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Teaching Act 2 of Antony and Cleopatra with Queen Elizabeth's Petticoat Speech

8/19/2015

George Gower's 1588 portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, known as the Armada Portrait

This blog post is part of my discussion about the course I taught, "Gender and Clothing in Shakespeare's Plays." It is a texts and contexts course, and the unit on Antony and Cleopatra is focused on the "tragedy" of female authority, particularly queenship.

I like to pair Act 2 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra with the "petticoat speech" that Queen Elizabeth gave after parliament tried to force her to marry and secure the succession of the monarchy. Here is the full citation if you are looking to find an authoritative source for the text, which is not a long text at all. Queen Elizabeth’s Speech to a Joint Delegation of Lords and Commons, November 5, 1566, Version 2 (aka “The Petticoat Speech”), anthologized in Elizabeth I: Collected Works, eds. Marcus, Mueller, and Rose (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 94-98.

The speech has several good points that are pertinent to a discussion of Shakespeare's play. The following excerpt is a useful starting point:

I did send them answer by my council, I would marry although of mine own disposition I was not inclined thereunto. But that was not accepted nor credited, although spoken by their Prince…I will never break the word of a prince spoken in a public place, for my honour's sake. And therefore I say again, I will marry as soon as I can conveniently, if God take not him away with whom I mind to marry, or myself, or else some other great let happen. I can say no more except the party were present. And I hope to have children, otherwise I would never marry. A strange order of petitioners that will make a request and cannot be otherwise assured but by the prince's word, and yet will not believe it when it is spoken…

The second point was for the limitation of the succession of the crown, wherein was nothing said for my safety, but only for themselves… I am sure there was not one of them that ever was a second person, as I have been and have tasted of the practices against my sister, who I would to God were alive again…There were occasions in me at that time, I stood in danger of my life, my sister was so incensed against me. I did differ from her in religion and I was sought for divers ways. And so shall never be my successor.

Before drawing comparisons between Shakespeare's queen and the historical Queen Elizabeth, you should make sure that your students can follow Elizabeth's argument here. Ask them comprehension questions: explain why Elizabeth is angry. There may be multiple reasons. Why is naming a successor dangerous to her or to her “second” (i.e., heir)? It may or may not be helpful to talk about the religious differences between Elizabeth and her Catholic sister, Mary Tudor.

Then focus on this passage, for which the speech gets its nickname:

As for my own part I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.

The following are great discussion questions to consider:

Elizabeth calls herself both male ("Prince") and female (“though I be a woman”… your “anointed Queen”). What does she gain through each gendered position?
How does Elizabeth use clothing here to construct her femininity and/or power? What is a petticoat? How would appearing in her petticoat confer power and/or powerlessness? How would appearing in her petticoat reveal or construct her femininity? Are power and femininity linked in this speech?
Is her monarchical authority gender-neutral (“my honour”), male (“Prince”) or female (“petticoats”)? Is it English or is it trans-national?
Compare Elizabeth's use of clothing in this speech to the way that clothing works in the Armada portrait (in the lede image). How do her clothes in that portrait construct power?
What does it suggest about Elizabeth that she is actually asking the House of Commons to picture her in her underwear—and that this is meant to cower them?

Is Cleopatra like Elizabeth in any way? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does Shakespeare’s play seem to be anxious about female sovereignty?

The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, 41 B.C. (1885) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

The speech works really well to highlight discussions of clothing and performances of gender and power in the play.

One passage in Antony and Cleopatra that specifically mentions petticoats actually comes from Act 1, but it helps to highlight a lot of action in Act 2 as well. The following lines are spoken by Enobarbus after he and Antony learn of Fulvia's death:

Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented: this grief is crowned with consolation; your old smock brings forth a new petticoat: and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.

