Tragic men comic women: Shakespeare between genre and gender.

1
collateral factors The English Bible (1526)
William Tyndale
(1495-1536)
contingent factors Divorce from Catherine of
Aragon determinant
factors Publication of Luthers 95 theses
(1517)
ACT OF SUPREMACY (1534) Spoliation of monasteries
1536 The Tudors, 3rd series, 1 disc, 1 episode
(Pilgrimage of grace) 1539
2
ANGLICAN CHURCH HENRY VIII doctrinal
conservatism EDWARD VI fervent protestant, Mary
and Elizabeth out of succession
3
MARY (bloody) catholic reversal, Spanish
Marriage (Philip II) ELIZABETH I a middle
way Uniformity Act (public
observance, private freedom)
4
Society and Economy
Landed gentry increase in number, power and
wealth (from dissolution of monasteries and
patronage from the crown) The Queens Justices
of the Peace were the local most influential
exponents of the gentry.
5
London was absorbing more and more of the home
and foreign commerce, a portent in size for
England and even for Europe, at the death of Mary
100. 000 inhabitants, at the death of Elizabeth
200.000 The power and privilege of the Mayor and
citizens with their militia formed a state within
the state, a society bourgeois and protestant.
6
The greatest social change was the expansion of
overseas enterprise. Merchants sought out distant
markets compelled by the loss of Calais under
Mary and the rivalry with Spain in the Low
Countries. These changes caused distress and
unemployment in cloth manufacture but in the long
run new markets were found Russia, Prussia, The
Baltic, Turkey, Persia, India (Cape of Good Hope).
7
1600 East India Company Seafaring and
discoveries laid the path to colonialism (even
though Newfoundland and Virginia were only
temporary). Colonization became a means for
personal betterment and national strength.
8
Politics
Despite several crises, a relative peace was
kept (victims of violence Savages, Irish,
Catholics and dissenters, political enemies- were
not so numerous as in other periods or other
countries).
9
Wales Bosworth field placed a Welsh dynasty on
the throne of England. No religious difference
arose to divide the people. There was no movement
to colonize the country by robbing the natives of
their land.
Ireland Tudor policy was disastrous. The dominus
became rex to strengthen English control.
Catholicism made Ireland suspect and dangerous.
10
Scotland The two countries had a common interest
in defending the Reformation from internal and
external enemies. With the death of Elizabeth the
two crowns were reunited on the head of James
Stuart. Before there had been the crisis with
France and Mary Stuart.
11
France and Scotland had had a common policy
against England James V had married the French
Catholic Marie de Guise, their daughter Mary
Stuart (niece of Margaret sister of Henry VIII)
married the heir to the French throne Francis
II. When he died the French and the Scottish
together with the English Catholics plotted to
put Mary on the throne of England.
12
Spain After the execution of Mary Stuart, Philip
II of Spain sent the Armada. In 1588 England
defeated Spain. Failure of Leicester in the Low
Countries Failure of Essex in Ireland Essex
rebellion
13
Culture Printing and Translating diffused
knowledge (censure) In the days of Erasmus,
Renaissance had been confined to scholars and the
kings court. In the Elizabethan Age classicism
filtered through into the theatre and the street.
English language touched its moment of fullest
beauty and power. Minds, set free from medieval
bonds were not yet caught by Puritan fanaticism.
The merry old England of folklore and popular
tradition was still there. London and the court
were centres of cultural import from abroad and
local production and diffusion in the reign.
14
The Golden Age Poetry (Sidney, Spenser, Daniel,
Drayton) Prose (Lyly, Greene, Ralegh, Hakluyt)
Drama (Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare)
15
The Elizabethan world picture ORDER AND DEGREE
16
The Elizabethan world picture THE CORRESPONDING
PLANES

