Image Ethics in Shakespeare and Spenser

238 Pages·2011·3.445 MB·English

by  James A. Knapp (auth.)

Image Ethics in Shakespeare
and Spenser
Previous Publications
Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in
Printed Books (2003).
Image Ethics in Shakespeare
and Spenser
James A. Knapp
Palgrave
macmillan
image ethics in shakespeare and spenser
Copyright © James A. Knapp, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-10809-7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States – a division of St. Martin’s
Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and
has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-29097-0 ISBN 978-0-230-11713-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230117136
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Knapp, James A., 1968–
Image ethics in Shakespeare and Spenser / James A. Knapp.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1 . English literature—Early modern, 1500–1700—History and criticism.
2. Visual perception in literature. 3. Ethics in literature. 4. Image
(Philosophy) 5. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Criticism and
interpretation. 6. Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599—Criticism and
interpretation. 7. Ethics—England—History—16th century.
8. Ethics—England—History—17th century. 9. Aesthetics,
British—16th century. 10. Aesthetics, British—17th century. I. Title.
PR428.E85K63 2011
820.9’353—dc22
2010024787
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by MPS Limited, A Macmillan Company
First edition: February 2011
For my parents
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Image Ethics 1
1 Harnessing the Visual: From Illustration to Ekphrasis 31
2 F rom Visible to Invisible: Spenser’s “Aprill” and
Messianic Ethics 47
3 Looking for Ethics in Spenser’s Faerie Queene 67
4 “ To Look, but with Another’s Eyes”: Translating Vision
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream 99
5 The Ethics of Temporality in Measure for Measure 121
6 “Ocular Proof” and the Dangers of the Perceptual Faith 143
7 “ Disliken the Truth of Your Own Seeming”: Visual and
Ethical Truth in The Winter’s Tale 161
Notes 183
Bibliography 215
Index 227
List of Figures
1.1 T he death of King John, woodcut illustration, John Foxe,
Acts and Monuments. London, 1563 36
1.2 R eforms of the church under Edward VI, woodcut
illustration, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments. London, 1570 39
2.1 A n emperor’s monument destroyed by a tempest, woodcut
illustration, Jan van der Noot, A Theater for Voluptuous
Worldlings. London, 1569 51
3.1 S t. George slaying the dragon, woodcut illustration,
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene. London, 1590 74
Acknowledgments
This book has benefi ted from the many conversations I have had with
colleagues and friends over the years during which it took shape. The
initial idea for the project emerged from a spirited conversation with Jeffrey
Pence that culminated in our organizing two sessions for the Third
International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference held at the
University of Birmingham in 2000. I would like to express my gratitude to
Jeff and the participants in those sessions who listened and thoughtfully
responded to an early version of what would become Chapter 6.
Since then, a continuous stream of discussion and debate has pushed my
thinking in new directions. I am grateful to Wendy Hyman, for encourag-
ing me to explore the conceptual power of “nothing”; Richard Wendorf, for
giving me the opportunity to participate in an NEH seminar on “Literature
and the Visual Arts,” which helped generate the material in Chapters 2 and 3;
Arthur Marotti, whose invitation to participate in a panel on “Shakespeare
and Religion” sparked the writing of what would become Chapter 5; and
the participants in the 2007 SAA seminar, “Shakespeare between Philosophy
and Religion,” that I organized with Ken Jackson. I would also like to thank
Michael Bristol for offering his SAA seminar on “Shakespeare and Moral
Agency” at just the right moment.
My colleagues at Eastern Michigan University read and commented on
several of the chapters in their early stages. In particular, I want to thank
Abby Coykendall, Joe Csicsila, Craig Dionne, Andrea Kaston Tange, Laura
George, Marty Shichtman, and Annette Wannamaker for their generous
support and guidance. Throughout my work on this project, I have also
gained much from my students. I am especially grateful to the students in
the graduate seminar I offered at Wayne State University in 2006 devoted
to the topic of Ethics and Vision in early modern literature. One of those
students, Renuka Gusain, has continued to press me on the issues I raised
that semester, and for this I thank her. In addition, discussions in under-
graduate honors courses at Eastern Michigan, Wayne State, and the University
xii ● Acknowledgments
of Michigan helped me refi ne the material and clarify my thinking. I am
grateful to the students in those classes for their patience and intellectual
curiosity.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Gary Kuchar, who read practically
the entire manuscript and offered extremely useful criticism at every stage.
Michael Witmore provided both enthusiastic support and insightful criti-
cism as the project took shape, and Ken Jackson pointed me toward ques-
tions of religion and offered valuable commentary and support on several
chapters. I learned a great deal from conversations with Sarah Beckwith
about both the impact of the Reformation on penitential thought and our
shared interest in Wittgenstein’s theory of language. I am most grateful to
my parents James F. Knapp and Peggy A. Knapp, who managed to read the
manuscript with critical distance. Katherine Cox unexpectedly appeared at
the end of this long journey, offering both the critical eye of a professional
writer and immeasurable personal support during the fi nal stages.
Earlier versions of some of the material included here have already
appeared in print. A portion of Chapter 6 appeared in an earlier essay under
the title “‘Ocular Proof’: Archival Revelations and Aesthetic Response”
(Poetics Today 24.4 [Winter, 2003]: 695–727. Copyright 2003, Porter
Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University. Reprinted with the
permission of the publisher, Duke University Press.) Chapter 7 is a revised
version of the article “Visual and Ethical Truth in The Winter’s Tale”
(Shakespeare Quarterly 55.3 [Fall, 2004]: 253–78). I am grateful to the
Johns Hopkins University Press for permission to include that material here.
A small portion of the Introduction appears in the article “A Shakespearean
Phenomenology of Moral Conviction,” in Shakespeare and Moral Agency, ed.
Michael Bristol (Continuum, 2010), 29–41. And a version of Chapter 5 will
be reprinted as “Penitential Ethics in Measure for Measure,” in Shakespeare
and Religion, ed. Ken Jackson and Arthur Marotti (South Bend: The
University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming 2011).
Finally, I would like to thank my editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Brigitte
Shull, for her enthusiasm in bringing the project to print and Lee Norton,
also at Palgrave, for his patient stewardship of the book through its fi nal
stages of production.