Discussion questions:

Explain Enobarbus’ metaphor. How is a wife like a robe? How does she "[bring] forth a new petticoat"?
Compare and contrast Fulvia and Cleopatra. Is either of them replaceable?
Does Enobarbus like either Fulvia or Cleopatra? How do you know and why does it matter?
How does this use of the petticoat metaphor compare to Elizabeth's use of it?
Both Enobarbus and Elizabeth are using the petticoat imagery to discuss marriage, particularly a new marriage. What does marriage have to do with gender, power, and clothing?

This also leads to the very famous description that Enobarbus gives of the meeting of Antony and Cleopatra--like the Armada portrait above, this description presents female authority as a rich spectacle, a feast for the eyes.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue--
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

Questions:

Enobarbus says that Cleopatra “beggar'd all description” but he talks a whole lot here. How do you reconcile those two claims? Is he talking about her or about the stuff around her?
When we look at the Armada portrait, are we looking at Queen Elizabeth or are we looking at the stuff around her, particularly the clothes?
How does the spectacle of female self-display relate to the repeated comparisons that are made between Cleopatra and food? Is she a feast for the palate as well as a feast for the eyes?
There are many scenes in this play that are about other people’s thoughts about Antony and/or Cleopatra. We spend as much time hearing what people think about the two as we spend actually watching the eponymous characters. Why? Why are there so few soliloquies? How might that relate to clothing?

The description that Enobarbus gives also resonates with a scene late in Act 2, which once again ties Cleopatra to river imagery. Lounging around Alexandria while waiting for Antony, Cleopatra plays at fishing:

Give me mine angle; we'll to the river: there,
My music playing far off, I will betray
Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
Their slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up,
I'll think them every one an Antony,
And say 'Ah, ha! you're caught.'

Questions:

Is she trying to “catch” Antony as in ensnare him with her charms (marry him)? Is her language more sinister? Is she like Salamacis who cries out “I’ve won!” when she sees Hermaphroditus dive into the water?
Note that again she is associated with water imagery—elsewhere she is associated with the Nile (“Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures / Turn all to serpents!... So half my Egypt were submerged and made / A cistern for scaled snakes!”), and we already talked about her barge on the water when she first meets Antony. Why do you think she is associated with water? Compare and contrast that to the associations of her and food.

Thinking about Cleopatra in relationship to Queen Elizabeth is useful when we think about the ways that so many of the Romans cry out against her authority over Antony as an emasculating monstrosity. On the one hand she is threatening in the same way that John Knox found Mary Tudor to be threatening; however, there is something gorgeous, creative, and intoxicating about her self-conscious display of power. She is theatrical and seductive; she is a little bit like Queen Elizabeth, who had already died by the time that Shakespeare was writing this play. This strategy for presenting the play could give your students a way to conceptualize how Shakespeare may be nostalgically remembering Queen Elizabeth after her death.

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Teaching Act 1 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra with John Knox's "First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women"

5/27/2015

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Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra and Henry Wilcoxon as Antony in the 1934 film Cleopatra, directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

This blog post is part of my discussion about the course I taught, "Gender and Clothing in Shakespeare's Plays." It is a texts and contexts course, and the unit on Antony and Cleopatra is focused on the "tragedy" of female authority, particularly queenship.

I pair a discussion of Act 1 of Shakespeare's play with an excerpt from an early modern pamphlet that was published in outrage at the queenship of Mary Tudor (the Catholic half-sister of Queen Elizabeth I, who was later nick-named "Bloody Mary").

The excerpt is from John Knox’s The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, and it can be found in the Norton Critical Edition of Antony and Cleopatra, p. 162.

Whatsoever repugneth to the will of god expressed in his most sacred word, repugneth to justice: but that women have authoritie over men repugneth to the will of God expressed in his word: and therefore mine author commandeth me to conclude without fear, that all such authoritie repugneth to justice…And if any man doubt hereof, let him mark well the words of the apostle, saying: I permit not a woman to teach, nether yet to usurp authority above man… say, we will suffer women to bear authority, who then can depose them? yet shall this one word of the eternal God spoken by the mouth of a weak man, thrust them every one in to hell. Jesabel may for a time sleep quietly in the bed of her fornication and whoredom, she may teach and deceive for a season, but nether shall she preserve her self, nether yet her adulterous children from great affliction, and from the sword of God’s vengeance, which shall shortly apprehend such works of iniquity.