GOD
DIVINE or ANGELIC
SUN
UNIVERSE or MACROCOSM
COMMONWEALTH or BODY POLITIC
MAN or MICROCOSM
LOWER CREATION
KING
HEAD
LION
17
THE COSMIC DANCE THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
La visione del mondo medievale con i suoi
cerchi concentrici che, dai cori angelici e dalle
sfere planetarie, discendevano fino al mondo
sublunare armoniosamente digradando in un vortice
sempre più denso e materiale, forniva allartista
un modello coerente e ordinato circonfuso dal
suono misterioso della musica delle sfere e
variegato di colori e di luminosità (F.
Ferrara, Shakespeare e le voci della storia)
18
USO RETORICO His blood, which disperseth itself
by the branches of veins through all the body may
be resembled to those waters which are carried by
brooks rivers over all the earth, his breath to
the air the hairs of mans body to the grass
which covereth the upper face and skin of the
earth. Walter Raleigh, History of the World
19
USO POLITICO In the earth God hath assigned
kings princes with other governors under them,
all in good and necessary order. The water above
is kept and raineth down in due time and season.
The sun moon stars rainbow thunder lightning
clouds and all birds of the air do keep their
order. (Homily of Obedience)
20
ELEMENT HUMOUR QUALITY
PLANET EARTH MELANCHOLY COLD/DRY
SATURN WATER PHLEGM COLD/MOIST
MOON AIR BLOOD
HOT/MOIST JOVE FIRE CHOLER
HOT/DRY MARS
21
FOOD IS MADE OF THE 4 ELEMENTS. LIVER (KING OF
LOWEST PART OF BODY VEGETATIVE ) CONVERTS IT
INTO 4 HUMOURS. THEY ARE CARRIED TO THE HEART
(KING OF MIDDLE PORTION OF BODY SENSITIVE).
THE HEART REFINES THE HUMOURS AND SENDS THEM TO
BRAIN (KING OF TOP OF HUMAN BODY RATIONAL)
22
HISTORY FOR THE ELIZABETHANS THE MOVING FORCES
OF HISTORY WERE PROVIDENCE, FORTUNE AND HUMAN
TEMPERAMENT The wheel of fortune
23
Elizabethan Age pros and cons

• (I phase)
• Political stability
• Religious pacification
• doctrinal moderatism
• royal navy
• overseas trade/ discoveries
• amelioration in inhabiting conditions
• support to arts (music, painting, poetry,
  theatre, prose) and civilian architecture

• (II phase)
• Social immobilism (no social reforms)
• Degeneration of administrative and fiscal
  apparatuses
• Purchasing of public offices
• Corruption
• Impoverishment of the Crown
• Defensive foreign politics
• After Mary Stuarts affair persecution of
  Catholics hardship against Puritans
• Impoverishment of military forces
• Famines in the 90s
• Lack of direct heirs

24
ELIZABETHAN THEATRE

• PUBLIC
• Circular
• Outdoor
  Large audience
• (3.000 spectators)
• Cheap (1-2 pence)
• Majority standing
• Heterogeneous audience
• Suburbs
• Adult companies

• PRIVATE
• Rectangular
• Indoor
• smaller
• (700 spectators)
• expensive (6 pence)
• all seated
• selected audience
• City
• Boy companies

