Shakespeare and equivocation : language and the doom in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear

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R M Christofides

Shakespeare and E quivocation

Language and the D oom in

Hamlet

,

Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear

PhD

Cardiff University

2008

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UMI Number: U584315

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DECLARATION

This w ork has n o t previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is n ot currently s u b m itte d ^ c a n d id a tu re for any degree.

S ig n e d ... .. (candidate) D ate

STATEMENT 1

This thesis is being subm itted in partial fulfilment o f the requirem ents for the degree o f PhD .

Signed (candidate) D ate .... ..

STATEMENT 2

This thesis is the result o f my ow n independent w ork/investigation, except w here otherw ise s ta te d ^ O th e r sources are acknowledged by explicit references.

S ig n e d ffl. : ... .. (candidate) D ate m / p.i / oZ .

STATEMENT 3

I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the tide and summary to be m ade available to outside

organisations.

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List of Figures

F ig u re 1

T he T etragram m aton, The holie Bible (London: Richard Jugge, 1568) F ig u re 2

A dam nam es the animals, Holy Byble (London: Richarde Iugge, 1576) F ig u re 3

T he Fall, The Holy Bible (London: C hristopher Barker, 1584) F ig u re 4

T ud or C hrist painting, St. T eilo’s Church, St. Fagans N ational H istory M useum , Cardiff, S outh G lam organ

F ig u re 5

“T he T hree Living and the T hree D ead ” painting, Charlwood, Surrey F ig u re s 6 & 7

“T he T hree Living an d the T hree D ead” painting, Peakirk, N ortham ptonshire

F ig u re s 8 -10 ,1 2-14,18, 22, & 28

Stained glass depiction o f the Last Judgem ent, St. Mary’s C hurch, Fairford, G loucestershire

F ig u re 11

M osaic o f the Last Judgem ent, the C athedral o f Santa M aria A ssunta, Torcello, V enice

F ig u re s 1 5 ,17 , 20, 21, 24, 25

D o o m painting, St. N icholas’s Church, O ddington, G loucestershire

F ig u re 16

D o o m painting, H oly Trinity Church, Coventry, W est M idlands F ig u re 19

D o o m painting, B rou gh to n, Cambridgeshire F ig u re 23

D o o m painting, S outh Leigh, O xfordshire F ig u re 26

D o o m painting, B roughton, Buckinghamshire F ig u re 27

D o o m painting, Beckley, O xfordshire

198 199 200 201

202

203, 204 205-207 209-211 215, 219 225 208 212, 214 217, 218 221, 222 213 216

220

223 224

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Abstract

E quivocation is a condition o f language that runs riot in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and L*w. W hether as am biguity or dissimulation, equivocation propels the plots o f these plays to their tragic finales. T h e D o o m as depicted in pre-R eform ation churches is invoked in the plays as a force that could end b o th equivocation and tragedy. H owever, Shakespeare w ithholds this divine intervention, allowing the tragedy to play out. C hapter O ne outlines the thesis, explains the m ethodological approach, and locates the thesis in relation to the m ajor fields o f Shakespeare studies. C hapter T w o focuses o n the

equivocal position o f father-and-not-father occupied by Claudius and the G h o st in Hamlet, and the m em en to m ori imagery in the play that rem inds the audience o f the inevitability o f death and Judgem ent. C hapter T hree on Othello exam ines Iago’s equivocal m ode o f address, a blend o f equivocations and lies that aims to m ove O thello from a valued insider to a detested outsider in Venice. C hapter F ou r argues th a t linguistic and tem poral equivocations are the condition o f Macbeth, w here the trace o f the future invades the present and the trace o f vice invades virtue. In b o th Othello and Macbeth, the protagonists, in their darkest m om ents, sum m on images o f apocalyptic dam nation. C hapter Five proposes that the language o f K ing L ear deconstructs the opposition betw een Christianity and paganism , and interprets Cordelia as b o th L ear’s poison and remedy. F urtherm ore, it analyses the m om en t w hen Lear enters the stage carrying C ordelia’s dead body as an equivocal invocation o f the D oo m . T h e m ethodological approach to this thesis draws on D errida’s conception o f language as differential and w ithout access to any divine guarantees that could anchor m eaning. T h e tragedies, then, can be understoo d in relation to language: they are denied the divine force that could fix, resolve, and stabilize them.

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-Acknowledgments

I acknowledge C ardiff U niversity’s financial support for several conference trips, the help over the years from my colleagues, lecturers and tutors at the C entre for Critical and Cultural Theory, and the excellent assistance provided by the staff at the British Library, W estm inster City Library, and C ardiff University libraries.

A special m ention to all those w ho care for the churches I visited. T heir unheralded w ork m ade my research a pleasure.

T hank you to my dazzling supervisor, Professor C atherine Belsey, for her expert guidance.

Thanks too to my ph otog raph er, D r Jodie M atthews, for going steady w ith me.

M ost o f all, my thanks and praise to my parents. N o th in g I can w rite can do them justice. I kiss your hands in awe.

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Introduction

A n O u tlin e o f th e T h e s is

This thesis proposes th at equivocation, as ambiguity or dissim ulation, is a condition o f language that runs u n tam ed in the tragedies o f Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear. A deus ex machina th at could end b o th equivocation and tragedy is invoked in the language o f the plays in the form o f the apocalyptic Judgem ent depicted in pre-R eform ation depictions o f the D o o m . H ow ever, Shakespeare ultimately keeps this divine intervention off-stage, allowing the tragedy to play out. As a result, equivocations, w hich are resolved in the com edies, pro p el the plots to their tragic conclusions.

E quivocation was topical in 1606 w hen Father H enry G arnet, im plicated in the G unp ow der P lot o f the previous year, was tried before the K ing’s C ouncil at Guildhall. H e justified his opaque answers at the trial on the basis o f his adherence to the Jesuitical doctrine o f m ental equivocation, w hich allowed him, he claimed, to fulfil his obligation to his inquisitors b u t still observe the covenant o f the private confession that revealed the p lo t against K ing Jam es I. O n e reason for dating Macbeth as late as 1606 is the widely held belief th a t Shakespeare’s hell-porter alludes to G arn et’s trial:

K nock, knock. W h o’s there, i’th ’other devil’s nam e? — Faith, h ere’s an equivocator, th at could swear in b o th the scales against either scale; w ho

co m m itted treason enough for G o d ’s sake, yet could n o t equivocate to heaven: O! com e in, equivocator.1

The hell-porter’s im aginary new com er arrives there because he has been unable to equivocate to heaven. E quivocation, from the Christian perspective o f the four tragedies in question, occurs in a fallen world. But rhetorical art cann ot hoodw ink G od: the Last Judgem ent, the definitive, unequivocal separation o f the saved from the dam ned, is the

po int w hen all equivocation com es to an end.

1 William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. by K enneth Muir, The Arden Shakespeare (London: M ethuen, 1962), 2.3.7-12. All references are to this edition, unless otherwise indicated.