I ask my students to simply paraphrase this passage in their own words, paying special attention to the ways that Knox constructs certain things as monstrous. This serves as a springboard for our discussions of the ways that the Romans in particular attempt to construct Cleopatra as monstrous in Shakespeare's play.

In particular, Knox tries to naturalize male authority over women by appealing to some famous biblical passages, and he suggests that this authority is biological because of the "need" to control reproduction and prevent adulterous children. He links female political sovereignty to female promiscuity. He also suggests that any man who tolerates female authority makes himself weak and, therefore, becomes a threat to all men within this particular patriarchal power structure. As Knox asks, if women do gain a foothold into power, "who can depose them?" It is, therefore, just as important to police men as it is to police women.

Knox's attempt to undermine the political authority of Mary Tudor is surprisingly similar to the Romans' attempts to undermine both Cleopatra and Antony in Shakespeare's play. It is worth it to ask your students to think about how the Roman characters--exemplified most powerfully in Caesar but not limited to him--continuously proclaim that by loving Cleopatra and tolerating her authority in Egypt, Antony has emasculated himself and introduced a threat to Rome. This becomes the justification for war against Antony in the play to some extent: that in betraying his masculinity, he has betrayed Rome itself. One of the key questions to ask your students as you read through the play is whether the play endorses this patriarchal mindset or critiques it. To my mind, this is the key question about the play.

The question emerges immediately in the play in terms of Antony as a man of excess. He loves food, sex, and Cleopatra too much, according to the Romans. Philo opens the play with this discourse, arguing that Antony overflows the bounds of measure:

Nay, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy's lust.
Look, where they come:
Take but good note, and you shall see in him.
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Speaking of excess: Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Antony in the famous 1963 film Cleopatra, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Rouben Mamoulian, Darryl F. Zanuck.

Philo's declaration that the one-time phallic "pillar of the world" Antony has emasculated himself by excess is mirrored in almost everything that Caesar says in Act 1. Caesar is horrified that Antony is now "keep[ing] the turn of tippling with a slave” (a drinking game) and “reel[ing] the streets at noon” (being drunk in the streets in the middle of the day) when he was once, as a soldier under siege, able to subsist on almost nothing at all.

Here are some of the pertinent passages:

...'tis to be chid
As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment...
...thou [Antony] didst drink
The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this--
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now--
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank'd not.

Caesar suggests that Antony's former ability to thrive on nothing made him powerful, like a "real man." Now that Antony has opened the boundaries of his body/psyche, to let in food, drink, love, and desire, he has made himself weak. Caesar sometimes figures this weakness in terms of age (he imagines chiding Antony as one would chide a boy) and other times figures Antony's weakness in terms of gender (saying that Antony is not more man-like than Cleopatra).

Coins with the busts of Mark Antony & Cleopatra. 34 BC. Denarius. Alexandria mint.

I like to ask my students to compare and contrast the excess of Mark Antony from the Roman perspective and the perspective of the eponymous characters themselves. Whereas the Romans see all excess as bad (unless that excess is the nasty stuff of Caesar's memory: horse urine and "strange flesh"), the characters Antony and Cleopatra figure Antony as a person who overdoes something but then course-corrects so that the sum total of his action is actually pretty measured. Antony articulates this first:

...Forbear me.
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:
What our contempt doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
I must from this enchanting queen break off.

And the Cleopatra mirrors this idea later:

O well-divided disposition! Note him,
Note him good Charmian, 'tis the man; but note him:
He was not sad, for he would shine on those
That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay
In Egypt with his joy; but between both:
O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,
The violence of either thee becomes,
So does it no man else.

