The Relationship of "Tongue" to "Hand" in Shakespeare's Five Roman Plays: Tracing the Author's Evolving Views on Human Nature  

Oleh:

Dunn, Ann

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: International Journal of Arts and Sciences vol. 06 no. 02 (2013), page 47-60.
Topik: Shakespeare; Roman plays; Human nature; Tongue; Hand
Fulltext: 06_02_05_Dunn.pdf (343.55KB)

Isi artikel

Shakespeare’s five Roman plays span his writing career from beginning (inside date 1588) to end (outside date 1612), and are thus useful to look at when contemplating the evolution of his thoughts on humanity. I will argue that Shakespeare moves, in over twenty years of translating his own interior voice to the exterior action of the stage, from the simple, straight-forward form of Revenge Tragedy, through stages, to the complex form of Tragi-Comedy – from a clear, grim, narrow world view in which humans are cut adrift and on their own, to an ambivalent world view that sees human speech and action in a larger, cosmic context. My focus will be to examine the changing relationship of “tongue” to “hand” in the plays, in chronological order. The tongue is presented variously as the organ of reason (the mind), of passion (the heart, of prayer, of cursing, of persuasion (for good or ill), and of narrative creation. The tongue is sometimes a tongue, sometimes a sword, sometimes a phallus, sometimes a wordless sound, sometimes a pen. The tongue comes from the interior world of character and desire. The hand is the agent of deed and will, often enacted in the external, public world of revenge, of policy, of war, even of love. So, let us let Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline speak.

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