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Madness is visible in Shakespeare's plays, it takes centre stage. Michel Foucault, in Madness and Civilization, believes such visibility of the mad represents a degree of freedom, that there was no harsh moral judgement inscribed onto madness. A shift in sensibilities, from the Renaissance to the Classical period, is demonstrated best by the latter period's treatment of the mad. Insanity was repressed from sight. What I wish to examine in my study is how Foucault's characterisation of the French Classical era compares with Restoration England. This will focus on the different countries' treatment of 'unreason'.
My consideration of the similarities and differences of Foucault's classical episteme to the Restoration will be highlighted by the ways Shakespeare's plays were produced. That Shakespeare was reinvented in this era is not disputable, but what were the values underlining such reappropriation? I will begin by presenting a brief summery of Foucault's text to demonstrate what he believes characterises the Renaissance and the Classical's cultural consciousness in relation to madness.
Foucault wishes to return to a zero point in the relationship between reason and madness, where free exchange resulted in nondifferentiation between the two categories. He believes the silencing of madness has been a historical event, and that he '[has] not tried to write the history of that language, but rather the archaeology of that silence' . Foucault believes the Renaissance had a freer exchange with madness, closer to the zero point than in other stages of history. What he gives as an image of this age is the Narrenschiff - the ship of fools. Here the mad were exiled from the towns where they lived their vagabond existence, and were committed to a ship. Foucault characterises this exile with reference to mythic values, where themes of rejuvenation and ritual are apparent: 'It is possible that these ships of fools ... were pilgrim boats, highly symbolic cargoes of madmen in search of their reason' . This pilgrimage marks a quasi-religious quest which I believe has significance in relation to the English experience of madness. What is important here is that the exclusion of the madman is not the crucial issue.
Foucault furthers this consideration of the Renaissance's fascination with madness in discussing art. In the art of the period, there is a correlation between madness and knowledge. This also takes on Christian significance, as knowledge is the reason for the Fall. Foucault states, 'This knowledge, so inaccessible, so formidable, the fool, in his innocent idiocy, already possesses' . Madness is the knowledge of the animality of man, and the experience of how far the lapsarian man can fall. Madness, knowledge and Christian ethics form an interesting combination. The tree of knowledge was the mast for the Narrenschiff.
Foucault demonstrates an interest of the presentation of madness in Shakespeare . In the characteristics of the Elizabethan stage, there is a reputed convention of freedom, similar to this freedom of the voice of madness. M. C. Bradbrook in Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy presents this view. He shows how the stage itself was neutral, which gave the virtue of absolute flexibility. The different scenes in a play did not form a precise unit, due to the absence of localisation in the mise-en-scene. The dramatic problematic of the passage of time also was overlooked, discrepancies in a unified time sequence seen as inevitable, the speed of Puck and the double-time structure of Othello being good examples. Overall, Bradbrook writes, 'the precise sequence of events does not matter' . Though I am demonstrating here a belief in a 'freedom' in the early modern period, I do not wish to conform to an idealistic view, as many studies undermine this . Though I will not be interrogating this view in as much depth as the view of the classical period, I will be concluding with remarks that undermine such ideas of Renaissance liberty.
Roy Boyne writes, 'For Foucault, 200 years of silence follow the works of Cervantes and Shakespeare' . These 200 years begin with the classical experience of madness. The ship of fools is replaced by the Hopital General, opening in 1656. Within a short time of its opening, it confined 6000 people, 1% of Paris. This presents, as Barry Smart in Michel Foucault writes, 'the silencing of madness by the emergence of the monologue of reason' . Confinement was the fate of the group of undesirables homogenised under the name of unreason - the poor, the mad and the idle. Foucault considers how madness was represented under Classicism, writing, 'During the classical period, madness was shown, but on the other side of the bars; if present, it was at a distance, under the eyes of a reason that no longer felt any relation to it' . Madness, even if still visible, is objectified and controlled. Whatever may have been its 'truth' is now silenced.