What are these two economies for measuring Antony's personality and character? What are the implications of these two economies? What do we do about this inconsistency in Antony’s character?

Cleopatra is a lot like Antony as the two have characterized his excess. She has her own "wrangling" nature.

Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired

Antony's speech here anticipates Cleopatra's later comment to Charmian. When Charmian tells her that she ought to give way to Antony in everything and cross him in nothing, Cleopatra insists “Thou teachest like a fool; the way to lose him” and she declares that she will specifically position her mood in contrast to Antony: “See where he is, who's with him, what he does: / I did not send you: if you find him sad, / Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report / That I am sudden sick: quick, and return” (1.3.10, 2-5).

In this passage she sounds a lot like Rosalind, especially when she is disguised as Ganymede but playing "Rosalind" for Orlando:

I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou are inclin'd to sleep.

Questions:

Does Antony like Cleopatra’s “wrangling” nature? How do you know and why does it matter?
Does she specifically wrangle with him because she knows he likes it, and she’s keeping him intrigued with her/keeping the passion alive?
How does Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship make you think about Rosalind’s words in retrospect?
Are Antony and Cleopatra comic characters trapped in a tragedy? Keep Meeker’s article in mind.

One reason that this exercise is worth doing is that Antony and Cleopatra both course-correct, shift, adapt, and change in terms of their public and private personas. In doing so, they not only spice up their tempestuous love affair but also distinguish themselves from other people in the world (according to their own estimation). They are attracted to each other because both are powerful and therefore free to break the normal rules. Antony says as much when he rudely ignores the Roman messenger and instead chooses to pay attention to Cleopatra:

Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life
Is to do thus [embraces Cleopatra] ; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.

Antony's emphasis on their mutual state (relative to each other) and exceptional peerlessness (relative to the world) gets at what he loves about their relationship. How does this discussion build on our discussion of “Salmacis and Hermaphroditus” or on the iconography of marriage?

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Teaching Beaumont's "Salmachis and Hermaphroditus"

5/26/2015

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Salmace e Ermafrodito (1856) by Giovanni Carnovali

This blog post is a continuation of my discussion about my course, "Gender and Clothing in Shakespeare's Plays," although this particular post will deal exclusively with some of the contextual material that I taught and not discuss Shakespeare directly.

One of the main goals of my course was to think about how form (such as genre) might offer Shakespeare ways to produce competing theories of gender, sex, performance, and sexuality. To this end, I spent a whole day of transition in between the festive comedies and the tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra.

Here are the materials that I asked my students to read for our transition day:

Joseph W. Meeker, “The Comic Mode” in The Norton Critical Edition of As You Like It pp. 220-234.
Francis Beaumont’s “Salmachis and Hermaphroditus” in the Texts and Contexts Edition of Twelfth Night, pp. 225-236.
Iconography of marriage from emblem books [a PDF I made of the emblems that I discussed in this previous post]

Since I have already discussed the emblems of marriage in my post last summer, I won't rehash that here other than to say that this was enormously successful in the classroom. My students had a lot to say about these images and the contradictory ways that they emblematize marriage. Instead, I will focus this blog post on strategies for close-reading Beaumont's poem, which would work well in teaching any of Shakespeare's cross-dressing plays.

The Myth In Classical and Neoclassical Art

Beaumont's poem

So the poem begins by presenting Hermaphroditus as a figure like Rosalind/Ganymede who provokes desire almost instantly in anyone who looks at him or her. This is true in the initial back-story that we get about Hermaphroditus before he even meets Salmachis.

Diana being hunting on a day,
She saw the boy upon a green bank lay him,
And there the virgin huntress meant to slay him;
Because no nymphs would now pursue the chase,
For all were struck blind with the wanton's face…
She turn'd and shot, but did of purpose miss him,
She turn'd again, but could not choose but kiss him.
Then the boy ran: for some say had he staid,
Diana had no longer been a maid.
Phœbus so doted on this roseate face,
That he bath oft stol'n closely from his place,
When he did lie by fair Leucothoë's side,
To dally with him in the vales of Ide.

