This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Meek, Richard James Title: Shakespeare and the question of narrative General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. 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Shakespeare and the Question of Narrative by Richard James Meek A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts February 2003 Word Count (not including footnotes): 69,482 Abstract This thesis explores Shakespeare's preoccupation with narrative: it explores both acts of narration-moments in the plays and poems when characters tell stories-and the status of narrative as a mode of representation. It argues that the sites of narrative in Shakespeare's plays expose the limitations of storytelling, whilst simultaneously revealing narrative to be what Jonathan Culler has referred to as 'a fundamental form of knowledge'. It is also argued that the plays themselves anticipate current critical debates concerning the question of text versus performance: Shakespeare asks whether seeing events is a more 'authentic' experience than hearing or reading about them, and asks whether a narrative description can ever create what Murray Krieger has called'the illusion of the natural sign'. Chapter 1 offers a survey of what other critics have said about the presence of narrative in Shakespeare's plays. Chapter 2 explores the ambivalent presentation of narrative in a variety of Shakespeare's plays and poems. Chapter 3 examines figures of reading and narration in The Rape of Lucrece, and its explicit concern with the difference between visual and verbal modes of representation. Chapter 4 investigates narrative and repetition in Hamlet, and suggests that the figure of the ghost is a powerful metaphor for the play's own sceptical treatment of both narrative and drama. Chapter 5 explores King Lea's preoccupation with the difference between 'experience' and `report', and describes ways in which this relationship might be related to the question of text and performance. Finally, Chapter 6 investigates the epistemological difficulties of narrative and the figure of ekphrasis in The Winter's Tale. By testing narrative and theatrical modes of representation against each other, Shakespeare's works offer a sophisticated but radically ambivalent statement concerning the power and limitations of art. 2 Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support I received from the University of Bristol and from the AHRB. Throughout I have benefited from the expert supervision of John Lyon and George Donaldson. Their comments and suggestions throughout the process of writing have been invaluable. I would not have begun this research without having first completed the Shakespeare MA at Bristol, during which time I first became interested in the subject of Shakespeare and narrative. David Hopkins and Andrew Bennett read two chapters of the thesis halfway through and made many helpful observations. I am particularly indebted to Sarah Gallagher, who read several chapters in the early stages of their composition with great intelligence and flair, and made many stimulating and encouraging comments. Some of the ideas in the following chapters have been tried out on students at the University of Bristol and at the University of the West of England, and I apologise to them. I would also like to thank the following individuals for their help and for making my time at Bristol so enjoyable: Ellen McCarthy, Jon Leaver, Becky and William, Ed Jack, Joanna Finlay, and once again to Sarah for all of those discussions in St Michael's Cafe. Thanks also to my family for their patience and support. My greatest debt, however, is to John McWilliams, who has read the thesis from cover to cover, and who has been kind enough to discuss the project with me- with all of his customary intellect and good humour-since its inception. Any infelicities that remain are, as they say, my own. Author's Declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the Regulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original except where indicated by special reference in the text and no part of the dissertation has been submitted for any other degree. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author and in no way represent those of the University of Bristol. This dissertation has not been presented to any other University for examination either in the United Kingdom or overseas. SIGNED: '(ý DATE: Sý 7/0 .7 4 Contents Abstract page 2 Acknowledgements 3 1. Introduction: Polonius and the Critics 6 i. On Narrative 6 ii. On Reading 18 2. Shakespeare and Narrative 29 i. Sad Stories 30 ii. Old Wives' Tales 47 iii. Telling the Unsatified 55 3. `Unseen Grief: Tragedy and Ekphrasis in The Rape of Lucrece 66 i. Taking Things at Face Value 69 ii. Textual Harrassment 78 iii. Conceit and Grief 81 iv. Every Picture Tells a Story 86 v. Publishing Bodies 94 vi. Conclusion 99 4. Ghost Stories: Repetition and Narrative in Hamlet 101 i. Repeating Oneself 104 ii. A Ghost in the Machine 109 iii. Hamlet's Interiority Complex 114 iv. The Relativity of Sorrows 118 v. The Rest is History 127 vi. Conclusion 132 5. 'I would not take this from report': Reading and Experiencing King Lear 134 i. Reading Between the Lines 137 ii. All or Nothing 140 iii. Blindness and Insight 143 iv. No Time to Explain 155 v. 'The horror, the horror! ' 161 vi. Conclusion 166 6. `Here's a sight for thee': The Claims of Narrative in The Winter's Tale 169 i. Faith and Credit 172 ii. Absent Friends 181 iii. '0 master pedlar with your confidence tricks' 189 iv. Take My Word For It 196 v. The Statue and the Critics 202 vi. Conclusion 215 Bibliography 217 5 Introduction: Polonius and the Critics 1. On Narrative On encountering the players at Elsinore, Hamlet remembers a play that `was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play I remember pleased not the million: 'twas caviary to the general' (2.2.395-96). ' Hamlet asks the First Player to recite a speech from this play, an unnamed work that has been performed only once, if at all. However, the speech that Hamlet requests is decidedly undramatic: it is 'Aeneas's tale to Dido' (2.2.404-5), an extended piece of narrative extracted from a dramatic work. Here Shakespeare recalls both Virgil's Aeneid and Marlowe's narrative-heavy play Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594), which is itself a dramatisation of Virgil's account of Aeneas's encounter with Dido. 2 After thirty lines of the Player's speech-which tells of Pyrrhus's pause before killing King Priam-Polonius interrupts the Player with a withering observation: 'This is too long' (2.2.456). Polonius appears to be criticising the Player for the excessive length of the narrative; the Player has said too much, and has taken up too much of Polonius's time. Yet we might also see Polonius's criticism as a comment upon the problems of including long passages of narrative within dramatic works. Indeed, many critics who have 1 Quotations from Hamlet are taken from the New Cambridge edition, ed. Philip Edwards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Quotations from other plays discussed in detail in the thesis are taken from the following editions: Titus Andmnicus, ed. Jonathan Bate (London: Routledge, 1995); King Lear, ed. R. A. Foakes (Walton-on-Thames: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1997); and The Winter's Tale, ed. Stephen Orgel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Quotations from The Rape of Lucrece are taken from The Complete Sonnets and Poems, ed. Colin Burrow (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002). All other quotations from Shakespeare are taken from The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans, 2"d edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). 2 See James Black, 'Hamlet Hears Marlowe, Shakespeare Reads Virgil', Renaissance and Reformation, 18 (1994), 17-28. Black suggests that Marlowe's play might be related to the play that Hamlet mentions: 'Dido was published in 1594: the title page states that it is printed as acted by the children of Her Majesty's Chapel. There is no record of a public performance' (p.18). See also Jonathan Bate, 'Marlowe's Ghost', in The Genius of Shakespeare (London: Picador, 1997), esp. p. 128. 6 written about Shakespeare's use of narrative have directed Polonius's criticism at Shakespeare himself, and argued that his narratives are too long, incongruous, or simply incompatible with drama.