25
THE GLOBE THE BLACKFRIARS
26
INNYARD THEATRES COURT THEATRES The Boars
Head The Great
Hall (Whitechapel) (Hampton
Court) The Red Bull The II
Banqueting Hall (Clerkenwell)
(Whitehall)
27
ELIZABETHAN PUBLIC THEATRE Antecedents
Booth-stage in Marketplaces
or village-greens
Great halls in noble houses
Refectories of colleges
Inn-yards Bear-baiting
arenas
28
(No Transcript)
29
(No Transcript)
30
The Main Public Theatres The Theatre 1576-97 The
Curtain 1577-1627 The Rose 1587-1605 The Swan
1595 (De Witt) I Globe 1597-1613 (fire) II Globe
1614-44 (demolished) I Fortune 1600-21 (fire) II
Fortune 1623-25 (plague) 1649 (partly
demol.) The Hope 1614-56 (demolished)
31
Basic elements circular auditorium with
galleries Square projecting platform Two
upstage door A balcony Stage-posts with
curtains A stage-trap Tiring-house
32
Conventions Flexibility
Multiple repertoire
Symbolism Emblems
Costumes
Boy-actors for female roles
Anachronism No
space/time/genre unities Music (before, after,
during the performance, at intervals)
33
CHARACTERISTICS OF ELIZAB. PUBLIC
THEATRE UNCERTAINTY endemic plague since
1348 Theatres closed in 1580, 86, 87, 94,1604,
1605 Theatres closed during hot season (summer
tours in the country cfr. Hamlet) Dramatic
season in London Sept. to Christmas (twelve
days festivities, chosen plays at court) Jen. to
Feb. (Lenten interruption)
34
THEATRE TRANGRESSIVE CHARACTER Contiguity with
vagrancy, festive and riotous revelry, laziness,
class proximity, sexual ambiguity, profane,
irreverent, blasphemous character, susceptible of
producing street disorders and tumults.
Sometimes connected to political threat (1601
Essex and Richard II) 1597 The Isle of Dogs by
Ben Jonson Thomas Nashe (lost) performed at the
Swan Theatre by the Earl of Pembrokes Men caused
a riot.
35
The Master of the revels selected the plays to be
performed at court but also exercised control and
censorship upon the texts Ordinance of the Privy
Council Her MAJESTIE being informed that there
are verie greate disorders committed in the
common playhouses both by lewd matters that are
handled on the stages and by resorte and
confluence of bad pople, hath given direction
that not onlie no plaies shal be used within
London or about the citty or in any publique
place during this tyme of sommer, but that also
those playhouses that are erected or built only
for such purposes shall be plucked down.
36
PATRONAGE 1572 Act for punishment of vagabonds
Illegal for strolling players to perform
without authorization Companies took the livery
of the Patron (Leicesters Men Sussex Men
Queens Men Lord Strange Men The Admirals
Men Lord Chamberlains Men later to become The
Kings Men etc.)
37
Letter by Lord Chamberlain to Lord Mayor of
London to ask leave for his Men to play at The
Cross and Keys Tavern the which I praie you
the rather to doe for that they have undertaken
to me that where heretofore they began not their
plaies till towards fower a clock, they will now
begin at two and have done betweene fower and
five, and will nott use anie drums or trumpettes
att all the calling of peopell together and
shall be contributories to the poor of the
parishe.
38
1642 beginning of the civil war I closure
ordinance 1647 II ordinance 1649 players
arrested at the Red Bull definite
closure of theatre till 1660 (Restoration
Charles II)
39
ABOUT WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE All that is known
with any degree of certainty concerning
Shakespeare, is that he was born at Stratford
upon Avon, married and had children there, went
to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote
poems and plays, returned to Stratford, made his
will, died and was buried. (George Steevens,
XVIII century)
40
Elements of Biography He had fallen into ill
company some that made a frequent practice of
deer-stealing engaged him with them in robbing
a park that belonged to sir Thomas Lucy of
Cherlecot, near Stratford. For this he was
prosecuted by that gentleman and in order to
revenge that ill usage, he made a ballad upon
him. This is said to have been so very bitter
that it redoubled the prosecution against him to
that degree that he was obliged to leave his
business and family for some time, and shelter
himself in London.
(Rowe, 1709)
41
Traces of his dramatic activity Those puppets
that spake from our mouth those antics garnished
in our colours An upstart crow, beautified
with our feathers, that with his tigers heart
wrapped in a players hide, supposes he is as
well able to bombast out a blank verse as the
best of you and being an absolute Johannes fac
totum, is in his own conceit the only shake-scene
in a country. (Robert Greene, A Groatsworth of
Wit) O tigers heart wrappd in a womans
hide!
(3 Henry VI)
42
SOURCES FOR ENGLISH DRAMATIC CRITICISM
ARISTOTLE, Poetics Decorum no mixture of tragic
(lofty) with comic (low) materials respect of the
space/time/genre unities
43
SHAKESPEARE Tragic plots and comic subplots (R.
J.) High-life and low-life characters (Dream)
Verses and prose (most plays) Lyricism, conceits
and obscenity (Dream, Troilus) No
time/space/genre unities (A. C.)
44
Shakespeares plays tend to live along the edge
of genres boundaries, comedy liable to be
clouded by tragic potential, history wavering
between tragedy and comedy, tragedy slipping into
comic routines. In the Shakespearean plays a
common phenomenon is the domestication and
intermingling of multiple sources.
45
SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM

• From primus inter pares
• To facile princeps
• COEVAL still uncanonised
• NEO-CLASSICAL unrefined genius
• ROMANTIC the poet
• CONTEMPORARY dramatist of modernity

