fraternization in twelfth night

Fraternization in Twelfth

NightEllen MacKayJuly 8th, 2014Twelfth Night 2

RECAPPING THE FINAL ASSIGNMENT:

REQUIRED: • At least two passages from two different early

texts that elucidate the idea under discussion.• Dramatic Passages from Twelfth Night and/or

Romeo and Juliet that elucidate those passages.• A relevant image or a piece of theatrical

evidence (from a prompt book, a designer’s renderings, a production program, etc.), preferably drawn from the collection or EEBO.

• An essay that offers an account of the meaningfulness of your evidence.

• A journal of your work.BONUS:• Make use of the resources that have been

specially identified for you, or that are Featured at the Folger.

• Address other works in Shakespeare’s corpus.• Gather data, chart it.• Track scholarly / reception history.• Discuss Shakespeare on Film, or Shakespeare on

the Web.

True Confession: This research project

develops from a question that hasn’t (yet?) borne fruit:

why does Shakespeare never

use the Latinate term FRATERNITY

in his works? Is there a lost

difference between BROTHERHOOD [6x, + 538x for

BROTHER, + 21x BRETHREN] and FRATERNITY that we fail to catch?

2

THINKING FRATERNALLY ABOUT TWELFTH NIGHT

1. FRATERNAL ABSENCE: Twelfth Night’s two principal characters share the

circumstance of being suddenly made brotherless.

2. FRATERNITY: Twelfth Night is a play in which characters group themselves or

commingle along shared interests, regardless of social difference.

3. FRATERNIZATION: Twelfth Night features characters who are dispatched into enemy territory, and whose loyalties are perhaps

impinged.

Rank Opportunism:The exhibit on Heraldry in the Great Hall offers a useful register in which

to think about this subject of fraternity. I will draw freely from information gathered

there.

3

I. CONSANGUINOUS BROTHERHOOD

4I. CONSANGUINOUS BROTHERHOOD

DUCHESS ofGLOUCESTER: Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?

Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?Edward’s seven sons, whereof thyself art one,Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,Or seven fair branches springing from one root.Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course,Some of those branches by the Destinies cut.But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood,One flourishing branch of his most royal root,Is cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt,Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded,By envy’s hand and murder’s bloody ax.Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,That metal, that self mold that fashioned theeMade him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,Yet art thou slain in him. (RICHARD II, 1.2.9-26)


Brotherhood as a Function of Pedigree.

Here the family tree originates in a literal representative of a shared ancestor. Poorly reproduced from “Heraldry, Shakespeare, and Family History” in the Great Hall.


Huth Psalter, 1280. The Tree of Jesse, Historiated Initial for Psalm 1. British Library. Improvisation with genealogical patterns begins early: “The tree of Christ's ancestors arises from the sleeping Jesse's body, but instead of selected ancestors or scenes of the life of Christ it bears scenes of David--as king, composer, warrior (accompanied by jousting knights)--topped with vignettes of the Virgin and Child and Christ enthroned in heaven.” --from the British Library website.

I. CONSANGUINOUS BROTHERHOOD

7

VIOLA: And what should I do in Illyria?My brother he is in Elysium. (2.1.4-5)

ORSINO But died thy sister of her love, my boy?

VIOLA I am all the daughters of my father’s house,And all the brothers, too—and yet I know not.

(2.4.131-3)

The (lost) Brother as a Depletion or Attenuation of the

Self:

I. CONSANGUINOUS FRATERNITY

8

VALENTINE: So please my lord, I might not be admitted,

But from her handmaid do return this answer:

The element itself, till seven years’ heat,

Shall not behold her face at ample view,

But like a cloistress she will veilèd walk,

And water once a day her chamber round

With eye-offending brine—all this to season

A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh

And lasting in her sad remembrance. (1.1.26-34)

SIR TOBY: What a plague means my niece to take the death

of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to

life. (1.3.1-3)