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Early-m odern Bible illustrations imply just such a difference betw een m ortal language and the language o f G od. W oodcuts from the first page o f G enesis suggest, in some cases, the transparency o f language before the fall, its singular m eaning, and, in other cases, the opacity o f a fallen language w here m eaning runs riot. O n e w oodcut shows the T etragram m aton, the H ebraic nam e o f G o d always rend ered w ithout vowels to em phasize its ineffability, placed above creation (figure 1). Several o th er versions have instead A dam nam ing the animals overseen by the T etragram m aton (figure 2). Before the Fall, A dam could n o t m isnam e the animals because the unequivocal tru th o f his choice was guaranteed by G od. H ow ever, these prelapsarian images are replaced in some editions w ith a depiction o f the Fall. A dam and Eve stand by the T ree o f K nowledge, their disgrace w ritten in English on the scroll that links them to the tree. T he

unspeakable, ineffable T etragram m aton sits above them in the sky (figure 3). Viewed up close, the animals th at surround A dam and Eve wear looks o f scorn o r despair.

Consciously o r not, this w oodcut presents a division betw een m an and G od as, at the same time, a difference betw een m ortal and im m ortal com m unication. T h e Fall m arks the p o in t at w hich the C reator lets go, b u t it also signals the m o m en t w hen hum an beings start to em ulate His creativity. As this thesis primarily contends, m an’s fallen language is unstable and polysemic, in the possession o f m ultiple m eanings, a condition exemplified by equivocation. Ironically, the full possibilities o f this language are realized by equivocation; it is language at the apex o f its creative pow ers. Shakespeare’s plays w ould lose m uch o f their com plexity w ithout equivocation, a linguistic condition only possible in a fallen w orld. Indeed, w ithout the heterogeneity afforded language by its separation from an unequivocal source, literature, including Shakespeare’s plays, m ight no t be possible at all. Paradoxically, equivocation — the play o f language — can be seen n o t only as a curse o f the Fall, b u t as one o f its recom penses.

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E quivocation is an unstable and unfixed linguistic trope th at threatens inaccuracy even as this Intro d u ctio n seems to prom ise the opposite in providing a definition.

Father G arn et’s equivocations w ere effectively lies, exemplifying equivocation as a way o f lying by w ithholding p art o f the truth. It may also be an adherence to the letter o f the truth that invites an o th er m eaning. Alternatively, equivocation exploits the plurality o f meaning, inviting m isconstruction or uncertainty by an utterance th a t is susceptible o f m ore than one reading. Exam ples o f these definitions are evident in m od ern political controversies. In 1992 B osnian M uslim D zem al Partusic revealed the atrocities perpetrated in a B osnian-Serb prison cam p w ith an equivocation: “ I d o n ’t w ant to tell any lies, b ut cann ot tell the tru th.”2 Partusic’s w ords, practically a definition o f equivocation, confirm ed the suspected atrocities by explicitly w ithholding any

confirm ation, satisfying b o th an inquisitive reporter and the cam p’s gun-wielding guards. D efeated 2008 D em ocratic presidential candidate Hilary C linton did lie ab o u t the

circum stances o f her visit to Bosnia in 1996. V ideo footage show ed her arrival to be routine, w ith no h int o f the hazardous, unseen sniper-fire she recalled. C linton described the error as a “m isspeak” , an am biguous term th at suggested a dram atic exaggeration bu t fell deliberately sh o rt o f adm itting the lie.3 Such public relations tactics have

characterized the N ew L abour governm ent and, in the sum m er o f 2008, cam e back to haunt one o f its tw o m ajor architects. W ithout a clear declaration o f intent, Foreign Secretary D avid M iliband nevertheless signalled the start o f his leadership cam paign against Prim e M inister G o rd o n Brown with opaque, b u t calculated, com m ents: “I have always w anted to su p p o rt G o rd o n ’s leadership.” T he equivocation was swiftly

paraphrased in the national press: “I hoped he w ould be a g o o d Prim e M inster, b u t I

2 Ed Vulliamy, “The Edge o f M adness”, The Guardian (23 July 2008)

< http://w w w .guardian.co.uk/w orld/2008/jul/23/radovankaradzic.w arcrim es > [accessed 5 August 2008] (para. 6 o f 23).

3 “D o es ‘Misspeak’ Mean Lying?”, B B C Online (28 March 2008)

< http://new s.bbc.co.U k/l/hi/m agazine/7314726.stm > [accessed 5 August 2008] (para. 3 o f 26).

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have been forced to conclude that he cannot be.”4 M iliband’s statem ent addresses the Labour Party in a m ann er similar to M acbeth’s tem ptation o f Banquo: help m e to replace our current leader, and your loyalty to me will be repaid.

Shakespeare did n o t need to wait until the trial o f F ather G arn et to discover the possibilities o f equivocation. T h e practice features in his plays m uch earlier. Villainous characters m ake seemingly innocent statem ents that mislead others, or they use

am biguous term s th a t invite m isapprehensions b u t m aintain their integrity. Equivocation is not, how ever, exclusively evil. Jokes exploit double m eanings to display the w it o f the speaker, and rom antic couples suggest their love w ith w ords that shy away from

declaring it. F urtherm ore, it is n o t only a way o f speaking; it may also be structural. For example, m any characters hold titles o r occupy positions that are equivocal. T he comic heroines equivocate w hen they tell the truth disguised as boys. D ram atic irony depends on m eanings available to the audience b u t n o t to the characters.

P hilosopher Jacques D errida, w hose w ork provides the foundation for the m ethodology o f this thesis, has argued that W estern m etaphysics traditionally, and erroneously, assum es an external po in t o f reference. This external p o in t o f reference, the transcendental signified, is w here unequivocal truth resides. In the Christian worlds o f Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth, as well as in the profoundly Christian language that invades the pagan w orld o f King Hear, such a transcendental signified can be u n d ersto o d as G od, or, appropriately, the Logos. In this designation often used by C hristian theology, Jesus Christ is linked to th e original G reek “logos” that denotes b o th “reaso n ” and “w ord” . The divine reason connects truth, rationality, and language, as in the N ew Testam ent: “In the beginning was the W ord, and the W ord was w ith G od , and the W ord was G od .”5 As D errida him self puts it, “all the metaphysical determ inations o f truth [...] are m ore or

4 Andrew Rawnsley, “There is N o D ou b t A bout It, This is a Full-Frontal Assault”, The Observer, 3 August 2008, p.33.

5John, 1.1.

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less immediately inseparable from the logos” and, by way o f exam ple, this can be understood “in the sense o f G o d ’s infinite understanding” .6 T he m ain im plication o f D errida’s w ork on language is that com m unication does n o t take place, and messages are n o t received in the form s they are sent. Separated by disobedience from the authority o f the Logos (as G od, o r divine law, w hich cannot lie or be irrational), A dam and Eve and their descendents have lost their hold on the connection betw een truth, reason, and speech, and m u st u n d erstan d o r delude each other as best they can. As C atherine Belsey states, “equivocation [...] is the paradigm case o f all signifying practice” .7 Equivocation, w hether as am biguity or dissimulation, is n o t just a historical issue; it is the hum an experience o f language.