46
Coeval criticism
P. SIDNEY, Defense of Poesie (printed 1595,
written about 1580) Contempt for Contemporary
dramatic attitude to intermingle kings clowns,
serious and comic subjects, elevated style and
gross punning Dedicatory poem by Ben Jonson in
the Preface to First Folio, 1623 To the memory
of my beloved, the author mr. William
Shakespeare and what he hath left us He was
not of an age, but for all time! His mind and
hand went together, and what he thought, he
uttered with that easiness that we have scarse
received from him a blot in his papers.
47
Neoclassical criticism Nature Vs Art
T. RYMER, A Short View of Tragedy (1692)
Judgement rather than fancy, Structure rather
than variety, Decorum and respect for typologies
(Iago doesnt conform to military standards
established by Horatio) John Dryden, Essay of
Dramatic Poesy, 1668 he was naturally learnd
he needed not the spectacle of books to read
Nature he looked inwards, and found her
there.Rewriting on the basis of respect of the
three unities cfr. All for Love 1678
48
Romantic criticism
G. E. Lessing appreciated his naturalism against
French rigidity Goethe used Hamlet as subtext in
his Wilhelm Meister Schlegel translated him in
German and created a theory of an organic form
reconciling art and nature This theory was
appropriated by Coleridge who strengthened the
myth of the great soul poet ever-living and
myriad-minded
49
CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
professional criticism BRADLEY character
criticism STRUCTURALISM regularities POSTSTRUCTU
RALISM perspective and deconstruction (psychoanaly
sis, new historicism, cultural materialism,
gender (feminist, queer), postcolonial)
50
Comedy characteristics
Comedy Social /collective/generational
genre Possible Greek etymology Komoidìa Kòme
village Kòmos ritual procession
(Dionysian) Kòmeodè Song of the Village (ritual
social character)
51
Classical Comic Models

• OLD COMEDY GREEK (ARISTOPHANES) RITUAL
  (Fertility, Natural rythms in vegetation and in
  the Human)
• NEW COMEDY LATIN (PLAUTUS) SATIRICAL, Social
  rigidities

52
Shakespearean comedy Models and sources
Archaic heathen seasonal and fertility
rites, Greek comedy and novel (Apuleio, The
Golden Ass), Ovidio (Metamorphoses), Arcadic
traditions (Sannazzaro, Arcadia), Arthurian
legends in medieval literature, Folklore,
folktales and popular beliefs (May rites, Morris
Dances etc.), Latin Satire against social faults
and vices, Medieval stories and narrations
(Italian novellas), Popular drama (Moralities),
Petrarchism, Renaissance court culture and
fashion, Euphuism, romances by University Wits
(Greene, Lyly, Nashe, Lodge, Peele)
53
Shakespearean comedy as rite of
passage a sort of coming of age (old
comedy)Structure (example of Structuralist
criticism)Beginning Crisis, antagonism with
parents,old people Vs young people, love Vs
lawDevelopment of dramatic action escape,
adventure in the green world (no social
conventions) ChaosEpilogue resolution,
reconciliation, return to society, marriage,
happy ending, renewal of society, Cosmos
54
Shakespearean comedy as social satire (new comedy)

• Social and personal defects highlighted by means
  of
• Caricature and farcical elements
• In comedy personal faults and flaws cause laugh
  in the end they are castigated and forgiven or
  redeemed (Katherine)
• in tragedy they are the causes of tragedy itself
  (Othello jealousy, Iago envy, Macbeth
  ambition)

55
Language of Shakespeares comedy
comic, bawdy, parodic, witty, euphuistic, full of
conceits, conventional, bombastic, proverbial,
full of puns, quibbles, double éntendre,
romantic, liric, poetical, musical, interspersed
with sonnets, love songs, ballads
56
Elements of shakespearean comedy
CROSSDRESSING The most useful dramatic device
for mediating the initiatives of the female,
however, is the male disguise. Male garments
immensely broaden the sphere in which female
energy can manifest itself. Dressed as a man, a
nubile woman can go places and do things she
couldnt do otherwise, thus getting the play out
of the court and the closet and into interesting
places like forests (or law courts) ( Clara
Claiborne Park, How we like it)
57
Shakespeares COMEDIES

• EXPERIMENTAL

• ROMANTIC

• The Comedy of Errors
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Merry Wives of Windsor

• Much Ado About Nothing
• Love's Labour's Lost
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• As You Like It
• The Merchant of Venice

58
Shakespearean COMEDIES

• PROBLEMATIC

• ROMANCES

• Twelfth Night
• All's Well That Ends Well
• Measure for Measure

• The Winter's Tale
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Tempest
• The Two Noble Kinsmen (with Fletcher)

59
TRAGEDY general models

• Classical Greek, Latin
• Medieval
• Modern
• Possible etimology from Greek Tragodìa
• Tràgos goat
• Aido to sing
• Dionysian ritual sacrifice of goat/scapegoat
  ritual

60
Greek models stucture
In Aristotles Poetics Violation of
order (personal/psychological/historical/political
) CRISIS Chaos Peak of chaos in violence purge
of passions and release CATHARSIS . Return to
ORDER In its constant return to a position of
equilibrium, tragedy may be said to reinforce
artistically the desirability of political order.
61
Latin Models

• Ovidio, Metamorphoses (narrative poem) (myths
  from Greek derivation about dramatic
  transformations, used for images, phrasing,
  stories)
• Seneca plays full of horrors designed more for
  static declamation than for the excitement of
  quick-fire action and surprise cherished by the
  Elizabethan audience.

