Moral physiology, ethical prototypes, and the denaturing of sense in Shakespearean tragedy.

Moral physiology, ethical prototypes, and the denaturing of sense in Shakespearean tragedy. It has long been noted that if, as Hegel argues, Greek tragedyconcerns the conflict of competing goods, Shakespearean tragedy concernsa crisis of meaning epitomized in Macbeth's assertion that life isbut a "tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, /Signifying nothing" (V.v. 26-28). (1) Placing the threat ofnihilism nihilism(nī`əlĭzəm), theory of revolution popular among Russian extremists until the fall of the czarist government (1917); the theory was given its name by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons (1861). at the heart of tragedy, Shakespeare seems to anticipate, ifnot inaugurate, Romantic and Modernist vocations forliterature--offering literature as the site where significance after thedebunking of myth and metaphysics may be reclaimed; likewise, heanticipates or inaugurates many of modern literature's technicalfeatures and communicative strategies. John Wiltshire has recentlytraced, for example, how Jane Austen's innovations in novelistic nov��el��is��tic?adj.Of, relating to, or characteristic of novels.novel��is indirect discourse derive from appreciative appropriation ofShakespearean models. (2) Notably, the generic role played by fate,divine possession, or nemesis in Greek tragedy, pulling noble figurestoward a destruction both of their own making and emblematic of forcesbeyond themselves, comes to be filled in Shakespearean tragedy bypsychological or cultural equivalents--patterns of feeling and thoughtthat lock otherwise admirable characters into asocial a��so��cialadj.1. Avoiding or averse to the society of others; not sociable.2. Unable or unwilling to conform to normal standards of social behavior; antisocial. consistencies,preventing affective intuitions from modifying self-understanding andjudgment. Such consistencies are the fruit of various exercises in"self-fashioning" that arise when a mutually modifying"dialogue" between the body and discourse has been deformed orsuspended in ways that "denature de��na��turev.1. To change the nature or natural qualities of.2. To render unfit to eat or drink without destroying usefulness in other applications, especially adding methyl alcohol to ethyl alcohol.3. " both individuals andsocieties, alienating them from the moral physiology that early modernthought, as popularized by Erasmus, took to be normatively human.Shakespearean tragedy explores the consequences: such denaturing blocksa "sense" constituted intersubjectively--along the lines ofAristotelian phronesis, Ciceronian prudentia--from guiding conduct. Byimaginatively rethinking Erasmian critiques of Stoicism Stoicism(stō`ĭsĭzəm), school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium (in Cyprus) c.300 B.C. The first Stoics were so called because they met in the Stoa Poecile [Gr. , scholasticism scholasticism(skōlăs`tĭsĭzəm), philosophy and theology of Western Christendom in the Middle Ages. Virtually all medieval philosophers of any significance were theologians, and their philosophy is generally embodied in their ,dogmatism dog��ma��tism?n.Arrogant, stubborn assertion of opinion or belief.dogmatism1. a statement of a point of view as if it were an established fact.2. , Shakespeare poses challenges to any project of engineeringsubject formation that assumes humans are infinitely malleable--thatthey are either the mere "constructions" of external contextsor the self-authored products of autonomous will. Much current researchin cognitive science likewise provides neurological detail and supportfor intuitive or experiential claims central to the traditions uponwhich Erasmus and other advocates of moral physiology drew--especiallythe neo-Aristotelian humanism of Cicero and Plutarch and theanti-dogmatic satire of Lucian. As Mary Thomas Crane notes, byemphasizing "the physicality of mind" (2001, 157) in ways thatmake it irreducible irreducible/ir��re��duc��i��ble/ (ir?i-doo��si-b'l) not susceptible to reduction, as a fracture, hernia, or chemical substance. ir��re��duc��i��bleadj.1. to the effects of proto-Foucauldian technologies ofstate power (156-77), Shakespeare allows us to see the remarkable degreeto which pre-Cartesian notions of embodied subjectivity are consistentwith neuroscience's dismantling of Cartesian dualism (3-35,161-63). (3) Although "cognitive science" denotes a heterogeneousfield of disciplines and theoretical models, (4) neurophysiology neurophysiology/neu��ro��phys��i��ol��o��gy/ (-fiz?e-ol��ah-je) physiology of the nervous system. neu��ro��phys��i��ol��o��gyn. ,developmental psychology, and transcultural linguistics haveconsistently yielded results supportive of central contentions thatRenaissance moral physiology derives from classical humanism--primarilythat reason and emotion presuppose and enrich one another, that habitualpractices modify states of being, and that moral deliberation hingesupon a cultivated, continuous interplay of right feeling and rightthinking, an interplay that depends upon concrete images or patterns ofexcellence, prototypes, that impress and reinforce themselves upon usthrough experience. Cognitive science, along with scholarship inphilosophy and psychology, further agrees with Erasmus on the importanceof maternal relations in forming such models or images. (5) Arguing that cognitive science reveals "the body"grounding "meaning in an intersubjective way ... central toreason" (1999, 95), as when bodily experience orients one to thesense of metaphors or structures the ordering of categories, GeorgeLakoff and Mark Johnson note that obviating the Cartesian mind/world gapobviates the mind/body gap, (6) and so allows an account ofsubjectivity, as shaped by affections linking ideas to images toembodied sensations, such as Aristotle inaugurates in De Anima anima/an��i��ma/ (an��i-mah) [L.]1. the soul.2. in jungian terminology, the unconscious, or inner being, of the individual, as opposed to the personality presented to the world (persona); by extension, used to and theRhetoric. (7) Because emotions are thought to bear what Martha Nussbaum,commenting upon Aristotle, describes as "cognitive-evaluative"dimensions, much classical pedagogy and philosophy seeks to"educate" the emotions through acculturation or argument intothe kinds of cognitive-evaluative reflection and image-production thatfree us from irrational agitation and enable good judgment. (8) Despairing of educating the passions, the Stoics sought to argueone into a dispassionate benevolence (apatheia) to free reason fromtheir influence, thus anticipating both Kantian efforts to segregatepractical (moral) reasoning from interested (emotional) motivation andneo-Marxist, neo-Nietzschean "unmaskings" of emotions asideological delusions or co-optive ploys. Neurological research into theamygdala amygdala/amyg��da��la/ (ah-mig��dah-lah)1. almond.2. an almond-shaped structure.3. corpus amygdaloideum.a��myg��da��lan. pl. cognitive-emotional network supports Aristotle's generalpicture:</p> <pre> Once the amygdala excites, itproduces emotional arousal ... [but it also] can influence variousinfrastructural processes for perception, thinking, memory, andselective attention.... Memory, imagination, and thinking canactivate the amygdala in the cognitive circuit, thus generatingemotion without any direct sensual trigger.... Wide involvement ofthe cognitive circuit ... ties emotion to all other dimensions ofmind, including our inclinations, latent beliefs, and desires....(Auyang 2000, 331, 332, 333, 336-37) (9) </pre> <p>SunnyAuyang underscores how closely these findings dovetail dovetail(dov´tāl),n a widened or fanned-out portion of a prepared cavity, usually established deliberately to increase the retention and resistance form. withAristotle's claims that "[b]elief and evaluation belong to thecognitive aspect of emotion ..." (326, Damasio 1994, 127-222). Theobservable operation of the hippocampus-amygdala complex is consistentwith an evolutionary account of the advantage of integrated andprogressively improved communication (through trial-and-errorcorrection) between cognitive and emotional registers of significance,for "primates and higher mammals need to process and evaluate thedifferential significance of sensory input (a snake, a picture of asnake, a shadow in a doorway) in order to determine, in a flexiblemanner, whether--or to what degree--emotional significance will beassigned ..." (Bucci 1997, 129, 132-33). Clinical findings andevolutionary arguments support Aristotelian-Hellenic contentions thatcognitive and social ideas, rather than pure animal or irrationalfeeling, motivate and are communicated by emotional experience, which inturn supports Aristotle's, and early modern humanism's,insistence that practical reasoning (phronesis) entails a "rightfeeling" that only intersubjective, sociable life can cultivate.