Shakespeare in Error Alice Leonard, BA, MA

280 Pages·2015·1.42 MB·English

University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap
A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick
http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/72806
This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright.
Please scroll down to view the document itself.
Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to
cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page.
Error in Shakespeare: Shakespeare in Error

Alice Leonard, B.A., M.A.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of
Doctor of Philosophy

Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, The University of
Warwick (England) and the Institut de langue et littérature anglaises,
University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
November 2014
Contents

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 7
0.1 Thesis Summary .......................................................................................................................... 7
0.1.1 The Changing State of the English Language .................................................................... 10
0.2 Varieties of Error ....................................................................................................................... 13
0.2.1 Error as Wandering ............................................................................................................ 13
0.2.2 Figurative Language as Error ............................................................................................ 19
0.2.3 Misreadings ....................................................................................................................... 27
0.2.4 Ambiguity and Folded Language ...................................................................................... 31
0.3 Use and Meaning of ‘Error’ in Shakespeare .............................................................................. 35
0.4 Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 41
0.5 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 47
SECTION 1. ERRONEOUS VESSELS: GENDER, OTHERNESS AND
ERROR ..................................................................................................................... 49
1.1. Error and the Mother Tongue ................................................................................................... 49
1.1.1. History, Nation, Language..................................................................................................... 50
1.1.1.1 Nationhood ..................................................................................................................... 53
1.1.1.2 Natural Language ............................................................................................................ 58
1.1.1.3 Queen Elizabeth: Mother of the Nation .......................................................................... 62
1.1.1.4 Cords and Tongues ......................................................................................................... 65
1.1.1.5 Tongue Tied .................................................................................................................... 71
1.1.2. Case Studies .......................................................................................................................... 76
1.1.2. Case Study 1 - Gendered Error: The Nurse and Mistress Quickly ................................... 76
1.1.2 Case Study 2 - The Mother’s Tongue ................................................................................ 83
1.1.2 Case Study 3 - Unnatural Tongues: A Bellyful ................................................................. 87
1.1.2 Case Study 4 - The Mother Tongue and Errour ................................................................. 90
1.1.2.5 Religious and Maternal Tongues .................................................................................... 95
1.2. Error and the Other Tongue ...................................................................................................... 99
SECTION 2: GETTING LOST ............................................................................ 100
2.3. Error in The Comedy of Errors ................................................................................................. 100
2.3.1.1 Where to Begin? ........................................................................................................... 101
2.3.1.2 New Bibliography ......................................................................................................... 104
2.3.1.3 The Problem of Names and Binaries ............................................................................ 109
2.3.1.4 Editing Error ................................................................................................................. 115
2.3.1.5 Error and Value............................................................................................................. 118
2.3.2. Reading Errantly .................................................................................................................. 123
2.3.2.2 Delire ............................................................................................................................ 124
2.3.2.3 Global Wandering ......................................................................................................... 129
2.3.2.4 Uncertain Understandings............................................................................................. 130
2.3.2.5 Twins Bound and Chained ............................................................................................ 132
2.3.2.6 Bound Identity? ............................................................................................................ 135
2.3.2.7 The Body in Error ......................................................................................................... 139
2.3.3. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 143
2.4. Wandering in the Wood: A Midsummer Night’s Dream......................................................... 145
2.4.1 Metaphor .............................................................................................................................. 148
2.4.2 The Wood ............................................................................................................................. 152
2.4.2.1 The Wood in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ .............................................................. 161
2.4.2.2 The Primacy of Place .................................................................................................... 166
2.4.2.3 Wandering Identities ..................................................................................................... 169
2.4.3 Movement ............................................................................................................................. 172
2.4.3.1 Dancing as (Literary) Movement .................................................................................. 172
2.4.3.2 Ceasing the Movement – the Wall ................................................................................ 176
2.4.4 Separate Worlds ................................................................................................................... 180
2.4.4.1 Parted Word: Parted World ........................................................................................... 180
2.4.4.2 Dreams .......................................................................................................................... 182
2.4.5 Metaphor and Error .............................................................................................................. 185
2.4.5.1 Bottom’s Error .............................................................................................................. 186
2.4.6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 196
CATEGORY ERROR ........................................................................................... 198
3.5. Shakespeare’s Faulty Genres: Error and Genre .................................................................... 198
3.5.1 Faulty Genre ......................................................................................................................... 199
3.5.1.1 Error in Comedy and Tragedy ...................................................................................... 199
3.5.1.1.1 Early Modern Decorum ........................................................................................ 206
3.5.1.1.2 Shakespeare’s Genre ............................................................................................. 208
3.5.1.1.3 Oppositions in Genre ............................................................................................ 213
3.5.1.1.4 Genre in Tension ................................................................................................... 214
3.5.1.2 In the Mix: Comedy and Tragedy ................................................................................. 216
3.5.1.2.2 Opposition, Genre and Error ................................................................................. 221
3.5.2 Suspicious Words ................................................................................................................. 225
3.5.2.1 Ill-fitting Endings.......................................................................................................... 225
3.5.2.2. Political Allegory in Cymbeline .................................................................................. 234
3.5.2.2.2 Postcolonial Shakespeare ...................................................................................... 238
3.5.3 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 240
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 243
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 248
5