62
Medieval Models
Narrative tragedy Boccaccio, De casibus
virorum illustrium (56 stories of fall of famous
people) Chaucer,The Monks Tale hym that stood
in greet prosperitee/And is fallen out of heigh
degree/Into myserie ... endeth wrecchedly)
Lydgates The Fall of Princes (in Renaissance
by various authors The Mirror for Magistrates)
Moralities tragicomic drama, allegorical
struggle between conflicting ethical drivest,
character of the Vice was usually comic
63
modern models
Marlowes Dido, Queen of Carthage,
Tamburlaine, part 1 and 2, The Jew of Malta,
Dr Faustus, Edward II, Kyds The Spanish
Tragedy (revenge)
64
Characteristics of shakespearean tragedy
A. C. Bradley, in Shakespearean Tragedy,
(1904) describes these plays as stories of
exceptional suffering and calamity, leading to
the death of a dominant figure of high social
standing- a figure intensely committed to his
chosen course of action, who is given primary
responsibility for what happens in the plot, and
whose responsibility for the choices made is most
powerfully projected by the rhetoric of his
struggle with his own nature.
65
George Steiner describes tragedy as the
re-enactment of private anguish on a public
stage. It offers a terrible stark insight into
human life. Yet in suffering lies mans claim to
dignity. Georg Lukacs said that tragedy begins
when enigmatic forces have distilled the essence
from a man, and its progress consists in mans
essential, true nature becoming more and more
manifest. Tragedy becomes the pure experience of
self.
66
Shakespearean Tragedy Shakespearean innovation
consists mainly in his capability to depict a
psychological, most intimate and universal at the
same time, scene in which human drives and
instincts are seen in their tragic dialectics.
67
Shakespearean tragedies
Titus Andronicus (1594) Romeo and Juliet
(1595) Julius Caesar (1599) Hamlet
(1601) Othello (1604) King Lear (1605)
Macbeth (1606) Antony and
Cleopatra (1607) Coriolanus (1608)
68
Tragedies possible categorizations

• experimental

• Love tragedies

• Titus Andronicus
• Romeo and Juliet
•  
•  

• Romeo and Juliet
• (green love)
• Othello (jealousy)
• Antony Cleopatra (mature passion)

69
Tragedies possible categorizations

• Roman tragedies

• Great/Character tragedies

• Titus Andronicus
• Julius Caesar
• Antony and Cleapatra
• Coriolanus
•  

• Hamlet
• Othello
• King Lear
• Macbeth

70
Tragedies possible categorizations
Other elements are Fate (Romeo and Juliet),
Chance, Error (Othello) Riddle, Foreboding
(Macbeth) Revenge (Hamlet)
71
In Shakespeare Tragedy is a male genre in its
preoccupation with the individual in conflict,
whereas Comedy is a female genre with its wider
social concern and its desire for harmonious
integration through felicity and procreation
72
The Taming of the Shrew DATE

• I edition Folio 1623
• Actual date supposed between 1590 and 1594
  experimental period, farcical Comedies.

• Royal Shakespeares Company performance at the
  Novello Theatre

73
The Taming of a Shrew (1594) Bad (very bad)
Quarto or Source or early draft or reported text
or analogous from a third UR-Text (almost
identical plot but different wording and
character names, much more misogynist)

• The Taming of the Srew

• The Taming of a Srew

74
Possible Sources
Although there is no direct literary source for
the Induction, the tale of a tinker being duped
into thinking he is a lord is a universal one
found in many literary traditions. For example, a
similar tale is recorded in Arabian Nights where
Harun al-Rashid plays the same trick on a man he
finds sleeping in an alley, and in De Rebus
Burgundicis by the Dutch historian Pontus de
Heuiter, where the trick is performed by the Duke
of Burgundy. With regard to the
Petruchio/Katherina plot the story of a
headstrong woman tamed by a man was a universal
and well known one, found in numerous traditions.
For example, according to The Canterbury Tales by
Geoffrey Chaucer, Noahs wife was just such an
individual (see The Millers Tale).
Traditionally another such woman is Xanthippe,
Socrates' wife, who is mentioned by Petruchio
himself. Such characters anyway occur throughout
medieval literature, in popular farces, and in
folklore.
75
In the common law of crime in England and Wales,
a common scold was a species of public nuisancea
troublesome and angry woman who broke the public
peace by habitually arguing and quarreling with
her neighbours. The Latin name for the offender,
communis rixatrix, appears in the feminine gender
and makes it clear that only women could commit
this crime. The offence, which was exported to
North America with the colonists, was punishable
by ducking the culprit being placed in a chair
and submerged in a river or pond. Although
rarely prosecuted it remained on the statute
books in England and Wales until 1967.
76
structure

