Claxton Mahaley

More thoughts on Lear

Is there any early modern play that more self-consciously engages the power of the platform stage than King Lear? All we have to do is look at how the space was transformed from scene to scene by the power of the fiction. For the most part, Shakespeare leaves out language that highlights the mimetic nature of the stage and yet the incredible scope of the action, its displacements, it wanderings, it political subplot, guarantees and inscribes the stage’s potential as a theatrical device, a device that can be used to question the theater’s art. In some instances we find that the stage moves beyond convention—insofar as we can define an early modern theatrical convention—to become the subject of direct, formal inquiry. What seems to be finally asked, and this has been examined by both A.C. Bradley and Henry Turner to some extent, is this: how does the stage allow for explorations in conceptual space that allow us to move beyond print, beyond words?

Revisiting 4.6

Granted, I’ve already talked about this at length else wear, but these exercises help me to better come to terms with areas of the text that confound or interest me. I’d like to spend some more time going over the events of Act 4 Scene 6 of King Lear. 

See Better Lear

KING LEAR

Kent, on thy life, no more.

KENT

My life I never held but as a pawn

To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to lose it,

Thy safety being the motive.

KING LEAR

Out of my sight!

KENT

See better, Lear; and let me still remain

The true blank of thine eye. (1.1.155-160)

See better Lear. I cannot stop thinking about that. See better. I hear it yelled in quite tones, enunciated slowly, eyes ablaze. See better. But isn’t it all about site? What we hear in the play cannot be trusted. See better.

Mapping Lear

King Lear contains one of the most memorable scenes of on-stage map-reading in all English Renaissance drama. In this dark tragedy, Shakespeare begins with a display of the cartographic theme that will run throughout: "Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. / Give me the map there" (1.1.38-9). This foregrounded map image should never stray far from our mind; in fact, it is this map that we are to superimpose upon the bodies of all the players as we probe the question of the King’s relationship to the land.

Incomplete Thoughts on The Winter’s Tale

My resent research suggests that early modern dramatists regarded painting as a rival art, an art that shares a fundamental element with theater—its visual nature. Conflicting attitudes toward images and image makers in early modern England produced some highly ambivalent representations of painters and paintings in the theater. Shakespeare’s ambivalence created its most negative portrayal of painting in Timon of Athens, but it was only about five years later that Shakespeare presented the painted work of art in a more complicated, positive light. 

In the Winter’s Tale, Paulina unveils a painted statue in a scene that rivals a religious ceremony; yet as a “miracle” of art rather than religion, the theatrical image and what it represents can be understood as natural. In one character’s words, “This is an art / Which does mend Nature—change it rather; but / The art itself is Nature” (4.4.95-97). Art is nature in the most literal sense, for the statue of Hermione is in fact not a statue, but rather the living Queen herself. Her devoted friend, Paulina, seeks to “mend Nature” by bringing the statue to life. Paulina’s art does, however, have a dark element to it, as is theatrically obvious by its very deceptiveness, but Paulina’s art is a response to Leonte’s even darker art, for she betrays and undermines the destructive power of Leonte’s jealous, Medusa-like gaze. The very unnaturalness of Leontes’ gaze is figured metaphorically in the petrified image of his wife. By literalizing and reversing the metaphor through the theatrical art, Paulina does indeed “mend” the worst of human nature. Through her stone she offers one more lasting rebuke of Leontes, softening his heart as his “evils [are] conjur’d to remembrance” (5.3.37, 40). 

Thoughts on Othello

In 1693 Thomas Rhymer remarked in his Short View of Tragedy that Othello’s narrative seemed do improbable as to only be able to “delude our senses, disorder our thoughts, addle our brain, pervert our affections, hair our imaginations, corrupt our appetite and fill our head with vanity, confusion, Tintamarre, and Jingle-jangle” (Rymer 2:254-5). What Rhymer finds so unbelievable is that Othello puts so much weight on the handkerchief. He goes on to say that the “handkerchief is so remote a trifle, no Booby . . . cou’d make any consequence from it” (Rymer 2:251). In using the word “trifle,” however, Rhymer is appropriating the language of Iago in an effort to rationalize and estrange the magical elements within the play. Though this instance may be extreme, it does point to a tendency among critics disregard the veracity and believability of Othello’s magical elements, elements clearly believed within the fiction of the play. Brabantio believes that Othello has used “charms,” “spells,” “medicines,” and “witchcraft” on his daughter. And Desdemona treats the handkerchief as if were a sacred object or talisman, kissing and talking to it. According to Emilia, she:

so loves the token—

for he conjured her she should ever keep it—

That she reserves it evermore about her

To kiss and talk to. (3.3 293-6)

After she misplaces it, she concludes that “sure, there’s some wonder in this handkerchief” (3.4 101). Like Othello, she asserts her belief in its magical power. The point is not that we should simply accept the napkin as potentially magic within the play, but that we understand that magic played a very different role in early modern England. 

Thoughts on Images in The Winter's Tale.

Early modern dramatists seem to have regarded painting as a rival art that shared a fundamental element with theatre—it was a visual medium. This might best be seen in the rather ambiguous ways in which painters and their images are represented within the theatre. Marguerite Tassi points out in her The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism and Painting in Early Modern Drama that Shakespeare's Timon of Athens offers one of the most negative portrayals (208), which I will look at more closely at another time. 

My current interest is in The Winter's Tale, a piece which came out some 5 years after Timon but portrays the painted work in a much more positive and complex light. It is in this play that Shakespeare unveils a painted statue in a scene that radiates in ideas such as epiphany, revelation and unveiling. That may not be very clear, but suffice it to say that the scene has power and does some emotional work on the stage and in the text. This miraculous unveiling seems to stand in stark contrast to the divine origin of the conventional miracle standing as a triumph of art over nature, perhaps. The problem is that "[t]he art itself is Nature" (4.4.97). And quite literally, it is nature because the statue really is the living Queen, so Paulina's art, dark as it seems to be, is mending nature. 

It seems to me that this idea of mending is quite loaded, and this is, of course, a digression, but as it is me simply writing my thoughts I am going to allow it. What does it say that Paulina has the power to mend nature? Further what nature is she mending? And still, how is her dark power in comparison to the binding jealousy of Leontes? 

If Leontes has the Medusa-like power of petrification doesn't Paulina's truly mend that nature? 

But, more importantly (for me anyway) isn't the true power in Shakespeare's ability to deceive the spectator's eyes (nature) through the concealment of the statue, which always positions a revelation as forthcoming.