Shakespeare’s Other Plays That Deal with Defamation Regarding

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.3 Shakespeare’s Other Plays That Deal with Defamation Regarding

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Sir Francis Willoughby angrily replied to this letter, arguing that her letter contained much “that may minister occasion of offence” (185). As Foyster notes, the label of jealous husband was clearly damaging to male reputation.

More intriguing is the question of how adultery and related issues affected a man’s self-esteem. One of the most interesting sections of Foyster’s book compares literary representations of jealousy with the diarist Samuel Pepys’s account of his jealous feelings about his wife’s relations with her dancing-master Pembleton. In his diaries, he wrote that his jealousy made him “ready to chide at everything,” and he also described it as “a devilish jealousy [which] makes a very hell in my mind” (186).

Even after the dancing lessons were over, the memories of Pembleton still haunted him. Only after he was informed of the news of Pembleton’s new marriage did things start to improve. It is interesting that Pepys found Pembleton’s marriage reassuring.

Pembleton’s married status meant that “he shared the concern of all husbands to gain honor by keeping his own wife under control” (188).The issue of how cuckolds perceived themselves remains an interesting point of analysis not only in this specific work but in The Winter’s Tale as well. Furthermore, though men appeared to have greater opportunities than women to regain lost sexual reputation, the stigma of cuckoldry seems to have been difficult to remove. The best a man could do was to act swiftly and decisively to prove that he would not stand the shame of cuckoldry, neither would he be a “wittol” – a willing participant in his wife’s adultery (Foyster 187).

1.3 Shakespeare’s Other Plays That Deal With Defamation Regarding Adultery The Winter’s Tale is not the only play by Shakespeare that deals with false and malicious imputation of adultery. Many of Shakespeare’s male characters are

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constantly haunted by the spectre of cuckoldry, whether it be in an entertaining or agonizing way; however, few actually have to deal with unfaithful wives. Other Shakespearean plays that explore the fear of loss of honor related to supposed female infidelity include Much Ado about Nothing, Othello, and Cymbeline, respectively a comedy, tragedy, and romance like The Winter’s Tale itself. As Xenia Georgopoulou observes while examining the cases of (actual or supposed) female adultery in Shakespeare’s plays, where there are real adulteresses, infidelity is not presented as a major problem (1). Instead, when female adultery constitutes the main issue of the play, the woman accused proves to be innocent. Indeed, the phenomenon of cuckoldry has been researched by some scholars in book chapters and journal articles. The issue of cuckoldry being the focal point of study on The Winter’s Tale, it is thus important to first draw attention to similar issues explored in other Shakespeare’s plays, with particular emphasis on the contributing factors to jealousy in each case. The following of this part introduces some critical review of these Shakespearean plays relevant to the focus of my thesis.

Much Ado about Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies. With the witty jokes and merry wars between Benedick and Beatrice, audiences tend to identify more with the couple in the play, although scholars point out that

Shakespeare intended it as the play’s subplot rather than the primary plot. “The first thing to notice about Much Ado about Nothing is that the subplot overwhelms and overshadows the main plot,” claims W. H. Auden (113). However, according to Paul and Miriam Mueschke, Much Ado about Nothing centers on Hero and Claudio rather than on the more likeable Beatrice and Benedick because the troubled lovers more clearly illuminate the play’s major theme: honor (58). Significantly, Much Ado about Nothing is centered on the motifs of male honor and public shaming. The aborted

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wedding ceremony, in which Claudio rejects Hero, accusing her of infidelity and violated chastity and publicly shaming her in front of her father, is the climax of the play. The loss of honor for a woman due to unchaste behavior meant that she would lose all social standing, a disaster from which she could never recover.

Another area of critical interest that is in accord with the thesis’ focus on cuckoldry is the characterization of Claudio. P. D. Collington points out in his doctoral thesis the intimate association of Claudio’s specific status as soldier with his jealousy. The changing social roles, together with the force of specific social context, such as misogyny and emphasis on honour, work together to produce explosive result.

Janice Hays describes Claudio as a man who leaves “the traditionally male sphere of war, honors, and triumph” to enter the more feminine world of Messina (79).

