LOOKING FOR PRIVACY IN SHAKESPEARE: WOMAN’S PLACE AND SPACE IN A SELECTION OF PLAYS AND EARLY MODERN TEXTS by PAULA BALDWIN LIND A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY The Department of English The Shakespeare Institute The University of Birmingham February 2013 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT Grounded in a multi-faceted theoretical framework that examines the dynamic interaction between the public and the private spheres of Elizabethan everyday life, this thesis aims to trace how the concept of privacy and its associated terms were developed, constructed, evoked, and configured both in Shakespearean drama and in other illustrative early modern texts. The author suggests that Shakespeare’s configuration of space results from a combination of the conditions of representation – empty stages – metaphorical language, technical dramatic devices, and textual markers that create a sense of space in the texts and onstage. The research also explores the place and space of early modern women and of Shakespeare’s female characters in terms of their relation to the private space; that is to say, their construction of ‘self-in-relation-to-space’, as well as their movements and activities within and outside the private’s real or imagined boundaries, thus their ability to fashion the public sphere from within the private. Rather than analysing the role of women in the plays exclusively from the point of view of opposition between spheres – public man versus private woman – the study wants to question and pose, at the same time, the relevance of approaching Shakespearean texts from a spatial perspective, a choice that may have an impact on the very interpretation of them. i DEDICATION To my parents, who have shared the ‘space’ of marriage and home for more than sixty years… ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Experience shows that very few people read acknowledgements. For most of them, these pages are reduced to a long list of names – experts, researchers, and librarians – they do not know; thus, they do not mean much to them. Usually the author of the thesis or book starts by telling about the effort that writing his/her work has entailed. This is usually followed by another list of people – family, friends, and colleagues – without whose patience, support, love, and professional help the final work would not have been accomplished. Now that I have to write the acknowledgements for my own thesis, I can state that this is true. If it were not for the assistance and company of those persons, and my trust in God, I would not have been able to carry on with this project. First, I want to especially thank my parents. I owe them my education, the possibility of having had access to many good opportunities in life, the taste for good books, good art and good music. I also want to thank my brothers and sisters, for they provided constant support, especially when my dad’s long illness was diagnosed. We have cared for him with love and dedication during all these years. Many thanks are due to my supervisor, Professor John Jowett, who always encouraged me to give as much as I could and conduct my research rigorously, while at the same time respecting my own views and ideas. Also to Dr Braulio Fernández Biggs, Director of the Institute of Literature at Universidad de los Andes, for his dedication and generosity in commenting upon an earlier draft of the thesis, as well as for his constant encouragement. I deeply appreciate his thought-provoking and valuable comments. I am very grateful to Dr Alison Findlay whose corrections to the thesis were extremely useful and prompted further research. I would also like to acknowledge Dr Alan C. Dessen’s help, not only for giving me permission to cite one of his unpublished conferences, but also for his generous advice. iii My sincere gratitude goes to the kind and helpful staff at the Bodleian Library in Oxford where I worked most of the time I spent in England; and to Susan Griffin, librarian at Hertford College where I obtained my Master’s degree. Special thanks to the friendly staff at the Shakespeare Institute Library, who facilitated my research during the short periods I spent in Stratford over these years; they made me feel at home despite being an external student. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Heather Davies for her help and advice, and for her insightful proofreading. Also to Beatriz Rengifo, my assistant, and to my friend Carmen Sofía Brenes, for their help in shaping the final format and layout of the thesis. I also wish to mention people who have not been directly concerned with the thesis, but who have inspired me in this work. To my colleagues and friends at The Institute of Literature where I work at present: to Susana Bunster, one of my former university teachers, who transmitted her love for Literature to me, and to Dr Miguel Donoso for his support, as well as to my friend, Dr Pelusa Orellana, Research Vice-dean at the Faculty of Education, Universidad de los Andes. I am also indebted to the FAI Research Fund (Fondo de Ayuda a la Investigación) for their funding both to undertake a research stay in England and to participate in conferences related to the topic. Thank you for your confidence in spite of the long time that I took to write this thesis. My Literature students have certainly been a source of joy and learning. Teaching them is always a challenge that inspires me every day. Some of their questions have given me the occasion to explore new areas of research, as they shed light on dimensions of the thesis that were still not clear in my mind. The support of all my friends has been invaluable. I am very grateful to those in “Winton”, Oxford, where I have stayed every time I have travelled to England. To the girls and staff in “Antullanca”, a private residence in Santiago where I went to work almost iv every evening after teaching at university from April to September 2011. Thanks for your support, the peaceful atmosphere, and for your delicious food. Thanks to so many people I may forget at this moment… Finally, I want to give thanks to Will, who has become one of my best friends. Thanks to him for teaching me so many beautiful words and metaphors, and for showing me a different world, full of magic; for allowing me to share his plays, his knowledge, and for letting me delve into the mysteries of human nature; for showing me that tragedies in life may turn into comedies, and that after tempests the sun always shines again. He has been my faithful and loyal friend…and several times a true jester. This thesis has been like a long life journey. I have enjoyed and suffered its stages at the same time. I can say that I’m not the same person who began writing some years ago. I have changed in the process and the initial idea I had of Shakespeare has also evolved. What does Shakespeare mean to me? He evokes life and death, light, knowledge, poetry, wisdom, humanity, company, meaningful words, tempests, the ocean breeze, tears, impossible love, hatred, knots that need to be disentangled, magic, the best and the worst of human nature, theatre, England, my ancestors, the fields, the sheep, trains, the Thames, the stone-paved streets of Oxford, long nights spent with books, heavy rain, the wind in the willows, the smell of yellowed pages, sonnets and songs, an island full of noises, a monster with a sweet heart, the moon, the sky, kings and queens trying to fulfil their royal duties, heroic battles and wars, the ‘happy few’, a little life rounded with a sleep… Shakespeare is words and poetry…He expresses human feelings superbly, like very few authors have done. He is forgiveness and loss, dreams, misunderstandings, smells, betrayal, ambition, solitude, madness, a river that flows like the continuing stream of life… v I knew from the very beginning that the topic I chose for the thesis was a challenge, but I decided to engage in this adventure, hoping to open up new spaces in the study of Shakespeare. There are still many facets of the private space that have not been reflected in the mirror of literary criticism. I hope those aspects that were studied in the thesis will shed more light on some of them. Shakespeare is an infinite and limitless space… vi NOTE ON THE TEXT AND REFERENCES I discussed the use of the term ‘private’ in the thesis with my supervisor. It is not clearly endorsed in OED and, being a back formation from the adjective, it raises the question: ‘the private what?’ I use it, as some critics have done, and set it up as a specific and quasi- technical term that is useful to my analysis because it includes not only space but also situations and experiences within that space. With respect to the references, I would like to note that I had to use different editions of some of the texts because they were not all available in Chile.