• INDUCTION
• (No closure lost or meant? present in a Shrew)
• 2) WOOERS PLOT (by some critics wrongly believed
  not Shakespearean for its conventional tone)
• 3) The TAMING PLOT of Petruchio and Katherina

77
Critical history

• Controversy
• The history of the analysis of The Taming of the
  Shrew is saturated with controversy. The response
  to The Shrew is dominated by feelings of unease
  and embarrassment, accompanied by the desire to
  prove that Shakespeare cannot have meant what he
  seems to be saying. The play seems to be a
  harshly misogynistic celebration of patriarchy
  and female submission, and as such, it has
  generated heated debates about its true meaning.

78
Performative quality of the play

• About Katherinas final speech (V, ii, 135-178)
• Depending on how we take her tone, Kate is
  seriously tamed, is ironic at Petruchios
  expense, has learned comradeship and harmonious
  coexistence, or will remain a shrew till her
  death (Lisa Jardine)

79
A therapy for the shrew

• Katherinas illness (the family illness I, i,
  48-68 II, I, 22-37)
• The stranger as healer (marriage and love
  rhetoric I, ii, 63-74 II, i, 334-8 affinity I,
  ii, 194-204 II, i, 130-7 II,I, 153-162 II, I,
  260-8)
• Curing with paradox (wooing with some spirit
  II, i, 47-53 169-180 191-4 236-44 290-310)
• Homeopathic cure Similia similibus curantur,
  (Marriage and Honeymoon III, ii IV, i IV, iii)
  He kills her in her own humour
• The turning point (rhetorical overdoing IV, v,
  1-50)
• Healing (mimicry between disguise and parody V,
  ii, 135-188)

80
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

• PRINTING HISTORY
• I Quarto 1600
• II Quarto 1619
• I Folio 1623 (Collected Works)
•  
• DATE OF COMPOSITION
• Between 1596 and 1598 (The Merchant quoted by
  Francis Mere in Palladis Tamia with other 5
  comedies in 1598)

81
Topics

• The bond of human flesh theme is found in
  ancient religious tales from Persia and India
• In the west, the Roman laws gave creditors the
  theoretical right to divide the body of a
  debtor among themselves.
• Jewishness, textual parallels Marlowes, THE
  JEW OF MALTA, 1589 (Barabas/Shylock,
  Abigail/Jessica)