Gradually, Claudio is transformed from a courageous soldier into a cautious suitor into a jealous spouse into a social pariah. It is notable that under the influence of Benedict’s quibbles on female infidelity, Claudio himself has also internalized this idea of misogyny. In the end of Act I, scene i, Claudio asks: “Is she not a modest young lady?” (I. i. 153). In response to this, Benedict answers with quibbles: “In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion?” (I. i. 183-84).

And before long, Claudio is paranoid with thoughts of conspiracy and adultery and begins spouting cuckold jokes back at his friend: “thou wouldst be horn-mad” (I. i.

249-50). This lurking anxiety arises again for Claudio when his soldierly obsession with reputation and honor is ignited by Don Jon’s malicious trick and subsequent slander. The trick succeeds because it impugns the soldiers’ honor and validates the conventional wisdom about women’s proclivity to deception, confirming “what they already suspect” (Berger 307). As Anne Carroll Parten notes, with no battlefield to serve as a proving ground of male honor, misogyny “tends to replace valor as the trait

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that distinguishes masculinity from femininity” (204-05).

Unlike Much Ado About Nothing in which the fear of cuckoldry eventually dissolves in a merry ending, anxiety of cuckoldry takes on a tragic course in Othello.

Particularly, Othello’s treatment of Desdemona is at the center of many critical

studies exploring jealousy. As James Calderwood insists, Desdemona is victimized by

“a proprietary husband claiming absolute title to his wife’s body” (270). Valerie Wayne takes another approach to the topic of gender roles in “Historical Difference:

Misogyny in Othello”; she argues that misogyny in Othello, for which Iago serves as the primary mouthpiece, represents just one of the prevailing views of the Renaissance (162). Wayne is not the only person to draw attention to the interwoven relations between men’s jealousy and cultural factors. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s

understanding of Iago as a character impelled purely by evil—“motiveless malignancy” in his phrase—leads Mark Breitenberg to read Iago not as without motive but rather as “articulating and activating the cultural anxieties that produce jealousy as a condition of romantic love, indeed, of male subjectivity itself” (176).

According to Breitenberg, as the play’s initial emphasis with Othello’s racial

difference gives way to his blinding jealousy, Othello comes to embody the everyman of masculine sexual anxiety (183).

The issue of misogyny and sexual anxiety thus leads to the problem of

cuckoldry central to this thesis’ concern. Othello is not the only male character in the play that is concerned with his wife’s fidelity. Iago first presents this cuckoldry anxiety in the first Act of the play, and his agony mixed with hatred is straightforward and evil-ridden:

I hate the Moor

And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets

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He’s done my office. I know not if’t be true, But I, for mere suspicion in that kind

Will do as if for surety. (I. iii. 385-59)

To Iago, Emilia’s kiss confirms his suspicion that she has cuckolded him with other soldiers. Iago states succinctly the essence of what Russ McDonald refers to as

“imaginary” cuckoldry: “[in] the introspective soliloquy . . . the imaginary cuckold sounds the depths of his misery or contemplates the most brutal forms of revenge”

(55). Aside from the suspicion of Emilia with Othello, Iago also confesses that he

“fear[s] Cassio with [his] night-cap too” (II. i. 305).

As for Othello, his marriage is also shaken by imputation of jealousies. His anxieties in love are exacerbated by the fact that he is as old as his new bride’s father (Vaughan 76; Kirsch 724). Moreover, it is made worse by pressures exerted by “a civilian culture that encourages the misogynous suspicion of women, and by a military code that raises honour to a cult-like state” (Collington 193). The swiftness with which Othello leaps to Iago’s conclusions indicates that the suspicion has been lurking in Othello’s mind; “they are all there”—as Leslie Fiedler puts it— “in his head, picked up in the same army camps where Iago himself has learned them” (158).

According to Gayle Greene, Othello’s response to Iago’s insinuations is a

“righteously vindicated recognition” that “the forked plague” is “destiny unshunnable”

(III. iii. 275-6), a certainty possible only because woman has been suspect from the start (53). To Othello, Iago seems so wise: “O, thou art wise, ‘tis certain’ (IV. i. 74)—

because he confirms things Othello has known all along. Othello reveals his anxiety that Desdemona has made him appear a “figure … of scorn” (IV. ii. 54) which

follows from his concern with reputation: “false to me?” (III. iii. 333), “Cuckold me!”