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisors Paul Prescott and Margaret Tudeau-Clayton for
their help and support throughout my studies, as well as Jonathan Bate, and Paul
Botley for his inspiration and expertise. Thomas Docherty was an amazing source of
ideas and supervised my project from the beginning but was prevented from being
there at the end.
I would like to thank my parents for their unfailing support and
encouragement, and Victoria for her strength, good ideas and good humour. Thanks
to Emma Depledge and Lukas Erne for their encouragement, and to Pete Kirwan and
Joseph Jackson who have been various sources of amusement and inspiration. Adam
Slavny has been generous and patient, and led the company on this Moon and Co.
Solution.
My PhD has been financially supported by a scholarship from the University
of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), for which I am grateful. Both Warwick and Neuchâtel
have contributed financially to the delivery of papers on my doctoral research
delivered at Toronto, Prague, Cambridge and Birmingham.

Declaration
Chapter two, ‘Error and the Other Tongue’, has been previously published in a
slightly altered form as ‘“Enfranchised” Language in Henry V and The Dutch
Courtesan’, Cahiers Élisabéthains, Vol. 84, Autumn 2013, pp. 1-11.
I confirm that the thesis has not been submitted for a degree at another
university and that it is my own work.
6

Abstract
Error is significant for Shakespeare because of its multiple, flexible meanings and its
usefulness in his drama. In the early modern period it meant not only a ‘fault’ or
‘mistake’, but ‘wandering’. ‘Wandering’, through its conceptual relation with
metaphor, plot and other devices, aligns error much more with the literary, which
dilutes the negative connotations of mistake, and consequently error has the potential
to become valuable rather than something to be corrected. Shakespeare’s drama
constantly digresses and is full of complex characters who control and are controlled
by error. Error is an ambiguous concept that enables language and action to become
copious: figurative language becomes increasingly abstracted and wanders away
from its point, or the number of errors a character encounters increases, as in The
Comedy of Errors.
The first chapter argues that error is problematically gendered, that women’s
language is often represented as being in error despite being the defenders of the
‘mother tongue’, the guardians of the vernacular. The containment of women in this
paradox is necessary for a sense of national identity, that women must pass on the
unifying English. The second chapter argues that foreign language becomes English
error on the early-modern stage. Shakespeare subverts this tendency, inviting in
foreign language for the benefit of the play and, in the context of the history play, of
the body politic. The third chapter argues that in The Comedy of Errors, textual
indeterminacy and error increases the thematic error of the confusion of the twins.
Error is not something to correct automatically without altering the meaning of the
play. The fourth chapter argues that the setting of the wood and its wandering
characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream licenses the error of figurative language
that wanders away from straightforward speech. The fifth chapter argues that the
expansive category of genre falls into error in Cymbeline. The genre turns
irrevocably from romance to a satire of James VI and I’s vision of the union.
What emerges from the analysis of these permutations of error is that, in
Shakespeare’s hands, error is not just a literary device. Error is valuable
linguistically, dramatically, politically and textually; in order to understand it, we
must resist the ideology of standardisation that privileges what is ‘good’ and
‘correct’. Attending to Shakespearean error demonstrates the need to think beyond
the paradigm of the right, and attend to the political implications of ‘wrongness’ and
its creative literary employment.
7

Introduction

0.1 Thesis Summary
Error is significant for Shakespeare because of its multiple, flexible meanings and its
usefulness in his drama. In the early modern period the word meant not only a ‘fault’
or ‘mistake’, but ‘wandering’. ‘Wandering’, through its conceptual relation with
metaphor, plot and other devices, aligns error with literary creativity; this association
has the potential to dilute the negative connotations of mistake. Consequently error
might become valuable rather than something to be corrected. Shakespeare’s drama
constantly digresses and is full of complex characters who attempt to control and are
controlled by error. This drama is also linguistically experimental, exploiting
figurative language, which in itself is a type of digression or error. Shakespeare’s use
of figurative language exists in a context of ideas about propriety and decorum, as I
will discuss. Some early modern authors protested against figuration that they
deemed ‘excessive’.1 In this context, Shakespeare’s figuration is language in error.
Yet he demonstrably does not find fault with such stylistics; for him, error or
deviation is germane to poetic language.2
This thesis focuses on a group of early Shakespearean comedies and histories
from the late sixteenth century. At this time the vernacular was rapidly expanding
and Shakespeare was profiting from this instability by experimenting with language
while questioning the concept of the nation and its relation to the vernacular. The

