Consent in Shakespeare

What Women Do and Don't Say and Do in Shakespeare's Mediterranean Comedies and Origin Stories

Artemis Preeshl

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000441147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

By examining how female characters speak and act during coming of age, engagement, marriage, and intimacy, Consent in Shakespeare will enhance understanding about how and why women spoke, remained silent, or acted as they did in relation to their intimate partners in Early Modern and contemporary private and public situations in and around the Mediterranean.

Consent in intimate relationships is front and center in today's conversations. This book re-examines the verbal and physical interactions of female-identified characters in Early Modern and contemporary cultures in Shakespeare's Mediterranean comedies and the sources from which he derived his plays. This re-examination of the words that women say or do not say, and actions that women do or do not take, in Shakespeare's Mediterranean plays and his probable sources sheds light on how Shakespeare's audiences might have perceived Mediterranean cultural mores and norms. Assessment of source materials for Shakespeare's comedies set in the Balkans, France, Italy, the Near East, North Africa, and Spain suggests how women of diverse backgrounds communicated in everyday life and peak life experiences in the Early Modern era.

Given Shakespeare's impact worldwide, this initiative to shift the conversation about the power of consent of female protagonists and supporting characters in Shakespeare's Mediterranean plays will further transform conversations about consent in class, board and conference rooms, and the international stage.

1 Commodified Kates

Consent, class, and agency on the marriage market

DOI: 10.4324/9781003124511-4

CW: Intimate partner violence; physical, sexual and verbal harassment; sexism

Commodification of Early Modern women impacted agency. Recall in The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio claims his wife Kate as a commodity that he possesses: “She is my goods, my chattels” (3.2.236). In “Household Kates,” Korda notes “Cate” comes from the French “achat” (purchase) (109). In the grand scheme of Early Modern dowry negotiation, beauty and charm were desirable, but not obligatory. A dowry monetized a woman’s value. If a suitor could strike a bargain with a woman’s father, he could marry without her consent. Loss of virginity lowered a woman’s value irreparably. This chapter compares how cisgender female characters in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Ludovico Ariosto’s I Suppositi, and George Gascoigne’s Supposes exercise agency in these Early Modern Mediterranean comedies.

Class affects the commodified marriage market. Compare what Kate, Bianca, and the Widow say and do in relation to their Continental predecessors. Ariosto’s (1524) I Suppositi features Polynesta’s premarital affair with Erastrato. Polynesta falls in love with Ferranese student Erastrato who changes places with his servant Dulipo to tutor and court her. Balia enables her ward’s intimacy with her lover. Psiteria stands up to her employer Damon for knowing about, but not reporting, his daughter’s affair. Having lost her virginity, Polynesta allows men to arrange her marriage to her man of choice. Shakespeare probably found the plot of Ariosto’s I Suppositi through Gascoigne’s translation and adaptation in Supposes. In The Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio swaps identities with his servant Tranio to become Cambio to tutor Bianca. Kate suffers verbal and physical abuse in her forced marriage. After she joins her husband to regain agency in society, Katharina publicly chides Bianca and the wealthy Widow for their disobedience. Class influences speech and actions of Polynesta, Balia, and Psiteria in Italian and English tales and Kate, Bianca, and the Widow in Shakespeare’s Shrew.

To illuminate commodification, consider the words and deeds of women from diverse classes in patriarchal societies in Shakespeare’s Shrew and two of his probable Mediterranean sources, Ariosto’s I Suppositi¹ and Gascoigne’s Supposes. First, the impact of dowry negotiations and marriages in The Taming of the Shrew are assessed. Katharina, Bianca, and the Widow’s actions and reactions demonstrates how, when, and where they could use agency. English marital practices contextualize punishment for violations of social norms. Then, what Polynesta, Balia, and Psiteria say and do are contrasted in Supposes and I Suppositi. Finally, verbal and physical abuse of women from diverse classes, especially Damon’s servant Psiteria, is addressed. These Italianate comedies exemplify the intersectionality of class and gender.

