Becoming Shakespeare by Jack Lynch

Author:Jack Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

HIPPOLITO: Do not you love her?

Then why should not I do so?

DORINDA: She is my Sister, and therefore I must love her:

But you cannot love both of us.

HIPPOLITO: I warrant you I can:

Oh that you had more Sisters!

These witty exchanges are entertaining and work brilliantly on the stage. But they're also performing a kind of political function, though a less obvious one: they're all about the proper relations between men and women, and in the end they promote a patriarchal vision of the family hierarchy. This will be no surprise to those who know royalist politics, for the king's supporters often likened the king's position at the head of the state to the father's role at the head of the family; one of the most influential works of royalist political theory was Robert Filmer's Patriarcha. Michael Dobson notes that the play's "initial success . . . can certainly be accounted for in part by its successful and ambiguous dramatization of Restoration political conflicts," but he reminds us that it also "owes its lasting appeal to its representation not only of patriarchal monarchy but of the patriarchal family." Halliday, writing in the 1930s, was not attuned to the various kinds of political meanings lurking in the Davenant-Dryden play, and to him it looked like ill-considered meddling with a masterpiece. Against the background of Restoration politics, though, the revised play's success makes much more sense and almost seems inevitable.

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