(IV. i. 200). At Iago’s implication, Othello should attempt to regain honor by

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suffering as a cuckold, and avenge himself by murdering his wife. Iago introduces Othello to “the sophist-cuckold’s traditional and ingenious strategy of

self-consolation" (Parten 336); namely, that being cuckolded is a socially accepted, indeed honorable form of suffering. Before he commits suicide, Othello chants his military feat right next to the body of Desdemona in an attempt to leave a better impression of him as a warrior instead of a misjudging husband who murdered his own wife out of jealousy. Indeed, the final speech in which he evokes his heroic past is an attempt of self-justification. Instead of lamenting over the loss of Desdemona, Othello cares about his own reputation instead of his wife’s.

Aside from comedies and tragedies, the issue of cuckoldry also plays an important role in Shakespeare’s late romances. Often grouped along with The

Winter’s Tale in the category of late romances, Cymbeline also incorporates the theme of false belief and cuckoldry anxiety. Unlike Much Ado about Nothing, however, cuckoldry is a serious business in Cymbeline, as suggested by the high stakes of Iachimo’s wager. Posthumus is deeply in love with Imogen but is nevertheless willing to think the worst of her when she is accused of infidelity. When Iachimo claims to have slept with the princess, Pothumous at first refuses to believe him. But Iachimo revealed his “evidence” one piece at a time—the description of Imogen’s chamber in details, her bracelet as a token of love from Posthumous, and most importantly, the detail of the tiny mole on Imogen’s breast—Posthumus is convinced. He turns over the ring that he wagered, and storms out, cursing the treachery of women: “We are all bastards” (II. v. 2). He cries and asserts that all of a man’s sins come from the

“woman’s part” in him (II. v. 20). In contrast to Philario’s role as the voice of reason and defender of Imogen, Posthumous himself proves oddly eager to think the worst of her. Even before Iachimo’s mention of the mole, Posthumus is ready to declare “he

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hath enjoyed her. / The cognizance of her incontinency / Is this” (II. iv. 122-128).

Posthumus displays a remarkable lack of faith for a man so certain of his wife’s fidelity that he made a wager on it, which signifies not confidence but a deep sexual anxiety.

Indeed, Posthumous appears to be a problematic character in the play. His behavior in the play is often unpleasant, as he does little to live up to the high praise he enjoys. He falls into a peculiar and unexpectedly violent jealousy of his wife when Iachimo tricks him, but he also makes a willing victim. This character suffers further negative review by the audience because of his decision to order his servant to kill Imogen for her supposed infidelity. Although Shakespeare allows Posthumous contrition later in the play, his guilt for the wrong-doing still fails to qualify him as an ideal husband for Imogen. Critic Valerie Wayne focuses on the commoditization and objectification of Imogen in Cymbeline. She notes that the wager between Posthumus and Iachimo on Imogen’s chastity “permits them to exercise the privilege of their gender by debasing women into sexual signs of questionable worth” (5). Another critic Collington points out that, unlike Claudio and Othello, Posthumous has another status in addition to being a soldier; that is, Posthumous is an orphan and is adopted as an illegitimate son by the royal family. This anxiety stems from internal weakness triggered by external stimuli: inferiority complex of class difference” (172-73). His orphanage drives him to the concept of misogyny. He repeatedly makes such statements as the following:

Could I find out

The woman’s part in me--for there’s no motion That tends to vice in man, but I affirm

It is the woman’s: flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;

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Lust, and rank thoughts, hers, hers... (II. v. 19-24).

Torn apart by the perception that women are unfaithful, Posthumous is ridiculously ready to fall for the trick and curse his wife. His status depends upon his legitimacy and the chastity of his wife. Once the fidelity of Imogen is questioned, cuckoldry anxiety works its way as a major dramatic catalyst in Cymbeline.