9

II. BROTHERLINESS, OR ATTACHMENT WITHOUT SHARED PARENTAGE

Yet this loss of brothers vivifies other forms of brotherhood, or leads to new modes of fraternizing:

II. BROTHERLINESS, OR ATTACHMENT WITHOUT SHARED

PARENTAGE


10

• The surprisingly quick and deep bond between Antonio and Sebastian:

ANTONIO If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant. (2.1.34-5)

• The surprisingly quick and deep bond between Orsino and Cesario:

VALENTINE If the Duke continue these favors towards

you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced. He

hath known you but three days, and already you

are no stranger. (1.4.1-4)

For example:


11

We can link these affiliations, borne [arguably] of affliction and compassion, to Shakespeare’s famous

expression of “horizontal comeradeship” in Henry V:

KING HENRY We would not die in that man’s companyThat fears his fellowship to die with us.This day is called the feast of Crispian.He that outlives this day and comes safe homeWill stand o’ tiptoe when this day is namedAnd rouse him at the name of Crispian.He that shall see this day, and live old age,Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighborsAnd say “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

Continued…

This is Benedict Anderson’s phrase from Imagined

Communities, 1983, revised in 1991, the standard scholarly

text with which to begin a discussion of nationhood or

nationalism.

12II. BROTHERLINESS, OR ATTACHMENT WITHOUT SHARED PARENTAGE

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,But he’ll remember with advantagesWhat feats he did that day. Then shall our names,Familiar in his mouth as household words,Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.This story shall the good man teach his son,And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,From this day to the ending of the world,But we in it shall be rememberèd—We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he today that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England now abedShall think themselves accursed they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

(HENRY V, 4.3.41-69)

13


In light of this very famous speech, Brotherhood shifts its definition to mean a quasi-republican value that Shakespeare is

particularly good at eliciting.

(though it’s worth noting this spirit of brotherhood irrespective of parentage is

nevertheless sometimes fratricidal)CAESAR But yet let me lament

With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts

That thou my brother, my competitorIn top of all design, my mate in empire,Friend and companion in the front of war,The arm of mine own body, and the heartWhere mine his thoughts did kindle—that

our starsUnreconciliable should divideOur equalness to this.

(ANTONY & CLEOPATRA, 5.1.49-56)

But it can also be true that honor trumps blood in the imagining of brotherhood:SEBASTIAN: I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman,

But, had it been the brother of my blood,I must have done no less with wit and safety.

(5.1.219-21)

14

J. B. Lecerf, artist, “Morality Inculcated by Example: From Instruction a Nation’s Greatness is Born: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” 1901. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

15

Fraternisation entre l'armée et le peuple sur les barricades. 1848. BNF.


Note that Victor Hugo, whose idealization of

Fraternity on the 1848 barricade in Les Misérables is with us still, is the

French translator of Shakespeare


The Band of Brothers philosophy coheres well with an early modern moment in which aristocratic blood is no longer the only means to secure distinction, either for the individual or for whole communities. The Order of the Garter, instituted in 1348 by Edward III, is a means the monarch can use to elevate a citizen to the status of knight, or “gentle his condition,” regardless of pedigree.

William Segar, Names and arms of the Knights of the Garter [manuscript], 1606. See “Heraldry, Shakespeare, and Family History” in the Great Hall.

17

M. P. d., A briefe description of the triumphant show made by the right honourable Aulgernon Percie, Earle of Northumberland at his installation and intiation into the princely fraternitie of the garter, upon the 13. of May, 1635. To the tune of Quell the pride, &c. London, 1635 [EEBO]

Initially, the vast majority of those elevated by garter are already nobly born


Brooke, Ralph, 1553-1625, compiler. Coats of arms granted by William Dethick as York herald and Garter king of arms, 1570-1595 [manuscript], compiled ca. 1595-ca. 1600.

No fishmongers in Brooke’s peerage,

please:

“The crest is not fitt for so meane ay son. But rather for one that pocesseth the

whole worlde”

But the elevation of civic leaders and other working men is a feature of the early modern period (and one of the

reasons for this term)

19


Shakespeare’s arms also came under attack by Brooke, who felt the family too humble to deserve the distinction.