(10) Moreover, Aristotle's claim that habitual practices modifystates of being, making us responsible for the quality of character thatour exercise, or nonexercise, of virtues generates (Nicomachean Ethics3:5, 1113b 5-1115a 5), receives support from neuroscientificdemonstrations of what Auyang calls "downward causality,""the causal influence exerted by a system's high-levelstructures on its subsystems and subprocesses" (2000, 194-95). (11) For both Renaissance moral physiology and contemporaryneuroscience, cognition informed by and receptive to sociable affectionsyields ethical practice only if judgment is shaped by (not colonized by)a range of prototypes (categories generating and regulating ideal orrepresentative mental images) derived from intersubjective and culturalexperience. Skilled, flexible "perception" (aesthesis) isintegral to Aristotelian phronesis for "the standard of excellenceis determined with reference to the decisions of the person of practicalwisdom; what is appropriate in each case is what such a judge wouldselect" (Nussbaum 1986, 300). Paul Churchill notes that"Aristotle's perspective" is echoed in "the neuralnetwork perspective," for, according to the latter, people with"penetrating moral insight" will be those with "a richlibrary of moral prototypes from which to draw" and with "akeen eye for local divergences from any presumptive prototype and awillingness to take them seriously as grounds for finding somealternative understanding" (1996, 104-05, 103). Neuroscience therefore suggests that the relation of culture toembodiment is not, as in much postmodern thought, a merely negative oneof imposing containment strategies or naturalized hegemonic ideologyupon bodily practice, but rather, as in humanism, an enabling one ofaddressing, actualizing, and refining embodied capacities and needs. Forneuroscience, cognition informed by moral sense is experiencedviscerally, somatically, in ways that, to use the vocabulary of theethical philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, are undeclinable, prior tofreedom, and primordial. (12) Ethical judgments are neither culturalconstructs nor rebellions against such constructs. In a series ofclinical studies, Antonio Damasio has measured involuntary changeswithin the autonomic nervous systems of people exposed to images ofothers in distress, and found that individuals with brain damageproducing flattened emotions and histories of poor practical reasoning"failed to generate any skin conductance response" toethically "disturbing images" (1994, 174), whereas"subjects without frontal damage ... generated abundant skinconductance response to the disturbing pictures ..." (206). Twoimplications follow: first, what Damasio calls the "somaticmarking" of mental images (making involuntary emotional responsesinseparable from ethically disturbing cognitions) is crucial topractical reasoning (humanism's phronesis, prudentia); second,humans normally respond somatically to images of afflicted others inways that support Levinas's claim that ethics is not "addedon" to subjective experience, but rather is its defining context.(13) Invoking the philosophical categories of the unconditional andabsolute, Levinas offers no psychological, much less neuroscientific,account of the inherence of ethical obligation in embodied subjectivity.His recourse to metaphor, however, suggests that prototypes internalizedwithin ordinary psychic development ground the somatic responsivenessthat tears one away from both egocentric intentionality intentionalityProperty of being directed toward an object. Intentionality is exhibited in various mental phenomena. Thus, if a person experiences an emotion toward an object, he has an intentional attitude toward it. and the asocialconsistencies of dogmatic or conventional discourse. To evokesomatically articulated ethical sense, Levinas is led to imagery ofmaternal devotion: "in maternity what signifies is a responsibilityfor others, to the point of substitution for others ..." (1981,75). Levinas presents the ethical-maternal as an unconditioned unconditioned/un��con��di��tion��ed/ (un?kon-dish��und) not a result of conditioning; unlearned; occurring naturally or spontaneously. absolute,which is psychologically vague and renders him vulnerable to charges ofnaturalizing feminine self-sacrifice. (14) Julia Kristeva, however,offers a more detailed understanding of how what we are herecharacterizing as maternal, ethical prototypes might be inculcated. Sheargues that actual mothers may offer themselves as images ofbeing-for-another only if they counter infantile identities bound toassimilating, enjoying, consuming the other (beginning with the breast)by placing another's "growth, accomplishments, future"above narcissistic temptations to cling to, devour, and use the child(1996, 62). (15) What enables such maternal love, Kristeva argues, isthat identity articulates itself in grateful imitation of one's ownmother and maternal substitutes. By teaching us to speak, mothers openus to selfhood; by loving us as speaking subjects, as separable fromthemselves, they grant us the psychic security that makes both freedomand investments in meaning emotionally possible. Our gratitude to themother's protection and subject-nurturing activity anchorssubjectivity in responsive, reformative, dialogic imitation not only ofher being-for-another, but also of her investments in particularcultural, symbolic orders that make having an Other, loving an otherone, imitating patterns of love, integral to culturally-mediatedidentity and value. (16) The way somatic ethical responsiveness articulates creative,generative (not static) imitative im��i��ta��tive?adj.1. Of or involving imitation.2. Not original; derivative.3. Tending to imitate.4. Onomatopoeic. gratitude may be illuminated by WilmaBucci's account of how prototypes derived from habitualinteractions between mother and child bind together cognitive andemotional, nonverbal and verbal registers of significance. In additionto "the hippocampus-amygdala complex" which "provides aneurophysiological neu��ro��phys��i��ol��o��gy?n.The branch of physiology that deals with the functions of the nervous system.neu basis for the bidirectional interactions of emotionalevaluation and cognitive processing," there is an evolutionary anddevelopmentally anterior "thalamo-amygdalar" circuit thatregisters immediate but "non-specific" emotional-cognitive"input" (regarding possible danger, sense of security, etc.)that "contrast[s] with highly integrated inputs frommodality-specific and multimodal association areas processed through thehippocampus hippocampusfabulous marine creature; half fish, half horse. [Rom. Myth. and Art: Hall, 154]See : Monsters ," and that "may play an important role in theprocessing of emotional information in human infants prior to the fullmaturation of the neocortex and its anatomical connections" (1997,132-33). The relationship between the thalamo-amygdala circuit and thehippocampus-amygdala complex is at least suggestively analogous to therelationship between somatic ethical sensibility and practicalreasoning, ethical and moral prototypes: the visceral immediacy of theformer is contrasted with the multivalent deliberativeness of thelatter, which is motivated by, but also potentially modifies, the urgentimpulses or raw impressions of the former. Summarizing much research,Bucci argues that interpersonal interaction, especially maternal careand example, are crucial to the child's ability to interconnectoriginally separate and evolutionarily distinct information-processingsystems (1997, 108-51). This "referential process, the mechanism oftransformation from subsymbolic information to nonverbal and then toverbal symbols" rests upon constructing prototypic images in waysthat allow "bidirectional" communication between systems and"recursive See recursion. recursive - recursion " effects upon systems--i.e., translating an imageinto words may modify the image (183). Maternal care facilitatesintercommunication among diverse information-processing systems byinitiating the young child into the work of placing self and other, bodyand discourse, into mutually modifying and enriching"dialogue," a process that generates "emotionschemas" grounded in "memory schemas" (197), for"each person's emotion schemas depends on the child'sinteractions with the central figures in her life and the emotionalvalences associated with them" (196). By enabling the child to become a speaking subject (inKristeva's terms), the mother initiates an education in rightfeeling (in the language of humanism). The process of interacting withothers, developing, in effect, resources for practical reasoning byimitating patterns of cross-referencing, correcting, extending,modifying diverse systems of significance against one another, offersreasons for gratitude no less than our indebtedness for physical andemotional care. Moreover, at a deeper level responsive imitation so wedscognitive and emotional life that the very interplay between somaticmarking and practical reason registers spontaneously, involuntarily, thedebt subjective identity owes ethical prototypes and the individualswho, by anchoring those prototypes within our psyches, have allowed ourpotential humanity the opportunity for realization. Precisely