{"id":411,"date":"2018-04-30T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T09:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-performancecultures\/?p=411"},"modified":"2018-06-22T18:35:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T17:35:26","slug":"pre-modern-pronouns-in-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/performancecultures\/2018\/04\/30\/pre-modern-pronouns-in-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Modern Pronouns in Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post offers a collection of thoughts on pronouns and the insight they offer into the performance of early modern texts. Some of it is based on a session I organized for Kent\u2019s student-led early modern seminar group, looking at pronoun switching in a selection of plays (Shakespeare\u2019s The Taming of the Shrew<\/em> and Much Ado About Nothing<\/em>, and Thomas Middleton\u2019s The Lady\u2019s Tragedy<\/em>). I also presented a longer version of some of this work, on The Lady\u2019s Tragedy<\/em>, at the recent\u00a0postgraduate conference, Making Connections<\/em>, hosted by the London Shakespeare Centre and Shakespeare\u2019s Globe Theatre.<\/p>\n

Pronominal address is far from a new area of research in the field of early modern drama, though it tends to focus mostly on second-person pronouns (\u201cthee,\u201d \u201cthou,\u201d and \u201cyou\u201d) in Shakespeare\u2019s plays. It\u2019s definitely helpful to start there, since two of the three pronouns I\u2019ve listed are ones that aren\u2019t really in our working vocabulary any more. We modern English speakers have largely forgotten the distinction in meaning between \u201cthou\u201d and \u201cyou,\u201d where they used to represent (in medieval English) the informal and formal usages of second-person singular pronouns, respectively. \u201cYou\u201d was taken from the Old French \u201cvous\u201d as the polite or formal singular form, as well as the regular plural. Scholars tend to agree that \u201cthou\u201d then fell out of use in English in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. As an Oxford Dictionaries Blog entry puts it, in using \u201cyou\u201d as our only second-person pronoun, we English speakers are just being unendingly polite and formal all the time.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

One of the points we discussed during my seminar session was that the old meaning seems to have reversed \u2014 my own familiarity with \u201cthee\u201d and \u201cthou\u201d as a child came from church liturgy and prayers, where it sounded like a very fancy term that you only use in certain special (or holy) circumstances. However we also all agreed that we don\u2019t find \u201cthou\u201d intrusive or distracting when listening to or reading early modern texts, and usually just end up substituting \u201cyou\u201d in our heads. We know what it should mean and mentally \u201ctranslate\u201d it for ourselves. But in doing this, we lose out on a whole range of extra meaning that\u2019s packed into those pronouns, which can (and should!) be accessed to add greater depth to our understanding of scenes and speeches.<\/p>\n

Using \u201cyou\u201d or \u201cthou\u201d can indicate different vertical and horizontal social relationships, between inferiors and superiors, or between peers; they can show a range of emotions and attitudes (like contempt, derision, condescension, affection, and intimacy). As Sylvia Adamson outlines in her chapter on Understanding Shakespeare\u2019s Grammar: studies in small words<\/em>, when characters switch between \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cthou\u201d (in either direction), it can give us an insight into shifts in mood and guide our navigation of the emotional beats of a scene, which is helpful for both readers and actors.2<\/sup><\/a> In The Taming of the Shrew<\/em>, for instance, Petruchio switches from \u201cyou \/ your\u201d to \u201cthy \/ thee\u201d as he introduces himself to Katharina:<\/p>\n

PETRUCHIO
\nYou lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,
\nAnd bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
\nBut Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
\nKate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
\nFor dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
\nTake this of me, Kate of my consolation;
\nHearing thy mildness praised in every town,
\nThy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
\nYet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
\nMyself am moved to woo thee for my wife. (2.1.185-194)3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

He continues to switch back and forth between \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cthou\u201d forms throughout the scene, moving to \u201cthee\u201d when he promises not to burden her and then back to \u201cyou\u201d when she strikes him.<\/p>\n