In this passage, Hermaphroditus is an object of desire for both Diana and Phoebus Apollo. Is he already a "hermaphrodite" in the sense that he (like Ganymede/Rosalind) has some general characteristics of men and women so that he appeals to members of either sex? Why or why not? Does this presume a heterosexual kind of desire?

Hermaphroditus

His cheek is sanguine, and his lip as red,
As are the blushing leaves of the rose spread…
His hair was bushy, but it was not long;
The nymphs had done his tresses wrong,
For as it grew they pull'd away his hair,
And made habiliments of gold to wear.
His eyes were Cupid's, for until his birth
Cupid had eyes, and lived upon the earth…
For his white hand each goddess did him woo,
For it was whiter than the driven snow;
His leg was straighter than the thigh of Jove,
And he far fairer than the god of love.

Salmachis

So fair she was, of such a pleasing grace,
So straight a body, and so sweet a face,
So soft a belly, such a lusty thigh,
So large a forehead, such a crystal eye,
So soft and moist a hand, so smooth a breast,
So fair a cheek, so well in all the rest,
That Jupiter would revel in her bower
Were he to spend again his golden shower.
Her teeth were whiter than the morning milk,
Her lips were softer than the softest silk;
Her hair as far surpass'd the burnished gold,
As silver doth excel the basest mold.

Both of these descriptions of the physical bodies of the eponymous characters of the poem use the poetic devise of the blazon, a catalogue of the beloved's body parts that was popularized through Petrarchan poetry. The blazon usually catalogs the body of the female beloved (and the poetic speaker is usually a heterosexual man). We might compare the blazon, and the gaze that it assumes in its readers, to the male gaze of the camera that Laura Mulvey has discussed so brilliantly.

What does it matter then that both male and female character gets a blazon? Does the blazon turn the male gaze onto the body of Hermaphroditus, or is the larger point here that these two characters are somehow alike, even before they have met each other?

The idea that these two characters are somehow alike is important because the myth of Narcissus comes up repeatedly in this poem.

Narcissus (c. 1597–1599) by Caravaggio

The myth of Narcissus comes up three times in the poem, each commenting on the relationship between Salmachis and Hermaphroditus in different ways.

The first instance: the two meet each other at the river where Narcissus died.

For this was the bright river where the boy [Narcissus]
Did die himself, that he could not enjoy
Himself in pleasure, nor could taste the blisses
Of his own melting and delicious kisses.
Here did she [Salmacis] see him [Hermaphroditus], and by Venus' law
She did desire to have him as she saw.

Questions:

Why is the myth of Narcissus important to the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus—even before they ever talk to each other?
If Salmacis and Hermaphroditus are sort of alike through their respective blazons… are the references to Narcissus foreshadowing that they will fall into a dangerous sort of love because they will see themselves reflected in each other?

The second instance: Hermaphroditus falls in love with the reflection of his own image that he sees in the glassy mirror of Salmachis' eyes.

That she had won his love, but that the light
Of her translucent eye did shine too bright;
For long he looked upon the lovely maid,
And at the last Hermaphroditus said:
"How should I love thee, when I do espy
A far more beauteous nymph hid in thy eye?
When thou dost love let not that nymph be nigh thee,
Nor, when thou woo'st, let that same nymph be by thee;
Or quite obscure her from thy lover's face,
Or hide her beauty in a darker place."
By this the nymph perceived he did espy
None but himself reflected in her eye.

Questions

How does this reference build on our conversation?
Is falling in love with someone related to self-love?
Does the poem present a perversion of love, or a commentary on the normal experience of erotic love? Is Salmachis more or less self self-centered that Hermaphroditus?