such an ordering of gratitude is indicated byErasmus's account of moral physiology: following Paul, Erasmuscharacterizes human affective life as arising from responsive, gratefulimitation of a prior, unconditioned love. (17) Indeed, for Erasmusnature is so shaped by divine love that, unless we willfully willfullyadv. referring to doing something intentionally, purposefully and stubbornly. Examples: "He drove the car willfully into the crowd on the sidewalk." "She willfully left the dangerous substances on the property." (See: willful) , sinfully,block its influence, it will "maternally" guide us toward anethical corporeal Possessing a physical nature; having an objective, tangible existence; being capable of perception by touch and sight.Under Common Law, corporeal hereditaments are physical objects encompassed in land, including the land itself and any tangible object on it, that can be subjectivity marked by a mutually enriching dialogueof culture and nature that enables the actualizing and refining ofembodied capacities and needs. Manfred Hoffmann notes that Erasmus usesthe term "natural equity" (aequitas naturae) to describe how"the harmony in the balance of nature itself" incarnatesdivine love by "point[ing] to an ethical attitude of virtue ingeneral." We are, as it were, physiologically induced to acclimateourselves to nature by internalizing its "temperance" (1994,121) in ways that, as Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle points out, inscribe in��scribe?tr.v. in��scribed, in��scrib��ing, in��scribes1. a. To write, print, carve, or engrave (words or letters) on or in a surface.b. To mark or engrave (a surface) with words or letters. into the "reason, which allows moral reflection uponexperience," a "common grace." This grace is conveyed bynature rather than by a revelation conceived of as perfecting orrendering explicit what nature intimates; "common grace"explains why "many teachings in pagan literature ... coincide withthe gospel" (1981, 85-86). The maternal care implicit innature's cultivation of temperance and sociability opens us togratitude for the maternal care given us by nature and nature's Godnot only directly, but also through distinct cultural traditions.Indeed, the trope trope?n.1. A figure of speech using words in nonliteral ways, such as a metaphor.2. A word or phrase interpolated as an embellishment in the sung parts of certain medieval liturgies. of gratitude for cultural maternal care was deeplyinscribed in Erasmus's classical sources. Cicero argues in DeOfficiis that "Nature likewise by the power of reason associatesman with man in the common bonds of speech and life ..."["Eademque natura vi rationis homininem conciliat homini et adorationis et ad vitae societatem ..."] (1913, 12-13) and Lucian, ina rare panegyric panegyricEulogistic oration or laudatory discourse. The panegyric originally was a speech delivered at an ancient Greek general assembly (panegyris), such as the Olympic and Panathenaic festivals. , notes that "men count holy and divine theirnative land" because "she bears, nurtures, and educatesthem" ["anathrephamene kai paideusamene"] (1913, 210-11).(18) Positing nature's maternally ethical effects, Erasmusreiterates traditional Christian rejections of Seneca's extremeStoic program of inducing a heroism characterized by "rocklike orgodlike god��like?adj.Resembling or of the nature of a god or God; divine.godlike invulnerability in��vul��ner��a��ble?adj.1. Immune to attack; impregnable.2. Impossible to damage, injure, or wound.[French invuln��rable, from Old French, from Latin " in "indifference to externalthings," and thus a constancy characterized by immobility andimperviousness (Miles 1996, 41). (19) Affirming "the psychologicaland moral importance of the human affections" (Hoffmann 1994, 201),Erasmus argues that speech is rational and ethical to the extent that it"confirms and intensifies the positive dispositions of the heart asmuch as it negates and changes its negative inclinations," and thusbecomes effective by moving and changing us through seizing anddelighting us: movere, flectere, rapere, and delectare imply one anotherin ways that enact word (logos) becoming flesh, Christ being resurrectedin the heart (Hoffmann 1994, 225-26; Bennett 2000, 30-51). By contrast,speech that ignores or does violence to the dialogue between affectionand cognition can be neither rational nor ethical, for it implies adisjunction disjunction/dis��junc��tion/ (-junk��shun)1. the act or state of being disjoined.2. in genetics, the moving apart of bivalent chromosomes at the first anaphase of meiosis. between rationality and ethics precluded by the divinestructuring of nature and human nature. Thus, only a speech insistently recalling one to embodiedethical-rational subjectivity can work against the tendency ofconceptuality to evade or efface the "sense" that divinelystructured nature would impress upon us. For Erasmus, scholasticismexemplified the fall of speech into abstractions cut off not just fromhistorical-philological contextualization Contextualization of language useContextualization is a word first used in sociolinguistics to refer to the use of language and discourse to signal relevant aspects of an interactional or communicative situation. , but also from sociableopenness to the discourse of others (patristic pa��tris��tic? also pa��tris��ti��caladj.Of or relating to the fathers of the early Christian church or their writings.pa��tris and classical traditions)and thus ethical responsiveness to lived, felt experience. (20) Bycontrast, Erasmus saw the Greek Syrian satirist Lucian as"unparalleled in usefulness for detecting and irrefutably exposingthe impostures of certain persons who in our time, too, are in the habitof imposing upon the common people by magic and miracles, fake religionor pretended pardons," because he saw Lucian achieving what we tendto associate with Shakespeare, "paint[ing] men's manners,passions and desires, and set[ting] them forth not to read but plainlyvisible to the eye." (21) In Philosophies for Sale, for example,Lucian targets, as does Erasmus in Praise of Folly, sophistic logic andnotions at odds with common sense and civility, but when a Peripateticdeclares, echoing the Nichomachean Ethics, that "goods arethreefold, in the soul, in the body, and in things eternal," he isdeclared a man of "common sense" ["Anthropinaphronei"] (1915, 504-05). In the Colloquies, Erasmus seeks toemulate Lucian's delineation of diverse "manners, passions anddesires" in dialogues that differ from Plato's orCicero's in frequently revealing practical wisdom to be distributedunevenly and unexpectedly among interlocutors. The reader is forced tograsp ethical significance emerging naturally, spontaneously,"plainly visible to the eye," from evocations of livedexperience. (22) In "Military Affairs" (1522), when amercenary proclaims his conscience clear because a priest has declaredwar just and the learned agree that "everyone has a right to liveby his trade," his interlocutor in��ter��loc��u��tor?n.1. Someone who takes part in a conversation, often formally or officially.2. The performer in a minstrel show who is placed midway between the end men and engages in banter with them. responds, "A splendidtrade--burning houses, looting churches, violating nuns, robbing poorpeople, murdering the innocent!" (1997, 39:38-39). Here, Erasmianrhetoric, claiming an authority at once transcendent and immanent im��ma��nent?adj.1. Existing or remaining within; inherent: believed in a God immanent in humans.2. Restricted entirely to the mind; subjective. , issubversively modern: no matter what the priest and the learned say, wecannot help knowing, involuntarily, somatically, that any reasoningdismissive of ethical sense is damnable dam��na��ble?adj.Deserving condemnation; odious.damna��ble��ness n.dam folly. Indeed, the necessity ofsuch knowledge is the precondition for subjective freedom. Erasmian premises long shaped the Tudor pedagogical, political, andecclesiastical institutions which allowed England to position itselfagainst both counter-reformation Catholicism and CalvinistProtestantism. (23) Erasmian pedagogy underlay Shakespeare's owneducation, but echoes of Erasmus in Shakespeare's early and middlecomedies--Love's Labour Lost, The Taming of the Shrew shrew,common name for the small, insectivorous mammals of the family Soricidae, related to the moles. Shrews include the smallest mammals; the smallest shrews are under 2 in. (5.1 cm) long, excluding the tail, and the largest are about 6 in. (15 cm) long. , A MidsummerNight's Dream, As You Like It--reflect more than a legacy ofcultural influence (24); they suggest Shakespeare's consciousnessof how his theater was particularly well-suited to expose the folly andmoral cost of separating self-fashioning reason from a corporealsubjectivity binding the self to ethics and sociability. (25) Shakespeare's turn to tragedy at the opening of theseventeenth century coincided with increasingly insistent Puritanattacks upon Erasmian defenses of theatrical art that stress the ethicaland cognitive value of affective appeals. (26) Contrasting with thecomedies, which delineate the regenerative possibilities of mutuallyenriching and modifying dialogue between nature and culture, thetragedies place humanist moral physiology under stress by exploring thepotential to live out alternatives that Erasmus rejects but that arerevived by the Puritan challenge and other currents in early modernculture--Stoic deprecations of the emotions, dogmatic estrangements oftheory from felt experience, equations of identity with will anddisembodied consciousness, drives toward systemic ideological closure.Othello, Lear. Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens Timon of Athenslost wealth, lived frugally; became misanthropic when deserted by friends. [Br. Lit.: Timon of Athens]See : Asceticism , for instance, are allcharacters whose asocial consistencies estrange es��trange?tr.v. es��tranged, es��trang��ing, es��trang��es1. To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate.2. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations. them from practicalrationality by estranging them from gratitude and somaticresponsiveness. Here, however, I will focus on the works in whichShakespeare pioneered the themes and forms of his maturetragedies--Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Following the isolated attempts of Titus Andronicus and Romeo andJuliet Romeo and Julietstar-crossed lovers die as teenagers. [Br. Lit.: Romeo and Juliet]See : Death, PrematureRomeo and Julietarchetypal star-crossed lovers. [Br. Lit. , Shakespeare came to a sustained engagement with tragedy onlyupon reading (or rereading) Plutarch's account of Brutus inpreparing Julius Caesar (1599). Stressing Brutus's philosophicalbent--"there was no sect nor Philosopher of them [the Greeks], buthe heard and liked it: but above all the rest, he loved Platoes sectbest" (1967, 183)--and the disinterested nature of hisactions--"it was thought then that Brutus would take parte withCaesar, bicause Pompey not long before had put his father unto death.But Brutus preferring the respect of his contrie and common wealth,before private affection, and perswading himselfe that Pompey had justercause to enter into armes then Caesar: he then tooke parte withPompey" (184)--Plutarch leads Shakespeare to locate tragic actionin something other than turbulent or titanic passions. W. Warde Fowlerobserves, "The idea that a good man could do incalculable harm fromthe best possible motives was, as far as I know, a new one intragedy" (qtd. Thomas 1989, 67), and Willard Farnham notes,"Before Brutus there had been no tragic hero on the English stagewhose character had combined noble grandeur with fatalimperfection im��per��fec��tion?n.1. The quality or condition of being imperfect.2. Something imperfect; a defect or flaw. See Synonyms at blemish.imperfectionNoun1. " (67). The centrality of ideas to Brutus'scharacter yields, as Vivian Thomas argues, a tragedy exploring thepractical implications of competing modes of conceptualizing experience,in which "personal and political images and self-images" are"subjected to telling ironies," so that we see the"deficiency in Brutus" to be "not one of coldness, orlack of feeling, but [rather] his remarkable capacity to elevate thepolitical over the personal, and his self-image as the repository andguardian of Roman democracy. Brutus's tragedy stems from hisinability to step outside this perception of himself" (1989, 71,77-78). Generically, the task of making a tragic hero of Plutarch'sBrutus seems to have awakened Shakespeare to the tragic potential ofLucianic, Erasmian philosophical satire: instead of conceptual rigidityor self-enclosure being an occasion for sensible laughter at learnedfolly rooted in culpable (and ridiculous) self-importance, it mightinstead appear as the lapsing of a noble, ethically sensitive mind intounwitting, involuntary, self-blinding self-love. Walling himself up inan image of principled consistency, the hero dismisses as irrationalism ir��ra��tion��al��ism?n.1. Irrational thought, expression, or behavior; irrationality.2. Belief in feeling, instinct, or other nonrational forces rather than reason.irrationalism1. or weakness the flexibility competing moral prototypes would impressupon him; identifying his action with lofty ideals, he holds himself ata remove from, or tunes out, somatically marked ethical sensecomplicating or calling into question his projects. He thus lapses intosome form of what Bucci describes as "dissociation" within"emotion schemas": either there is "a failure ofconnection of bodily experience and symbolic representation," or an"emotion schema" activated in "core consciousness,"registered fleetingly, is not integrated in "extendedconsciousness," is not connected to a sense of continuous,autobiographical identity, or "some elements of autobiographicalmemory" may be connected "within an emotional schema, whileothers are blocked off" (2002, 779-80). (27) Because such lapsinginto dissociation, brilliantly dramatized in Brutus, is a constitutivepossibility of any effort to rise above egocentric intentionality,Julius Caesar reveals the audience to be no less vulnerable than thehero, thus evoking a "pity and fear" that disrupts smugcomplacencies no less effectively than intimating the audiences'susceptibility to the deprecations of fate and nemesis did in ancientGreek contexts. In Brutus's case, as Miles notes, making a tragedy ofestrangement from the affections and practical sense aligns Shakespearewith contemporary assessments of Neostoicism: "Though less pronethan Caesar to claim god-like status, Brutus too seeks to rise abovehumanity by achieving an impossible degree of consistency, rationality,and imperturbability im��per��turb��a��ble?adj.Unshakably calm and collected. See Synonyms at cool.imper��turb .... It is an admirable ideal, yet its effect inpractice is often to make him rigid, cruel, and (most of all) dishonest..." (1996, 135). Miles argues that the play's judgment ofSenecan constancy mirrors, and was possibly inspired by,Montaigne's: "it is shown to be a flawed ideal, not humanlyattainable, and therefore liable to involve its adherents in continualpretence and self-deception. In Montaigne's formula, it is 'aprofitable desire; but likewise absurd'" (135). (28) What distinguishes Shakespeare, however, is not a conventionalassessment of Neostoicism, but rather a dramatization dram��a��ti��za��tion?n.1. The act or art of dramatizing: the dramatization of a novel.2. A work adapted for dramatic presentation: of how embodimentworks against dissociation, opening memory, as Bucci also argues, toaffective, prototypic imagery (2002, 782-92). In Shakespeare, thisimagery elicits a gratitude that delivers us from the ideologicalcomforts of imperturbable consistencies by rendering ethicalsignificance inescapable, inscribing it somatically in ways we canneither erase nor forget. The play begins with the tribuneMurellus's rebuke to Roman commoners for enjoying, vicariouslyidentifying with, Caesar's triumph over Pompey's defeatedsons: "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! / Oyou hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, / Knew you not Pompey?" (I.i. 35-37). Insensibility in��sen��si��ble?adj.1. a. Imperceptible; inappreciable: an insensible change in temperature.b. Very small or gradual: insensible movement. , affective deficiency, follows from aparticular kind of ethical-religious offense: "Run to your houses,fall upon your knees, / Pray to the gods to intermit the plague / Thatneeds must light on this ingratitude IngratitudeAnastasie and Delphineungrateful daughters do not attend father’s funeral. [Fr. Lit.: Père Goriot]Glencoe, Massacre " (I. i. 53-55). Murellusintroduces the idea that gratitude is foundational to human (as opposedto senseless, block-like) identity, and that the lapsing of gratitudedehumanizes, doing such violence to nature by uprooting human moralphysiology that it invites the divine forces governing nature to enactcommunal retribution (the plague). Gratitude in a Roman context for Shakespeare and his contemporarieswould be particularly associated with Virgilian pietas Pietasgoddess of faithfulness, respect, and affection. [Rom. Myth.: Kravitz, 192]See : Faithfulness . Thus it issignificant that Cassius's initial sounding out of Brutus involvesa description of his saving Caesar from drowning that, holding upCaesar's frailty to ridicule, reverses the import of the simile simile(sĭm`əlē)[Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem "A Red Red Rose" contains two straightforward similes: heemploys: "I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor, / Did from the flamesof Troy upon his shoulder / The old Anchises bear, so from the waves ofTiber / Did I the tired Caesar" (I. ii. 112-115). As Robert S.Miola points out, Cassius alludes to the Aeneid II. 707-11, in whichVirgil "presents the archetypal scene of pietas, memorialized onRoman coins and often celebrated by ancient writers such as Ovid (Met.XIII. 624-6) and Propertius (Bk. IV. I. 43-4)" (1983, 83). ByShakespeare's time the "original Virgilian passage and itsmoral significance" were "commonplaces of Renaissancehumanism" (84), so that it is clear that Cassius "replaces thearticulated emblem of pietas ... with the unarticulated un��ar��tic��u��lat��ed?adj.1. a. Not articulated: our unarticulated fears.b. Not carefully or thoroughly thought out.2. Biology Not having joints or segments. emblem ofimpietas ..." (85). The shift in the object of ingratitude orimpietas from Pompey to Caesar suggests not only that the denaturing ofRome's prototypical virtue is widespread, but also thatsusceptibility to the feeling, rather than a strict accounting of howmuch its object merits it, is the central issue. As Coppelia Kahn pointsout, fear of being moved by others or swayed by emotions is linked bothto a patrician concern with autonomy and a masculine anxiety about beingfeminized, but, as Valida Dragovitch notes, to isolate oneself fromaffective bonds is to alienate oneself from the trope of Rome as amother nurturing body and soul, to whom one is indebted for patterns ofthought and feelings that are distinctively Roman (1997, 77-109;Dragovitch 1989, 91-111). Whereas the commoners have vicarious identification with thepowerful and Cassius his resentment of being made small,"feminized," by Caesar's greatness to motivateingratitude, Brutus has "no personal cause to spurn" Caesar,but also a "general" one that is abstract. It is not whatCaesar has done, but for what he "may" do (II. i. 11, 12, 27).Brutus is not without gratitude--he says of Portia, "O ye gods! /Render me worthy of this noble wife!" (302-03)--but pietas towardan idealized Rome yields the delusion that affective signification canbe restricted to, or regulated by, ideological signification. Thus, heproclaims, "Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers"(166), for he would oppose "the spirit of Caesar" in which"there is no blood" (167, 168): "Let's carve him asa dish fit for the gods, / Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds"(173-74). Brutus's own recourse to rhetoric, however, belies hisaspirations: ideological murder only becomes psychologically bearable ifone dematerializes the victims, turns them into abstract ideas. In thisway, the self-enclosure of Lucianic-Erasmian schoolmen issues in thewillful impassivity of political assassins, but the very need forrhetorical obfuscation suggests that somatically transmitted ethicalsense, binding images to memory to emotion schemas rooted in ethicalprototypes, can be evaded much less easily than the authority of one oranother moral prototype jostling for dominance in guiding phronesis.Having dissociated his extended consciousness from particular emotionschemas, Brutus disastrously underestimates the influence of personalpassions and loyalties, as when he imagines that what Cassius calls"the ingrafted love" Anthony bears to Caesar (184) can beover-come by presenting the conspirators as "purgers, notmurderers" (180), because he imagines that "bath[ing] ourhands in Caesar's blood / Up to the elbows" (III. i. 106-07)can be viewed symbolically in ways that neutralize the natural repulsion repulsion/re��pul��sion/ (re-pul��shun)1. the act of driving apart or away; a force that tends to drive two bodies apart.2. such a sight engenders. When Antony, in his first opportunity for an aside, contrasts thebloody hands of "these butchers" with Caesar's corpse,"thou bleeding piece of earth" (III. i. 255, 254), theineptitude of Brutus's assumption that images striking the mind maybe stripped of spontaneous, natural somatic marking and recoded as ifpart of an arbitrary, Saussurean sign-system is brought home to anaudience that, while alerted to Antony's opportunism, seconds hishorror. Whereas Brutus's oration renders Caesar into a successionof abstractions, Antony's incessantly calls attention to the body:"Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through; / See, whata rent the envious Casca made" (174-75). With demagogic dem��a��gog��ic? also dem��a��gog��i��caladj.Of, relating to, or characteristic of a demagogue.dem cunning,Antony plays upon the crowd's susceptibility to gratitude tohighlight as ingratitude the deeds of conspirators whose "privategriefs" Antony professes to "know not" (213): "It isnot meet you know how Caesar lov'd you: / You are not wood, you arenot stones, but men" (141-42). Indeed, Antony describes"Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms," as alonecapable of "vanquish[ing]" Caesar (185, 186). The efficacy of Antony's unscrupulous rhetoric suggests thatCaesar's bloodied corpse moves the crowd by recalling them togratitude (pietas) toward one likened variously to the father or motherof the nation (II. ii. 83-90, III. ii. 88-92, 129-37, 247-52); thematerial spectacle of the body works against Brutus'sdematerializing, dissociative dissociative/dis��so��ci��a��tive/ (-so��se-a��tiv) pertaining to or tending to produce dissociation. discourse. Kahn notes that "theassassination ... resoundingly re��sound?v. re��sound��ed, re��sound��ing, re��soundsv.intr.1. To be filled with sound; reverberate: The schoolyard resounded with the laughter of children.2. feminizes Caesar" (1997, 104), butthat makes him all the more potent a political force. In effect,Antony's stagecraft stage��craft?n.Skill in the techniques and devices of the theater.stagecraftthe art or skill of producing or staging plays.See also: DramaNoun 1. gets the crowd to personalize their relation toCaesar. Patrick Colm Hogan notes that "emotional memories" maybe evoked apart from memories of occasions or circumstances (2003,179-84). Antony's use of Caesar's body and his imagery of amaternal and paternal Caesar evoke "emotional memories" ofgratitude. Because the sensory images associated with Caesar'sassassination violate a sense of gratitude integral to corporealsubjectivity, because they are somatically marked by a"natural" call to pity that commands us to become "like amother" to the Other's broken, bleeding body, they cannot bedetached from affect and recoded as "sacrifice" or"purgation PURGATION. The clearing one's self of an offence charged, by denying the guilt on oath or affirmation. 2. There were two sorts of purgation, the vulgar, and the canonical. 3. ." On an emotional-moral level, the body will notaccept it--and that includes the bodies of the conspirators themselves.Indeed, the conclusion of the play suggests that both Cassius and Brutusstruggle to live up to identities that would make up for ingratitude andthen succumb less to military conquest than to their own conviction thatdefeat is most likely what the gods would ordain ORDAIN. To ordain is to make an ordinance, to enact a law. 2. In the constitution of the United States, the preamble. declares that the people "do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. . Noting Cassius'sacceptance of bribes, Brutus demands, "shall one of us, / Thatstruck the foremost man of all this world / But for supporting robbers,shall we now / Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?" (IV. ii.21-24). After anticipating defeat on the eve On the Eve (Накануне in Russian) is the third novel by famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, best known for his short stories and the novel Fathers and Sons. of the battle of Philippi Noun 1. battle of Philippi - Octavian and Mark Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius in 42 BCPhilippiMacedonia - landlocked republic on the Balkan Peninsula; achieved independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 ,Cassius, misreading ambiguous visual evidence as indicating the calamityhe expects, slays himself while declaring, "Caesar, thou artreveng'd" (V. iii. 45), prompting Brutus, previously hauntedby Caesar's ghost, to exclaim, "O Julius Caesar, thou artmighty yet! / Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords / In ourproper entrails" (94-96). Stressing his own embodied, feminizedvulnerability to affect (the "proper entrails" into which aCaesar re-embodied in memory "turns" his sword), Brutus wouldresolve himself, through the ultimate self-fashioning and dissociativegesture of suicide, into the kind of unmoving, abstract"spirit" or idea he sought to make of Caesar. In Shakespeare's next tragedy, Hamlet, nature so resists theblunting of sense that moral physiology revenges itself upondissociations of cognition, and thus identity, from somatic ethicalresponsiveness. Beginning with Barnardo's initial characterizationof the ghost's "material" presence as an overturning ofHoratio's theoretical resistance, "And let us once againassail as��sail?tr.v. as��sailed, as��sail��ing, as��sails1. To attack with or as if with violent blows; assault.2. To attack verbally, as with ridicule or censure. See Synonyms at attack.3. your ears, / That are so fortified against our story" (I. i.31-32), modern, skeptical conceptual orders (Horatio's"philosophy") are associated with the desire to be"fortified against" disturbing ideas, which suggests that muchearly modern thought recuperates Hellenic philosophy's aspirationsto make conceptuality a "fortress" against incursions ofchance and emotional distress. Even a character as noble as Horatio isapt to