Marriage was big business among the Early Modern well-to-dos. Women were frequently left out of a man’s bid to marry a woman. Baptista devotes 78 of his 174 lines to marrying off his two daughters and 30 lines to negotiating their dowries. Katharina is ignorant of Petruchio’s bargain, which gives his lands and leases to her upon his death. Petruchio admits that Baptista negotiated Kate’s dowry without her: “[Y]our father hath consented / That you shall be my wife; your dowry ’greed on; / And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you” (2.1.284–6). After a stunned 13 lines (nearly a minute) of silence, Katharina calls out her father for marrying her to a seeming mad man. Kate threatens to have Petruchio hanged. Her efforts to escape arranged marriage fuel bawdy double entendres. In many productions, Petruchio is blocked to restrain and even gag Kate to prevent her from contextualizing shrewish remarks. Her distress incites Baptista to belatedly add love to the stipulated dowry agreement. Regardless, Baptista joins their hands and Kate becomes a silenced bride-to-be. With Kate dispatched, Bianca’s dowry takes centerstage.

In Supposes and I Suppositi, hearing and overhearing what is rumored or heard, influences interpretations, understandings, and misunderstandings. Ross affirms that Ariosto’s prose and verse versions of I Suppositi informed Bianca’s plotline in Shakespeare’s Shrew (336). Indeed, Cunliffe confirms that Gascoigne’s Supposes departed little from Ariosto’s I Suppositi: “Shakespeare in his redaction of the play turned to Gascoigne for motives and incidents which Ariosto had invented or made current on the modern stage” (7–8) Gascoigne’s light, brisk prose cherrypicked from prose and verse versions of Suppositi to portray characters based on Ariosto’s plot, but he misinterpreted meanings of “I Suppositi” as “substitutions” or “disguises” in his title, “The Supposes” (7). Seronsy defines “supposes” as “supposition,” “expectation,” “believe,” “imagine,” “guess,” and “assume” (16). Further, Ross states, “Ariosto’s use of prose for his comedic, bourgeois characters lies behind Shakespeare’s well-known use of prose as a vehicle for subaltern characters” (338). Whereas Shakespeare’s lower-class characters often speak in prose, Kate speaks most of her lines in verse. Finally, Seronsy documents Kuhl’s assertion, “Shakespeare has rendered Petruchio and Katharina into far more sympathetic characters” (15). Gascoigne anglicization of Ariosto’s tale influenced Katharina’s loss and reclamation of agency.

The speech and action of cisgender female characters differ in Ariosto’s I Suppositi, Gascoigne’s Supposes, and Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, but many plot points overlap. As in I Suppositi, Damon negotiated Polynesta’s dowry with the elderly Cleander without her consent. Before The Supposes even begins, Polynesta was having an affair with her tutor. To complicate matters, Erastrato exchanges places with his servant Dulipo to sleep with Polynesta, which even fooled her nursemaid Balia for two years! Having facilitated this tryst, her nursemaid recommends that she marry her senior fiancé Cleander and continue her affair with Erastrato. After their first scene, Polynesta and Balia keep their own counsel. Damon interrogates his servant Psiteria to uncover when she learned about Polynesta’s affair with her tutor. Over her three scenes, this senior servant endures verbal abuse for withholding information. Fortunately, Cleander’s recognition of his long-lost son Dulipo frees Polynesta from her arranged marriage. Instead of self-advocacy, the silent bride allows others to disentangle her affairs to achieve her heart’s desire: Erastrato. Compare words and actions in I Suppositi and Supposes.