The founding of the Hopital General in 1656 is an arbitrary date for the origin of classicism. It demonstrates merely a manifestation of a latent value system. This date, though, falls remarkably close to the Restoration in England. That English history differs from Foucault's French history is not a remarkable observation. On the 10th of January 1642, Charles I, King of England, was divorced from parliament and moved to the midlands. By the 22nd of August he had mobilised an army at Nottingham. The 23rd of October saw the battle at Edgehill. What is of interest for my study is other political happenings at this time. The Puritans created an edict forbidding theatrical performance on the 2nd of September, on the grounds of its hedonism. On the 22nd of October 1647, the temporary ban became permanent. On the 30th of January 1649, Charles was executed. As Gary Taylor writes, 'The English monarchy and the English theatre fell together' . In May 1660, Charles II landed at Dover, and on the 21st of August 1660, the theatre was restored. All I wish to do in this very brief summery of deep and complex events, is highlight a convergence of the fate of the monarch and the fate of the theatre.
Problems arose quickly. J. R. Jones in "Main trends in Restoration England" states, 'the euphoria of April and May 1660 did not last for long' . There became widespread rumours of absolutism and Catholicism. Despite these fears, there was only two occasions between 1660 and 1681 that Charles II did not call Parliament. Parliament itself, as John Miller in "The Later Stuart Monarchy" comments, 'seemed to go out of [its] way to build up the power of the crown' . Parliament abolished their share in the choice of the king's ministers and their control in the management of the armed forces. In these respects, the power of the king was not disputed. The characteristic frivolity of Charles II was reduced in the problematic times of the 1670s and 80s, leading to the secret treaty at Dover. All these factors produce evidence of the English Restoration as a time of conflict. Because of the lack of a unified zeitgeist, an attempt for a universal theory of the experience of Restoration theatre is problematic.
Charles II was the first monarch to frequent the theatre. This goes a long way to the explanation of the theatre, as Allardyce Nicholl states, as 'this toy of the upper classes' . Nicholl estimates 4/5ths of the audience were courtiers and their courtesans, showing a frivolous audience demanding frivolous entertainment. A key figure of the theatre is its ultramonarchism, and the middle classes were easy targets for lewd jokes.
Nicholl considers the 'elegance' of the restoration theatre necessarily pandering to an aristocratic temperament, and being influenced by neoclassism, placing crucial importance on 'the pseudo-classic grace of France' . These combining influences of France and neoclassism are interpreted in relation to the king. John Dryden, giving a facinating piece of cultural-historical interpretation, believes the new refinement of the age comes from more refined conversation. Why is it more refined? Dryden answers, 'I must freely, and without flattery, ascribe it to the Court: and, in it, particularly to the king' . Dryden believes conversation is more refined because of the exile into France, where Charles experienced the refined classicism of the French court. In this time there also became a wide readership of French dramatic scripts, due to new translations. As Roger Boyle, then Earl of Orrery, states, 'I found his majesty relish'd rather the French fassion of playes than the English' . So, the restoration of Charles II brought with it a new aesthetics, believed to be due to the experience of the exiled king, tending toward a French neoclassical model.
The stage itself was much transformed from the Elizabethan version. Sir William D'Avenant's introduction of scenery fixed the fluidity of the Elizabethan scenes. Scenery, special effects and musical interludes now gained in popularity. As Allardyce Nicholl writes, 'often the poet had to be subordinated to the scene shifter' . But, Nicholl argues, the influence of classicism is not omnideterministic. There is a stage behind the proscenium, but there is also a stage in front of it. Nicholl believes, 'the play houses of 1661-1700 represent a compromise between the Globe of 1600 and the Covent Garden of 1900' . Again, what I am arguing is that there is no singular interpretation of Restoration theatre.
