Friday, December 11, 2009

Paper Topic and Secondary Resources

For the paper I focused on gender transference in The Merchant of Venice. In particular, I focused on Portia and Jessica and how they are able to successfully subvert their gender roles through the intervention of Bassanio and Lorenzo. I analyzed this through the use of the casket as symbol for the womb and their cross-dressing as means of escape. In contrast are the characters of Antonio and Shylock, who are not able to subvert their traditional roles.

Sources I used:
Abate, Corinne S. “’Nerissa Teaches Me What to Believe’: Portia’s Wifely Empowerment in The Merchant of Venice.” The Merchant of Venice: New Critical Essays. Ed. John W. Mahon and Ellen Macleod Mahon. New York: Routledge, 2002. 283-304. Print.

Adelman, Janet. “Her Father’s Blood: Race, Conversion, and Nation in The Merchant of Venice.” Representations 81 (2003): 4-30. JSTOR. Web. 10 Nov. 2009.

Adelman, Janet. Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in The Merchant of Venice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print.

Metzger, Mary Janell. “‘Now by My Hood, a Gentle and No Jew’: Jessica, The Merchant of Venice, and the Discourse of Early Modern English Identity.” PMLA 113.1 (1998): 52-63. JSTOR. Web. 10 Nov. 2009.

Oldrieve, Susan. “Marginalized Voices in The Merchant of Venice.” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 5.1 (1993): 87-105. JSTOR. Web. 10 Nov. 2009.

Conclusions

When I began the semester, I didn't know very much about themes over Shakespeare's body of work as a whole. I wasn't a huge fan of the plays which I had read, and it still takes a while for me to make sense of Elizabethan prose sometimes. What I really found interesting though was how this era has shaped our approach to gender identity even now. While certainly people during the Middle Ages weren't very enlightened when it came to sex and gender, the hefty labeling that started during this time helped lead to our society's current hysteria about subjects like gay marriage and transgendered people. Although it seems he often feeds into his culture's need for clear definitions and resolutions (like the partnering at the end of Twelfth Night or the return to Belmont in Merchant of Venice), Shakespeare seems willing to play with gender roles in a way that signals he was aware of how gender was being constructed in his society. He does much the same thing with racial and religious constructs in Merchant of Venice as well (and I presume other works, although I'm not that widely read and I wasn't paying as much attention to these issues in the other works we looked at). The fact that he was willing to subversively address this issues made me call into question my ideas about the time period. Doing research on hermaphrodites and transvestites made me realize that these aren't new issues just coming into the forefront in the twentieth century and now, but rather they've been a matter of intrigue since the Early Modern Era and before. I think particularly in regards to gender issues that the Victorian Era acted as a sort of buffer in conversation. Interesting that such a time of conservative values and rigid definition of roles should once more occur during the time of an English female monarch. What I mean to say though is that it seems like some of the issues that we're seeing in Shakespeare now have really always been there, it's just we weren't able as a society to talk about them until shifting away once more from rigid mindsets.

Reduced Shakespeare Company - Titus Andronicus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhiv70hBZ08

This video reinforced the absurdity of the violence in Titus for me by staging it as a cooking show (similar to the final scene of the movie). "Good evening, gore-mets!" The Emeril-style "Bam!" reinforcement of the acts of violence one after another is fairly effective at illustrating the impact of the events of the work on the reader.

