SHAKSPER 2002: Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 12/20/02
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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.2448 Friday, 20 December 2002
[1] From: C. David Frankel <frankel@arts.usf.edu>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 09:27:48 -0500
Subj: RE: SHK 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
[2] From: Martin Steward <MSteward@mds1974.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 14:42:06 -0000
Subj: Re: SHK 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
[3] From: W.L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 15:39:52 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
[4] From: W.L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 15:59:48 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 13.2430 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
[5] From: Anna Kamaralli <anna@belvoir.com.au>
Date: Friday, 20 Dec 2002 17:02:00 +1100
Subj: Re: SHK 13.2412 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: C. David Frankel <frankel@arts.usf.edu>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 09:27:48 -0500
Subject: 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Comment: RE: SHK 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
In talking about scripts to undergraduates, I make a distinction among
what I call the fictive world, the dramaturgical world, and the
theatrical world (of course, borrowing heavily from many sources).
This distinction allows us to talk about the fictive world, including
the characters, as if they were "real" -- for most students, and for
many playgoers, the fictive world attracts the most immediate attention
and understanding.
In talking about the dramaturgical world, the focus shifts to how the
playwright constructs the play, including the particular ways he or she
presents the fictive world. So, discussions of character explore their
function in the play -- from the simplest (this character in this scene
functions as a confidant, this character functions to give information
to the audience) to the more complex -- how do prevailing conventions of
representation (during the playwright's time) contribute to the play.
The dramaturgical, of course, also focuses on issues of structure (why
is this scene here instead of elsewhere? why is it in the play at
all?), language (what kind of words does the playwright give this
character?), and so on. One of the important points made here is that
all the lines of a play are ultimately addressed to the audience. I
also include in the dramaturgical the theatrical conventions (as best
they can be determined) of the playwright's times, a kind of virtual
theatrical world.
The theatrical world, then manifests in performance. Every performance
creates its own theatrical world, and we can look at specific
performances, discuss the choices made, and talk about how those choices
relate to the fictive and dramaturgical worlds. A part of this
discussion would also be how the dramaturgical and fictive worlds are
experienced through performance.
All of this, I'm sure, is fairly elementary, but it does allow
undergraduate students with little or no experience reading or seeing
plays to get a sense of the multiple ways of listening to a play.
Generally, I will also suggest that looking at the relationship between
the fictive and the dramaturgical worlds brings the rhetoric of the play
into focus -- that is, not rhetoric used *in* the play (that is
discussed in both the fictive and the dramaturgical worlds, for
different reasons), but the rhetoric *of* the play -- and I use rhetoric
here broadly, following Kenneth Burke.
In conclusion, I don't think you can listen to the play without
listening to the characters as if they were real people. But I don't
think you can listen to a play without understanding that the characters
are constructs who say and do what the playwright wants them to say and
do -- and that they exist (on the page) enmeshed in a large net of
conventions and dramaturgical needs. Finally, the play in performance
(and what is any individual reading except a virtual performance) brings
its own rhetorical devices to bear and what it says will change, to
greater and lesser degrees, depending on how it manifests the fictive
and dramaturgical worlds (and, of course, on the nature of the audience
-- but that's a different discussion).
cdf
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Steward <MSteward@mds1974.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 14:42:06 -0000
Subject: 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Comment: Re: SHK 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Carol Barton wrote:
"A king's legitimate love for his people and his country causes him to
behave like a benevolent father; a king's perception that he is God, or
near-God, in that he can order people to love him in the manner in which
he demands that love, and apportion property he does not own to the
detriment of the people who do own it, is abusive . . ."
Well, yes, if you share Lear's essentialist or paternalist understanding
of government. Those of us who live in the modern world (including
Shakespeare, I suspect) call it taxation, grumble a bit, and cough up in
order to preserve the State. Lear's error is that he doesn't understand
redistribution of wealth (it all goes on his useless retinue), indeed he
doesn't understand wealth, or economics, at all - I reiterate, Where are
the peasants and yeomanry in this play? Goneril and Regan, for all their
Machiavellian scheming, have a clearer notion of the social contract
than their dumb father (or their equally dumb sister).
Also abusive, Carol Barton adds, "is a king's assumption that he can
turn the homes of private citizens into barracks for his troops, or tax
people to fund his private agendas, etc. etc. etc."