I Supposes and I Suppositi

In Balia and Polynesta’s only scene in Supposes, the nurse warns her ward that Damon and other men may overhear their conversation inside. In an outdoor tête-à-tête, Polynesta pretends that she talked, but had no intimacy with, Dulipo (aka Erastrato). Her retort targets critics: “[M]arie God’s blessing on their heart that sette suche a brouche on my cappe” (188). Balia questions her affair with her father’s “poore servaunt” whose dowry brings “shame and infamie” (188). When Polynesta accuses Balia of lobbying her to accept Dulipo’s “personage…curtesie…[and] passions of his minde,” the nursemaid confesses her pity for his sighs and “unbridled affection” (188–9). Balia accepts responsibility for accepting bribes to bring Dulipo to her ward’s bed, regrets depriving her of a wealthy husband, and predicts discovery of her affair. Polynesta justifies her action by hinting at Erastrato’s nobility. When Cleander, Polynesta’s betrothed, comes, Balia protects her ward by sending her inside.

In Ariosto’s verse play, Balia holds Polynesta accountable for the consequences of her affair: “‘procedere così inanzi’ (‘to have done what you did’)” (Ross 339). Polynesta implies that Dulipo is a noble, rich, Sicilian law student in Ferrara. Complicity between Balia and her ward suggests how Ariosto’s “pact between two women crosses age and class boundaries” to overcome obstacles in the wedding market (Costola 197).² Ross notes, “Gascoigne seems to add the idea that Polynesta is pregnant…imported the idea from a Latin source, for young ladies are regularly in trouble in the plays of Plautus and Terence” (339). In Supposes, Balia warns: “But be you sure if I had thought you would have passed to the termes you nowe stand in, pitie nor pencion…shoulde ever have made Nurse once to open hir mouth in the cause” (Ross 339) [Italics mine]. In Gascoigne’s prose adaptation of Ariosto’s verse play, Balia implies that her ward “suffers the consequences now” of pregnancy (Ross 339). Polynesta and her nursemaid deceive her father to marry the man she loves, Polynesta’s pregnancy in Supposes adds urgency to her marriage.

Men deem Polynesta marriage-worthy due to her youth, beauty, and virginity. Despite her loss of maidenhood, Polynesta exhibits what Potter called virginal signs:

• facial color (rosy cheeks for ripeness, pale face for an unhealthy absence of heat, yellow for sexual frustration)
• plump (full, fertile, and healthy) or thin (barren)
• body, posture, and gait (coy and modest or assertive)
• breathlessness (a symptom of green sickness) and
• temperaments such as melancholy, anger, peevishness, or tearfulness. (7)

In Supposes, Pasaphilo believes in the virginity of Polynesta who appears as a “very maidenly…holy yong woman” and “yong damsell with the grace of God” (215, 193). Like Dottore of commedia dell’arte, the senior lawyer Cleander is fooled by his devious betrothed, calling her “a gentlewoman of a noble mind” (192). Signifiers of wealth, youth, and beauty probably led Damon, Cleander, and Pasaphilo to misinterpret physical signs of virginity in Polynesta. Rumors and appearances inspire suitors to invest in Early Modern fiancées.

Men often target women who lack resources or male protection. Damon overhears Psiteria accusing Balia of bringing Dulipo to her ward’s bed. Loss of virginity to her tutor robs Damon of his most precious commodity in dowry negotiations. Ironically, Dulipo would prefer to continue to his extramarital affair with this “peerlesse Paragone [and] gentle & gallant daughter” (204). Instead of confronting the careless nursemaid, the aggrieved Damon redirects his fury about his daughter’s affair to the “old scabbed queane” (214). Pasaphilo overhears Damon confront Psiteria in the stable and curses her: “Go that the gunne pouder consume thee olde trotte” (216). As the senior servant buys cloth for her master, this parasite accuses her of endangering Balia and Dulipo’s lives by divulging the affair. Psiteria counters that she guarded Polynesta’s secret until Balia denigrated her as “a drunken olde whore” and “baude” (216). Psiteria’s dependency on Damon inhibits her from uptalking to her employer and the parasite. Accordingly, this lower-class servant speaks her most candid lines to Crapyno. Erastrato’s servant switches tactics on Psiteria. First, he insults her: “Honest woman, you gossip, thou rotten whore…olde witche”; and then, he compliments her as a “gentle girle” (217). When Psiteria refuses to disturb the lovers, Crapyno wants to punish the “crooked Crone” with the pox, a flesh-eating canker, or burning (218). Psiteria defends herself by threatening physical violence. After Erostrato calls off his servant, Psiteria bawdily jokes about “hang[ing]” his neck, and manhood. The old gossip deflects insults through compliance, threats, and jokes.

