The Improbability of Othello: Rhetorical Anthropology and Shakespearean Selfhood

462 Pages·2010·5.71 MB·English

by  Joel B. Altman

The Improbability of Othello

The Improbability
of Othello
Rhetorical Anthropology
and Shakespearean Selfhood
JOEL B. ALTMAN
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Joel B. Altman is professor emeritus of English at the University of California,
Berkeley.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2010 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2010
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-01610-8 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0-226-01610-2 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Altman, Joel B.
The improbability of Othello : rhetorical anthropology and Shakespearean
selfhood/Joel B. Altman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-01610-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-01610-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Shakespeare, William,
1564—1616. Othello. 2. Probability in literature. 3. Self in literature.
4. Rhetoric, Renaissance. I. Title.
PR2829.A845 2010
822.3’3—dc22
2009021507
a The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
For Elizabeth and Caroline
Nothing is more odious in Nature than an improbable lye;
And certainly never was any Play fraught like this of Othello
with improbabilities.
thomas rymer, A Short View of Tragedy
O false and treacherous Probability,
Enemy of truth, and friend to wickednesse;
With whose bleare eyes opinion learnes to see
Truths feeble party here, and barrennesse.
When thou hath thus misled Humanity,
And lost obedience in the pride of wit,
With reason dar’st thou judge the Deity,
And in thy flesh make bold to fashion it.
Vaine thought, the word of Power a riddle is,
And till the vayles be rent, the flesh newborne,
Reveales no wonders of that inward blisse,
Which but where faith is, every where findes scorne;
“Who therfore censures God with fleshly sprite,
“As well in time may wrap up infinite.
fulke greville, Caelica 103
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments / ix
PROLOGUE / “As If for Surety”: The Problematics
of Shakespearean Probability / 1
part i. toward a rhetorical genealogy of othello
ONE / “My Parts, My Title, and My Perfect Soul”: Ingenuity, Apodeixis,
and the Origins of Rhetorical Anthropology / 33
TWO / “Against My Estimation”: Ciceronian Decorum, Stoic Constancy,
and the Production of Ethos / 55
part ii. the logic of renaissance rhetoric
THREE / “Apt and True”: Speech, World, and Thought in
Shakespeare’s Humanist Dialectic / 89
FOUR / “Yonder’s Foul Murders Done”: Place, Predicament,
and Grammatical Space on Cyprus / 119
part iii. willful words, christian anxieties,
and shakespearean dramaturgy
FIVE / “‘ Tis in Ourselves That We Are Thus, or Thus”:
Will, Habit, and the Discourse of Res / 153
SIX / “Preposterous Conclusions”: Eros, Enargeia,
and Composition in Othello / 183
SEVEN / “Prophetic Fury”: The Language of Theatrical Potentiality
and the Economy of Shakespearean Reception / 207
part iv. tropings of the self in shakespeare’s scripts
EIGHT / “I Am Not What I Am”: Shakespeare’s Scripted Subject / 235
NINE / “Nobody. I Myself”: Discovering What Passes Show / 261
part v. performing the improbable other
on shakespeare’s stage
TEN / “Were I the Moor, I Would Not Be Iago”:
Ligatures of Self and Stranger / 287
ELEVEN / “It Is Not Words That Shakes Me Thus”:
Burbage, as if Othello / 317
EPILOGUE / “Make Not Impossible / That Which But Seems Unlike”: The
Twilight of Probability and the Dawn of Shakespearean Romance / 339
Notes / 375
Bibliography / 429
Index / 443
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Two portions of this book have been previously published and appear here
by permission of the publishers. A version of chapter 6 appeared in Repre-
sentations 18 (1987): 129–57 (copyright by the Regents of the University of
California). A version of chapter 7 appeared in Studies in the Literary Imagi-
nation (1993): 85–113 (copyright by the Department of English, Georgia
State University). Early stages of my research were made possible by fellow-
ships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
In the course of researching, writing, and composing this book, I have
become indebted to many colleagues and friends, who read parts origi-
nally presented as conference papers and also drafts of chapters that were
shaped with the benefit of their thoughtful questions and advice. For all their
help, I want to thank Janet Adelman, Paul Alpers, Bradin Cormack, Richard
Feingold, Stephen Greenblatt, Lorna Hutson, Victoria Kahn, Jeffrey Knapp,
Peter Platt, Norman Rabkin, and especially Thomas Sloane, whose historical
insight, rhetorical mastery, and generous friendship were resources I drew
upon again and again. I also wish to thank my editor, Alan Thomas, for so
astutely shepherding the manuscript to publication. I am most grateful to my
family, for their patient skepticism and unflagging faith over the years, and to
my dear Sandra, for her exemplary moral courage and loving support.