This thesis exam ines the role equivocation plays in four o f Shakespeare’s tragedies. It is also viewed in relation to the anticipation, inspired by the pre- R eform ation religious imagery, o f the Last Judgem ent that could p u t a stop to b oth equivocation and tragedy. W hat I identify is not, how ever, a general rule o f tragedy, or even o f Shakespearean tragedy. Antony and Cleopatra, considered by m any to be one o f Shakespeare’s m ajor tragedies, is om itted from this thesis on the grounds th at it can be u n d ersto od as a possible counter-exam ple. Cleopatra, a m ortal character, also has im m ortal, otherw orldly qualities: her beauty positions her outside the play’s w orld, as a Venus-like goddess beyond the language used to describe her seductive pow ers. Unlike in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, w here a metaphysical presence is invoked but kept off-stage, C leopatra is an on-stage presence defined in m etaphysical terms. T hat fulsome praise in h er h o n o u r is delivered in her absence suggests a tension betw een her supernatural erotic pow ers and h er presence before the audience. In the light o f this, com parisons can be m ade. A lthough Cleopatra’s ineffable beauty escapes adequate

6 Jacques Derrida, O f Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p p .10-11.

7 Catherine Belsey, Shakespeare and the Loss of Eden (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), p.83.

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description, the play relies on the pow er o f the signifier to persuade Shakespeare’s audience that the boy playing Cleopatra can be com pared to a goddess o f love. Antony and Cleopatra, in this sense, does explore the creative possibilities o f hum an language and its relationship w ith divinity.

T he intervention this thesis makes can be sum m ed up as follows: drawing on D errida’s critique, it p ro po ses that the transcendental signified, lacking from a fallen language, is w ithheld, analogously, in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear. W ithout the divine intervention th at ties up loose ends and brings unity to som e o f the comedies, tragedy has n o recourse to a utopian conclusion. Language w orks in a similar way: w ithout divine intervention it is unfixed, unanchored, and unstable. T he four plays in question unleash the anarchic heterogeneity o f language w ith tragic consequences.

M oreover, Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists call on the transcendental signified, the Logos kept tantalisingly off-stage, in the form o f the final, apocalyptic Judgem ent, the literal, prom ised D o om , w hich w ould end equivocation and tragedy. E arthly destruction and disaster is thus unredeem ed by any supernatural disclosure o r revelation, by apocalyptic pu nish m en t for the w icked and salvation for the just.

In com edies the consequent m isunderstandings are finally resolved. M oreover, som etim es closure explicitly depends on divine intervention. H ym en, goddess o f marriage, reveals R osalind’s true identity and, as a result, resolves the events o f A s You L ike It. Rosalind is reunited with her father, the D uke, and m arried to O rlando, while all the other rom antic loose ends are tied up. In Pericles, the im m aculate D iana, chaste, lunar goddess o f the hunt, directs Pericles to her tem ple w here he finds th e wife for w hom he grieves still alive. T h e tablet left by thunder-thro wing Ju p iter in Cymbeline foretells the succession o f disclosures and discoveries in the final scene o f the play, w here Im ogen and P osthum us are reconciled and Cymbeline finds his long-lost sons. A pollo’s Oracle at D elphos offers the tru th against w hich the disgrace and rehabilitation o f Leontes is

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m easured in The Winter's Tale. Leontes dismisses the O racle’s w ords as false, b u t they are confirm ed by the death o f his son, Mamillius. The O racle is validated again at the end o f the play w ith the arrival o f L eontes’s lost daughter, Perdita, w hich leads to H erm ione’s mystical revival. T hese plays have, by definition, endings th at p o in t in different directions to those o f the tragedies: protagonists are redeem ed, doubts are resolved, m alevolent figures are punished or seen to repent, lost siblings are found, parents and children are reconciled, and lovers are married. T he resolution th at a com edy offers can also be un d ersto o d as a co unterpo int to the endings o f the tragedies, often displaying the supernatural justice anticipated, feared b u t ultimately w ithheld by Shakespeare from Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear.

T o m ortal eyes, how ever, divine messages can still equivocate. H ym en bars confusion, b u t the declarations o f A pollo’s O racle and Ju p iter’s tablet still require

interpretation. A difference seems to hold in these plays betw een encountering the Logos and its sym bolization in a fallen language, a difference also seen in St. P aul’s epistle to the Christians o f Corinth: “ F o r now we see through a glass, darkly; b u t th en face to face.”8 T he tragic heroes, how ever, do n o t com e face to face w ith the Logos. Instead, in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, the intervention o f a transcendental signified, o f the Logos, is w ithheld an d equivocation runs riot, its structural effects and the m isapprehensions and m isconstructions it invites producing tragic finales.

O n the o th e r hand, in allusions within the tragedies the Logos is invoked in the form o f the Last Ju d g em en t that w ould end all equivocation and tragedy. This thesis examines pre-R eform ation imagery o f the D o o m n o t critically m ined before now, tracing its progression th rough th e four tragedies in a linear m anner. In the First Q uarto o f Hamlet the hero explicitly nam es the fear o f G od as the decisive p o in t on m an’s m oral com pass, while all three texts o f the play rem ind the audience o f the inevitability o f death

8 1 Corinthians, 13.12.

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and the Ju dg em ent that follows. T he graveyard scene rew orks a m em ento m ori often depicted on the walls o f medieval churches. H am let’s iconic encou nter w ith Y orick’s skull sum m ons up the imagery o f the “Three Living and the T hree D ead ” , w hich showed gruesom e cadavers w arning living kings that the wealth and pow er they hold cannot defy death.

T he language o f Othello and Macbeth draws heavily on depictions o f the D oom . O thello calls for Ju dgem ent, inviting, and despairing of, the heavenly w rath that could punish Iago. A fter D esd em o n a’s m urder is exposed as foul and w rongful, O thello pictures D esdem on a’s gaze thrusting his soul away from heaven and tow ards hell to be snatched at by fiends. Devils, o r fiends, w ere alm ost universal in depictions o f the D oo m , grabbing souls, w hipping the dam ned in the direction o f hell, o r carting them o ff to a fiery hell-m outh. H arrow ed by shame and guilt, O thello offers him self to these sadistic dem ons. M acbeth is haunted by apocalyptic vision. In a soliloquy replete with references to Ju d g em en t Day, and before Lady M acbeth spurs him o n to regicide, M acbeth considers the m urder o f D uncan a dam nable offence, visualizing trum pet- wielding angels th at condem n the crime w ith their blasts. Angels w ith trum pets featured in m o st D o om s, their heavenly blasts waking the dead to be saved o r dam ned by the same “everlasting judge” feared by the protagonist in the First Q uarto o f Hamlet?

Finally, Shakespeare ends King Lear w ith a conflation o f a Christian and pagan apocalypse. K e n t and Edgar invoke the D o o m imagery in troduced in Hamlet and so prevalent in Othello and Macbeth, acknowledging the m o m en t Lear enters w ith a dead Cordelia in his arm s as an image o f the Apocalypse. T he p o o r m a n ’s Bible, the title by which pre-R eform ation church imagery has com e to be know n, w arned medieval parishioners o f the consequences o f their actions, and, it seems, Shakespeare invoked,

9 William Shakespeare, Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623, ed. by A nn T h om pson and N eil Taylor, The Arden Shakespeare (London: T h om son Learning, 2006), 7.119.