There are reasons why among other Shakespearean plays with focus on cuckoldry that I have particular interest in The Winter’s Tale. Although all of these plays center on the similar issue of male insecurity about female infidelity, certain features make The Winter’s Tale distinct from other plays. First, unlike the male protagonists in Much Ado, Othello, and Cymbeline who fall prey to slanderous tongues and treachery of others (Claudio to Don John, Othello to Iago, Posthumus to Iachimo), Leontes is the very person who plants the poisonous idea into his own eyes and ears. Without the scheme of a villain, how can the seed of jealousy sprout in his mind? Certainly Leontes’ jealousy is not without a cause. In addition, the playwright devises different endings for the male protagonists of these plays. While Claudio’s punishment is short and he is quick to accept another woman, Leontes suffers and remains single for sixteen years. Whereas Othello punishes himself and attempts to remerge as a hero instead of a murderer by recounting his heroic war stories and committing suicide, Leontes stays alive to suffer the consequence of his own wrong doing. Furthermore, all of the above three plays deal with male characters with military status. Leontes, unlike Claudio, Othello, and Posthumous, does not live in a misogynous culture that values the camaraderie of soldiers over marriage. He does not share Othello’s anxiety of race and age issues, nor does he have to fret over identity problem as Posthumous has to. He is of royal descent and his marriage with his wife has already lasted over ten years. Nonetheless, the anxiety over cuckoldry still finds its way into the King’s head.

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In my thesis, I argue that speech is an important factor that sparkles Leontes’

radical change. The study of the rhetorical skills of gendered speech has remained the focal point of my second chapter. The king’s rhetorical inferiority to Hermione in the persuasion work resulted in his injured masculinity, which is exacerbated by the design of slippery language and Leontes’ sour memories of Hermione’s late

acceptance to his marriage proposal. Next, not only does Leontes suspect his wife, he also denounces her supposed wrong doing publicly and later puts on a show of public trial. Fear of loss of honor and its relation to the trial will be the center of my third chapter. The fourth chapter examines the last two acts of The Winter’s Tale. With the death of Hermione, Leontes’ masculine authority is notably silenced; while the shift of the play’s focus to the younger generation and sensual touch between Leontes and Hermione seem to bring hope to the misunderstanding that leads to tragic results, Leontes’ tactful yet disturbing acquiescence after Hermione’s resurrection indicates his inability to come to terms with the stigma of cuckoldry anxiety. This thesis

proposes to analyze The Winter’s Tale from the perspectives of rhetorics and the issue of cuckoldry in cooperation with historical and cultural materials. It aims to shed light on the issue of Renaissance masculine anxiety and prove that Leontes’ jealousy is not just an unexplainable outburst of emotion, but rather an inevitably collective product of the construction of Renaissance masculine identity.

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Chapter 2

Rhetorical Contest, Wounded Masculinity, Jealousy

A play focusing on the “myriad forms of human narration,” (Morse 297) The Winter’s Tale interrogates the disparity of gendered speech when the two protagonists are involved in a persuasion effort that sparkles the following tragedy. Certainly, with subtle difference in the tone of speech and body gesture, the opening of The Winter’s Tale can be performed in many different ways; however, one could legitimately suggest that Leontes’ jealousy does not take flight until after Hermione succeeds in convincing Polixenes to stay. The difference in verbal ability between Leontes and Hermione, and the effect of such discrepancy on Leontes are too brutally obvious to be ignored. In light of what directly triggers the change in Leontes’ attitude and tone of speech, language thus demands further study and is the focal point in Chapter Two. This chapter focuses on the multi-faceted perspectives of speech in The Winter’s Tale regarding the

deconstruction of Leontes’ masculine dominance. Leontes’ rhetorical inferiority to Hermione in the persuasion work resulted in his injured masculinity, which is exacerbated by the design of slippery language and Leontes’ sour memories of Hermione’s late acceptance to his marriage proposal, all of which sparkle Leontes’

jealousy and stimulate the collapse of his masculinity.

2.1 Verbal Performance as a Confirmation of Masculine Authority

Rhetorics constitutes an important part of my analysis in The Winter’s Tale. It is the art of using language effectively and persuasively, and it began in Ancient Greece

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where students were trained to develop tactics of oratorical persuasion. According to Aristotle, rhetorics is the “faculty of observing in any given cause the available means of persuasion” (22). While rhetorical ability in Ancient Greece is not an indispensable part of masculinity, in Renaissance England, however, the society requires certain verbal abilities from men; that is, male’s rhetorical excellence is essential to his masculinity. Nevertheless, the success of Hermione’s tongue instead of

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