The Restoration represents a reaction against Puritanism and an uneasy transition to the Age of Reason. Many see the merry making of the time inevitable, that after the strict regime of the interregnum, morality was relaxed. Lord Macaulay believes the repression during the commonwealth inevitably led to the violent outbreak of licentious behaviour depicted by the disgraceful and distasteful Restoration stage. Speaking of the character of the 'gallant', Macaulay states, 'It is as essential to his breeding and to his place in society that he should make love to the wives of his neighbours as that he should know French' . The immorality that Macaulay notes, and the remaining links to the Elizabethan stage Nicholl notes, undermine a totalised view of Restoration drama as a simulacra of French neoclassicism.
The ideas of John Dryden are where these conflicts are best felt. As stated above, he suggests the new age of elegance was due to the king's experiences, but is distinctly anti-French in his wish for refinement. He believes the English dramatists of the past represent a spirit that is distinctly nationalistic. He writes, 'in most of the irregular plays of Shakespeare ... there is a more masculine fancy and greater spirit in all the writing, than there is in any of the French' . Dryden speaks against French 'learning' as artificial. (This is not new, consider this from Richard III, the protagonist stating he cannot 'Duck with French nods and apish courtesy' ). Despite this, throughout the passage Dryden seems to be suffering from Freudian kettle logic: the English have better 'regular' plays than the French; the irregular plays show better spirit; the irregular plays need refinement, but not in a French manner. The influence of France is important to my argument, as I am comparing Dryden's era with Foucault's France. The paradox Dryden attempts to overcome is in being pro-refinement but anti-France.
Though Dryden champions Shakespeare for his natural learning rather than his artifice, he concedes the impossibility of certain plots (e.g. The Winters Tale) and is decidedly against linguistic excess, such as 'some bombast speeches of Macbeth, which are not to be understood' . This problem of language is ubiquitous in Restoration criticism. Dryden was a member of the Royal Society, who formed a committee dedicated to improving language to the level of mathematical plainness. In "The Debate Over Science", Michael Hunter states, 'Perhaps most striking in showing the belief of the Restoration period in the potential of intellectual effort radically to reshape human affairs are the schemes of the time for a new and rational "universal" language' . Language was seen as bombastic and metaphor as a great 'trick', a deferral of meaning through a chain of signification. The new rationalism, which informed Dryden's thought, was part of the scientific revolution. This new scientific age had advanced in the classification of plants and animals, improved the telescope and microscope for greater exactitude, and moved toward a more precise form in experiment and observation. The universe itself had changed from a mystic cosmology to Newton's mathematically correct model. With all this refinement, in science as well as aesthetics, language was bound to come under fire. This is where a convergence in Restoration drama seems to lie. We can separate the immorality of some plays from a general call for refinement. This refinement is transmoralist, being, rather, aesthetic in nature. Commentary has been made on the refinement of language in comic drama , reputedly the most immoral of the Restoration's genres. Thus despite criticisms, the drama seems to be engaged in this problem of language. This is where Foucault's study will be most useful.
The new refinement is apparent in Restoration adaptations of Shakespearian plays. As Brian Vickers writes, 'There is no comparable instance of the work of a major artist being altered in such a sweeping fashion in order to conform to the aesthetic demand or expectations of a new age' . In the adaptations, which formed the majority of Shakespearian productions by 1690, the neoclassic aesthetic is apparent. The main changes involved the removal of violations to classical ideas of unified time, place or action, and the reduction of metaphor to a plainer level of communication. Influences also included decorum, no violence or death on stage; social position, no low classed character being fundamental to the plot; genre, the exclusion of all comedy from tragedy, and a belief in poetic justice.
The relation of the Restoration episteme to Foucault's 'classical' age is difficult. But where there are strong correlations are in the adaptations of Shakespearian plays, which pander to a classical taste, especially in relation to unreason: the unreason of language, and the unreason of the mad. I now turn my focus to specific adaptations.