Titus Andronicus







I was fairly disturbed by Lavinia's story in Titus Andronicus, but the play was fairly absurd so I could get past that. What bothers me more (and this returns to earlier concerns with Rape of Lucrece) is the stylized, artistic representation of something so incredibly brutal. This seems to have improved over time. I guess what bothers me most is that I can still be captivated by the artistic beauty of these scenes and the skill it took to achieve it, even though the subject is disgusting. A victim of a crime like this, if encountered in real life immediately after the event, would be (I imagine) an image that you'd want to erase from your mind forever. I found three different images of Lavinia post-rape:
1) This is the oldest one I found. Here there's no clear detail of the fact that she is missing her hands and tongue, but the artist did take the time to fully detail her breasts and the beautiful billowing cloth around her.
2) Japanese stage production. The emotion of the actress is stark and haunting. Perhaps these are the ribbons we discussed in class.
3) From the movie Titus. I was horrified watching this, and felt nauseated, but afterwards all I could dwell on was the incredible statement of the branches/stump. Which just made me feel sick again.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Primary Source 5


While perhaps sensible advice not to trust a whore, this ballad does not clearly distinguish that this was a woman paid for sex, so we return to the idea of "whore of the mouth." Indeed, it is the man who ends up in trouble with creditors at the end, in debt for this woman, rather than she being in trouble with the law. Of particular interest is the verse:

For if you still will follow whores,
they will devoure you all:
Your quoine, your states, your health and friends,
Then turne you out of doore

"Devoure" conjures up ideas of the devouring womb, vagina dentata imagery which we have been concerned with this semester. For all that they lacked agency in society, men had a lot of fear of the power of women. The mysteries of the feminine body, which occupied that odd limbo where they could potentially transform at any time (from maid to woman to mother to crone, or even to man in the case of hermaphrodites), were not accessible for men, who stayed fairly static throughout life after puberty.

Portia and Shylock - Thomas Sully


While this falls outside the scope of primary texts, as it wasn't completed until 1835, I thought it interesting that this image ignores Portia's cross-dressing in the courtroom (which would have been her only interaction with Shylock). While women actors would have been common by this era, it was a major element of the actual text of the play. It's likely just a stylistic choice on the part of the painter, as I suppose it could be argued that Portia is rather androgynous here, but it reflects changing roles for women. In some ways, this depiction of Portia places her in a weaker position. She appears cowed under Shylock's accusing finger, with a blush of embarrassment in her cheeks, and looks up at him through her lashes. He makes for an imposing figure, and while the potential danger he posed to Antonio certainly made him seem intimidating in the play, he held little actual power in the courtroom as a Jew.

Primary Source 4

Click on the picture to see the full woodcut.

Much of the poor treatment of Jews during the Early Modern Era (and even currently) was focused on the idea of their guilt by association in Christ's crucifixion. Never mind that it was (according to Christian mythology) a necessary sacrifice created by God to save sinners from the stain of their sin. At any rate, one interesting point in this woodcut is the depiction of circumcision in the lower left corner. In addition to their portrayal as shrunken and hunched evildoers, it connects through juxtaposition the myth of Jewish male menstruation to the blood debt which they owe for the killing of Jesus. Mary Metzger, in her article "'Now by My Hood, a Gentle and No Jew': Jessica, The Merchant of Venice, and the Discourse of Early Modern English Identity," points out that Jewish men, unlike Jewish women, were physically marked as different even if they were fair like Jessica. Even if they were to be accepted as converts, they would carry the mark on their body of difference, making it that much more difficult to integrate into society.

Primary Source 3

Sumptuary laws - Statutes of Apparel given by Elizabeth I

http://elizabethan.org/sumptuary/who-wears-what.html

In thinking about rules for clothing during the era, as part of my research touches on cross-dressing in Merchant of Venice, I found that there were specific laws governing what specifically a person could wear even if they were in the correct gendered clothing. A modernized-spelling version of one of the sumptuary statutes can be found at the link. Although sumptuary laws were rarely very effective, the idea was to restrict certain fabrics or jewels to only the highest ranking members of royalty. I could not find any decrees against cross-dress, perhaps because it was already fairly socially taboo. It was interesting that there seemed as many restrictions on men's dress (perhaps more when taking swords, scabbards, horse harnesses, etc. into account) than there were for women. Dress was a primary way of indicating status outside of your primary social arena, so even for those wealthy merchants or lower nobility that could afford it, it was forbidden to pretend to a rank one could never hold (short of marriage).