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appropriated, and reinterpreted images o f death and, especially, the D o o m in these four tragedies. These visions hau nt the language o f the plays, b u t the apocalyptic Judgem ent they imagine never arrives on stage to save the innocent and dam n the wicked, to stop the tragedy caused by equivocation. D epictions o f the D o o m w ere w idespread, and many, as well as a small num ber o f “Three Living and T hree D ead” paintings, can still be seen today across Britain, survivors o f Protestant iconoclasm.

E x tan t im ages are often faded and difficult to make out, b u t the vitality and visibility o f these images to medieval parishioners cannot be overestim ated. Vivid and unavoidable, church imagery, including wall paintings and stained glass, was used as an educational tool by parish priests, m ore than likely n o t scholars them selves, to inform their m ostly illiterate congregations. A long w ith images o f C hrist and the Virgin Mary, Biblical tales, m orality tales, and Christian saints could be found o n the walls o f the medieval church. W ith densely packed narratives, these images could be subtle, surreal, or even grotesque, and w ould surely have m ade a p ro fo un d im pression on all w ho saw them. D o o m images in particular w ere often ornate, com plex, and frightening. They w ere intended to in struct parishioners across Britain and save their souls, b u t they also looked over the congregation w ith a m enace that m ust have been overwhelm ing. But did Shakespeare him self see them? T he evidence w ould certainly seem to suggest so. ^

D urin g the R eform ation, imagery, including wall paintings and stained glass, was destroyed as a result o f iconoclastic zeal following injunctions by b o th E dw ard V I and Elizabeth I. A lthough m o st D o o m paintings w ere w hitew ashed o ver in the course o f the sixteenth century, obliterated by these decrees by the em ergent P rotestantism o f the English R eform ation, Shakespeare could have been aware o f their co n ten t and may well have seen one. E dw ard V I in 1547 ordered that all pictures, paintings and stained glass in churches be rem oved, so church walls with paintings w ere w ashed and then covered w ith a coat o f w hite lime. As E am on D uffy writes, “conform ity was alm ost universal” to

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these diktats.10 H ow ever, D uffy’s w ords also betray the possibility that som e churches could have escaped the fervour sweeping through E ngland’s parishes. A t som e po int in his life, Shakespeare may well have seen a D o o m painting, o r even a stained glass version. T h at Elizabeth I ordered m ore removals from places o f w orship in 1559, just five years before Shakespeare’s birth, suggests, at the very least, that enough pictures, paintings, and stained glass had survived for further action to be deem ed necessary.

T he 1559 injunction, as M argaret A ston sets out, “did n o t prescribe an aniconic church” . W hether because o f Elizabeth I’s ow n resistance to this destructive mania, public affection for such imagery, o r the practical difficulty o f annihilating idolatrous imagery with the totality envisaged, “the way was open for com prom ise, for the retention, even the restoration, o f imagery” .11 It w ould appear that pre-R eform ation imagery thus had a chance o f surviving the P rotestant revolutionary zeal for long enough to be available to Shakespeare. Indeed, in Much A do A bout Nothing, he seems to reference this iconography, evidently counting on his audience to recognize the allusion. Claudio and D o n P edro have been duped by false evidence o f H ero ’s infidelity. B orachio talks about the eccentricities o f fashion, w hich

turns ab o u t all the hot-bloods betw een fourteen and five-and-thirty, sometimes fashioning th em like P haraoh ’s soldiers in the reechy painting, som etim e like god Bel’s priests in the old church w indow .12

The picture o f P h arao h ’s soldiers discoloured by sm oke w ould seem to be one o f the many wall paintings th a t illustrated Biblical tales in m edieval churches, and the subsequent invocation o f priests in the stained glass o f church w indow s, suggests the survival o f p re-R eform ation iconography in glass, either in reality o r in the popular memory.

10 Eam on D uffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400 — c. 1580 (N ew Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), p.481.

11 Margaret A ston, England’s Iconoclasts: Volume I: Laws Against Images (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp.304, 337.

12 William Shakespeare, Much A d o A bout Nothing, ed. by Claire M cEachem , The Arden Shakespeare (London: T h om son Learning, 2006), 3.3.127-131.

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M oreover, as late as 1643-4, long after Shakespeare’s death, William D ow sing w orked his way through Suffolk and Cambridgeshire doggedly im plem enting a

Parliamentary O rdinance to destroy surviving superstitious and idolatrous m onum ents. C onform ity to the injunctions o f 1547 and 1599, then, may have been far from universal for quite som e tim e befo re the intervention o f Victorian renovation destroyed hundreds o f images. B ut m o st im portantly, the content o f these pictures w ould have been fresh in the m em ory o f local com m unities, and throughout early m odern Britain, and m ust have been familiar at least by repute to Shakespeare. As D uffy notes:

T he churchw ardens’ accounts o f the period witness a wholesale rem oval o f the images, vestm ents, and vessels which had been the w onder o f foreign visitors to the country, and in w hich the collective m em ory o f the parishes were, quite literally, enshrined.13

In an era o f m andatory church attendance, it seems highly im probable th at any congregation could be unaware o f w hat had so recently adorned the church walls that surrounded them, especially w hen the very absence o f these objects o f religious creativity resulted from one o f the key ideological struggles o f the period’s sectarianism. A nd if the item s rem oved were fascinating for visiting foreigners and, for so long, a m ode o f

religious instruction for the mostly illiterate parishioners, the language o f Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear can be understood as a cultural representation of, perhaps, the m ost dram atic exam ple o f the images that persisted in the collective m em ory even after they w ere effaced, pulled down, or carried away.

M e th o d o lo g y

My focus in this thesis is the language o f four o f Shakespeare’s tragedies in the light o f elements o f deconstruction. T o p u t it another way, D errida’s conception o f language as differential rather than referential, and its consequent instability, is em ployed to analyse

13 D uffy, The Stripping of theA.ltars, p.480.

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the role a polysem ic language, exemplified by equivocation, plays in the plots o f Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear.

Ideas, for D errida, do n o t exist independendy o f language. It was Ferdinand de Saussure w ho privileged the signified within the linguistic sign over the referent in the world. In o th er w ords, language itself, n ot the outside world, determ ined m eaning.14 For instance, we co m p reh en d the term “boy” in its difference from the term “girl” , n ot because either w o rd is fixed to an entity or concept in the world. Indeed, biological sex is m uch less binary than this verbal opposition implies. Follow ing Saussure, D errida goes on to argue th at m eaning results from the trace o f difference, since we understand a term by reference n o t to the w orld b u t to its differentiating other. M eaning depends on the trace o f “boy” in “girl” , a trace that marks “the relationship w ith the o th er” .15 An effect o f this trace is to unfix, or deconstruct, binary oppositions such as “boy” and “girl” . A ccording to D errida, the signifier, w ithout access to free-standing concepts, is separated from any possible fullness o f its ow n meaning, the fullness only a metaphysical presence outside language could ensure. In a w orld devoid o f divine guarantees,

signification cannot be closed, final, or held in place, and equivocation stands as its general condition. My analysis considers this linguistic state as relevant, n o t just because it com plim ents the unfixed spelling and gram m ar o f early m od ern English, n o t to m ention the variations betw een Shakespeare’s texts, b u t as a condition th at the texts deliberately exploit as an instrum ental part o f the plots, w hich them selves w ithhold divine resolution.