1 This is discussed in more detail at 0.2.2. These Renaissance ideas originate in Quintilian: ‘While
moderate and timely use of Metaphor brightens our style, frequent use of it leads to obscurity and
tedium, while is continuous application ends up as Allegory and Enigma.’ Quintilian, The Orator’s
Education (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), bk.8 ch.6, p. 433. For a discussion of
figuration as a ‘vice of style’, see William Poole, ‘The Vices of Style’ Renaissance Figures of Speech,
eds. Sylvia Adamson, Gavin Alexander and Katrin Ettenhuber (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009), 237-51.
2 As Derek Attridge argues in Peculiar Language: Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to
James Joyce (London: Methuen, 1988), discussed below at 0.2.1 ‘Error as Wandering’.
8

plays in question are as follows: 3 Henry VI (1590-1), The Comedy of Errors (1592-
4), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595-6), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597), 2
Henry IV (1598), Henry V (1599). Focus on Shakespeare is contextualised with
reference to The Dutch Courtesan (1605) and ‘The Faerie Queene’ (1590), alongside
non-fictional works such as Richard Mulcaster’s Elementarie (1582), George
Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesy (1589), Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poetry
(1595) and other texts on the theory of language published at the end of the sixteenth
century.3 The final chapter is a divergence to late Shakespeare with Cymbeline
(1609-10), exploring the mixing of genre and its relation to error.
I mainly examine error in the context of comedy or comic moments. We
speak of tragic error but of comic errors: errors in comedy are plural and have less
consequence; they resist the predetermining pattern in which a slip or accident could
set in motion a chain of events that inexorably leads to a character’s death. In the
universe of the comedies, causality is less potent or destructive and error becomes
useful in creating playful multiplicity and ambiguity in Shakespeare’s poetic drama.
This is not to claim that Shakespearean tragedy is devoid of playful digression – the
tragedies are peppered with moments of levity and fooling – but the trajectory of
comedy is better able to licence error without consequence. This invitation to
experimentation that comedy presents is exploited by the comedies and comic
moments from the histories composed at the end of the sixteenth century.
The first section is entitled ‘Erroneous Vessels: Gender, Language and Error’.
‘Erroneous vessels’ is my pun of ‘erroneous vassals’ from Richard III (1592-3), a
misreading which draws attention to the nurturing and servile properties of women as

3 Other texts include: Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster (London, 1570) at EEBO,
<http://eebo.chadwyck.com> [accessed 9 March 2014]; John Florio, His First Fruits, (1578) at EEBO,
<http://eebo.chadwyck.com> [accessed 9 March 2014]; Angel Day, The English secretorie (London,
1586) at EEBO, <http://eebo.chadwyck.com> [accessed 9 March 2014]; Abraham Fraunce, The
Lawyers Logicke (1588, rpt. Menston: Scolar Press, 1969).
9

developed in chapter one.4 This section is concerned with the multifarious ways in
which error is gendered. The first chapter argues that women’s language is often
represented as error despite women being the defenders of the ‘mother tongue’, the
guardians of the vernacular. Error is used to disempower women as the bearers of the
national language. The image of the ‘mother tongue’ naturalises women in this
position of both power and mistake. I examine the mother tongue in terms of national
identity, as women must pass on the national language, the unifying English. The
second chapter argues that foreign language becomes English error on the early-
modern stage. Shakespeare subverts this by using foreign language for comic
purposes rather than banishing it. Inclusion of linguistic foreign error provides a
more general model for cultural inclusion rather than xenophobic exclusion in his
representation of foreignness.
The second section, ‘Getting Lost’, focuses on the vagrancies of error, its
early modern meaning as wandering and divergence. The third chapter argues that in
The Comedy of Errors, textual indeterminacy and error catalyses the thematic error
of the confusion of the twins. Editorial sensitivity to textual error becomes crucial: it
is not necessarily something to correct as this alters the meaning of the play and its
sense of error. The fourth chapter argues that the setting of the wood and its
wandering characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595-6) licenses the error of
figurative language that wanders away from straightforward speech. Metaphor is not
merely a linguistic feature but becomes an organising principle, through the
translations and transformations in the fairy wood. I term this ‘the methodology of
metaphor’, whereby structural comparisons can be drawn between the components of
metaphor and both themes and structures within the play.

4 William Shakespeare, Richard III (I.4.195), ed. G. Blakemore Evans, The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd
edn. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). All further references are to this edition and are given in the
text.