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390 Pages·1991·19.638 MB·English
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SUFFOCATING MOTHERS SUFFOCATING MOTHERS FANTASIES OF MATERNALORIGIN IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS, _____HAMLET TO THE TEMPEST _ JANET ADELMAN ~1 Routledge i ~ Taylor&FrancisGroup NEWYORK ANDLONDON Published in 1992 by Routledge 270MadisonAve, NewYorkNY 10016 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark, Abingdon, Oxon, OX144RN TransferredtoDigitalPrinting2008 © 1992 by Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc. All rights reserved. No partofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanicalorother means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopyingand recording, or in any information storageor retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. LibraryofCongress catalogingin publication data Adelman,Janet. Suffocating mothers : fantasies ofmaternal origin in Shakespeare's plays, Hamletto the Tempest/Janet Adelman. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-90038-7 (HB) ISBN 0-415-90039-5 (PB) 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616-Knowledge-Psychology. 2. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616-Characters-Mothers. 3. Masculinity (Psychology) in literature. 4. Mothers and sons in literature. 5. Psychoanalysis and literature. 6. Body, Human, in literature. 7. Fantasy in literature. I. Title. PR3065.A37 1991 822.3'3-dc20 91-29716 CIP British Library cataloguingin publication data Adelman,Janet Suffocatingmothers : fantasies ofmaternal origin in Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet to The Tempest. I. Title 822.33 ISBN 0-415-90038-7 ISBN0-415-90039-5 pbk Publisher'sNote Thepublisherhas gonetogreatlengthstoensurethequalityofthisreprint butpointsoutthatsomeimperfectionsintheoriginalmay beapparent. To my father, who taught me that there was nothing I couldn't think about, Tomyhusband,whoselovingsupporthasmadethisproject possible atevery stage since its inception, To my sons, who have patiently listened to me say "when the book is finished" for as long as they have been alive, And to the memory ofmy mother. CONTENTS Acknowledgments IX A Note on Texts Xl 1. Introduction 1 2. Man and Wife Is One Flesh: Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body 11 3. Is Thy Union Here?: Union and Its Discontents in Troilus and Cressida and Othello 38 4. Marriage and the Maternal Body: On Marriage as the End of Comedy in All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure 76 5. Suffocating Mothers in King Lear 103 6. Escaping the Matrix: The Construction of Masculinity in Macbeth and Coriolanus 130 7. Making Ddect Perfection: Imagining Male Bounty in Timon ofAthens and Antony and Cleopatra 165 8. Masculine Authority and the Maternal Body: The Return to Origins in the Romances 193 VB viii / CONTENTS Notes 239 Author Index 364 Index to Shakespeare's works 370 Subject Index 377 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book has been a long timein the making. The first finished essay incorporated into it-theessayon Coriolanus-was written in 1975 76;thefirstruminationsaboutGertrude'sroleinHamletandinShake speare'scareerstartturning up in mylecturenotesin 1972.Duringall these years, I have incurred a great many debts; it is a pleasure to recordthemostpublicandnameableofthemhere,though Iamkeenly aware of all those that I have left out. Throughout this book's long inception, I have been blessed in my friends and ininstitutionalsupportofvarious kinds. TheUniversityof California has given me sabbatical leave time, sabbatical supplements in the form ofHumanities Research Fellowships, research grants, and travel funds. At a crucial moment (1976-77), the American Council ofLearned Societies gave me the study fellowship that enabled me to pursue my psychoanalytic interests in London at Hampstead Clinic and Tavistock Clinic; both of these clinics generously allowed me to sit in on seminars for trainees and to learn from conversation with their faculty and students. At another crucial moment (1982-83), a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundationgave me the leisure (and the confidence) toconfronttheblankpagesofwhatwould becomethe central chapters on Hamlet and on King Lear. And from thestart, my students and colleagues in the Department of English have provided me with an extraordinarily challenging and supportive atmosphere in whichtowork. Mydevelopinginterestinpsychoanalyticcriticismwas nurturedbyseveralyears'worthofwonderfulconversationswithBrent Cohen, my student, co-teacher, and dear friend, whose loss to the profession during the lean years Istill mourn. Carol Christ, my oldest friendandintellectualcomradeinthedepartment,firstmademerealize that psychoanalysis might provide me with a language for what Ihad been unable to talk about in my work on Antony and Cleopatra. IX x / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Amongthe manyothercolleagueswhohaveenrichedmylifeatBerke ley from the start, Ithink especially ofAlex Zwerdling,Jonas Barish, and Paul Alpers; as department chair and the first to read many of these pages, Paul Alpers's respectful and affectionate skepticism gave me just what I needed to go on. During the early stages of work, I was both exhilarated and chal lengedbyawonderfulgroupofpeopleworkingintheareasoffeminist and psychoanalytic criticism of Shakespeare; my debt to Coppelia Kahn, Murray Schwartz, Gayle Greene, Peter Erickson, Meredith Skura, and Carol Neely will be obvious on every page. My debt to Carol Neely in fact predates our work in feminism and Shakespeare: first at Smith College and then at Yale, Carol always went before me, demonstrating how to think passionately and lucidly about literature. LongconversationswithJaneFlaxandwithNancyChodorowenabled metotakecertainkindsofpersonalandintellectualrisksinmythinking and writing; their continuing friendship is one ofthe wonderful side effects of my excursion into psychoanalysis. At several crucial mo ments,C.L.Barberwastheretoencourageme;morethananyoneelse, hewasthe"goodenoughmother"thatenabledthisbook,asheenabled the work of a whole generation of psychoanalytic critics. William Germano has been everything I could have dreamed of in an editor, and more: his belief in this project and his willingness to wait for it sustained me in the final years; his friendship is one ofits most unex pected benefits. And above all, there are four dear friends-Elizabeth Abel, Stanley Cavell, Madelon Sprengnether, and Richard Wheeler who have been gracious presences in my head throughout the writing ofthisbook,enablingitevenwhenwehadnothadanaudibleconversa tion in months. Icould not have written this book without imagining them as its readers; in a deep sense, it was written for, and to, them. A NOTE ON TEXTS All references to the following plays are to the Arden Shakespeare editions (London: Methuen): 1 Henry VI, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross (1962) 2 Henry VI, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross (1957) 3 Henry VI, ed. Andrew S. Cairncross (1964) King Richard III, ed. Antony Hammond (1981) Hamlet, ed. HaroldJenkins (1982) Troilus and Cressida, ed. Kenneth Palmer (1982) Othello, ed. M. R. Ridley (1958) All's Well That Ends Well, ed. G. K. Hunter (1959) Measure for Measure, ed.J. W. Lever (1965) King Lear, ed. Kenneth Muir (1959) Macbeth, ed. Kenneth Muir (1972) Coriolanus, ed. Philip Brockbank (1976) Timon ofAthens, ed. H. J. Oliver (1959) Antonyand Cleopatra, ed. M. R. Ridley (1954) Pericles, ed. F. D. Hoeniger (1963) Cymbeline, ed. ]. M. Nosworthy (1955) The Winter's Tale, ed.J. H. P. Pafford (1963) The Tempest, ed. Frank Kermode (1954) With the exception of The Two Noble Kinsmen, references to all other plays and poems are to William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, gen. ed. Alfred Harbage (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1969);referencestoTheTwo NobleKinsmanaretotheSignetedition, ed. Clifford Leech (New York: New American Library, 1977). Xl

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