Ben Jonson, ever the curmudgeon, mocks Shakespeare’s social aspirations by giving a character in his play Everyman Out of His Humor (1599) the motto “not without mustard,” an absurd rendering of the one granted to Shakespeare’s father with his coat of arms, Non Sans Droit, or “not without right.”

A note of some coats and crests lately come to my hands given by William Dethick when he was York... , ca. 1600. Again, see “Heraldry, Shakespeare, and Family History” in the Great Hall.

20


A further expression of Brotherhood untethered to blood claims occurs with the rise to economic and social prominence of guilds and their affiliated trades.

Benjamin Wright’s The armes of all the cheife corporatons [sic] of England wt. the companees of London described by letters for ther seuerall collores is a rich demonstration of the migration of aristocratic heraldry into the sphere of working men. 2 sheets, London 1596.

21

Thomas Middleton,

script of the Mayoral

pageant for Edward

Barkham, member of

the Fraternity of

Drapers, 1621. [EEBO]


Middleton is a contemporary

and collaborator of Shakespeare’s. He is thought to

have written about half of

Timon of Athens. Middleton’s City Comedies feature

high placed tradesmen like

Goldsmiths marrying their

daughters to the aristocracy.

22

John Webster, Monuments of honor Deriued from remarkable antiquity, and celebrated in the honorable city of London, at the sole munificent charge and expences of the right worthy and worshipfull fraternity, of the eminent Merchant-Taylors. Directed in their most affectionate loue, at the confirmation of their right worthy brother Iohn Gore in the high office of His Maiesties liuetenant ouer his royoll [sic] chamber. Expressing in a magnificent tryumph, all the pageants, chariots of glory, temples of honor, besides a specious and goodly sea tryumph, as well particularly to the honor of the city, as generally to the glory of this our kingdome. Invented and written by Iohn Webster Merchant-Taylor. 1624. [EEBO]


John Webster (1580-1634) is another contemporary dramatist to Shakespespeare. His

most famous play, The Duchess of Malfi, is hailed by fellow poets as a masterpiece of the period. That’s a play about a woman of rank

who marries her steward in secret. Things do not go well. Webster was the son of a Merchant

Taylor, and was sent to the guild school, demonstrating one type of benefit that accrued

to members of the guilds or corporations.

23

III. FRATERNITY AS THE AFFILIATION OF JUGGLERS, PRANKSTERS, AND ROGUES

III. FRATERNITY AS THE AFFILIATION OF JUGGLERS, PRANKSTERS, AND

(LOVEABLE) ROGUES

Alpha Delta Phi - The Fraternity house and some of its members at Amherst, ca. 1879. College residence of Henry Clay Folger.

24

III. FRATERNITY AS THE AFFILIATION OF JUGGLERS, PRANKSTERS, AND ROGUES

The terms brotherhood and fraternity are also often used to describe an affiliation

across individuals that grows out of a shared “practice,” in the sense that

Margaret Maurer described yesterday.

OLIVIA: This practice hath most shrewdly passed upon thee. (5.1.374)

The work of a fraternity

The Work of a Fraternity

25

William Heath, Twelfth Night Act 2 Scene 3, early to mid 19th century.

Practicing Fraternity:Sir Toby, Aguecheek and Fabian do not hold their peace.

MALVOLIO: My masters, are you mad? Or what are you?

Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty but to

gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do you

make an ale-house of my lady’s house, that you

squeak out your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? (2.3.87-92)

26

A Health to All Vintners, Beer Brewers, and Ale-Tonners, London, 1642A satirical tract printed on one sheet.