follow the example of Lucianic-Erasmian learned fools inshielding themselves intellectually from all in "heaven andearth" that one's philosophy has not "dreamt of" (I.v. 166, 167). But what would "assail" "fortified"ears is precisely what needs to be heard for meaning, cast here as anarchaic father not abiding with the dead, to disrupt consolidations of anew order in which systemic force and fraud, exemplified byClaudius's slick acting and Machiavellian court, so dissociate dis��so��ci��ate?v. dis��so��ci��at��ed, dis��so��ci��at��ing, dis��so��ci��atesv.tr.1. To remove from association; separate: consciousness from emotion schemas as to render "stale, flat, andunprofitable" "all the uses of this world!" (I. ii. 133,134). Hamlet has fallen out of love with "this world"(temporal, material, affective existence) because his mother'sexample suggests all human virtue and feeling are illusory show: "OGod, a beast that wants discourse of reason / Would have mourn'dlonger" (150-51). By casting radical doubt upon the solidity of any"referential process" linking sound and sense, image andemotion, memory and identity, and thus casting doubt upon any basis forgratitude toward herself, Gertrude puts into question whether there isanything in the "world" into which she has brought Hamlet thatis worthy of gratitude. (29) Lacking faith that "this world" may be conceived underthe rubric of gratitude, Hamlet wants to die--"0 that this toosallied flesh would melt" (I. ii. 129)--for he cannot imagine afuture marked by affective and ethical significance if this world isindeed "an unweeded garden / That grows to seed, [so that] thingsrank and gross in nature / Possess it merely" (135-37). The ghostbreaks up the "stale, flat" early modern world presided overby banal cultural fathers, Claudius and Polonius, by giving substance toHamlet's most nightmarish suspicions, and thus revitalizes ethicalregisters of significance. The ghost imposes a task--setting"right" "time ... out of joint" (I. v. 189,188)--that confers upon the son an identity commensurate with that ofthe archaic, heroic father described by Horatio (I. i. 80-95): "Ifthou hast nature in thee,... / Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / Acouch for luxury and damned incest" (I. v. 81-83). Hamlet does nottrust the ghost because its message corresponds so closely to his revoltof sense against the new order, because its theatrical spectacle seemsto authorize a reversion to forms of identity and conduct that, inpromising a way out of despair of meaning, may be delusively de��lu��sive?adj.1. Tending to delude.2. Having the nature of a delusion; false: a delusive faith in a wonder drug. self-destructive, and so correspond to what Horatio warns against--thepossibility of the ghost "tempt[ing]" Hamlet "toward theflood" or "assum[ing] some other horrible form / Which mightdeprive [him] of reason" (I. iv. 69, 72-73). Hamlet's acutesensitivity to the lure of conceptual self-enclosure, its flattery ofself-certainty and self-importance, prevents him from falling into therole of a conventional theatrical revenger. (30) Hamlet's noted cultural and conceptual pluralism--standingbetween pagan and Christian, heroic-archaic andMachiavellian-Renaissance worlds--stimulates his mockery ofPolonius's exemplification An official copy of a document from public records, made in a form to be used as evidence, and authenticated or certified as a true copy.Such a duplicate is also referred to as an exemplified copy or a certified copy. EXEMPLIFICATION, evidence. of learned folly (Foakes 2002). AsStephen Booth remarks, Polonius exhibits "a one-track mind and seesanything and everything as evidence that Hamlet is mad for love (II. ii.173-212; 394-402)," while Hamlet "spends a good part of therest of the scene making Polonius demonstrate his foolishness"(1995, 31-32). Both Shakespeare and Hamlet situate Polonius as an objectof Lucianic-Erasmian satire, which assumes familiarity on their part andthe audience's with the philosophical core of such satire--thatbinding meaning to abstract conceptuality fortifies us againstincursions of sense, rendering us ridiculous. By juxtaposing Hamlet's teasing of Polonius with the corrosivecynicism of his exchanges with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern--"Ihave of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth" (II. ii.295-96)--Shakespeare contrasts the fatuous self-certainty of theoreticalself-enclosure not with humanist phronesis but with a cutting humorwhose appeal to involuntary ethical sense is marked by despair.Nevertheless, far from identifying, like Macbeth, with a "poorplayer" whose acting manufactures signs "signifyingnothing" (V. iv. 24, 28), Hamlet is led by the player'sweeping for Hecuba to reflect upon how mental images of "afiction,... a dream of passion" are able to induce "Tears in... eyes, distraction in ... aspect, / A broken voice" (II. ii,552, 555-56). Hamlet's actions suggest he understands that actorsrely upon the somatic marking of mental images to engage or stimulatethe referential process, to make art recall and thus reactivate the workof mothers and maternal nature in placing cognitive and emotional,nonverbal and verbal, systems in bidirectional, recursive"dialogue," thus reclaiming the possibility of meaning.Hamlet's reflections are thus consistent with Hogan's positionthat emotional excitation responds to the content of mental images, notjudgments about their existence, and that not all "corticalprocesses are egocentric. Some are explicitly nonegocentric, such asimagining oneself in someone else's situation, adopting someoneelse's point of view" (2003, 187). Contemplating acting leads Hamlet to consider that somatic ethicalresponsiveness cannot be outrun out��run?tr.v. out��ran , out��run, out��run��ning, out��runs1. a. To run faster than.b. To escape from: outrun one's creditors.2. or rendered optional, and so heretrieves faith in practical rationality sufficient to devise a plot totest the ghost's veracity--i.e., to distinguish between atheatricality that flatters, manipulates, and deludes (as Puritans andother anti-theatrical critics argued) and a theatricality that ethicallycalls forth a somatically marked cognition whose resistance to thedenaturing of sense, the dissociation of emotion schemas fromconsciousness, elicits gratitude, wonder, and love--a natural basis forattitudes Erasmus grounds in Pauline theology. Noting that he has"heard / That guilty creatures sitting at a play / Have by the verycunning of the scene / Been strook so to the soul, that presently / Theyhave proclaim'd their malefactions," Hamlet resolves to"observe [his uncle's] looks," and if "'a doblench blench?1?intr.v. blenched, blench��ing, blench��esTo draw back or shy away, as from fear; flinch.[Middle English blenchen, from Old English blencan, " he will "know [his] course" (II. ii. 588-92, 596,597, 598). Although Claudius abruptly walks out on the play, is described byGuildenstern as "marvellous distemp'red" (III. ii. 301),and is depicted as so overwhelmed by an "offense""smell[ing] to heaven" that his "stronger guilt defeats[his] strong intent" (III. iii. 36, 40), Terence Hawkes notes that"Claudius's blankness in the face of the plain depiction ofhis crime in the dumb show has ... famously exercised critics over theyears" (2002, 182). While Claudius is no doubt revealed to be, asHawkes suggests, "a man torn by the conflicting demands of criminalpassion and remorse, and held to the flames by an obduracy which is alsoself-control" (183), his walking out on the play, after itsdialogue makes manifest that the dumb show has been contrived by Hamletto trap him, reveals spectacular loss of self-control. As Hamlet'sresponse indicates, "O good Horatio, I'll take theghost's word for a thousand pounds. Didst didst?v. ArchaicSecond person singular past tense of do1. perceive?" (III. ii.286-87), and as Horatio's reply, "Very well, my lord"(287), confirms, Claudius could not have acted in a less politic manner.That Hamlet's theater flushes out ethical corporeal subjectivityfrom one ensconced in corruption and guile attests to the subversiveauthoritativeness of a literary communication that can "tent [one]to the quick" (II. ii. 597). Notably, words linked to images do more than the dumb show doesalone. (31) So Hamlet tells Gertrude, "[L]et me wring your heart,for so I shall / If it be made of penetrable pen��e��tra��ble?adj.Capable of being penetrated: penetrable defenses; a penetrable wall.pen stuff, / If damned customhave not brass'd it so / That it be proof and bulwark againstsense" (III. iv. 35-38). Without discounting his extravagantidealization idealization/ide��al��iza��tion/ (i-de?il-i-za��shun) a conscious or unconscious mental mechanism in which the individual overestimates an admired aspect or attribute of another person. of his father, his misogyny, his sense of inadequacy, orhis venting of cynical aggression, (32) we may see that Hamlet askslanguage to "wring" a "heart"--corporealsubjectivity or "penetrable stuff"--and so perform theredemptive work that Erasmus assigns to speech, while seeking to turnlanguage