Katharina, on the other hand, uses a \u201cthou\u201d form only twice in this scene, and both come when she reaches an emotional turning point. This is not, however, the only way to read this shift. According to Adamson, \u201cyou\u201d was the appropriate form for a wife to use for her husband, or, more generally, for use by a woman to a man. This makes Kate\u2019s shifts even more noticeable in performance. The first, \u201cGo, fool, and whom thou keep\u2019s command\u201d (2.1.261), is dismissive, but not nearly as vehement as some of the insults she has previously used for Petruchio. She shifts back to \u201cyou\u201d for her next three lines to him. The second \u201cthou \/ thee\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ll see thee hang\u2019d on Sunday first\u201d (2.1.304), comes after a wedding has been hastily arranged despite her protestations. Memories of performances have probably colored my reading of this line, as I\u2019ve seen this played as shock, loathing, and scorn\u2026 all of which could warrant a condescending \u201cthou.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we turn to non-Shakespearean drama, pronoun use is much less thoroughly explored. Since my research is primarily devoted to other early modern playwrights, I wanted to spend some time in my seminar session on Thomas Middleton, in part to see if similar shifts in use were happening across a spectrum of playwrights and genres (as well as across decades, since the dates of Middleton\u2019s career do not match Shakespeare\u2019s). My own analysis of The Lady’s Tragedy<\/em>\u00a0had turned up some pronoun shifts that I found slightly weird at first and I was curious to see if the other early modern research students at Kent came to similar conclusions as I had.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of second-person pronoun shifts in the play, and most of them are in the same vein as the Shakespearean pronoun shifts, like the extract above. The eponymous Lady and her betrothed, Govianus, move between \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cthou\u201d forms in a manner which seems both familiar and normal, guiding readers and actors through the emotions written into the verse. Here\u2019s one example I brought to the seminar, where Govianus and the Lady argue over how best to protect her from the Tyrant\u2019s attempt to bring her to court by force:<\/p>\n

LADY
\nSir, you do nothing; there’s no valour in you.
\nY’are the worst friend to a lady in affliction
\nThat ever love made his companion.
\nFor honour’s sake, dispatch me! Thy own thoughts
\nShould stir thee to this act more than my weakness.
\nThe sufferer should not do’t. I speak thy part,
\nDull and forgetful man, and all to help thee! (3.1.88-94)4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

One of the things we discussed after reading this passage aloud was the idea of adopting a persona of authority and control. There\u2019s so much at stake for the Lady at this point in the plot, a sense of desperation permeates the scene, but in order to preserve her chastity she assumes what we in the seminar called \u201ca Lady Macbeth attitude\u201d where she tells her husband to get on with it. As we read more of the scene aloud, it was easy to imagine aspects of the staging (particular movements, words that might be emphasized, closing or increasing physical space between bodies) simply by focusing more closely on the pronouns. Even without actors in front of us, without putting the scene on its feet any more than by reading it from our seats around a seminar table, we were able to visualize ways in which the scene could take shape within a stage space. More on this later.<\/p>\n

But the second-person shifts weren\u2019t my main focus in sharing scenes and speeches from The Lady\u2019s Tragedy.<\/em> As I studied the play, I found myself most drawn to the third-person pronoun shifts which increase in frequency during the second half of the dramatic action. This was the subject of my conference paper at the London Shakespeare Centre\u2019s postgraduate conference this past February. The two main male characters differ in how they refer to the Lady after her death. While the Tyrant continues to use feminine pronouns and increases his use of possessive pronouns (calling the Lady \u201cher\u201d and \u201cmine\u201d), Govianus\u2019s rhetoric begins to fluctuate. When thinking about and speaking to the Lady\u2019s ghost, he continues to use some third-person feminine pronouns, but he also makes a distinction between the living body and the lifeless corpse by using the third-person neutral pronoun \u201cit\u201d to refer to the body. I posited that the change in pronoun use by the two men signals a moral and spiritual division between them, and makes it clear which character the audience should identify with and root for in the revenge plot. I analyzed a few different speeches that illustrate this pronoun-shift, but I\u2019d like to focus briefly on a passage that we looked at in the seminar session, but didn\u2019t make it into the final conference version of my paper. This eight-line section at the end of Act 5, scene 1 features the third-person neutral pronoun, as Giovanni speaks of seeing the Lady\u2019s ghost again, urging him to take action:<\/p>\n

GOVIANUS
\nThe body of my love is still at court.
\nI am not well to think on\u2019t. The poor spirit
\nWas with me once again about it, troth,
\nAnd I can put it off no more for shame,
\nThough I desire to have it haunt me still
\nAnd never to give over, \u2019tis so pleasing.
\nI must to court. I\u2019ve plighted my faith to\u2019t.
\n\u2019T\u2019as opened me the way to the revenge. (5.1.177-184)<\/p>\n

