Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time
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Shakespea re and the Shapes of Time DAVID SCOTT KASTAN
© David Scott Kastan 1982 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-32279-6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission
First published 1982 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-06147-1
ISBN 978-1-349-06145-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-06145-7
To my mother and father
Contents Acknowledgments
Vlll
INTRODUCTION 1
3
The Shapes of Time
THE HISTORIES: 'Among the Thorns and Dangers of this World' 2
'Time's Subjects' and the Subject of Time in Shakespeare's Histories
37
3
'The King is a Good King, but it must be as it may': History, Heroism, and Henry V
56
THE TRAGEDIES: 'The Bitter Disposition of the Time' 4
Tragic Closure and Tragic Disclosure
5
King Lear and 'The Art of our Necessities'
79 102
THE ROMANCES: 'More than History can Pattern' 6
'What Harmony is This?': the Vision of the Romances
125
7
Cymbeline: 'A Strain of Rareness'
145
CONCLUSION 8
To Ride upon the Dial's Point
165
Notes
174
Index
194
Vll
Acknowledgm ents 'Next to ingratitude', wrote Henry Ward Beecher, 'the most painful thing to bear is gratitude', and to avoid inflicting the greater pain upon the many who have contributed to this book do I now risk burdening them with the lesser. Friends and colleagues at Dartmouth have offered support, criticism, and counsel all through the process of writing, especially Peter Saccio, Rosalie O'Connell, Richard Corum, Marianne Hirsch, and, above all, Peter Travis. Others, outside Hanover, have been no less generous, wise, and kind. John Cox, David Daniell, Philip Holland, David Staines, Dain Trafton, and john Wallace have all shared their time and knowledge with me at various stages of the book's development. The debt owed to David Bevington is less easily acknowledged for the book would never have been written without my good fortune to have him as a teacher and a friend. I would like to thank the editors of Comparative Drama and Cithara for permission to use material which appeared originally in those journals. I am grateful to Dartmouth College for providing fellowship support and leave time to complete this study, and to Dartmouth students, too numerous to be named individually and too excellent not to be remembered at all, for the challenge and excitement they have provided as we have studied Shakespeare together. The text I have used throughout for citation is William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, general editor, Alfred Harbage (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969) - though English spellings have been reinstated at the request of the publisher.
April1980
D.S.K.
viii
Introd uctio n
1
The Shapes of Time And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes. A Midsummer Night's Dream v.i.l4-l6 In Ben Jonson's play, The Devil is an Ass, squire Fitzdottrell proclaims:
Thomas of Woodstocke
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