I don't get it
Why couldn't viola and will just be together? Whats the problem? She could've gotten out of marrying wessex why didnt she?
shareShe couldn't. Once the Queen had sanctioned the marriage they were as good as married. And once she realised what was going on, they were actually married.
shareShe couldn't. Once the Queen had sanctioned the marriage they were as good as married.
If I was her, I would be miles away before the wedding day came. It would only have served her parents right, since they hadn't even discussed the marriage with her, and she hadn't promissed anything to Lord Wessex.
Intelligence and purity. share
Viola speaks of herself as a dutiful daughter. Unfortunately, many contemporary women do not hold that as a virtue, a sign of respect for their fathers.
Had she run, she could have been pursued by the Queen's men on behalf of her husband because of the queen's sanction. If not harmed by the pursuit, she could have been returned to her husband, but her flight would be known, and the shame would heap upon not only herself, but her children and grandchildren.
One did not challenge the will of the queen and hope to have a happy future.
Viola speaks of herself as a dutiful daughter. Unfortunately, many contemporary women do not hold that as a virtue, a sign of respect for their fathers.
Well, I don't see any virtue in being a "dutiful daughter", if that means getting married to one man, while you love another.
Had she run, she could have been pursued by the Queen's men on behalf of her husband because of the queen's sanction. If not harmed by the pursuit, she could have been returned to her husband, but her flight would be known, and the shame would heap upon not only herself, but her children and grandchildren.
One did not challenge the will of the queen and hope to have a happy future.
But that still is what (I hope) I would have done, before going through the wedding ceremony with another man. I know it was a different time and age, as I've also said earlier in this thread, but still...
Intelligence and purity. share
Well, I don't see any virtue in being a "dutiful daughter", if that means getting married to one man, while you love another.
But the Elizabethans did. Since this is about Shakespeare, try reading the first scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Hermia's father comes to Duke Theseus with a complaint against his daughter, who refuses to marry Demetrius who he has chosen as a husband for her, and against Lysander, the stranger who has captured her affection:
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchanged love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stolen the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth:
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke,
Be it so she; will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax
By him imprinted and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
So is Lysander.
THESEUS
In himself he is;
But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
Theseus in this play is a bridegroom himself; all the play is set around his happy wedding to Hippolyta. His attitude is not supposed to be cruel or unjust, but to be exactly what a rational man would say who supports the necessary structures of Morality and Civilisation As We Know Them. It's taken for granted that unless Hermia's father is blatantly mad or wicked and as a result has picked somebody utterly inappropriate, or has been totally misled as to the character of this person, it's Hermia's duty to make herself like and accept his choice.
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But the Elizabethans did. Since this is about Shakespeare, try reading the first scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Hermia's father comes to Duke Theseus with a complaint against his daughter, who refuses to marry Demetrius who he has chosen as a husband for her, and against Lysander, the stranger who has captured her affection:
[...]
Theseus in this play is a bridegroom himself; all the play is set around his happy wedding to Hippolyta. His attitude is not supposed to be cruel or unjust, but to be exactly what a rational man would say who supports the necessary structures of Morality and Civilisation As We Know Them. It's taken for granted that unless Hermia's father is blatantly mad or wicked and as a result has picked somebody utterly inappropriate, or has been totally misled as to the character of this person, it's Hermia's duty to make herself like and accept his choice.
But you have missed two important points:
1: The play is not set in Elizabethan London, but in ancient Athens. So I don't get how you can necessarily see it as a sign of what Elizabethans thought and felt (even if they too expected obedience from their children).
2: The play ends with Hermia getting married to Lysander, in spite of what her father had wanted. So there is no way that we're supposed to side with her father or with Theseus and see them as "just".
So I say your point is moot. And also, that part of the play just disgusts me. A father is prepared to have his daughter executed rather than let her marry her beloved. And the king seems to be only happy to go along with this cruelty (but he turns out to at least be willing to give her a second option: becoming a nun). Even if that is historically correct for life in ancient Athens, that is just nauseating. Hermia was only lucky to be in a comedy rather than a tragedy, so things could work out well for her in the end.
Intelligence and purity. share
The play is not set in Elizabethan London, but in ancient Athens.
Not really. It's called Athens, just as other plays are set in places called Syracuse, Bohemia, Scotland, Rome, Egypt - but the countryside is always Warwickshire, and the city is always London. share
I haven't missed anything.
The play is not set in Elizabethan London, but in ancient Athens.