27

Thomas Dekker, O per se O. Or A new cryer of Lanthorne and candle-light Being an addition, or lengthening, of the Bell-mans second night-walke. In which, are discouered those villanies, which the bell-man (because hee went i'th darke) could not see: now laid open to the world. Together with the shooting through the arme, vsed by counterfeit souldiers: the making of the great soare, (commonly called the great cleyme:) the mad-mens markes: their phrase of begging: the articles and oathes giuen to the fraternitie of roagues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggers at their meetings. And last of all, a new canting-song. London, 1612.

Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) is a contemporary to

Shakespeare and a fellow dramatist. He was

commissioned to write the Royal Entry of James I (with Ben Jonson, a bitter rival), but he also wrote a lot of satirical pamphlets and studies of the London

demimonde that you might find engrossing. To get a

richer sense of the authors of works you find in EEBO or

Hamnet, consult the DNB or Dictionary of National Biography—a Hamnet e-

resource.

Note that the Gul’s Horne-booke (1609) includes a satire of fashionable theatregoers

28III. FRATERNITY AS THE AFFILIATION OF JUGGLERS, PRANKSTERS, AND ROGUES

SIR TOBY Does not our lives consist of the fourelements?

ANDREW Faith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.

SIR TOBY Thou ’rt a scholar. Let us therefore eat and

drink. Marian, I say, a stoup of wine! (2.3.9-14)

FRATERNAL ROGUERY (THAT GOES TOO FAR) IN TWELFTH NIGHT:

MARIA: Observe him, for the love of mockery, for I

know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of

him. Close, in the name of jesting! [They hide] Lie

thou there, for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. (2.5.17)

29III. FRATERNITY AS THE AFFILIATION OF JUGGLERS, PRANKSTERS, AND ROGUES

HAL: Sirrah, I am sworn brotherto a leash of drawers, and can call them all by

theirChristian names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. Theytake it already upon their salvation that though I

bebut Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy,and tell me flatly I am no proud jack, like Falstaff,but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy—bythe Lord, so they call me—and when I am king ofEngland, I shall command all the good lads inEastcheap. (HENRY IV PART 1, 2.4.6-15)

FRATERNAL ROGUERY THAT NEARLY GOES TOO FAR IN HENRY IV PART 1

FALSTAFF: Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow

when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me,

practice an answer. (HENRY IV PART 1, 2.4.384-6)

FRATERNAL ROGUERY THAT GOES MUCH TOO FAR IN HENRY V

BOY: Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filching (3.2.46)

PISTOL: A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;

And liquor likewise will I give to thee,And friendship shall combine, and

brotherhood:I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by

me;Is not this just? for I shall sutler beUnto the camp, and profits will accrue.Give me thy hand. (2.1.105-110)

A sutler is the fellow

who follows an army and provisions

the soldiers

Nym is executed with Bardolph for

looting.

30

IV. CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD 31

Anonymous, A pious and seasonable persvvasive to the sonnes of Zion soveraignely usefull for composing their unbrotherly devisions. 1647. EEBO

IV. FRATERNITY AS CHRISTIAN SIBLINGHOOD

32

One of the zealous brethren [anonymous]A sermon preached the last fast day in Leaden-Hall Street, in the house of one Padmore, a cheesmonger, by one of the zealous brethren, being a shoomaker, to the fraternity and holy sisters assembled together in a chamber. London, 1643 EEBO.

This illustration is from a satirical report of a sermon preached by a dissenting sect called the Adamites.

Their name arose from the fact that they did not acknowledge the fall and thus refused

the doctrine of Original Sin. They were notorious for

‘going naked as a sign’ of their innocence.

33IV. FRATERNITY AS CHRISTIAN SIBLINGHOOD

Charles Buchel, H. Beerbohm Tree as Malvolio, late 19th or early 20th c.

MARIA Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan. (2.3.139)

MALVOLIO She sends him on purposethat I may appear stubborn to him,

for she incites me to that in the letter: “Cast thy humble slough,” says she. “Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants” (3.4.72-6)

Puritan uses of “brother” and “sister” are often put to satirical use in drama and popular print.

