcome Ass” confirms the link (12). The initial joke is, of course, the notion of Feste the fool apprehending his two arguably foolish friends. Once we understand its contemporary significance however, “We Three” emerges also as a liminal device transcending the psychological boundary separating the world of the audience from that of the stage. In the process of imagining the trick picture, the spectator reflexively places him/herself within the dynamic of its joke–the recognition of the marked self. In the midst of watching a play, in which one often “forgets oneself,” such recognition would likely have generated for many a particular sobriety. For “We Three” not only reminds the audience of itself, it also suggests that the spectator must mine the full measure of the presentation before him/her–the spectacle and its qualifying words– else risk missing something of particular importance. Through Feste, then, we find 1 These and all other references to Shakespearean drama are taken from The Royal Shakespeare Company edition. Shakespeare, William. The Royal Shakespeare Company Complete Works. Eds. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2007. Print. 2 William Shakespeare. The Norton Shakespeare. Gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 1997. Print. Pg. 675, note 3. For a more detailed discussion, see Shakespeare, William. Twelfe Night or What You Will. Ed. Horrace Howard Furness. 4th. ed. London: J.B. Lippincott, 1901. Print: 108, note for line 20. The RSC edition does not contain a note explaining the picture reference. 2 Shakespeare delivering to his audience a subtle yet unmistakable directive: “Pay attention here.” Of course, as Jeremy Lopez points out, Renaissance drama brims with devices which, at some level, encourage perspicacity. Yet I take Feste’s allusion to be of a different species than those examined in Lopez’s Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama (2003);3 it is less overt than a pun, aside or exposition; it also lacks specificity, in that it marks neither elements of the plot nor a character’s intentions or motivation. Constructions such as Feste’s trick picture appear designed to tacitly move “spectators” to become “auditors” (to use Andrew Gurr’s terms)4 in preparation for key moments. In other words, “We three” exemplifies a dramaturgical technique designed to entice audience members from a passive, spectating role to an actively critical one in order that they may fully perceive the significance of coming phenomena. Yet the audience is never told what it must seek to understand, only that it must seek. The most numerous, creative and complex examples of these preparatory constructions occur in three plays written in and around 1600-1601: Hamlet, 2 Henry IV, and Twelfth Night; and all are bound up with song. More specifically, they appear designed to prepare audiences to perceive song references, their implications and, concurrently, key dramatic issues the song references often appear to inform. My primary goal in this study is to illuminate these