THE OPHELIA VERSIONS

409 Pages·2008·1.51 MB·English

THE OPHELIA VERSIONS : REPRESENTATIONS OF A
DRAMATIC TYPE, 1600-1633
Fiona Benson
A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD
at the
University of St. Andrews
2008
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The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a
Dramatic Type, 1600-1633
Fiona Benson
A thesis presented for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
University of St Andrews
School of English
August 2007
ii
ABSTRACT
‘The Ophelia Versions: Representations of a Dramatic Type from 1600-1633’
interrogates early modern drama’s use of the Ophelia type, which is defined in
reference to Hamlet’s Ophelia and the behavioural patterns she exhibits:
abandonment, derangementandsuicide.
Chapter one investigates Shakespeare’s Ophelia in Hamlet, finding that
Ophelia is strongly identified with the ballad corpus. I argue that the popular ballad
medium that Shakespeare imports into the play via Ophelia is a subversive force
that contends with and destabilizes the linear trajectory of Hamlet’s revenge
tragedy narrative. The alternative space of Ophelia’s ballad narrative is, however,
shut down by her suicide which, I argue, is influenced by the models of classical
theatre. This ending conspires with the repressive legal and social restrictions
placed upon early modern unmarried women and sets up a dangerous precedent by
killing offthe unassimilatedabandonedwoman.
Chapter two argues that Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble
Kinsmen amplifies Ophelia’s folk and ballad associations in their portrayal of the
Jailer’s Daughter. Her comedic marital ending is enabled by a collaborative,
communal, folk-cure. The play nevertheless registers a proto-feminist awareness of
the peculiar losses suffered by early modern women in marriage and this
knowledge deeply troublesthe Jailer’sDaughter’shappy ending.
Chapter three explores the role of Lucibella in The Tragedy of Hoffman
arguing that the play is a direct response to Hamlet’s treatment of revenge and that
Lucibella is caught up in an authorial project of disambiguation which attempts to
return the revenge plot to its morality roots. Chapters four and five explore the
narratives of Aspatia in The Maid’s Tragedy and Penthea in The Broken Heart, finding
in their very conformism to the behaviours prescribed for them, both by the
Ophelia type itself and by early modern society in general, a radical protest against
the limitationsandrepressionsofthose roles.
This thesis is consistently invested in the competing dialectics and
authorities of oral and textual mediums in these plays. The Ophelia type, perhaps
because of Hamlet’s Ophelia’s identification with the ballad corpus, proves an
interesting gauge of each play’s engagement with emergent notions of textual
authority in the early modernperiod.
iii
DECLARATIONS
I, Fiona Benson, herebycertifythat this thesis, whichis approximately100,000
words inlength,has been writtenbyme,that it is therecordofworkcarried
out bymeandthat it has not beensubmittedinanyprevious applicationfora
higherdegree.
date: 07.08.07signature ofcandidate………
Iwas admittedas a researchstudent inOctober,2002andas acandidate forthe
degreeofPhDinOctober2003; thehigherstudyforwhichthis is arecord was
carriedout intheUniversityofSt Andrews between2003and 2007.
date07.08.07signatureofcandidate………
Iherebycertifythat thecandidatehas fulfilledthe conditions oftheResolution
andRegulations appropriateforthedegreeof………intheUniversityof St
Andrews andthat thecandidateis qualifiedtosubmit this thesisinapplication
forthat degree.
date……signatureofsupervisor………
Insubmittingthis thesis totheUniversityofSt Andrews Iunderstandthat Iam
givingpermissionforit tobemadeavailableforuseinaccordancewiththe
regulations oftheUniversityLibraryforthetime beinginforce,subject toany
copyright vestedintheworknot beingaffectedthereby. Ialso understandthat
thetitleandabstract will bepublished,andthat acopyoftheworkmaybe made
andsuppliedtoanybona fidelibraryor research worker,that mythesis will be
electronicallyaccessible forpersonal orresearchuse, andthat thelibraryhas the
right tomigratemythesis intonewelectronic forms as requiredtoensure
continuedaccess tothethesis. Ihaveobtained anythird-partycopyright
permissions that maybe requiredinordertoallow suchaccess andmigration.
date07.08.07signatureofcandidate………
iv

Formy supervisor,
NeilRhodes

v
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their generous
financial support throughout both my Masters and my Doctorate degrees and for
making postgraduate study possible forme.