against a "damned custom" that substitutes asocialself-fashioning for affective ethical response (see Russell 1995;Ferguson 1995; Kastan 1995). If Hamlet's words "like daggersenter in [Gertrude's] ears" (III. iv. 95), they do so notsimply out of phallic phallic/phal��lic/ (-ik) pertaining to or resembling a phallus. phal��licadj.1. Of, relating to, or resembling a phallus.2. aggressiveness, but at least in part as anantidote to the poison of denial and deceit with which Claudius has"fortified" all ears against somatic ethical appeals. As Buccinotes, while "verbalization is not the optimal means of expressingemotion, it is the optimal mode of communication with other people andof self-regulation and direction," and so finding the words thatexpress and clarify sensations, images, and memory is crucial torepairing the dysfunctional or dissociated referential processes ofpsychoanalytic patients--"building connections within an individualbetween emotional experience and words, and building connections betweenindividuals in the shared discourse" (1997, 217). Not to colonize col��o��nize?v. col��o��nized, col��o��niz��ing, col��o��niz��esv.tr.1. To form or establish a colony or colonies in.2. To migrate to and settle in; occupy as a colony.3. Gertrude, but to grant her subjective freedom against the tyranny of a"monster custom" that "all sense doth eat," Hamletposits a "custom" "That to the use of actions fair andgood / ... likewise gives a frock or livery / That aptly is put on"(160, 164-65). Aspiring to a maternal relation with his mother, Hamletwould guide the referential process toward an "attunement Attunement is a process, similar to synchronization, wherein previously diffuse systems come into alignment, often spontaneously. It is distinct from synchronized dancing, swimming, or other human aesthetic activities that are preplanned, practiced and then performed. " ofthought and feeling (221), repairing the damage wrought byGertrude's habituated dissociation of emotion schemas registeringethical sense from extended and even core consciousness. When Hamletdeclares that "use almost can change the stamp of nature"(168), the "almost" suggests that he is not so much embracinga "constructed" notion of subjectivity as the"product" of habits as he is returning to Aristotle'sinsistence that practice modifies substance, that habits may alter, notabrogate abrogatev. to annul or repeal a law or pass legislation that contradicts the prior law. Abrogate also applies to revoking or withdrawing conditions of a contract. (See: repeal) , nature's "penetrable stuff." (33) As the complexities of the rest of the play indicate, Hamlet'sability to affirm and appeal to embodied ethical subjectivity does notresolve tragic conflict, but establishes its context. Gertrude'saside upon learning of Ophelia's madness, "So full of artlessjealousy is guilt, / It spills itself in fearing to be spilt" (IV.v. 19-20), not only acknowledges her measure of responsibility for theevents leading to Ophelia's destruction, but discovers somaticethical responsiveness through experiencing its being"assailed" and moved. Fear of "spilling" what isinside confirms that there is something that might "spill"out. Tragedy emerges from practices of construing habitual, customaryfortifications against incursions of sense as indicating that one has no"stuff" to "penetrate." Such fortifying signifies,of course, the opposite. In Othello, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens, Shakespearean tragedyprobes the psychic, social origins of damaged or blocked referentialprocesses that yield variants of Lucianic-Erasmian self-enclosure butinspire pity and fear rather than satiric laughter (indeed, Othellolifts Polonius's "one-track mind," no less than fear ofcuckoldry CuckoldrySee also Adultery, Faithlessness.Actaeon’s hornssymbol of cuckoldry. [Medieval and Ren. Folklore: Walsh Classical, 5]antlersmetaphorical decoration for deceived husband. , into a tragic register). King Lear takes despair of meaningto its ultimate point before Cordelia's disinterested, absolutelove allows, as Robert Lanier Reid argues, "Lear's bestself" to be "shaped by Cordelia," so that she becomes"her father's mother" (2000, 140); and in Macbeth, as JanH. Blits notes, Macbeth's effort to "destroy ... the guiltyconscience" that haunts him, to repudiate moral physiology throughdeclaring war on nature, "destroys both his conscience andhimself" (1996, 3). In Macbeth, we see how endeavoring to stripcognition of somatic marking issues in dehumanization de��hu��man��ize?tr.v. de��hu��man��ized, de��hu��man��iz��ing, de��hu��man��iz��es1. To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility: and madness; incharacters devoid of compunction--Iago, Edmund--we see how"Nature," taken as "goddess" and "law"(King Lear I. ii. 1) can only breed monsters if dissociated in memory orideology from the attunements of the referential process that linkmaternal image-schemas with ethical prototypes motivating and regulatingthe work of practical reason. In Hamlet, however, the hero's ultimate confidence in theinescapable force of somatic ethical responsiveness allows him a measureof triumph. By trusting that "guilt / Spills itself in fearing tobe spilt," Hamlet verifies the ghost's accusations and so putshimself sufficiently on guard to intercept Claudius's letter toEngland. He uses theater not only to resolve his own doubt, but also tomake a witness of Horatio, just as he preserves the original of theKing's letter for Horatio (V. ii. 26). While Hamlet'sexercises in practical reason have a Machiavellian adroitness a��droit?adj.1. Dexterous; deft.2. Skillful and adept under pressing conditions. See Synonyms at dexterous.[French, from �� droit : ��, to (from Latin , and evena cold, hard edge, as when he declares Rosencrantz's andGuildenstern's deaths to be not "near [his] conscience,"for they are the "reward" for "their owninsinuation INSINUATION, civil law. The transcription of an act on the public registers, like our recording of deeds. It was not necessary in any other alienation, but that appropriated to the purpose of donation. Inst. 2, 7, 2; Poth. Traite des Donations, entre vifs, sect. 2, art. 3, Sec. " (58-59), this allows him to achieve his primaryobjective, to so represent things to Horatio, and thus to the audience,that the truth reveals itself with spontaneous, subversive authority. Inagreeing to the fencing match, he provides Claudius an opportunity tooverreach overreachthe error in a fast gait when the toe of a hindhoof of a horse strikes and injures the back of the pastern of the leg on the same side.overreach boot himself, to dramatize dram��a��tize?v. dram��a��tized, dram��a��tiz��ing, dram��a��tiz��esv.tr.1. To adapt (a literary work) for dramatic presentation, as in a theater or on television or radio.2. his own guilt, so that Laertes is ledfirst to moral reservations about serving as Claudius's tool (296),then to self-accusation (307), and finally to vindication of Hamlet(312-18) and exposure of Claudius: "--the King, the King's toblame" (320). As Claudius is undone by the fruits of his owntreachery, Hamlet secures his fame and cuts down villainy VillainySee also Evil, Wickedness.Vindictiveness (See VENGEANCE.)Violence (See BRUTALITY, CRUELTY.)d’Acunha, Teresaportrait of devilish Spanish servant and kidnapper. [Br. Lit. by appealingaffectively to others within the play in a manner analogous to theplay's communication with and engagement of the audience's owninterrelated ethical sense and practical reason. By delineating howHamlet manages to make the sense of his story prevail against"monster custom" and "fortified ears," the playassumes an authority as subversive and as potentially reformative asHamlet's own. Notes (1) All Shakespeare citations refer to Shakespeare 1974. See esp.Hegel (1967, 736-45; 1975), Knight (1949), Wilson (1951), Russell (1995,39-50). (2) Wiltshire (2001); see also Everett (1995, 252-53), for adiscussion of the role of Hamlet in generating the Bildungsroman bildungsroman(German; “novel of character development”)Class of novel derived from German literature that deals with the formative years of the main character, whose moral and psychological development is depicted. . (3) Also see Richardson (1999, 168-70), Kinney (2001, 30-34). (4) See Hogan (2003, 29-58); also Lakoff and Johnson (1999), Craneand Richardson (1999). (5) See esp. Erasmus (1997, 39: 592-609). Drawing onAristotle's De Anima, Plutarch's De liberis educandis, andAulus Gellius' Noctes Atticae, Erasmus argues in his colloquy col��lo��quy?n. pl. col��lo��quies1. A conversation, especially a formal one.2. A written dialogue.