Side-note: Elizabeth I refers to her "princely clemency" towards her subjects - playing on gender roles again.

Primary Source 2



The first image here is of the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. The second is the coronation portrait of Elizabeth I. I was drawn to Elizabeth I during my research as an embodiment of the idea of transference of gender roles during the era. What I found interesting here is that she is presenting herself in very similar clothing and style to her male predecessors. The dress which does mark her specifically as feminine is as tamed as possible, with the armor-like corset shielding any distinguishing female aspects. It was a conscious decision to legitimize her claim on the throne. I found this quote from her speaking to her council prior to coronation:
"My lords, the law of nature moves me to sorrow for my sister; the burden that is fallen upon me makes me amazed, and yet, considering I am God's creature, ordained to obey His appointment, I will thereto yield, desiring from the bottom of my heart that I may have assistance of His grace to be the minister of His heavenly will in this office now committed to me. And as I am but one body naturally considered, though by His permission a body politic to govern, so shall I desire you all...to be assistant to me, that I with my ruling and you with your service may make a good account to Almighty God and leave some comfort to our posterity on earth. I mean to direct all my actions by good advice and counsel."
It makes clear her distinction between her nature (feminine, physical) and her spirit (political, and therefore masculine). While blurring lines of gender distinction, she takes care to mark it as God's will, therefore challenging anyone who would question her role.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Primary Source 1


A False Jew by Thomas Weld, 1653

In beginning my research, I was interested in how conversion could be different for Jewish men and women. While I didn't find any specific accounts of women converting, this text presented two interesting questions. This convoluted tale gives the testimony of a man who was found pretending to be a converted Jew and who later admitted to be a spy for the Vatican.
Thoughts it raised:
1) Part of the draw of this story for readers at the time seems to be the fact that a Jew was found to be speaking perfect English. Although this was later found to be non-applicable as he was lying about his identity, it calls into questions notions of English identity at the time. So much of England's view of self seemed to be tied into the idea of separateness from the continent, being above the taint of Catholicism and Judaism. It seemed they were astonished that a Jewish tongue was physically capable of perfect English pronunciation and speech. While few Jewish people at the time would have been able to speak English, given that they were expelled centuries earlier from England, the "proof" that there was nothing linguistically unique about English was troubling.
2) The willingness of this man to be circumcised is intriguing. Although it is rather common now, circumcision was only a mark of Jewishness at the time and was seen as akin to genital mutilation. In many ways, he was not only switching religions as he pleased, but was also blurring traditional views of masculinity. He became something without category, almost "queer" in the same sense as John Rykener is referred to by David Lorenzo Boyd and Ruth Mazo Karras.
Richard Pickersgill's Orsino and Viola

As hermaphrodites/transvestism in regards to Twelfth Night was our presentation group's focus, I was left with a lot to think about as we began to read this work. The secondary title of What You Will suggests that Shakespeare was intending for this to be purely a playful piece. But moving towards the end, as we see the characters pair off heterosexually, it seems the resolution to all problems comes too easily, as if what Shakespeare was playing with didn't sit all too well with him once he considered the resolution. If gender roles were as fluid during his time as our research suggests, maybe Shakespeare was experiencing a homosexual panic himself like some of his viewers after writing about this confluence of identity.
Another thing I noticed was the emphasis, not so much on cross-dressing, but rather merging sexual identity as seen in the androgyne, and I was glad we went that route with our research. When Sebastian says, "Nor can there be that deity in my nature,/Of here and every where,"
and "You are betroth'd both to a maid and man," it seems to be harkening back to the idea of the idealized spiritual aspect of the androgyne. And perhaps it is this, rather than worry about homosexuality, that Shakespeare was trying to emphasize - the return to the natural order seen in Plato's Symposium.