Sir William D'Avenant's Macbeth, as Samuel Pepys writes, 'is ... one of the best plays for a stage, [with a] variety of dancing and musique, that ever I saw' . The dancing and music is an example of the new 'operatic' drama. This is one reason for its considerable success. Another is its conformity to neoclassicism. For example, Macbeth gains a dying speech, 'Farewell vain world, and what's most vain in it, ambition' . The porter, who stated, 'Lechery sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance' , is replaced by a servant who states, 'Labour by day causes rest by night' . Lady Macduff's part is drastically extended, probably allowing the increased viewing of a new female actress, and is characterised as a counterpoint to Lady Macbeth. Banquo's murder is conducted off stage.
There are many slight language changes in D'Avenant's Macbeth for many different reasons, such as ideological change: the bell that for Duncan 'summons thee to heaven or to hell' is changed to, 'That rings my coronation and thy knell' , the fate of the monarch in the afterlife not being questioned. There are simplifying changes: 'Sleek o'er your rugged looks' , becomes, 'Smooth your rough brow' . There is also the reduction of metaphor: 'Unsafe the while, that we must have our honours in these flattening streams' , becomes, 'How unsafe a posture are our honours, that we must have recourse to flattery' . Metaphor proliferates meaning, undermining a singular interpretation. Its reduction it is thus a confinement of unreason. It is the difference between 'thou marvellest at my words' - words being unfixed signifiers, and, 'Though wonder'st at my language' - language being a totalising system.
What I find most interesting is the characterisation of the witches as the personification of unreason. There are some obvious oppositions constructed, such as the witches song of 'We shou'd rejoyce when good kings bleed' , and the othering of the witches in relation to England, the English being those 'whose hopes are built upon their causes, and not on witches prophesies' . Lady Macduff characterises the witches by their 'ill deeds [which] are seldom slow; nor single' . The witches are speed and multiplicity; changeable and unfixed. All of this goes towards the image of the witches as being a force of unreason. By this identification, unreason is subordinated, and thus confined as other. The change from 'Fair is foul' to 'To us fair weather's foul, and foul is fair' , is an attempt to contain imploded oppositions to the forces of unreason. What this does, though, is destroy a metaphoric feature of the 'original' script. In it Macbeth states, 'So fair and foul a day I have not seen' , and that the witches prophecies are 'things that sound so fair' , and yet develop into things that are foul. So Shakespeare's version shows how things can be fair and foul, but this dissolution of binary is not acceptable to D'Avenant's version, and instead the ending monologue totalises the new dualistic structure, as 'a fair day succeeds a stormy night' . Binary opposition is hierarchical, one term being raised above its repressed other. Thus D'Avenant champions reason and attempts to contain unreason, which implies a movement towards confinement and silence.
My consideration of D'Avenant's Macbeth focused mainly on aesthetics and the text. I would like now to consider Nahum Tate's adaptation of King Lear and show how these neoclassic traits are congruous to royalist ideology.
Tate's Lear (1681) is largely a response to the exclusion crisis of 1678-83. Titus Oates exposed the Popish plot in September 1678, concerned with the immediate problem of a catholic succession, in the figure of the Duke of York (latter James II). The bill to exclude the Duke was past in November 1680, which Charles responded to by dissolving parliament. Such conflict stirred fear of the earlier revolutionary years. Tory anti-exclusionist propaganda abounded, of which Tate's Lear fits very well. As Nancy Klein Maguire writes, 'By choosing to adapt a play which depicts war among family members, Tate struck immediately at the horrors of Civil War, and thus of exclusion' . Lear also depicts a King's exile and the danger of a king-in-name-only. The depiction of Edmund, the bastard, is important, as the Whig's called for the Duke of Monmouth as successor - Charles's illegitimate son.