[From Latin colloquium, conversation; see ,"The New Mother," that mother/child intimacy contributes notonly to health but also to intellectual and moral development. Also seePlutarch (1927, 12-17). (6) Also see Lakoff and Johnson (1999, 235-89, 468), Johnson(1987), Lakoff (1987), Rowlands (1999), Churchland (1995), Kosslyn andKoenig (1995). (7) See esp. De Anima Bk. II, ch. 5, Bk. III, ch. 3-7, 10-11, inAckrill (1987, 174-76, 191-200, 204-05), Rhetoric, Bk II, in Aristotle(1932, 168-343), Irwin (1988, 290-95). (8) See Nussbaum (1994, 19-88; 1986, 264-317), Irwin (1988,303-88). Also see Plutarch, "The Education of Children,""On Listening to Lectures," "How a Man May Become Awareof his Progress in Virtue," in Plutarch (1927, 4-62, 204-59,400-57), and "On Moral Virtue," "On Brotherly Love,"in Plutarch (1939, 18-87, 246-325). (9) Also see Oatley (1992), Stein and Levine (1991), Ortony (1991). (10) See Auyang (2000, 27), Nussbaum (1994, 48-101, 102-39,316-401; 2001, 139-237). (11) Also see Hogan (2003, 40-41). On Aristotle's account ofthe shaping of soul by habits of desiring the good, see Irwin (1988,181, 200, 207, 223-76). (12) See Levinas (1969, 201-09, 216-19; 1981, 34-38, 99-109). (13) See Damasio (1994, 205-22), Levinas 1989; 1969, 194-201,240-47, 302-04; 1981, 51-59, 65-72, 83-93, 102-13). (14) See esp. Chanter (2001), Irigaray (2001), Perpich (2001),Brody (2001), Chalier (1982). (15) Kristeva (1996, 62; 2001b, 57-81). On egocentricintentionality, see Levinas (1969, 109-21, 175-77; 1981, 61-72). On therole of "appraising" the effects of what we encounter upon ourprojects in triggering emotional responses to what we encounter, seeHogan (2003, 140-41, 144-48). (16) Kristeva (1987, 34; 2000, 52-64, 94-106; 2001b, 78-81, 89-93);also Nussbaum (2001, 174-235). Kristeva associates Hannah Arendt'saffirmation of rational agency, of "life as a narrative," withthe maternal cast of Arendt's thought (see Kristeva [2001a,46-47]). (17) See Erasmus (1984, 42:51-52); also Kristeva (1987, 139). Inthe Enchiridion, Erasmus argues, "Divine wisdom speaks to us inbaby-talk and like a loving mother accommodates its words to our stateof infancy.... It lowers itself to your lowliness, but you on your partmust rise to its sublimity" (Erasmus 1988, 66:107). Actual mothers,as "The New Mother" (1997, 39: 592-609) stresses, naturallyimitate the divine pattern and so engender an analogous emulativegratitude; good teachers motivate their pupils by assuming a similarly"maternal" role (1985, 26:325, 334-35). (18) Also see Plutarch, "On Brotherly Love" and "OnAffection for Offspring" (1939; Cicero (1913, 14-17). (19) On Seneca, see Miles (1996, 40-57); on Erasmus and Stoicism,see Miles (1996, 64-68). (20) See Boyle (1981, 17-25), Rummel (1986, 7-9, 74-75, 89-121);see the hermeneutical principles articulated in the Enchiridion (Erasmus1988 66:34-43); Folly's satire on scholasticism in Praise of Folly(1986b, 27:126-35); the critique of stylistic self-enclosure in theCiceronianus (1986a). On methodological opposition to closure andcommitment to pluralism in Erasmian humanism, see Kinney (2001, 37-41). (21) Preface to Erasmus' translation of Lucian's TheCock; quoted in C. Robinson (1979, 167-68). On Lucian's influenceupon Erasmus and his Italian predecessors, see Marsh (1998), Zappala(1990), C. Robinson (1979). On Lucian's relation to Hellenicphilosophy, see Branham (1989) and Jones (1986). (22) For Erasmian satire upon conceptuality estranged from moralphysiology, see Erasmus (1997, esp. "Rash Vows," 39: 37-43;"In Pursuit of Benefices," 39: 45-52; "MilitaryAffairs," 39: 55-63; "The Soldier and the Carthusian,"39: 329-43; "The Shipwreck," 39: 352-67; "An ExaminationConcerning the Faith," 39: 421-47; "The Old Men's Chat,or The Carriage," 39: 449-67; "The Well-to-do Beggars,"39: 469-98; "A Pilgrimage for Religion's Sake," 40:621-74; "A Fish Diet," 40: 677-762; "Cyclops, or TheGospel-Bearer," 40: 864-76). (23) See Thompson (1971), Mansfield (1979, 110-14), Magnusson(1999, 61-90), Bennett (2000, 24-54, 71-77), Streuver (1992), andBaldwin (1944). (24) See Reid (2000), Stockland (1997), Birkinshaw (1992), Butler(1992), Crains (1991), Palmer (1987), Miller (1986), Woodridge (1983),Hassel (1980), Aoki (1979-1980), and Greenfield (1968). (25) See Bennett (2000, 17-21, 28-29, 52-54, 101) for a discussionof theater as a site of moral testing and renewal; also see Altman(1978). (26) Bennett (2000, 88-101), Kastan (1999, 201-20), Heinemann(1980). (27) Bucci draws on Damasio (1999, 82-106, 168-233), for thenotions of "core" and "extended" consciousness. (28) See Miles's discussion of the vogue Neostoicism enjoyedin the Western Europe in the late sixteenth century, and his discussionof Montaigne's progress from sympathy with to skepticism ofNeostoicism (1996, 63-109). On Shakespeare's relation to Montaigne,J. Robertson (1909) remains the starting point. Zurcher (2003) suggeststhat Shakespeare's assessment of neo-Stoicism is more positive,arguing that Stoic integrity and autonomy offer a model for revoltagainst tyranny in The Winter's Tale (910-15). While there iscertainly a meditation on Stoic patterns of revolt, the tyranny Paulinaand Hermione oppose is the product of Leontes's asocialconsistencies, his obdurate walling himself off from somatic ethicalresponsiveness in ways that alienate him from practical rationality, asindicated most tellingly when Paulina (for Zurcher the most Stoical ofcharacters) expects that the sight of his infant daughter will have agreater effect in bringing Leontes back to sense that any argument:"We do not know / How he may soften at the sight o' th'child: / The silence often of pure innocence / Persuades when speakingfails" (II. ii. 37-40). Zurcher also argues that Pericles, Princeof Tyre Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a play written (at least in part) by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected plays despite some questions over its authorship. presents ideal Stoic integrity as being realizable only in death(2003, 921), which would seem to suggest reservations about it onShakespeare's part. (29) Jacqueline Rose takes to task criticism she sees complicit com��plic��it?adj.Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime; having complicity: newspapers complicit with the propaganda arm of a dictatorship. inthe play's making "the mother cause of all good andevil," making "her failings responsible for a malaise in allhuman subjects ..." (1994, 167). While there is no lack of maligned ma��lign?tr.v. ma��ligned, ma��lign��ing, ma��lignsTo make evil, harmful, and often untrue statements about; speak evil of.adj.1. Evil in disposition, nature, or intent.2. and noble women in Shakespeare, the process of vindicating wronged womenand exposing male folly is one of comedy or romance, Here, the basis forgratitude toward the maternal is called into question by actions thatrender suspect any investment of love, any ascription as��crip��tion?n.1. The act of ascribing.2. A statement that ascribes.[Latin ascr of meaning, andthus the maternal interactions that lead to such investments andascriptions. Precisely because feminine-maternal bonds are so crucial tothe affective and rational lives of people of both sexes, theconsequences of their violation or denial are the stuff of tragedy. (30) On Hamlet's and the play's violations of revengetragedy generic conventions, see Pearlman (2002), Foakes (2002), Levin(2002), and Kasten (1995). (31) Crane observes that "uncertainty" on Hamlet'spart "about whether Claudius is more likely to reveal his innersecrets through looks or through speech may explain why Hamlet uses botha dumb show and spoken lines in his mousetrap, offering both visual andauditory stimuli" (2001, 132). (32) See Russell (1995), Ferguson (1995), and Kastan (1995). (33) For alternative accounts of constructing subjects lackinginternal natures, see Pye (2000, 105-29), and Crane (2001, 116-55).Whereas Crane's groundbreaking cognitive reading sees Hamletdespairing of ascertaining an "inner self" in ways that leadhim "towards a performative per��for��ma��tive?adj.Relating to or being an utterance that peforms an act or creates a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered under appropriate or conventional circumstances, as a justice of the peace uttering theory of self-fashioning" (141)and lead the play toward positing only the tragic alternatives of"a secret inner space liable to corruption and decay and a hollowshell formed by ritualized social gesture" (147), the reading heresuggests that flushing out somatic ethical responsiveness from Claudiusnot only justifies the ghost, but also offers Hamlet some hope thatthere is an ethical "affective core" (Bucci 2002, 770) inGertrude that might be "touched" or "moved" throughsomatic, visual, and verbal invocations. 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Donald R. Wehrs is associate professor of English at AuburnUniversity and author of African Feminist Fiction and Indigenous Values(2001). He has published essays on postcolonial literature and theory inMLN MLN MillionMLN Modern Language Notes (literary journal)MLN Management & Leadership Network (Northern Ireland)MLN Missouri League for NursingMLN Main Listed Number and New Literary History and on British and European fiction in SEL (SELect) A toggle switch on a printer that takes the printer alternately between online and offline. 1. SEL - Self-Extensible Language.2. SEL - Subset-Equational Language. ,CLS (Common Language Specification) The structure and syntax of .NET and CLI programming languages. See .NET. , and The Eighteenth Century.