82
Jews ancient period Jerusalem 586 B. C. was
destroyed by Babylonians exile to Babylonia,
escape to Egypt Return and Restoration Greek and
Roman conquests In 332 B.C. Alexander the Great
occupied Palestine, during the following period
attempts were made to merge the local religion
into the universally prevalent syncretistic pagan
cult of the Hellenic world In 167 B.C. revolt led
by Judas Maccabaeus for religious as well as
national reasons, there ensued a Syrian dominion
more liberal from the religious point of view In
65 B.C. Pompey captured Jerusalem and established
the Roman Rule. Titus ordered the destruction of
the Temple (70 A.D.) In 135 A.D. Hadrian
destroyed the town, the soil was ploughed over, a
new city was erected (Aelia Capitolina) from
which the Jews (but not the Christians) were
expelled
83
The Age of Diaspora Jews spread over the Roman
Empire. (North Africa, West and central
Europe) In 212 A.D. Caracalla had admitted Jews
to Roman citizenship but with the
Christianization of the empire their condition
changed from an insignissima religio, certe
licita, it became secta nefaria (Anyway Rome was
almost the only city to preserve its Jewish
community from antiquity to modern times, till
racial laws)
84
Jerusalem In 326 Constantine ordered to recover
the sites of crucifixion and the burial of Jesus
two great Churches were built. During the VII
century Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim powers
(Mohammed set out originally to win the support
of the Jews in Arabia through monotheism, dietary
laws and other similarities to Jewish practices
but when the Jews from Constantinople to Toledo
rejected him he proceeded to drive them out of
Arabia. Successively Islam proclaim them
tolerated infidels and second-class citizens.)
In 1099 the crusaders entered the city under
Godfrey of Bouillon In 1187 Saladin reconquered
Jerusalem which except for brief periods
(1229-39 1243-44) remained in Muslim hands till
1917
85
Middle Ages and Renaissance With the Barbarian
invasions a momentary improvement had come about
in the position of the Jews derived from
religious indifference. Later a reaction followed
and there was a wave of forced conversion. The
Arab invasion brought more liberty, in Spain
there was no limitation to Jews religious
practices nor civil activities. In feudal times
however they remained out of the system of land
owning, they specialized in commerce. Later on
with the growth of a mercantile class the Jews
became excluded particularly in North Europe. As
the Catholic Church condemned usury it
concentrated in the hands of those to whom the
prohibition didnt apply. In 12th century
reaction against Heresies involved a renewal of
restrictions and prejudices Vs the Jews they
were obliged to wear a special badge and the
Ghettos were established, they were increasingly
accused of ritual murder and desacration of the
Host. Enforced conversions ensued. (Marranos)
86
England England was the last country in western
Europe to be settled by the Jews in the wake of
the Norman conquest. This marked the culmination
of the western sweep. The backward swing began
soon after. With the first crusade in 1096 there
took place the first of the long series of
massacres and expulsions which in the end drew
the Jews back to the East. England expelled Jews
in 1290, France in 1306, In Germany politically
divided there were partial expulsions after
massacres in 1348-9 Jews were held responsible
for the Black Death, the Jews condition in Spain
deteriorated during the 14th an 15th centuries
till their expulsion in 1492, after the defeat of
the Moors. In 16th century they were expelled
from the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of
Milan. Jews sought refuge in Turkish and in
Polish empires
87
The age of liberalism (1791-1919) A period of
emancipation coincided with the enlightenment
ideals which led to French Revolution and the
liberal revolutions of 19th century. The values
of freedom and equality benefited also the Jewish
communities except in Russia where the pogroms
and the policy of the scapegoat continued till
the 1917 revolution.
88
Yad Vashem Museum- Jerusalem

• Shoah- Holocaust
• Hitler, Nazism and the final solution
• (6.000.000 dead)
• 1948 Birth of Israel State

89
STAGE HISTORY

• I recorded performance 10 February 1605, no
  performance recorded until 1741
• The Jew of Venice, adaptation by George Granville
  often played in
• the meantime
•  
• When the Shakespearean original was restored, The
  Merchant became Shylocks play (ex. Edmund Kean,

90
SHYLOCKI, iii, passim II, v, 1-39 II, viii,
13-26 III, i, 21-65 III, iii, 1-24

• In Elizabethan times as in the Middle Ages usury
  was condemned as a great evil and yet requested
  by many (Elizabeth, Essex, Sidney, Leicester,
  Southampton, the Chamberlains Men to build the
  Globe, all borrowed money)
• Usurer lendeth like a friend but he covenanteth
  like an enemie(H. Smith, Examination of Usury,
  1591)

91
Sources

• Translation of the 13th century of CURSOR MUNDI
  where the creditor is a Jew.
• Translation of the 15th century of GESTA
  ROMANORUM where a story of wooing is added to the
  flesh bond theme.
• Closest source Ser Giovannis IL PECORONE,
  collection of Italian Tales published in 1558
  (the existence of an English version is supposed
  but not certain)

92
A symbolic location

• Venice

• Belmont

• Bourgeois
• Interest
• Individual Venture
• Tragedy
• Darkness

• Aristocratic
• Love friendship
• Law of the father
• Comedy
• Light

93
PORTIAI, ii, 1-70III, ii, 1-72III, iv,
10-84IV, i, 178-398
94
Antonio and Bassanio (and Portia)

• I, i, 1-79, 119-160
• III, ii, 230-320
• IV, i, 405-454
• V, i, 185-307

95
Elements of comedy

• II, iv love
  escape
• II, v masks
• II, v
  cross-dressing
• II, vi servant/clown
  characters
• II, vii fairytale
  elements
• (the
  three caskets)
• Language lyrical, bawdy, witty, proverbial,
  mispelling, quibbles, double entendre,