This thesis analyses equivocation in relation to the m etaphysical universes o f each play. D raw ing at one p o in t on D errida’s w ork in his extensive reappraisal o f Shakespeare in the light o f poststructuralism , M alcolm Evans locates a linguistic batdeground in the

14 See Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General linguistics, trans. by Wade Baskin (London: Fontana, 1974), pp.65-70, 111-122.

15 Derrida, O f Grammatology, p.47.

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early scenes o f Macbeth. O n the one hand there is an “attem pt to co nstruct an

unequivocal idiom ” that includes “the theory o f the divine right o f kings and its place in the G reat Chain o f Being” . O n the other hand is “an inescapable undertow o f negation [...] the hurly-burly o f language” .16 T o p ut it another way, equivocation disturbs a metaphysical order th a t assum es a transcendental signified. This thesis builds on Evans’s insight, finding this struggle to be a fundam ental one thro ug ho ut Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear.

In so doing it answers R. A. Foakes critique o f poststructuralist accounts o f Shakespeare. A lthough Foakes generously concedes the poststructuralist liberation o f Shakespeare criticism, he also believes that it underm ines the aesthetic pleasure found in “the design o f the w hole” by focusing “on the particular, the fragm entary, the anecdotal, the borders o f literature” .17 This thesis does n o t wish to offer a totalizing account o f the texts, b u t it does n o t marginalize the texts in the way Foakes suggests, instead studying the relation betw een D errida’s conception o f language and the dram aturgy o f the plays. T o p u t it simply, it examines the role o f an unstable language in the plots o f the plays. W hen H ym en intervenes at the end o f A.s You like It, she orders reconciliation to take place “ I f tru th holds true contents” .18 Evans calls this a validation o f the restored order that opposes the tyrannous interregnum o f D uke Frederick “in w hich those in pow er m anipulate language to sustain official versions o f ‘tru th ’ that are patently false” .19 This thesis places a different em phasis on this dramatic event: the interv ention o f a

transcendental signified n o t only exposes lies, b u t resolves equivocations and the tragedy they threaten to cause. In Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear\ equivocations are

16 Malcolm Evans, Signifying Nothing: Truth's True Contents in Shakespeare’s Texts (Hem el Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989), p .114.

17 R. A. Foakes, Hamlet Versus Hear Cultural Politics and Shakespeare’s A r t (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p.222.

18 William Shakespeare, A s You Like It, ed. by Juliet Dusinberre, The Arden Shakespeare (London: Thom son Learning, 2006), 5.4.128.

19 Evans, Signifying Nothing, p. 147.

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unchecked and unresolved by a deus ex machina. T he equivocal positions o f Claudius and the G host, Iago’s tem ptation o f O thello and the general’s dual position as insider and outsider, the tem poral and linguistic condition o f Macbeth, and Cordelia’s double-edged role as b o th a disgrace to Lear and his saving grace, all o f these p erfo rm an active part in bringing about the tragic conclusion o f each play.

Close scrutiny o f the four texts dominates this thesis, following the recent return to the im portance o f Shakespeare’s language initiated by Frank K erm ode and, in

particular, Lukas E rne. K erm ode, writing on this occasion for a non-academ ic

readership, states th at Shakespeare’s literary skills have been marginalized, an unw anted side-effect o f the m o dern proliferation o f Shakespeare studies, so th at “ the fact that he was a po et has som ehow drop ped out o f consideration” .20 E rne, in response to the claims o f perform ance theorists that Shakespeare w rote solely for the stage, offers a m ore substantial argum ent that Shakespeare also w rote for publication. T he peak o f playbook publication, E rn e proposes, came betw een 1594 and 1613 and so w hat is particular about Shakespeare’s career in L on do n “is th at plays stopped having a public existence that was confined to the stage” . Successful and a shareholder in his company, Shakespeare “could afford to write plays for the stage and the page” .21

H ow ever, rigorous textual analysis that treats the plays as literary w orks m ust also acknowledge the dem ands o f the early m odern stage as we u nderstand them . A dopting E rn e’s im plication th a t extant texts are our m ost unm ediated en co u n ter w ith Shakespeare, this thesis also acknow ledges that early m od em experiences o f Shakespeare occurred predom inantly in the theatre. Poetry and dramatic function can n o t be divorced in the plays. W hen, as Hamlet begins, the sentry on guard is challenged by his replacem ent, the reversal o f p ro to col indicates an uncanny unease in the dark. B ut a contem porary

20 Frank Kerm ode, Shakespeare’s Language (London: Penguin, 2000), p.vii.

21 Lukas Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.14, 20. Original emphasis.

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audience w ould need to be convinced o f the night-tim e setting o f the scene: we know perform ances occurred in the m iddle o f the afternoon, so w ords have to do the w ork that, these days, can be done w ith a dim m ing o f the lights. B arnardo solves the problem : “ T is now struck twelve. G e t thee to bed, Francisco.” Francisco responds by stressing the melancholy m ood: “ F o r this relief m uch thanks. ’Tis bitter cold, | A nd I am sick at heart.”22 This reinforces th e im portance o f Shakespeare’s language; it is the pow er o f the signifier that convinces Shakespeare’s audience that the wary, b rooding sentries change shifts uneasily at m idnight rather than in broad daylight. A nd, o f course, the central argum ent o f this thesis is th at these tragic plots and their language depend on each other in the following way: Shakespeare employs equivocation as a catalyst in tragedy and w ithholds the entity that could end both. Language and the plays are b o th denied the force that could fix, resolve, and stabilize them.

L o c a tin g th e T h e s is

This thesis draws on elem ents o f new historicism and cultural materialism, as well as psychoanalytic and presentist approaches to Shakespeare, to supplem ent its m ethodology. In so doing, new -historicist considerations o f contem porary political discourse are fused with the textual analysis o f cultural materialism. A t the same time, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theory o f the N am e-of-the-Father supports the predom inantly D erridean

m ethodology o f this thesis, primarily to illuminate H am let’s dilem m a, b u t also to com m ent on D u n c a n ’s position in Macbeth and Lear’s position after he voluntarily gives up power. I also em ploy a presentist tactic, using m od em theatre productions, films, and novels, to em phasize the them es located in each o f the four plays.

T he m ajor new -historicist influence on this thesis is the w ork o f Stephen G reenblatt, the figurehead o f a m ethodology designed to understand the Shakespearean

22 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. by Harold Jenkins, The Arden Shakespeare (London: Methuen, 1982), 1.1.7-9. All references are to this edition, unless otherwise stated.

