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In which I repeat the phrase “ocular proof” many times

What stuck out to me in the plays we read this week was their emphasis on the visual dimension of the theatre. In contrast to plays like The Tempest, which involves a long flashback narration sequence by Prospero, I would argue that the three plays I read, The Winter’s Tale, The Duchess of Malfi and Othello, are extremely bound up with the visual rather than the verbal. From Webster’s emphasis on the gothic, the macabre and the gruesome, to Shakespeare’s “twist ending” in which the statue of Hermione comes to life, the plays focus on the mimetic (i.e. the “showing”) aspects of theatre, rather than the diegetic (i.e. the “telling”). Potential reasons behind this might include the theatre apparatus itself—The Duchess of Malfi and The Winter’s Tale were performed in the Blackfriars theatre, which was owned by the King’s Men (the company that included Shakespeare), and was among the first theatres to make use of artificial light. This allowed for more complex staging than was otherwise available, making tricks like the wax figures from The Duchess of Malfi more striking. I would like to look into a few aspects of visuality in these plays, and to consider both the immanent (e.g. the work that the visual dimension does within the play itself) and the metatheatrical (e.g. how they would be read by the audience).

Visuality in these plays is bound up, I think, with the maternal female body. Indeed, both plays betray a huge anxiety regarding female sexuality, with the pregnant body becoming a visual signifier of adultery or wantonness. Indeed, the visual is the only recourse men have to evaluate the faithfulness of their wives (or their sisters!)—Leontes is extremely preoccupied with the appearance of his son Mammilius (a boy whose very name implies a connection to maternal physicality), and seeks to confirm the paternity of the child through “ocular proof” (Othello). As Jean E. Howard’s introduction to The Winter’s Tale indicates, there are multiple levels to this male anxiety regarding female sexuality, including the dependence of men on “women’s reproductive powers to generate legitimate heirs” (2884). It is the “unknowability of the biological origins of children” that concerns the men, and contributes to the reading of the pregnant body as a marker of, at best, uncertainty, and at worst, adultery and betrayal (2884). Indeed, the search for “ocular proof” marks the anxieties of the jealous husbands, and in one case, brother, in these plays. While the men in both The Winter’s Tale and The Duchess of Malfi are given the incontrovertible evidence of pregnancy (despite the fact that Webster’s villains must induce labour in the Duchess to confirm their suspicions [a whole essay could be written on female bodily autonomy here]), Othello is not confronted with such a simple signifier in Desdemona. I would argue instead that the handkerchief serves as the “ocular proof,” acting as a stand-in for the pregnant body (is it too much of a stretch to argue that the handkerchief given as a love token enacts the same kind of exchange as intercourse? I have to look into this more).

 I’m not really sure how to segue into this, or if it’s even related to the reading of the female body, but another thing that interested me in terms of the visual dimension of the plays was the “statue” scenes in Winter’s Tale and Duchess of Malfi. These are also bound up with the notion of ocular proof, and both also seem to be invested with the idea that one shouldn’t believe one’s eyes, an interesting comment in the context of the theatre. Firstly, in the Duchess of Malfi, Ferdinand presents the Duchess with wax statues of her family in order to provide proof that they are in fact dead. While the Duchess takes this representation at face value, we the audience know that the family is yet living through the machinations of dramatic irony. On the other hand, in The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare presents us with a seemingly lifeless statue, and the big reveal is as much a surprise to us as it is to Leontes; the only one “in the know” is Paulina. It seems, perhaps, that the categories or life and death, or animate and inanimate, are more a matter of perspective. The statues come to represent a kind of uncanny conflation between the categories of life and death.  

 Other notes I didn’t have a chance to include but are somewhat related:

-       Readings of the maternal body as “monstrous” might be applicable here- is the pregnant body uncanny in the same way as the statues are? How can we read them in tandem with one another in terms of the visual or “ocular proof” idea? -       Is there a way to connect visual proof more concretely to the theatre apparatus? -       “Unknowability” and the burden of proof is a huge theme in these three plays. How else does it manifest, besides visually? -       Female bodily autonomy seems to lead to downfall—both Desdemona and the Duchess take an active part in the courtship of their husbands. What are these plays saying about female sexual agency? Obvs more nuanced than this, but might be worth discussing. 

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Alexander Pope’s mock-epic “The Rape of the Lock” both tackles and reveres the gilded world of upper-class eighteenth-century England, taking as its subject matter the petty quarrel between “two prominent Catholic families” (Norton). Concerned as it is with the theft of a lock of hair from the...

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Corporality in The Rape of the Lock

Alexander Pope’s mock-epic “The Rape of the Lock” both tackles and reveres the gilded world of upper-class eighteenth-century England, taking as its subject matter the petty quarrel between “two prominent Catholic families” (Norton). Concerned as it is with the theft of a lock of hair from the fair Belinda’s head, the poem is deeply attuned to the economies of corporality that are inscribed into the contemporary social system. Belinda, her bodily presence and beauty, is coded as the product of the English imperial project; her toilet table is adorned with “various offerings of the world,” particularly with gems, combs and pins originating from across the globe and amassed by means of colonial labour. What strikes me here is the degree to which Belinda’s very corporality is made to seem contingent on these state-provided luxuries—Pope describes the process of her toilet as “repair[ing] her smile,” which suggests a previous sense of brokenness or incompleteness. Just as Belinda’s bodily presence is built up by recourse to these instruments, so too is the environment of the poem made manifest through a seemingly endless catalogue of objects. Pope suggests, I think, a felicity between the corporality of Belinda and the lavish corporality of the state, so to speak. Indeed, the boundaries between the object and human are often slippery in this poem—a visit to the cave of Spleen, for example, acquaints the reader with the uncanny conflation of animate and inanimate matter, including a “living teapot,” a sighing jar, and a talking pie. I would like to suggest that Pope is pointing to a difficulty in distinction between the state and the individual, one that is inscribed in the very matter of each. Indeed, Belinda herself personifies this perceptual problem in her inability to distinguish between those around her. She is indiscriminate in her attention, with eyes described as “unfixed,” and as “shin[ing] on all alike,” unable to account for individuality. Just as Pope’s mock-epic style is meant to satirize the conflation of the high and the low (the rhetoric of epic poetry with the subject matter of the trivial everyday), so too is his treatment of corporality meant to emphasize a similar interplay between the state and the individual.

 Connections to other works:

-       Oroonoko: This is perhaps the most explicit contrast, in that Oroonoko represents the exploited body of the slave under the dominion of Empire. There is a lot of emphasis on his physicality; he is definitely made up of flesh and blood (e.g. when he cuts himself open), vs. Belinda, who seems to be made up of objects/commodities. I wonder how we can read the respective violations of their bodies—can a comparison be made between Oroonoko’s bodily exploitation and the cutting of Belinda’s hair? What would that comparison look like? Also, it’s interesting that while Belinda seems fairly unobservant, and puts everything around her on the same plane, Oroonoko relies on visual perception not only for discernment but also for communication (e.g. he bonds with Imoinda through sidelong glances, and gives a death stare to his betrayers).

-       Beowulf: I know these are for different papers, but trying to stretch my legs in terms of finding connections. We talked about the ways in which Beowulf’s sword could function as a prosthetic, one that is named and carries the weight of past battles and exploits. Perhaps Belinda’s bodkin is comparable? Pope goes out of his way to give us the history of the object—it was passed down through about four generations of women. I think there’s a way in which we can read this as Pope carving out a space for women in the heroic tradition that is based on history and lineage, which is obviously a traditionally male domain.