This was where it was useful to have outside opinions. The other research students highlighted the fact that while the pronouns in this passage technically stay the same, the subject differs. These are not all the same \u201cit.\u201d \u201cIt\u201d refers to both the act of revenge and \u201cthe body of my love\u201d (5.1.177). This was something I hadn\u2019t noticed at first. I initially focused on the fact that this was another instance of Govianus using \u201cit\u201d to refer to the Lady\u2019s body, and left it at that.\u00a0After all these discussions, I\u2019m interested in the idea of playing with staging by using the pronouns as they appear in the text. During my seminar session, we talked about the ways in which specific pronouns create linguistic space between characters, for instance with Benedick\u2019s switch from \u201cthee\u201d back to \u201cyou\u201d after Beatrice seemingly rebuffs his declaration of love. One of the scenes Dr Emma Whipday workshopped at the LSC conference,5<\/sup><\/a> from Measure for Measure<\/em>, also spent some time on \u201cthee\u201d to \u201cyou\u201d shifts, and how they can be reflected in the physical space between the actors\u2019 bodies. This connection between the verbal and physical is one I\u2019m drawn to in my own research, and I\u2019m now wondering if the connection between \u201cthee \/ you\u201d and physical space also extends to the third-person pronoun work I\u2019m trying to do in The Lady\u2019s Tragedy, where characters move between \u201cshe\u201d and \u201cit.\u201d I\u2019m not sure yet if variation in the gendering of pronouns works in quite the same as the formal to informal variations of \u201cthee\u201d and \u201cyou,\u201d but I\u2019d love to play around with a few scenes and find out.<\/p>\n

One final, unexpected discovery: I found that my own use of pronouns, especially in written form, tends to go unnoticed. As I noticed on a read-through of my written work, and was also pointed out during the Q&A session of my conference panel, my pronouns are just as unstable and changeable as Govianus\u2019s. While he moves between calling the Lady\u2019s body and ghost \u201cshe\u201d and \u201cit,\u201d I too struggle with how to refer to her. This is, I think, because of her shifting status as actor and prop, moving and moved around the stage space, or because I automatically accepted the spiritual divide between body and soul. Reading through my conference paper after the fact, I realized that in an effort to distinguish between the Lady\u2019s body and the Lady\u2019s ghostly soul, I have used distinct pronouns when referring to each. Each time I spoke about \u201cthe Lady\u2019s ghost\u201d I used the third-person feminine pronoun \u201cshe,\u201d but when I talked about \u201cthe dead body\u201d I used the third-person neutral pronoun \u201cit,\u201d which makes me think I\u2019ve somehow unconsciously internalized the the idea of the Lady\u2019s corpse as object.<\/p>\n

Beyond the issue of materiality and what you do with dead bodies on stage, I am fascinated by the way in which Middleton\u2019s convention of naming characters by type, rather than giving them a personal name (e.g., \u201cThe Lady,\u201d \u201cThe Tyrant,\u201d as a way of clueing the audience into who we should identify with and root for or against), works within the grammar and rhetoric of the play. This is, I think, what happened to me. We aren\u2019t supposed to like the Tyrant, or condone his actions, so, grammatically, I didn\u2019t. I followed Govianus\u2019s lead and rhetorically aligned myself with the \u201cgood guy.\u201d This means that beyond just making a moral judgement of the characters\u2019 behavior, readers and spectators have the potential to begin to track with and imitate the linguistic \u201crules\u201d of the play. This impact on the audience is something I\u2019ve not thought about in my academic work before, probably because I approach these texts primarily as a reader. One of the things I\u2019m most looking forward to in my continued work with Cultures of Performance is reframing my analysis of dramatic works, with a sharper eye on performance and its effects.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

End Notes:<\/p>\n

[1] See Oxford Dictionaries Blog,\u00a0What’s wrong with you? The history of a pronoun<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(2017).<\/p>\n

[2] Sylvia Adamson, \u201cUnderstanding Shakespeare\u2019s grammar: studies in small words\u201d, Reading Shakespeare\u2019s Dramatic Language: A Guide<\/em>, ed. by Sylvia Adamson, Lynette Hunter, Lynne Magnusson, Ann Thompson and Katie Wales (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2001), 210 – 236 (p. 230).<\/p>\n

[3] William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew<\/em>, ed. by Barbara Hodgdon (London: Arden Bloomsbury, 2010).<\/p>\n

[4] Thomas Middleton, The Lady\u2019s Tragedy<\/em>, ed. by Julia Briggs, in Thomas Middleton: The Collected Words<\/em>, gen. eds. Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007).<\/p>\n

[5] More information on Dr Whipday’s workshop,\u00a0Sibling Connections: Brother-Sister Relationships on the Early Modern Stage and Page<\/a><\/em>, including the abstract, is available in the Making Connections<\/em> programme<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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