All the characters in Shakespeare's plays are essentially Elizabethan/Jacobean people, with the manners and values of his own time (and the clothes and the furniture, too - striking clocks and doublets in Julius Caesar, dollars in Macbeth, billiards in Antony and Cleopatra). Settings such as 'Athens', 'Messina' and 'Illyria' were just dramatic conveniences to avoid any danger of seeming to slander real people or the government, and to help audiences swallow heightened drama or unlikely coincidences. In The Dream, Egeus and Theseus are voicing the accepted contemporary attitude to the extent of paternal authority to arrange their children's marriages, which is consistent both with all the rest of his work (e.g. Old Capulet's reaction when Juliet refuses to marry the man chosen for her) and with everything social historians know about English society at the time. Tudor parents hadn't the right to kill a daughter if she refused an arranged marriage, but they certainly had, and sometimes exercised, the legal right to lock her up and beat her daily till she agreed. Shakespeare just chose to crank up the dramatic stakes by giving his imaginary 'Athens' an even more drastic law; neither he nor his audience gave a hoot whether had any such law existed in real ancient Athens.
The play ends with Hermia getting married to Lysander, in spite of what her father had wanted.
Duh: of course it does. This genre of Renaissance romantic comedy always ended with Love Triumphant. However it traditionally did so by means of a plot device that allows this to happen without outright flouting of parental authority: thus audiences could have the emotional satisfaction without any qualms that societal norms were being threatened. Such twists include the one where Papa's favoured son-in-law turns out to be his long-lost son, thus freeing the heroine; or where the lover saves Papa's life or turns out to be someone rich and noble, causing Papa to change his mind and bless his daughter's choice. The device in The Dream is of course that by the morning Egeus can no longer insist his daughter marries Demetrius, because Demetrius is no longer willing to marry her. (For extra credit, it turns out that he was actually pre-contracted to marry Helena anyway, therefore it totally behoves him to keep his promise.) As Shakespeare carefully made clear right from the beginning that Lysander is rich, well-born and respectable enough to be a very suitable husband for Hermia, and as the all-powerful Duke Theseus gives the marriage his blessing, society is not threatened in any way by the ending. No, my point is not moot.
And also, that part of the play just disgusts me. A father is prepared to have his daughter executed rather than let her marry her beloved.
Disgust you or not, that was and is an everyday reality for much of world history. To this day there huge stretches of the world - much of Africa and Asia, and immigrants communities in the West from those areas - where parents are not only 'prepared' to kill their daughters if they refuse an arranged marriage or run off and marry someone not chosen for them, but actually feel bound to do so to keep their family from shame and disgrace. It's called 'honour killing'.
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All the characters in Shakespeare's plays are essentially Elizabethan/Jacobean people, with the manners and values of his own time (and the clothes and the furniture, too - striking clocks and doublets in Julius Caesar, dollars in Macbeth, billiards in Antony and Cleopatra). Settings such as 'Athens', 'Messina' and 'Illyria' were just dramatic conveniences to avoid any danger of seeming to slander real people or the government, and to help audiences swallow heightened drama or unlikely coincidences.
That is partly true, but as you probably know, Theseus and Hippolyta are characters from Greek mythology, where they of course were king and queen of Athens. And if you ask me, the two love couples of the play (Hermia/Lysander and Helena/Demetrius) work for me as youths from a mythological Athens. The craftsmen, who work on putting on the play "Pyramus & Thisbe", are so painfully much comtempories to Shakespare though. And they are very jarring in the play too in my opinion, as the good bard couldn't even be bothered with giving them a more ancient-sounding names.
Tudor parents hadn't the right to kill a daughter if she refused an arranged marriage, but they certainly had, and sometimes exercised, the legal right to lock her up and beat her daily till she agreed.
And that is a good thing how?
Duh: of course it does. This genre of Renaissance romantic comedy always ended with Love Triumphant. However it traditionally did so by means of a plot device that allows this to happen without outright flouting of parental authority: thus audiences could have the emotional satisfaction without any qualms that societal norms were being threatened.
What you seem to miss though is that in the romantic comedies of that era, it is also obvious that the father was wrong to not trust his daughter's judgement. She will be right, not he. The father will also often be a silly fool, who we can't take very seriously. Or he will be a cruel house tyrant like Egeus in "Midsummer Nights's Dream", whom I can't see as a just authority figure.
The device in The Dream is of course that by the morning Egeus can no longer insist his daughter marries Demetrius, because Demetrius is no longer willing to marry her. (For extra credit, it turns out that he was actually pre-contracted to marry Helena anyway, therefore it totally behoves him to keep his promise.) As Shakespeare carefully made clear right from the beginning that Lysander is rich, well-born and respectable enough to be a very suitable husband for Hermia, and as the all-powerful Duke Theseus gives the marriage his blessing, society is not threatened in any way by the ending.