IV. FRATERNITY AS CHRISTIAN SIBLINGHOOD

34

Purecraft:. O Brother Busy! your help here to edifie and raise us up in a scruple; my Daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural Disease of Women; call'd, A long-ing to eat Pig. (Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, 1614, (1.4.47-51)

From Wenceslas Hollar’s A Pack of Knaves, in the Wenceslas Hollar Digital Collection (University of Toronto).

Accessible through

Hamnet’s e-resources!

An easily navigable site

with great images of

early modern attire.

V. Fraternity vs. Marital Domesticity 35

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:

How Does this Fadge?

Forasmuch as it is the duty of every Christian society to help and relive every willing and labouring brother in the Commonwealth, and specially such as are incorporated, grafted, and knit together in brotherly society, remembering the scripture written he which doth not provide for family and household is worse than an infidel…

“Ordinance for Nourishing and Relieving the Poor Members of the Merchant Taylors Company”, 3rd December, 1571.

36

OLIVIA Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,

Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,

Where manners ne’er were preached! Out of my

sight!—Be not offended, dear Cesario.—

Rudesby, begone! [Toby, Andrew, and Fabian exit.] I prithee, gentle friend,

Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway

In this uncivil and unjust extentAgainst thy peace. Go with me to my

house,And hear thou there how many

fruitless pranksThis ruffian hath botched up, that

thou therebyMayst smile at this. (4.2.48-60)

THE END OF TOBY’S FRATERNITY

SIR TOBY I would we were well ridof this knavery. If he may be

conveniently delivered,I would he were, for I am now so far inoffense with my niece that I cannot

pursue withany safety this sport the upshot. (4.2.70-

4)

V. Fraternity vs. Domesticity 37

FABIAN: Maria writThe letter at Sir Toby’s great importance,In recompense whereof he hath married her.

(5.1.385-7)

TOBY I could marry this wench for this device.ANDREW So could I too.TOBY And ask no other dowry with her but such

another jest. (2.5.186-9)

Retrospectively, we can see the courtship and marital mutuality of the

play’s discourteous couple.

38V. Fraternity vs. Domesticity

Other abrupt ends, beyond the decamped comic couple (to be discussed at some length this week):

THE END OF FRATERNAL AMITY:• Antonio, mute and divided from his rescued friend.• Orsino, deprived of the intimacy with Cesario,

betrayed by Cesario’s seeming fraternization with Olivia.

THE END OF RIOTOUS FRATERNITY:• Andrew, head bloodied, out of ducats, with no dowry to

replenish his expenses.• The jest at Malvolio’s expense is no longer funny.THE END OF CHRISTIAN SIBLINGHOOD AND ITS PARODY:• “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” (5.1.401)


THE SHIFT TO SORORITY

OLIVIA My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,To think me as well a sister as a wife,One day shall crown th’ alliance on ’t, so

please you,Here at my house, and at my proper cost.

(5.1.330-35)

ORSINO O, she that hath a heart of that fine frameTo pay this debt of love but to a brother,How will she love when the rich golden

shaftHath killed the flock of all affections elseThat live in her; when liver, brain, and

heart,These sovereign thrones, are all supplied,

and filledHer sweet perfections with one self king!

(1.1.35-41)

40

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 50123456789

10

Column1Sister

Uses of Brother and Sister in Twelfth Night


Perhaps the play’s several abandoned modes of fraternity/fraternization make possible its resolution, with sisters who make their own matches, and thereby form households made of smaller, more reciprocal affective economies.

Perhaps that’s why the play makes heavier use of the term “recompense” than any other of Shakespeare’s works (5 instances)

42

0

50

100

150

200

MotherFatherWifeHusbandSisterBrother

Familial Terms across Shakespeare

Totals: FATHER: 854 uses, most in H3 Part 3 (72)MOTHER: 345 uses, most in Hamlet (36)HUSBAND: 299 uses, most in Merry Wives (38)WIFE: 482 uses, most in Merry Wives (38)BROTHER: 536 uses, most in Measure for Measure (59)SISTER: 180 uses, most in King Lear (33)

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