The third instance: Salmachis uses Narcissus as a warning to Hermaphroditus:

Remember how the gods punish'd that boy,
That scorn'd to let a beauteous nymph enjoy
Her long-wished pleasure; for the peevish elf,
Loved of all others, needs would love himself:
So may'st, thou love perhaps: thou may'st be blest
By granting to a luckless nymph's request.

Questions:

How does Salmachis turn Narcissus into a threat?
Is this all sophistry (she is presenting sexual love as a “gift” and the withholding of sexual love as “selfish”), or does she kind of have a point?
How much should we trust her?

Narcissus in Modern and Postmodern Art

Echo and Narcissus (1903) by John William Waterhouse

Unlike Echo, who passively sits by and allows Narcissus to close himself off from others, Salmachis forcibly inserts herself into Hermaphroditus' life. Her agency and willfulness is written as "masculine" in Beaumont's poem. At the same time, Hermaphroditus' resistance to love is written as "feminine."

Salmachis on becoming more masculine:
Were thou a maid and I a man, I'll show thee
With what a manly boldness I could woo thee.

Salmachis on Hermaphroditus becoming more feminine:
Why were so bashful, boy? Thou hast no part
Shows thee to be of such a female heart!

Questions:

What assumptions does Salmachis (or Beaumont) make about masculinity and femininity?
What does it matter that Salmachis is already masculine/bold and Hermaphroditus is already feminine/bashful?

[The brook's] pleasant coolness when the boy did feel,
He thrust his foot down lower to the heel.
O'ercome with whose sweet noise he did begin
To strip his soft clothes from his tender skin…

When beauteous Salmacis a while had gazed
Upon his naked corpse, she stood amazed,
And both her sparkling eyes burnt in her face,
Like the bright sun reflected in a glass…

Then rose the water-nymph from where she lay,
As having won the glory of the day,
And her light garments cast from off her skin,
"He's mine," she cried, and so leapt sprightly in.

Questions:

Why does Salmachis believe she has “won the glory of the day”?
Is love a contest or a competition? How so?
If so, who’s winning and how do you know?

If you end up using the marriage emblem in conjunction with Beaumont's poem, then you probably won't have time to include all of the art that I have included in this post. If you jettison the marriage emblems, then it might be useful to ask students to think about if these artists--from across the wide span of Western history--similarly address the question of one person "winning" in a relationship. Some of them seem to idealize the myth so that neither partner is winning, but others seem to maintain Beaumont's insistence that Salmachis is aggressively dominating Hermaphoditus against his will.

If you do keep the emblems (which I recommend) then this would be a good place to show them in order to ask your class to think about if marriage could be understood as a woman "winning" a spouse, particularly one who might otherwise want to remain single, unattached, or promiscuous.

By the way, this logic is alive and well in certain misogynistic corners of the internet. The same anti-feminist website that I referenced in an earlier blog post mentions in its contradictory "community beliefs" page that 1) Past traditions and rituals that evolved alongside humanity [such as marriage] served a net benefit to the family unit, and 2) Men will opt out of monogamy and reproduction if there are no incentives to engage in them. These men argue, like some of the marriage emblems and possibly Beaumont in his poem, that marriage is a trap that women set for men, which ultimately robs men of their agency and power. Female sexuality is, according to this logic, dangerous for the male ego. This leads to my final set of questions about Beaumont's poem.

Yet still the boy, regardless what she said,
Struggled apace to overswim the maid;
Which when the nymph perceived she 'gan to say,
"Struggle thou may'st, but never get away;
So grant, just gods, that never day may see
The separation 'twixt this boy and me!"
The gods did hear her prayer, and feel her woe,
And in one body they began to grow.
She felt his youthful blood in every vein,
And he felt her's warm his cold breast again;
And ever since was woman's love so blest,
That it will draw blood from the strongest breast,
Nor man nor maid now could they be esteem'd,
Neither and either might they well be deem'd
When the young boy, Hermaphroditus, said,
With the set voice of neither man nor maid:
"Swift Mercury, thou author of my life,
And thou my mother, Vulcan's lovely wife;
Let your poor offspring's latest breath be blest
In but obtaining this his last request:
Grant that whoe'er, heated by Phœbus' beams,
Shall come to cool him in these silver streams,
May never more a manly shape retain,
But half a virgin may return again."