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canon in relation to dom inant early m odern ideological institutions. G reenblatt sets out his stall in Shakespearean Negotiations, w here he contends that “w orks o f art, how ever intensely m arked by the creative intelligence and private obsessions o f individuals, are the products o f collective negotiation and exchange” .23 This thesis explores the influence o f pre-R eform ation imagery o n four Shakespearean tragedies, a new -historicist n o d to G reenblatt’s Hamlet in Purgatory, w here religious images from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries illustrate the role o f purgatory in Hamlet. My focus is the far m ore prevalent D o o m imagery and its influence on the plays. In Hamlet in Purgatory, G reenblatt seems to allow Shakespeare greater agency in a search for “the m atter he was working w ith and w hat he did w ith th at m atter” .24 H ow ever, as w ith his earlier w ork, the literary object o f study takes second place to the historical context. A ddressing the variations betw een Shakespeare’s texts, G reenblatt states that there has “probably never been a time since the early eighteenth century w hen there was less confidence in the ‘text’” .25 This justification for giving political discourse and events priority over an unstable text com es at a heavy price: Shakespeare’s plays are relegated in im portance, footnotes to their ow n exegesis. My analysis draws on G reenblatt’s concern for social, econom ic, and political circum stances, b u t foregrounds the language o f Shakespeare, em ploying the rigorous textual analysis new historicism can tend to eschew.

In privileging the language o f the text, this thesis shares som ething o f its

m ethodology w ith cultural materialism. The forew ord by Jo n ath an D ollim ore and Alan Sinfield to the sem inal Political Shakespeare explains that this field o f criticism can be understood as “a com b ination o f historical context, theoretical m eth o d , political com m itm ent and textual analysis” .26 The political com m itm ent o f cultural materialism

23 Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), p.vii.

24 Stephen Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p.4. 25 Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations, p.3.

26 Editors’ Foreword, in Political Shakespeare: Near Essays in Cultural Materialism, ed. by Jonathan Dollim ore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), p.vii.

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can, in part, be seen as a reaction to the inequalities o f M argaret T h atch er’s Britain, and my focus on the m achinations o f language is perhaps a response to the political spin o f T ony Blair’s N ew L abour project, w hich valued the public’s perception o f its governance at least as highly as governance itself. Spin is defined as “a bias or slant on inform ation, intended to create a favourable im pression w hen it is presented to the public” (O E D , »/[2.]g); it is the m o d ern incarnation o f Father G arnet’s controversial equivocations. Blair’s governm ent, it seems, understood w hat D ollim ore says o f representation: “it is never merely a reflection o f the pregiven, b u t som ething w hich helps b o th to control and constitute w hat is given and w hat is thought.”27 W e can, perhaps, consider Iago as a tw isted prototype o f the m odern political spin doctor. Indeed, H am let’s delay can be seen as the apathetic response to the ideological wasteland o f political leadership, M acbeth, with his unchecked am bition, as an early progenitor o f ruthless, careerist politicians, and the m ultiple betrayals in King Lear as a proleptic vision o f a cut-throat world. Meanwhile, those w ho believed in the bright future prom ised for Britain by N ew L abour may now feel as duped as O thello. These playful speculations aside, this thesis does n o t draw direct com parisons betw een Shakespeare’s plays and the m o d em political environm ent, b u t it does aim to celebrate the pow er o f the signifier. Ju st as cultural m aterialism searched the margins o f the text to rem ove the shackles o f ideological appropriations o f gender, race, class, and sex in Shakespeare, this thesis aims to explore Shakespeare’s language in order to understand the possibilities equivocation offers as a m anipulative political tool. T he thesis is thus self-consciously positioned at the

intersections o f various scholarly and political discourses th at m ake up the cultural conditions o f its production.

Use o f Lacan’s theory o f the N am e-of-the-Father gives this thesis a different dim ension to recent psychoanalytic criticism o f Shakespeare. Sigm und F reud has been a

27 Jonathan D ollim ore, “Shakespeare, Cultural Materialism, Feminism and Marxist H um anism ”, New

Literary History, 21 (1 989/1990), 471-493 (p.479).

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useful resource for several generations o f critics, with Hamlet proving the m ost fruitful source o f analysis for b o th F reud and the Shakespeare criticism he inspired. Philip A rm strong, in a study o f the relationship between Shakespeare and psychoanalysis, calls the scribbles H am let frantically makes on his tables after the intervention o f the G h ost as “a m om en t that in Freudian term s represents the inscription u p o n the psyche o f the superegoic law o f th e father” .28 Alternatively, this thesis centralizes the m o m en t H am let addresses the G h o st as “ K ing, father, royal D ane” (Hamlet, 1.4.45). In Lacanian terms, the paternal trinity o f nam es invokes the Father as a structural position in language, a privileged signifier th at directs the developm ent o f the subject. Coppelia K ahn has focused on Shakespeare’s protagonists as products o f a particular family structure,29 but, as A rm strong puts it, K ah n “tends to take the Shakespearean family as a replica o f the tw entieth-century O edipalised nuclear family” .30 A rm strong him self, in the light o f Lacan’s theory o f the m irror stage — w here the young child is inducted into culture by an identification with its reflection — uses the repetition o f Renaissance “m odels o f

cognition — the eye o f the m ind, m irror o f the intellect, m ind as inner arena” in Hamlet to exam ine the identification betw een theatrical spectacle and spectator.31 My thesis,

how ever, adopts Lacan’s emphasis on the Father to read H am let’s dilem m a as a choice betw een the G h o st and Claudius, b o th o f w hom occupy equivocal positions that underm ine their claim to the place o f Father. F or Janet Adelm an, em phasizing the m aternal as a reaction to the patriarchy and misogyny feminist critics have located in Freud and Lacan, th e m o th er previously absent in Shakespeare “returns w ith a vengeance in H am let\ 32 C ontrary to this approach, this thesis sees in Hamlet the failure o f either

28 Philip Armstrong, Shakespeare in Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 2001), p.52.

29 See Coppelia Kahn, M a n ’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University o f California Press, 1981).

30 Armstrong, Shakespeare in Pychoanalysis, p. 188.

31 Philip Armstrong, “W atching Ham let Watching: Lacan, Shakespeare and the M irror/Stage”, \s\ Alternative

Shakespeares: Volume 2, ed. by Terence Hawkes (London: Routledge, 1996), pp.216-237 (p.224).

32 Janet Adelman, Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare’s Plays, “Hamlet” to ‘The

Tempest” (London: Routledge, 1992), p .10.

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Claudius or the G h o st to unequivocally occupy the space vacated by old H am let, and, by extension, the failure o f the play’s patriarchal system. My analysis takes the Father to be a structural position in language rather than a biological one, a Lacanian trope that

comf(hp^ents the im portance assigned to kings and fathers in early m o dern society, which saw a conflation betw een the two. T herefore in Macbeth, D u n can ’s success as a king, as a Father-figure, m akes his killing all the m ore horrific, and in King Hear; Lear gives up the duties o f kingship b u t still tries to retain its benefits, an equivocation th at leaves him vulnerable to G on eril’s and Regan’s thirst for power.

I M odem theatre productions, films, and novels are used th ro u g h o u t the thesis to i

substantiate the analysis in each chapter. This technique draws o n the presentism o f T erence Hawkes that attem pts to “talk to the living”, to use current issues as access points to Shakespeare.33 Inverting the flow o f presentism , my analysis uses m odern texts to investigate how the issues it locates are exemplified by, and m anifested in, current interpretations that draw directly or indirectly on Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear. In o th er w ords, though I acknowledge the historical context o f these plays, I also read as a self-consciously tw enty-first century reader.