Special thanks are due to my supervisors Susan Sellers and Neil Rhodes. I am very
grateful to Susan Sellers for all her guidance in my research into feminist theory
and her enormous support and encouragement. I would like to thank Neil Rhodes
in particular. This thesis began life as a survey of Ophelias from the Renaissance
until the twentieth century; it ended up firmly rooted in the early modern period. I
am very grateful to Neil Rhodes for supporting me with this new emphasis and for
hisexpertise andinvaluable help andsupportoverthe lastfouryears.
I would also like to thank Jill Plain for her early help and encouragement; both
Susan Sellers and Jill Plain allowed me to audit the women’s writing course during
my MLitt year, which was invaluable in preparing me for an academic degree.
Thanks also go to Eric Langley for his help, encouragement and good humour
throughout, and to Thomas Pettit for his interest and generous supply of
information onballadmatters.
Thanks go to the librarians of St Andrews University, Exeter University, the
National Library of Scotland and the Bodleian. Thank you also to the secretarial
staffatStAndrewsSchool ofEnglish, especially Alexandra McDevitt.
Finally I would like to thank Donovan McAbee for his kind hospitality over the
last year as I commuted from Exeter to St Andrews, my parents Jane and David
Benson for their love and support throughout this project and my husband James
Meredithforhislove, supportandunderstanding, particularly during thisfinal year.
Thank youtoJamesalsoforhisassistance andexpertise withExcel!
vi
Contents
Chapter1: “Acreature native andindued/Untothatelement.”
Shakespeare’sOpheliaandthe popularballads……..................................1
Chapter2: “Tomarry himishopeless/Tobe hiswhore iswitless.”
The Jailer’sDaughterandthe problematising ofmarriage
in ShakespeareandFletcher’sTheTwo NobleKinsmen………………103
Chapter3: “[I]le runa little course /Atbase, orbarley-breake, orsome
suchtoye, /Tocatchthefellow” …Lucibella andthe revenge
dynamic in HenryChettle’sTheTragedy of Hoffman, or, A
Revengefora Father………………………………………………….211
Chapter4: Revising Ophelia: TheMaid’sTragedyandAspatia’s
“unpracticedway to grieve anddie” ……………………………….257
Chapter5: “Feeding the hungry appetite withsteam/Andsightof
Banquet”: Penthea andthe radicalconformismofthe
anorexic hungerstrike ……………………………………………..303
Appendix A: Data forthe PopularBallads…………………………………….354
Appendix B: Pregnancy inthe PopularBallads………………………………...370
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………..378
1
CHAPTER I:
“A CREATURE NATIVE ANDINDUED/UNTOTHAT ELEMENT.”
SHAKESPEARE’SOPHELIA ANDTHE POPULAR BALLADS
Introduction
Gertrude’s messenger speech describing the drowning Ophelia has provided one
of the abiding images of Hamlet and indeed, of early modern literature. She
describes Ophelia born “mermaid-like” down the “weeping brook” with “[h]er
clothes spread wide”, surrounded by fallen garlands “[o]f crow-flowers, nettles,
daisies, and long purples” (4.7.175, 174, 173, 167).1 Crucially for this thesis,
Ophelia issinging. AsGertrude tellsLaertes:
Whichtime she chantedsnatchesofold lauds,
Asone incapable ofherowndistress
Orlike a creature native andindued
Untothatelement. (4.7.175-8)
The “element” that Gertrude refers to is most obviously the water that Ophelia
seems to be so oblivious to. However, this “element” is arguably also the old lauds
that Ophelia sings, the ballad fragments that are so appropriate to her own
1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, Arden 3 (London: Thomson
Learning,2006).Thistextisbasedonthesecondquarto.Allfurtherreferencestothisedition.
2
narrative. In fact, the more one reads Ophelia within a ballad context, the clearer it
becomes that she is indeed “a creature native and indued / Unto that element,” a
ballad daughter who moves in her own distinct, popular ballad genre, a genre that
unfolds within the dominant revenge tragedy narrative, troubling and disrupting its
trajectory.