Forced to confess what she knew to Damon, Psiteria listens more than she speaks to her boss. Damon reviles her as an “olde kallat [and] fatling huswife” for revealing Polynesta’s affair to Pasaphilo (237). When the old gossip denies exposing his daughter’s tryst, her master accuses the “old drabbe” of lying (237). Psiteria asserts that when she was seeking “a webbe of clothe” from the weavers for Damon, Pasaphilo overhears their confrontation in the stable (237). The irate paterfamilias interrupts her reasonable explanation with an ad hominem attack, threatening to cut out her tongue and calling her “olde whore” (237). Seronsy denounces Damon’s defamation of Psiteria as an “old hag” (16). After all, Damon denies accountability for his daughter’s safety and Balia’s coordination of her ward’s affair. After Cleander recognizes his long-lost son Dulipo, the suitor quits his claim on Polynesta. Erastrato asks his father Philogano for a dowry. Without speaking to men, Polynesta manipulates others to marry her beloved.

To her boss Damon’s chagrin, Psiteria speaks her mind despite her poverty and lower class. In her mere 20 lines, Psiteria tries to evade blame. In Ariosto’s I Suppositi. the men insult the old gossip to her face and behind her back. Yet, verbal abuse fails to alter her pity and caring for other women:

Charlton finds - for words like pity and sympathy from a creature like her are unexpected…not for herself but for the nurse and young Erastrato:

I am sorry about that miserable girl who weeps and is torn to pieces of him and have great compassion seeing her; not because of the threat, or rather the painful old man who wept with her, of the nurse, and more…Dulipo, and what hurt them.³

Thompson asks if Psiteria’s remarks constitute

a step away from the hardness of the Latin comedy?…if it is acted so, with Psiteria enunciating her lines with a tone of sympathy rather than with malice as she tells of the discomfiture of her old enemy the nurse (43)

In a production, the director and performer who plays Psiteria inform her bitter or sympathetic characterization.

Notably, Gascoigne makes an unmistakable change in Supposes. Psiteria expresses compassion toward Damon and Polynesta, but blames her lover:

it pitieth me to see the poore yong woman how she weepes, wailes, and teares hir heare: not esteming hir owne life halfe so deare as she doth poore Dulipo: and hir father, he weepes on the other side, that it would pearce an hart of stone with pitie (216)

Further, Gascoigne treats Psiteria kindlier than Ariosto in Damon’s interrogation. Whereas Damon calls Balia “careless creature” in Supposes, in Ariosto’s play, Damon disparages Psiteria as “questa puttana vecchia” [this old prostitute or bawd] (Thompson 44). Yet, in Supposes, Damon combines the nursemaid Balia with the old gossip Psiteria as “peevishe, or pitifull…olde women…either easily enclined to evill, or quickly corrupted with bribes and rewards” (213). This conflation of the senior female servant Balia (wet nurse) with Psiteria as la ruffiana (old gossip or bawd) harkens back to sixteenth-century commedia dell’arte, which merged these characterizations of senior female characters. Balia leads Erastrato to her ward’s bed in exchange for bribes,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Consent, context, and consequences
• 1. Commodified Kates: Consent, class, and agency on the marriage market
• 2. Triangulating The Two Gentlemen: Maids empower gender expression in love
• 3. The merchants of love: White privilege shades justice
• 4. Much ado about maidens: Women restore women to society
• 5. Trussed night: Expressing gender preferred, but not required, in agency
• 6. Is all well on love's pilgrimage? Boundary crossings between the sheets
• 7. Measuring consent: The consequences of “yes,” “no,” and “no, but…”
• 8. Women around Othello: Status and the race card in intimate partner violence
• 9. Tempestuous powers: Gendered relations breed agency in an unceded land
• Conclusion
• Index