Hermia had not ever been a meak "dutiful daughter" though. She had spoken up in front of Duke Theseus and presented her case as well as a girl in that culture could hope to do. And when it didn't work out, she decided to run away rather than obey her father. And yet, I don't think that Shakespeare meant that she was to be some unsympathethic brat. She was a brave young woman, who refused to let the customs around her stand in the way of her future happiness. Neither can I see that Egeus and Theseus as some sympathetic authority figures, but more as aggravating obstacles for the lovers to overcome.
Disgust you or not, that was and is an everyday reality for much of world history. To this day there huge stretches of the world - much of Africa and Asia, and immigrants communities in the West from those areas - where parents are not only 'prepared' to kill their daughters if they refuse an arranged marriage or run off and marry someone not chosen for them, but actually feel bound to do so to keep their family from shame and disgrace. It's called 'honour killing'.
Yes, and it should also be condemned from one point of the Earth to the other. Yeah, I know that they live in a different culture. But there is no way that I can feel, that your family should have any right to treat you that way.
Intelligence and purity. share
The craftsmen, who work on putting on the play "Pyramus & Thisbe", are so painfully much comtempories to Shakespare though. And they are very jarring in the play too in my opinion
They're only 'painful' and 'jarring' if you're trying to believe that the play is actually set in ancient or mythological Athens, which was clearly not what Shakespeare intended. They're perfectly in keeping with the '16th-century Fantasyland' manner of all the rest of the play.
the good bard couldn't even be bothered with giving them a more ancient-sounding names.
It's not a question of 'not being bothered': he knew his Ovid and could have pulled a dozen suitable classical Greek names out of a hat if he had been trying to create a realistic Athens. In the same way, he knew perfectly well that ancient Greeks didn't dance bergomasks, wear garters, have nunneries, or observe St Valentine's day. He put this stuff in, just as the writers of SiL put in 'A Prefent from Stratford upon Avon' and Will's psychotherapist, to signal to the audience that they weren't to take the setting seriously. Contrast The Merchant of Venice, which was intended to be taken seriously as a story that had happened or might happen in real contemporary Venice: there he was careful to avoid any English names and references, and had obviously done his best to sprinkle it with bits of genuine local colour.
And that is a good thing how?
Why are you asking me this? Ask someone who's claiming it is a good thing. I'm just telling you that it was an everyday fact.
What you seem to miss though is that in the romantic comedies of that era, it is also obvious that the father was wrong to not trust his daughter's judgement.
You know, it really gets annoying when you keep telling me patronisingly that I have 'missed' things I patently haven't. Of course, for Love to be Triumphant, the lovers' love has to be well-founded in the first place. And not even the most dogmatic proponents of paternal and indeed husbandly authority were ever blinkered enough to claim that all fathers and all husbands were always wise and right: they simply held that Civilisation And Morality As We Know Them required that their authority must be upheld and that their children and wives should abide by it, even if they knew they were actually right in any given instance. (Which is, of course, the plot of The Taming of the Shrew. And if that isn't scary enough, try any of the extant versions of the story of Patient Griselda.)
Hermia had not ever been a meak "dutiful daughter" though. She had spoken up in front of Duke Theseus and presented her case as well as a girl in that culture could hope to do. And when it didn't work out, she decided to run away rather than obey her father. And yet, I don't think that Shakespeare meant that she was to be some unsympathethic brat. She was a brave young woman, who refused to let the customs around her stand in the way of her future happiness. Neither can I see that Egeus and Theseus as some sympathetic authority figures, but more as aggravating obstacles for the lovers to overcome.
All of which was traditional, from the classical Roman comedies and Hellenistic romance-novels onwards. And, indeed, necessary plot-wise: if you have a meek heroine, you'll never get this kind of story off the ground. Many of the heroines of these comedy-romances are noticeably smarter, spunkier and more effective in action than their swains; go read Aucassin and Nicolette, for example.
Yes, and it should also be condemned from one point of the Earth to the other. Yeah, I know that they live in a different culture. But there is no way that I can feel, that your family should have any right to treat you that way.
What you have missed, is that nobody's asking you to.
But history and indeed the world today are full of customs and beliefs that are obnoxious to us. We none of us have the right to say 'I believe in democracy / sexual equality / racial equality / everyone's right to self-determination, and I don't want to hear about places or times when society believed otherwise'. And we're going to be very blinkered and ignorant if we successfully shield ourselves from experiencing such places and times through literature and drama. share
If only more people understood this...
shareA real student of history, aintchya?
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