The King, of course, doesn't have a "private agenda". His is a political
body - l'etait c'est moi, as Barton quoted Loius XIV. Again, that's the
problem with Lear - he has a strange notion of what his political body
constitutes (if it constitutes anything at all). It wasn't the problem
with either James or Charles, however, who both had very clear ideas
about what their political responsibilities were. Lancelot Andewes
preached a very interesting sermon on Matt 22:21 in 1601, in which he
remembered the Gaulonites who rose against taxation under "Judas of
Galilee" [Acts 5:37], "Men indeed of tumultuous spirits, but in shew
zealous preservers of the people's liberties", and contrasted them with
Christ, who was "ready to acknowledge what due is to either, both of
faith to God and allegiance to Cæsar". His words are enough "to shew God
impeacheth not Cæsar, nor God's due Cæsar's right. Either permitteth
other's interest, and both of them may jointly be performed. That as
God's law supporteth the law of nations, so doth Christ plead for Cæsar;
His religion for Cæsar's allegiance, His Gospel for Cæsar's duty, even
to a penny... This against the Gaulonite, that steps over quæ Cæsaris,
the first part, and is all for quæ Dei, the latter. And against the
Herodian too, by whom quæ Cæsaris is stood on alone, and quæ Dei slipped
over. Two duties are set forth; there is a like regard to be had of
both, that we make not Christ's answer serve for either alone...
Christ's course is best, to hold the mean between both". He even went so
far as to suggest specific political benefits of taxation: "to be safe
from the foreign enemy, from the wolf abroad"; "To be quiet from the
inward violent injurious oppressors, the fat and foregrown rams within
our own fold"; to preserve "a free sea and a safe port and harbour"; and
to ensure "our seed-time to ear the ground, our harvest to inn the crop
quiet and safe". They all are grounded "in the word of God. The custom,
Luke 3. 13; the tax, 1Sam. 17. 25; the fines, Ezra 7. 26; the
confiscation, Ezra 10. 8.", which suggests a divine right; but in any
case, Parliamentary taxation is out of the question in time of war, for
"when war cometh... war admits no stint, but as occasions call for it
supply must be ready" (Lancelot Andrewes, Sermon VI, 15 Nov 1601, Works
V, pp.128-131, 137-138; Cf. A Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine, Works
VI, pp.251-252, 254). William Laud said something similar 25 years
later: "And certainly it is a great and grievous error in any people, as
well as in Israel, - and in any age of the world as well as in that, -
to fast, and pray, and call upon God to 'arise and maintain His cause'
and their own joined with it; if, in the mean time, they will put nor
hand nor purse to 'maintain' either their own, or God's; their own in
the State, or God's in the Church... The prayer is, that 'God would
arise, and maintain His cause.' [Psalm 74:22] The first thing the
prophet aims at is the 'cause;' the equity and right that belongs to it,
not the respect it had to persons. And this, out of question, is the way
of justice, to honour the person for the cause, not to esteem the cause
of the person. Now men for the most part go a cross way to this; and,
therefore, when they will come into the way of justice I cannot tell,
for usually all business is sided into parties. It is no matter for the
'cause,' let who will 'maintain' that simply for itself. If it make for
us and our party, so far we will 'maintain' it; else, be it 'God's
cause,' or whose it will, whether it sink or swim, it shall not trouble
us. And I doubt as the practice of too many men is, so is their prayer;
for the faction, and the party, all; not the 'cause,' either as it is
God's, the Church's, or the State's" (William Laud, Sermon V, 5 July
1626, Works I, pp.136-138). Why had Parliament called for a war it was
not prepared to pay for? Why did Sir Francis Seymour stand up in the
Commons in March 1627 in order to denounce "the billettinge of
souldiers" as "a thinge noe way advantagious to [the King's] service,
and a burden to the Commonwealthe" (Henry Harington, ed., Nugae
Antiquae...III, p.114)? The answer lies, as Laud perceived, in the fact
that Parliament housed a number of conflicting "factions" and "parties",
each with their own "cause". The Puritan element had always pressed for
anti-Spanish policies against the peace which James had pursued; but
that peace was vital for the health of English trade (unless you were a
privateer), and so merchants and their common law allies generally had
no stomach for disruptive foreign conflicts.