Questions:

What is Salmachis’ prayer?
How would you characterize their physical union?
What is Hermaphroditus’ prayer?
What is the difference between "neither" and "either" in the highlighted passage?
What does it matter that Hermphroditus gets the last words?

I think that this passage is particularly useful because it suggests the ways that the figure of the hermaphrodite can help to explain the comedy of As You Like It and the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra. In the passage above, the melding of the two-sexed body into one flesh can be read as though Hermaphroditus (the last remaining speaker) is "neither" man nor woman or "either" man or woman because he is really now both sexes. The idea that he is now both is powerfully depicted in some of the art on this page.

As we saw in the post about Act 5 of As You Like It, Rosalind accretes gender signifiers onto herself. If she is a symbolic hermaphrodite by the end of the play, then this is a source of power for her because it allows her to be both male and female. Comedy allows for this flexibility. As we will see in the upcoming posts about Antony and Cleopatra, Antony's symbolic figuration as a hermaphrodite (especially in Caesar's articulation of his gender) is as "neither" male nor female. Antony's identity is emptied out of meaning, dissolved away completely. Tragedy does not allow him the accretion of gender identity that it allows Rosalind.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, I ask my students to read a critical essay on genre by Joseph Meeker. This is a fabulous essay and one that is worth reading with your students even if your main focus is not on gender. Briefly, Meeker argues that tragedy and comedy have diametrically opposed worldviews, with tragedy as taking a human-centric perspective and comedy as taking an ecology-centric one.

Tragedy

Especially arises from Western Civilization, at key times

Imitates man’s suffering, greatness and nobility

Assumes metaphysical presuppositions: 1) that the universe cares about human life, 2) that there is something bigger than our survival, something worth dying for, 3) that man is essentially superior to the animal world (including his own body) and should dominate his environment, 4) that individual people can show heroism, strength, dignity, and nobility in the face of chaos and destruction.

Ends in death

Comedy

A universal literary genre, found in all cultures at all times

Imitates man’s ignorance, amorality, and adaptability

Does not make tragedy’s metaphysical assumptions, and thus implies the following: 1) that nature is indifferent to—not in opposition to—humanity, 2) that survival is a worthy goal, 3) that mankind is not superior to the animal world (especially his own body) and should change himself rather than change the environment, and 4) that individual needs do not take priority over the group’s survival.

Ends in marriage

[Comedy] and ecology are systems designed to accommodate necessity and to encourage acceptance of it, while tragedy is concerned with avoiding or transcending the necessary in order to accomplish the impossible... [The] tragic heroes preserved in literature are the products of metaphysical presuppositions which most people can no longer honestly share… The philosophical props and settings for genuine tragic experience have disappeared. Moderns can only pretend to tragic heroism, and that pretence is painfully hollow and melodramatic in the absence of the beliefs that tragedy depends on.

From here I brought up the following comments and questions:

As we move away from Twelfth Night and As You Like It toward Antony and Cleopatra, we are moving from comedy to tragedy.
How are Twelfth Night and As You Like It accommodating necessity and encouraging the acceptance of it? How are they “comic” according to this definition? Is this “nature’s bias” at work again—or is it something different?
As we move into Antony and Cleopatra, I want you to think about the “beliefs” that make this play a tragedy? What is the system of belief that is “greater than” Antony’s survival? What is it that is worth dying for?
Does the figure of the hermaphrodite or the iconography of marriage present a comic or a tragic worldview (as Meeker presents them)?

These are fabulous questions to ask your students before moving into Antony and Cleopatra, or really at any point when you start to consider the difference between comedy and tragedy.