Tate's changes satisfied the new aesthetics. The added Edgar and Cordelia love story gives unity, the love triangle, between Edmund, Regan and Goneril, is made more plausible, the fool is excluded and the play resolves happily. Tate also changes the war with France to a Civil War, of which Maguire states, 'By ending with Civil War not war with France, Tate evokes the mid-century trauma, as well as carefully avoiding offence to the pro-France Charles and James' . Tate's adapted text makes explicit reference to Civil War, such as, 'This change in the state sits uneasie. The commons repine aloud at their female tyrants, already they cry out for the re-installment of their good old king' , and that 'the peasants are all up in mutiny' . Despite such socially disruptive events, all is resolved by the 'blest restoration' of King Lear. Non of the virtuous characters die, and we find 'that truth and vertue shall at last succeed' . Tate's Lear demonstrates how neoclassical aesthetics are not conflictual with Royalist-Toryist propaganda.
How does Tate treat unreason? The first interesting thing is the exclusion of the fool, who was not restored until Macready's 1838 production. Tate himself complained of the 'extravagant nature' of Edgar and Lear's madness, and thus feels justified in refining that and the 'odd and surprising' language. The result is that Edgar's mad ramblings (feigned as they are) are dramatically reduced, and completely erased after his saving of Cordelia from assault and probable rape (a scene added by Tate). The ambiguous state of Lear's mind at the end of the play is cured: 'We have employ'd the utmost pow'r of art, and this deep rest will perfect our design' . The king is restored physically and mentally. In many respects then, we can see Tate's Lear as combining the new aesthetic, royalist ideology and the silencing of madness which Foucault believes is emblematic of Classicism.
Though the adaptations fit very well within Foucault's notion of a classical experience, especially in relation to refinement and confinement, there are still some inconsistencies. In Mind-Forg'd Manacles, Roy Porter argues that England's experience of madness differs from Foucault's thesis dramatically. As Porter writes, 'Foucault was way off the mark' . There was no 'great confinement', at least not in England. In 1660 it was exceptional for the mad to be confined to a madhouse, due to such factors as feudal paternalism, the law of non-conviction to prison of the mad, and the restoration reversing centralised power in England. Porter states, 'The long eighteenth century [Porter is considering 1660-1800] produced little legislation for, or central policing of, madness in England' . Porter believes the idea of a 'system' is hyperbolic. Also, Porter sees the Christian experience of madness as still being influential. Basically, if madness is similar to sin (i.e. wrath is a madness), and in his lapsarian state, all men are sinful, then madness is a shared experience. Porter believes there were still 'certain powerful traditions endowing madness with meaning in common discourse' .
The silence of madness does not explain Lear's presence on the stage. I believe his presence is due to this link of madness and meaning. This coupling of the sovereign and madness is potentially subversive, but the combination of madness and a Christian sense of meaning negates any such potential. Indeed, a large body of Lear criticism focuses on Christian parallels. Ann Thompson states, 'In King Lear the Christian attitudes are implicit rather than explicit' . It is this latent content which many critics sought to make manifest. Paul A. Jorgensen comments, 'Cordelia (a Christ figure) is restoring, or is a symbol of the restoration of Lear's insight' , and Robert Bechtold Heilman discusses the 'three wise men' structure, of Lear, Edgar and the Fool, giving a 'Christian transvaluation of the values of Lear's pagan world' . Both focus on the themes of redemption through suffering. This functions to give meaning to madness. Jorgensen believes King Lear represents a quest for self-knowledge where madness is a process in moving from ignorance to clarity. He argues the tragic hero is always such a thinker in Shakespeare, from Richard III to Hamlet, but Lear is the best example. He writes, 'it is difficult, but possibly more rewarding, to see a Lear reluctantly, erratically, incoherently groping his way toward the truth' .
Heilman likewise projects meaning to Lear's madness. He writes, 'Lear's madness overshadows the play ... because it is at the centre of the meaning of the play' . Heilman believes it unifies the structure of the play. In its recognition of 'essential truth' , the play expresses the 'problem of the world' .