The divine right of Kings was not a tyrant's charter: it meant that the
King had obligations to God, and to his people through God (as anyone
who's read Basilkon Doron and Trew Law rather than just citing them
knows). One of those obligations was the maintenance of "God's cause",
that is, peace, or failing that, Protestantism. That takes armies and
ships, and armies and ships cost money. What choice does a King have
but to ask for money from his subjects, preferably with their consent
through Parliament, but any way possible if they're going to be funny
about it?
Incidentally, reading the legal judgements for the Crown in the case of
shipmoney reveals that it was not a "tax": the ships that were bought
with the money gathered through these writs technically continued
property of the subjects. A proper wheeze! And remarkably Republican,
too, on reflection...
martin
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: W.L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 15:39:52 -0500
Subject: 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Comment: Re: SHK 13.2439 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Regarding T. Hawkes's exhortation that we "listen to the play" rather
than the "characters," Martin Steward writes:
>How odd that a rhetorical trope as simple as synecdoche should cause
>such fevered scratching of heads! You'd think people used to reading
>"Shakespeare" would be a bit more intuitive about such things.
Perhaps Martin would suggest how synecdoche works in this case. Is
"listening to the play" the part for the whole, the whole for the part,
the specific for the general, or the general for the specific?
Yours, Bill Godshalk
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: W.L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
Date: Thursday, 19 Dec 2002 15:59:48 -0500
Subject: 13.2430 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Comment: Re: SHK 13.2430 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Dave Evett writes:
>I think the kinds of patterns
>likely to be interesting to Terence Hawkes can very largely be found
>only in the words written to be spoken by the actors or read, initially
>and primarily with that understanding, by some reader - that is, the
>"speeches" of "the characters" - and that these speeches largely
>comprise the play.
Well, yes, this seems to be a reasonable approach.
But until a script is interpreted it is merely markings on a page (and
even that minimal description contains a good deal of interpretation).
Let us assume that we find a playscript. We cannot know that the
markings on the page are intended to be "words written to be spoken by
actors." The author's intention may be intuited, but it is not a matter
of fact. Perhaps the author thought of his script, not as a series of
speeches, but as one long poem -- and actually thought that it would be
best read in the closet -- as one long poem.
Yours, Bill Godshalk
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anna Kamaralli <anna@belvoir.com.au>
Date: Friday, 20 Dec 2002 17:02:00 +1100
Subject: 13.2412 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
Comment: Re: SHK 13.2412 Re: Cordelia and Listening to the Play
>Do we figure out what a play means (that is, why it
>has power to move us) by looking at what the characters say, or do we
>figure out what they have said by understanding what the play means?
>I concluded that the latter was just as important as the former, and
>TH's point (if I have heard him correctly) is that it is (or may be)
>*more* important.
Don's arguments are persuasive, but caution is vital, because many
people assume they know what the play says, and so stop listening to
what the lines of the characters tell us about what the play says. Such
an approach has often led critics down a questionable path (and, with
the greatest respect, Dr Hawkes has at times been one), in which what we
"know" about a story usurps the what is present in the lines.
Let me illustrate with an example I find I just keep coming back to:
Cressida. "Everybody knows" that Cressida is unfaithful, and unfaithful,
for many critics, has become indistinguishable from vulgar, lascivious
and sexually indiscriminate. Consequently, lines that would be
considered witty and cheeky in the mouth of Beatrice or Rosalind are
taken as proof positive of anything from calculation to nymphomania in
Cressida. Dr Hawkes, for example, called her "capable of duplicity"
because she finds it "perfectly acceptable" to say "in faith, true and
not true" (Shakespeare and the Reason). In response to Pandarus' comment
on Troilus' complexion: "in truth, brown and not brown", however, she
appears to be teasing her uncle over his tortured phrasing, not saying
something she regards as "perfectly acceptable". And in what way is this
duplicitous?
It happens in performance, too (or perhaps more). The exquisite
ambiguity with which Shakespeare wrote Cressida's tryst with Diomedes
(in which there are NO kisses or embraces mentioned, only that she
"whispers" and "strokes his cheek") has usually been ignored or
ruthlessly stamped out on stage, as Cressida clings to Diomedes with a
fervour that allows none of the doubt present in the script.
Critics are usually reduced to deductive contortions to make her lines
tell us what they all "know" about Cressida, but this precludes
consideration of the possibility that Shakespeare was writing something
that would subvert, rather than support, the story in its traditional
form.
I'm sure there are many other examples, and would love to hear a few
floated.
Regards,
Anna.
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
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