96
Hamlet Date 1601 Inscribed in The Stationers
Register in 1602 as A Booke called The Revenge
of Hamlett Prince of Denmarke as yt was latelie
Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his
servants First Quarto 1603 Second Quarto
1604-5 In Folio 1623
97
Sources Saxo Gramaticus (1140-1210), Historiae
Danicae Libri or Gesta Danorum (published in
1514) 16 books III and IV dedicated to Amlethus
or Amlodhi Francois de Belleforest, Histoires
Tragiques (1570)  translation and adaptation of
Saxos story with the addition of Gertrudes
infidelity before her husbands murder and the
melancholy motif. Murder by poison poured in the
victims ear (Serpieri, 36-37) Ur-Hamlet a lost
drama perhaps by Thomas Kyd, often referred to by
many contemporary sources (the university wits
Thomas Nashe and Thomas Lodge, Philip Henslows
Diary)
98
Shakespearean additions Fortinbras of Norway I,
i, 85-111 V, ii, 343-358 377-end the actors and
the play within the play (fiction which leads to
truth meta-theatrical reflections, misoginy,
madness, puns and wordplay III, ii, 85-255) the
Ghost Supernatural sign in the symbolical world
picture I, i,117-129 I, i, 150-170
99
The Ghost the uncanny as the return of the
repressed in the modern split subject, Curti
p.26-7 Freud, Il Perturbante Heimlich/unheimlich
p.16, 23-4, 26, 54-5, 61 I, iii, 243-57
(secret) I, iv, 46-57 (thoughts) III, iv,
106-143 (vision of the mind in the closet
scene)
100
Oedipus complex (Hamnet was also the name of his
only male son who died young, Hamnet Sadler was
his best friend in Stratford) Freud,
Linterpretazione dei sogni (1899) p.250-1 (Ernst
Jones, The Oedipus Complex as an explanation of
Hamlets Mystery, 1910), Curti, p.13, Impasse
II, ii, 528-565 III, iii, 73-98 misoginy I,
ii, 146-158 Eros as danger I, iii, 5-44 I, iii,
100-132 III, i, 101-148 LUST (See Sonnet) I,
v, 42-57
101
Sonnet 129 The expense of spirit in a waste of
shame Is lust in action and till action, lust Is
perjured, murderous, bloody, full of
blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to
trust Enjoyed no sooner but despised
straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner
had Past reason hated as a swallowed bait, On
purpose laid to make the taker mad Mad in
pursuit and in possession so, Had, having, and in
quest to have, extreme A bliss in proof, and
proved, a very woe, Before, a joy proposed,
behind, a dream. All this the world well knows,
yet none so well To shun the heaven that leads
men to this hell
102
Ophelia

• her madness and death (in 1579 a certain
  Katherine Hamlett drowned in the river Avon)
• IV, vii,159-187 (image of drowning girl,
  flowers, sexual implications, water, femininity
  the question of representation)

103
Ophelia

• though she is neglected in criticism, Ophelia
  is probably the most frequently illustrated and
  cited of Shakespeares heroines. (E. Showalter,
  Representing Ophelia Women, Madness and the
  Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism, 1985)
• We can imagine Hamlets story without Ophelia,
  but Ophelia literally has no story without
  Hamlet (Lee Edwards)
• Ophelia does have a story it is neither her
  life story, nor her love story but rather the
  history of her representation.  (Showalter)

104
RENAISSANCE love-melancholy, erotomania, offense
against decorum, madness, deserved death by
water the feminine element XVII CENTURY madness
sentimentalised, censure of bawdy textual
implications, musical representation ROMANTICISM
from denial to embrace madness from too much
feeling, speechless critics/pictorial obsession,
Anticipation of medical fascination for relation
between female sexuality and hysteria (Charcot,
Janet, Freud) XX CENTURY Anti-psychiatry
represents her as schizophrenic response to
repression FEMINISM Ophelias madness as protest
and rebellion, a form of agency, rewritings IV,
v, 21-72 IV, v, 159-195
105
In patriarchal discourse, feminine and sexuality
can be represented only in terms of madness and
death Representation of Femininity rests on the
side of negativity, absence, lack Ophelia as
NOTHINGNESS III, ii, 104-112 In Elizabethan
slang nothing was a term for female genitalia,
the extroverted male sex was replicated in the
female as a carved absentia (woman as the
negative side of man)
106
See Freud, Il perturbante (female genitalia as
source of anguish, p. 63) French psychoanalyst
Luce Irigaray womens sexual organs represent
the horror of nothing to see Ophelias story
becomes the story of the Zero the empty circle
or mystery of feminine difference
(Showalter) Her speech is nothing Curti, p. 52