C hapter Tw o o f this thesis interprets Hamlet in the light o f Jacques Lacan’s theory o f the N am e-of-the-Father. Lacan extends the cultural tradition o f associating external law w ith paternal authority to posit his Law, w hich constitutes the internali2ed

com m ands im posed by the Father that regulate desire and unconscious imperatives. This chapter argues th a t H am let faces an impossible choice betw een a G h o st w hose provenance is equivocal and Claudius, w ho is b o th H am let’s uncle and his father. N either the G h o st n o r Claudius can authoritatively, unequivocally request H am let’s fidelity, as b o th disrupt the o rd er o f family. This order depends on a system o f clear differences for its m eaning, a hierarchy that ensures the F ather’s pre-em inence. The

33 Terence Hawkes, Shakespeare in the Present (London: Routledge, 2002), p.4.

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chapter ends w ith an exam ination o f the graveyard scene, w hich introduces the them e o f Judgem ent by invoking the “T hree Living and the T hree D ead ” m em ento mori.

O th ello ’s position is interpreted as an equivocal one in C hapter T hree, the impressive general m oving from an insider to an outsider in V enetian society, ensnared by Iago’s m ode o f address. T h e chapter posits Iago as an anti-Logos, a fiendish figure w ho revels in the use o f an unanchored language, switching betw een lies and

equivocations in order to realize his schemes. O thello, disgraced, beckons dam nation, and the chapter ends by suggesting that O thello’s self-condem nation invokes D o o m imagery. Patricia Parker proposes that, in the final scene, O thello claims the authority o f “a husband as final judge and executioner o f a too open and to o ‘liberal’ w ife”.34 The chapter argues that O thello also calls u pon the Judge seen in D o o m imagery to jusdy punish him in turn.

C hapter F our examines the trace o f the o ther that invades the selfsame in Macbeth. It begins by proposing th a t “m an” is an equivocal term in the play contested by M acbeth and Lady M acbeth. T hus the self-interest and feudal obligations K iernan Ryan sees as “ sharply opposed value-systems and versions o f masculinity”35 are reappraised as the effect o f a differential language. T he chapter sees equivocation as the tem poral, as well as the linguistic, condition o f the play, the prophetic trace o f the future invading the play’s present. M oreover, the trace o f the vices M alcolm renounces still threatens to invade his professed virtue, remaining a threat to the future o f Scodand. T h e chapter ends w ith a detailed analysis o f M acbeth’s soliloquy at 1.7 in relation to pre-Reform ation D o o m imagery.

T he final ch apter proposes that King hear deconstructs the opposition between Christianity and paganism. W hile the play is ostensibly set in pre-Christian times, it

34 Patricia Parker, Shakespeare from the Margins: language, Culture, Context (Chicago, IL: University o f Chicago Press, 1996), pp.251-252.

35 Kiernan Ryan, Shakespeare (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p.92.

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nevertheless articulates its issues in the deeply Christian language o f Shakespeare’s day. M oreover, the chapter argues that the painful end confounds the expectation o f salvation set up in the play, w ith Cordelia as the soteriological figure w ho initially hurts Lear but also returns from exile to save him. Cordelia is thus posited as a pharm akonic figure because, like the pharmakon D errida finds to be b o th poison and rem edy in P lato’s Phaedrus, she is a figure w ithin w hich “these oppositions are able to sketch themselves ou t” .36 T he chapter concludes by arguing that King Lear ends w ith a Shakespearean image o f the A pocalypse. Lear dies w ith the m urdered Cordelia in his arms; it is an

unredeem ed, m ortal image o f the end o f the w orld that stands in place o f the prom ised D oom .

E quivocation runs free in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Hear. Tragedy, like language, requires a transcendental signified to resolve its ambiguities. H ow ever, the D o o m that could end b o th equivocation and tragedy in the plays is invoked but strategically withheld. As a result, equivocations direct the plots o f the plays to tragic conclusions.

A N ote on Typography

W hen using early m odern texts I have m odernized “i” , w hich also served for “j” . Also, I have replaced the long “ s” w ith the familiar m odern version throughout. W here I have m aintained the capitalization o f theological terms, such as D o o m , Judgem ent, Judge, Last Judgem ent, and A pocalypse, it is to emphasize their specifically C hristian resonance.

M oreover, I have also m aintained the capitalization o f quotations from Shakespeare and the Bible.

36 Jacques Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy”, in Dissemination, trans. by Barbara Johnson (Chicago, IL: University o f Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 61-171 (p.99).

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H am let and the Symbolic Order

Introduction

A fallen w orld entails a fallen language distanced from a transcendental signified, and this thesis proposes that equivocation exemplifies such a language, while the plots o f Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth also turn on the lack o f resolution and stability that a transcendental signified could provide. W ithout the divine intervention that Shakespeare w ithholds, the conflict in each play ends in tragedy as the signifier’s pow er to generate m eaning runs untam ed. This chapter draws on Jacques Lacan’s theory o f the N am e-of- the-Father, a structural position in Lacanian psychoanalysis influenced by the cultural role o f fathers w ho are “identified [...] with the figure o f the law” .1 By this Lacan means that culture has tended to associate the external law and authority o f the state with fathers, and he uses this tradition to justify his Law, the internalized com m ands im posed by the N am e-of-the-Father on the subject that check b o th desire and the im peratives o f the unconscious. T hus the N am e-of-the-Father, w hich can simply be referred to as the Father, confers identity and prohibits incest. In Hamlet, this chapter will argue, bo th the G h o st and Claudius occupy equivocal positions that disrupt the p ro p er system o f differences, m eanings, and order o f the family usually reinforced by Lacan’s N am e-of- the-Father. T he contradictory positions occupied by Claudius and the G h o st are only possible in a fallen w orld afforded the possibilities o f an equivocating, polysemic language. This ch apter will conclude by suggesting that the audience is rem inded o f the Judgem ent o f G o d — the transcendental signified, the Logos, th at could stop all

equivocation and w hich Shakespeare keeps off-stage — in the graveyard scene’s invocation o f the m em ento m ori imagery often seen in pre-R eform ation churches.

1 Jacques Lacan, Ecrits, trans. by Alan Sheridan (London: Routledge, 1989), p.74.

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T he N am e-of-the-F ather stands at the pivotal po int o f the symbolic order, understood as b o th sym bolisation in language and a discipline that brings behaviour into line with the com m ands o f the Logos, the absolute m eaning w itho ut equivocation.

Recognised as a privileged signifier in Lacan’s symbolic system, the N am e-of-the-Father locates the identity o f the subject by placing it within a lineage and em phasising the incest taboo. In Hamlet, the king’s m urder by Claudius precipitates an uncertainty. Regicide, and the m arriage o f G ertrud e and Claudius, causes confusion: Claudius becom es father and uncle, G ertru de m o th er and aunt, H am let son and nephew . Shakespeare’s play can be seen to anticipate the agonistic relationship betw een the unequivocal Logos and its representation in a language we experience as polysemic, a difference stressed by old H am let’s replacem ent by a spectre that assumes his shape on the one h and and an im postor father o n the other. H am let cannot obey both; the play also questions w hether the external law associated w ith fathers perm its him to obey either as b o th Claudius and the G h o st are defined in the play as father-and-not-father. Follow ing inexorably on from this, Law as defined by Lacan forbids him from obeying either, as b o th are and at the same tim e are n o t in the position o f the N am e-of-the-Father.