What characterises England's experience of madness, as Porter argues, is the same as Lear's experience of madness, as Jorgensen and Heilman argue: meaning. This is why madness is not excluded from society or the stage. But there is a problem with this view. Jacques Derrida's Cogito and the History of Madness raises some fundamental criticisms of Foucault's study which I will apply to the interpretation of King Lear. Derrida states, 'Madness is what by essence cannot be said' . Derrida argues there never was a zero point of communication between madness and reason because madness is always othered to language. This is necessary for meaning to be communicated. Madness is nonmeaning. Foucault attempts to describe this silence utilising logocentric concepts of meaning: history, archaeology, language, which Derrida argues creates the silencing of madness. Therefore madness has never, nor can ever, be said. Derrida writes, 'When one attempts to convey their silence itself, one has already passed over to the side of the enemy' . If the representation of madness is never a possibility, the combination of madness and meaning never could occur, it would be pure negation. Thus, ascribing meaning to Lear's experience is futile.
These attempts to articulate an essentialism in Lear's madness are of the same conflictual nature as Lear's experiences. I believe this is the conflict of the transcendental signified. The transcendental signified is the ultimate referential, it stops the play of difference. It is the centre of meaning - thus its authority. Derrida, in Structure, Sign and Play writes, 'The centre, which is by definition unique, constituted that very thing within a structure which while governing the structure, escapes structurality' . In its desire for essentialism, the transcendental signified must move above signification. This is because signification consists of difference and deferral, meaning the sign is not present to itself. Self presence is a prerequisite for essentialism, and also legitimises the authority of the transcendental signified. But to be above signification is paradoxical. If the transcendental signified is external from signification, it is alienated from it. It is therefore no governing influence. If the transcendental signified is internal, it is subject to signification, therefore not present to itself - nonessential. As Derrida writes, 'the centre is not the centre' .
Lear's tragic situation derives from his attempt to move from signification whilst attempting to retain authority. He attempts to essentialise himself as a king. Lear states, 'We shall retain the name and all th' addition to a king' . Lear wants the authority of a king present to himself - essentialised. There are many references to this essentialism, such as Kent's belief that Lear has authority in his face, and Lear's belief that his daughters should conform to his every demand, despite how unreasonable. Lear's conflict is due to his dependence on signification. In the first scene he demands Cordelia articulates her love for him as, 'Nothing will come of nothing; speak again' . He demands Cordelia signify her love.
In his attempt to essentialise himself, Lear becomes only 'My lady's Father' . The fool highlights how, now Lear has given away the title king, he cannot signify as the king. The fool states, 'Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav'st thy golden one away' . A golden crown is merely a sign, and attains significance by difference, in relation to what it is not. Yet Lear's authority was always in the crown, not implicit to himself.
Lear cannot transcend this level of play because transcendence is contradictory. What does happen when Lear attempts to externalise himself is he becomes mad. As Derrida says, meaning is only attained in signification, if we attempt to move outside the infinite chains of signification we loose meaning - we are mad. 'I am a fool, thou art nothing' . At the height of his madness, Lear disrobes - clothes being signs. But as he rejects this signifying system, he rejects meaning as reason. Lear states, 'Rules and furred gowns hide all' . Yet they do not hide an essentialist ideal. They hide the impossibility of essentialism. Thus King Lear is similar to Derrida, both seek to demonstrate the truth about madness, not the truth of madness.
The problem of madness is that it cannot signify, it can never be presented. This is a
criticism of all of Foucault's study, including the idealistic view of the Renaissance's 'freedom' of the mad, but also of the school of thought that would impose meaning onto Lear's experiences. The adaptations of the plays I have considered show many similarities to Foucault's model of Classicism. The most interesting similarities concern the attempt to control the unreason of language and madness. But while Restoration England may have treated the mad more liberally, they never were able to truly represent the mad, and what is nonrepresentation if not confinement to silence? The problem of madness continues unresolved.