Titian's Venus and Adonis

This portrait makes the attack on Adonis a little less disturbing, as he's shown to be a full-grown man rather than the boy that Shakespeare describes. Reading this poem really makes me reconsider Shakespeare's stance on gender roles. While before I would have thought of his play on gender as a stage device for entertainment, there's really no reason to take things to the extent he does here unless he genuinely wants to examine what society has in place for men and women. In a way it's just baudiness, considering his audience - a teenage boy might find a lot of amusement in a sexual epic about a lust-crazy older woman attacking a young innocent - but his depiction of Venus says a lot about fear of female sexuality in this period. Perhaps this fear of the devouring mother/womb, or the underlying fear about the possibility that at any given moment a woman could reveal herself to be a man underneath her clothes (either on stage or in real life in the case of hermaphrodites), is why there seems now to be a lot of homosocial behavior in this era - male romantic friendships were less threatening than having equal relationships with females.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Shakespeare in the news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091020/us_time/08599193097100

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Women Crossing Borders

As my group begins its research for the transgender/hermaphrodite presentation on Twelfth Night, the question comes to my mind about whether women may more easily cross certain cultural boundaries than men. In class today, we discussed whether or not Jessica has an easier time converting because, as a woman, she already lacks agency in society. Her identity is one prescribed by men, so if men of importance around her acknowledge her conversion as sincere, then she is able to fully assimilate into Christian society. Shylock will have no such luck because as a forced convert he fits in neither with the Christians nor the Jews. If this argument has merit, it would mean that women of all situations in Early Modern cultures would more easily move in social status, rank, religion, etc. - anything that comes with a label - as long as they have the backing of a man of influence. So far in our reading we've seen other women crossing borders:
Lucrece - her suicide is a masculine act, reclaiming her body and transforming it into a message in a way
Kathrine - her voice seems originally that of a man; she must transform her complete viewpoint in order to be accepted into society

Lady Macbeth and Ariel from The Tempest (who seems neither male nor female) come to mind as well.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

After all the talk of horns I had to find this picture....

In other news, blood libel is alive and well in Russia and Iran.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3521307,00.html
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP105305

Shylock and Jessica - Maurycy Gottlieb

This painting from 1876 is by Maurycy Gottlieb, a Jew from Ukraine. This sympathetic portrayal of Shylock came after the move toward playing him sympathetically on stage, which likely began with Edmund Kean in the 1810s. In the early 20th century, Jacob Adler would play the role of Shylock in Yiddish in an otherwise English language production. Arnold Wesker continued this trend of Jews "reclaiming" Shylock and turning him into an image of the struggles of the Jewish people in his adaptation called The Merchant. It's fascinating to me how stereotypes can be taken back by the community they are perpetuated against and transformed into more positive cultural symbols. I wonder if this sort of reappropriation, much like black people have done with the "n word," or GLBT people have done with "queer," is always positive however. With something given such high artistic rank as a work by Shakespeare, I guess a community has to do something to transform negative images within the text, but I wonder if a hands-off approach wouldn't be better. So much racism or sexism seems to become justified by calling something a great work of art - which I guess is why things like Heart of Darkness still get taught - but it becomes a bit sinister to ask a reader to look beyond prejudice in a work rather than actively thinking about it.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

"A Merry Jest of a Shrewd and Cursed Wife" - Some Thoughts

To be honest, I had quite a bit of difficulty reading this without the fun sidenotes and modernized spelling Norton has to offer.
What got me about this was the really overtly violence against women. If I follow, the husband wraps the wife in a horse's hide and beats her with a rod? And he even hits her in bed the morning after their wedding while "dallying together and having good game" - taming basically sounds synonymous with raping here. The author pronounces it all for the good at the end - I guess it makes Shakespeare seem enlightened on gender roles in contrast.