H am let’s problem is n o t psychosis o r procrastination, b u t that, in old H am let’s absence, n o figure in the play has the authority to require him to act. Psychosis, in Lacanian psychoanalysis, is the result o f the paternal Law ’s expulsion from the symbolic universe, “the foreclosure o f the N am e-of-the-Father in the place o f the O th e r” .2 For Lacan, this O th e r denotes the unconscious as well as the symbolic order, which, in turn, is equivalent in m eaning to b o th language and the entire cultural dom ain. In order to avoid the individual’s psychosis, the N am e-of-the-Father m ust speak from the place o f the O ther. H ow ever, in Hamlet, with the death o f the father, old H am let, and the

introduction o f Claudius the im postor-father in his place, the N am e-of-the-Father speaks

2 Lacan, Merits, p.238.

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from an equivocal position. H am let’s problem , rather than a proto-L acanian psychosis triggered by “the N am e-of-the-Father [...] never having attained the place o f the O th er”,3 is that he is asked to obey the com m ands o f untrustw orthy father-figures. The questionable G h o st speaks from an other, supernatural place, while, like Claudius the usurper king, it is b o th H am let’s father and n o t H am let’s father. A ttem pting to solicit filial piety from H am let, Claudius lays claim, albeit unsuccessfully, to the place vacated by old H am let’s death: “T h at w hich dearest father bears his son | D o I im part tow ard you.”4 Similarly, the G h o st expects H am let to obey its com m and in the nam e o f filial piety: “ I f th ou didst ever thy dear father love [...] Revenge his foul and m o st unnatural m urder” (1.5.23, 25). B oth are qualified for the condition o f father-and-not-father.

H am let’s crisis is a profoundly personal one b u t it has a social dim ension. A clear dem arcation did n o t exist betw een public and private spaces in E lizabethan society and Hamlet presents this undifferentiated sphere that includes, as Francis Barker puts it, “the father w ho is as a king in the family and the king w ho is as a father in the state” .5 In Hamlet family equivocations are also state equivocations. H am let receives equivocal com m ands b o th as a son o f the king and as a subject o f the king, and responds with equivocations o f his ow n that try to w ork through the confusions o f the play. His alienation m arks the territory o f a struggle w ith a new, unstable symbolic order. Indeed, it can be argued th at Hamlet n o t only anticipates Lacanian psychoanalysis but, in

m uddying the N am e-of-the-Father, pre-em pts D errida’s criticism o f L acan’s symbolic order as the source o f a phallogocentric truth psychoanalysis reveals.6

T he op ening three lines o f the A rden edition o f Hamlet offer a question, a dem and and a statem ent th at resonate throughout the play:

3 Lacan, Rents, p.240.

4 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. by Harold Jenkins, The Arden Shakespeare (London: Methuen, 1982), 1.2.111-112. All references are to this edition, unless otherwise stated.

5 Francis Barker, The Tremulous Private Body (London: Methuen, 1984), p.31

6 Jacques Derrida, “Le facteur de la verite”, in The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. by Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University o f Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 411-496.

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B A R N A R D O W ho ’s there?

FR AN C ISCO Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

B A R N A R D O L ong live the King!

1.1.1-3

A n om en o f the early threats posed by the G ho st and Fortinbras, the opening question also situates H am let am idst the equivocations o f the play. T o reveal him self as a m urderous revenger is w hat the G h o st dem ands o f Hamlet: “ I f th o u has nature in thee, bear it n o t” (1.5.81). H am let’s response to the dem and is n o t the swift and bloody justice the G h o st expects; it is the unfolding o f the play’s metaphysics o f kings and fathers as H am let struggles w ith a com m and that proves difficult to obey. B arnardo’s cry does not turn o ut to be just ironic: the statem ent also predicts H am let’s inability to obey the im possible Law im posed by im p osto r Fathers.

The Ghost’s Equivocal Provenance

Invoking the equivocal provenance o f the G host, the opening line o f Hamlet poses a question that dom inates the beginning o f the play and haunts the unfolding o f the dram atic events. B arnardo’s question immediately unbalances the military etiquette o f the battlem ented scene, as it is Francisco on guard w ho has the right to challenge the presence o f anyone approaching. This disruption o f pro toco l indicates the oncom ing sentry’s jum py unease. T hough the black o f night Shakespeare intended w ould n o t have been im m ediately perceptible to an audience at T he G lobe, B arnardo’s w ords to

Francisco specify the late-night setting: “T is now struck twelve. G et thee to bed, Francisco” (1.1.7). A n om inous darkness becom es apparent to an audience that has already heard the needy question. Beginning with the first line, w hich in our time sounds like the final w ords o f a H ollyw ood horror film’s sacrificial victim, the theatrical effect o f the opening scene is to m ake the onlooker immediately aware o f the time o f day and convey the sense o f discom fort, trepidation and slight, subtle im balance that perm eates

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Elsinore. Francisco — no longer on sentry duty - reinforces this shortly afterwards w hen heralding the entry o f H oratio and Marcellus, w hose im m inent arrival he is even aware of: “Stand, ho! W ho is there?” (1.1.15). T he fear is infectious. Back in late 2005 the Wales T heatre C om pany’s p ro duction o f Hamlet at C ard iff s N ew Theatre used the m odern theatre setting to em phasise this horror. As the w inter winds how led outside, the mist and darkness on the in d o o r stage was broken by director M ichael B ogdanov w ith the sudden, blinding projection o f the G ho st on a large screen. In Shakespeare’s play, as well as setting the scene o f em bryonic disturbance, B arnardo’s question is an instant, dramatic om en o f the nighdy stalking o f old H am let’s ghost, a supernatural m arch that drives the action o f the play by its revelations to H am let, while, ironically and equivocally, being the cause o f the protagonist’s inaction. M oreover, the spectre’s visitation eventually exposes the crimes o f the incum bent king, him self threatened by F ortinbras’s m arch towards Elsinore.

T he question becom es m ore specific after H oratio and Marcellus enter: “Say, what, is H oratio there?” (1.1.21). H oratio, as a scholar, is sum m oned to the w atch as a witness to sceptical reasoning:

H O R A T IO W hat, has this thing appear’d again tonight?

B A R N A R D O I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS H oratio says ’tis bu t our fantasy,

A nd will n o t let belief take hold o f him, T ouching this dreaded sight twice seen o f us. T herefore I have entreated him along W ith us to w atch the minutes o f this night, T h at if again this apparition come,

H e may approve our eyes and speak to it. 1.1.24-32

H oratio’s description o f the ghost as a thing encapsulates the equivocal nature o f the presence that will silently stalk b o th the stage itself and the language o f the three w atchm en. M arcellus’s descriptions conflate som ething feared with som ething supernatural b u t visible. Setting up an analogy between Shakespeare’s fictional G h ost