Previous critical interest in the relationship between the ballad corpus and
the character of Ophelia in Hamlet has largely focused on the specifics of Ophelia’s
mad ballading. Firstly, it has attempted to find sources for Ophelia’s act five ballad
songs, a forensic exercise for which Peter J. Seng has provided the definitive study.2
Secondly, brief consideration has been given to the class implications of this mad
ballading; it is inferred that Ophelia’s songs are “childhood recollections of a
nurse’s songs”, evocative of a working class context, “a realm of childhood, of old,
simple balladssung by the spinners in the sun”, “notthe aristocratic ayre, but crude
songs of the common folk”.3 This working class context has led to further critical
commentary on the impropriety, according to contemporary codes of conduct, of
both Ophelia’s singing in public and of the subject matter itself, which is
“unbecoming to a maiden.” F. W. Sternfeld cites Castiglione’s advice in The Book of
the Courtier III that “when she cometh to dance, or to show any kind of music, she
ought to be brought to it with suffering herself somewhat to be prayed, and with a
certain bashfulness….” As W. H. Auden comments, “we are meant to be horrified
2PeterJ.Seng,TheVocalSongsinthePlaysofShakespeare:ACriticalHistory(CambridgeMA:Harvard
UniversityPress,1967);seealsoStuartGillespie,‘ShakespeareandPopularSong’inStuartGillespie
andNeilRhodesed.ShakespeareandElizabethanPopularCulture (London:ArdenShakespeare,2006),
pp.186-8;F.W.Sternfeld,MusicInShakespeareanTragedy(London:Routledge&KeganPaul,1963),
p.59;andRichmondNoble’sShakespeare’sUseofSongwiththeTextofPrincipalSongs(Oxford:Oxford
UniversityPress,1923),p.119.
3JohnRobertMoore,‘TheFunctionofSongsinShakespeare’sPlays’,ShakespeareStudiesbyMembers
of the Department of English of the University of Wisconsin (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press,
1916)citedinSeng,Songs,p.143;JohnH.Long,Shakespeare’sUseofMusic,VolumeThree:TheHistories
andTragedies(Gainesville:UniversityofFloridaPress,1971),p.114;Sternfeld,Music,p.65.
3
both by what she sings and by the fact that she sings at all”.4 Thirdly, criticism has
shown interest in Ophelia’s mad ballading as an instance of the manipulation of
music as a pathetic device to elicit audience sympathy. Mildred E. Hartsock, for
example, comments on the scene’s use of “the terrible pathos of a young girl’s
madness. A quietness settles over the play punctuated only by the discordant music
ofa daftmind.”5
However, Ophelia’s relationship to the ballad corpus is not confined to the
specific instance of her mad ballading, but is generic. Ophelia is very much a
creature of the balladcorpus as a whole. Whilst herlater, mad ballading is the most
obvious indication of this allegiance, her earlier situation as an unmarried daughter
and the way in which her plot develops are very much of the ballad genre. She
moves through Hamlet to ballad time, her concerns are ballad concerns, she plays
by ballad rules, and her fate is appropriately balladic. Her plot opens up a kind of
ballad space in the play that is at odds with the other main genre in operation:
revenge tragedy. Hamlet’s narrative is essentially concerned with his attempts to
negotiate his way through this revenge tragedy genre. He is, of course, the literate
early modern protagonist, a poet-philosopher who applies his creative writing skills
in his poem for Ophelia and in his play in attemptsto further both his love life and
his revenge plot. Where Ophelia is identified with the ballads, Hamlet is explicitly
identified withthe revenge tragedy genre, and the well-worn role of revengeris one
with which he contends from the very beginning of the play: “The time is out of
joint; O cursed spite / That ever I was born to set it right!” (1.5.186-7) As John
4 Sternfeld, Music, p. 58 & 55; W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (London: Faber &
Faber, 1963), p. 117; further criticism regarding Ophelia’s breach of modesty in singing includes
Joseph T. McCullen Jr, ‘The Functions of Songs Aroused by Madness in Elizabethan Drama’, in
Arnold Williams (ed.) A Tribute to George Coffin Taylor: Studies and Essays, Chiefly Elizabethan, by his
Students and Friends (Richmond, Virginia: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), p. 193, and
StuartGillespie,‘ShakespeareandPopularSong’,p.186.
5MildredE.Hartsock,‘MajorScenesinMinor Key’,SQ21:1 (1970),55-62atp.57.Seealso A.C.
Bradley,ShakespeareanTragedy(London:Macmillan&Co,1904),p.60.