It's interesting to see here again repeated the correlation between ugliness of appearance and ugliness of action in the character of the mother (who is described as plain), just as Katherine brought up the issue in the final speech in The Taming of the Shrew. I wonder how long psychologically we have been groomed (I chose that word before I realized how appropriate it was) to see unattractive people as villains. Did it start during the Renaissance?

The Taming of the Shrew - Katherine's final speech

The speech that Katherine offers in 5.2 presents the reader with a heavy reinstatement of typical gender roles, yet it is curious that Katherine would get the final word in. The sharpness of her tongue is reined in, no longer offering insult and rebuke to Petruchio, however she does have sharp words for the other women. The Taming of the Shrew seems to have no quarrel with women speaking their minds, so long as their eloquence is in support of the dominant discourse on the ideal woman. Katherine has no need of a scold’s bridle to curb her tongue because Petruchio has constructed a new reality for her, breaking her psychologically into adhering to his ideal.
Katherine’s reference to the other women as “froward and unable worms” offers the lowest animal comparison in the play. Although the men previously referred to Katherine as a shrew or a hawk (which though unfair at least suggests that there is at least a kind of strength inherent in her willfulness), Katherine’s broken perception places women who disobey at an even lower level, suggesting that willfulness is weak and easily crushed underfoot like an insect. She also equates feelings of unease and anger with ugliness, suggesting that perhaps she has convinced herself that her ugly behavior has led her to deserve such treatment at the hands of her husband. Though I doubt that Shakespeare meant to suggest such a thing, it reminds one of victims of domestic and sexual violence who blame themselves rather than seeking justice against those who have wronged them.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Shaming Rituals

So, Chris Brown totally deserves to be shamed. But it's just interesting to me how in today's culture high-profile people have to make the rounds of the community via the media to apologize and make excuses for their actions, or be shamed into it, even if what the person did has no bearing on anyone else's life. Maybe tabloids and talk shows are the new shaming rituals.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/09/03/lkl.chris.brown.cnn

Lucrece as subaltern text



Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her work "Can the Subaltern Speak?" writes of a young Hindu woman who commits suicide because of her failure to complete a political assassination. She deliberately waits until she is menstruating to die because she knows that it will be assumed her suicide was out of shame over an illicit affair. In doing so, Spivak asserts that she "rewrites the social text of sati-suicide." It is interesting to me that although Spivak says that the subaltern cannot speak (and certainly I think one could contend that most women could be considered subaltern at this time), there is this idea of women's bodies becoming political text. They cannot truly voice opinions or step outside of their roles in society, but through death they become a symbol. This is an idea I need to flesh out a bit more in relation to this poem, but I feel it relevant. I wanted to include, however, two different depictions I found of Lucrece.

The first is by Philippe Bertrand. I find I generally respond more to sculpture than paintings, and his work certainly struck me. I was unable to find many images of Lucrece's suicide, and that seemed to be the most important aspect of the poem. Others that I did find were rather unviolent and thus unrealistic. In committing suicide, she is reclaiming dominion over her selfhood in a way that she is unable to do in the bounds of regular society.

The second is from Reuben Nakian, which I shared in class. The other images I found of the rape seemed almost celebratory of beauty and some had an erotic edge I found quite uncomfortable. The reduction to movement and chaos takes away any erotic appeal that the depiction of a nude body and a sexual act could have and more truly echoes the violence of Tarquin's act.



A young woman of sixteen or seventeen, Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri,
hanged he self in her father's modest apartment in North Calcutta in 1926.
The suicide was a puzzle since, as Bhuvaneswari was menstruating at the
time, it was clearly not a case of illicit pregnancy. Nearly a decad~ later, it
was discovered that she was a member of one of the many groups Involved
in the armed struggle for Indian independence. She had finally been en-
trusted with a political assassination. Unable to confront the task and yet
aware of the practical need for trust, she killed herself.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Introducing...

This will be a collection of fun stuff and reactions related to Dr. Staub's Shakespeare I class. Hooray!