Intertextuality and the Single Verb I

By Julian Scutts, Student

Intertextual comparisons in Shakespeare's works

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Enter the text of your Essay here.


INTERTEXTUALITY AND THE SINGLE VERB I



THE WORD AT THE CENTRE OF TEXTUAL AND INTERTEXTUAL ASSOCIATIONS
with special reference to the verb "to wander" in Shakespeare's works


As M. H. Abrams points out in the introduction of his monograph The Mirror and the Lamp, 1 a powerful consensus of
critical opinion in the twentieth century has moved to a position that stresses the objective nature of poetic works. In this
connection he cites opinions put forward by the Chicago neo-Aristotelian school, whose adherents, such as John Crowe
Ransom, called for recognition of the autonomy of the work itself. The approach adopted by Ranson, W.K. Wimsatt, Cleanth
Brooks and others encourages a close attention to the structures and imagery of poetic works and an attempt to exclude as
far as possible any consideration of extrinsic factors such as those relating to a poet's intentions, personal situation, etc. We
note an extreme case of this approach to poetry in Calvin S. Brown's essay on Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs first in the
Door-Yard Bloom'd".

One argument supporting the objective approach to poetic criticism states that the poet's mind is unknowable and therefore
any assertion based on a claim to knowing a poet's mind must prove fallacious. However, one may argue with equal authority
that "the work" cannot be directly apprehended by a reader's mind. It must be assimilated and appropriated, and the
consequent processes generates what M. M.Bahktin understands as a "dialogue" between the work and the reader's mind and
imagination. In recognition of this fact, objective criticism demands of a reader's capacity to interpret texts "objectively". In his
article "Objective Interpretation", E.D. Hirsch Jr. warns of the danger of making subjective interpretations of a text, admitting
that texts inevitably contain indeterminate and often ambiguous utterances.. The "objective" approach effectively offers what one
might see as an academically correct mode of textual analysis. He concedes that, when considering a difficult passage one is
entitled to base certain interpretative judgements on a knowledge of a poet's typical use of words, at least to the extent that this
is inferable from readings in other works by the author. Here the objective critic must tread warily if he is not to shift his terms
of reference from the work to the author's mind, which in turn may cause the reader to stray into the quagmire of intertextual
inquiries and consequently forsake a close study of the work.

The logocentric textual approach is not subject to the constraints imposed by an isolation of the work from all that surrounds it
in the external world, for the word is both a specific element in the work and yet a part of General language, and therefore
capable of being "coloured" by various contextual planes that extend beyond the narrow confines of the work itself. A
knowledge of the world is the basis for a reader's ability to perceive the internal structures and associations of the work, and a
recognition of internal features enhances a reader's awareness of the work's allusive and evocative powers. This principle of
reciprocal enhancement is better demonstrated by practice rather than by theory and abstract discourse. In the following case
studies we shall consider the implications of words in the light of their settings in poetic works and literary tradition, paying
attention to phenomena such as lexical coloration and "suppression".

In the immediately following studies of texts revealing aspects of "intertextuality" the cases to be investigated belong to one of
the three following categories (space allows only a consideration of the first category in this part of the study):


a) Passages containing the verb to "wander" and its derivatives in Shakespeare's
works. I hope to show that the unity underlying the various semantic and context-related
implications of the word must reflect powers of cohesion and harmonisation that can
hardly be explained as the product of conscious design, so diffuse and formally
unconnected are the texts under consideration. Like Professor Willoughby in his
study of the "Wanderer" image in Goethe's works, I find a sound foundation for an
overall classification of intertextual phenomena in the supposition that all utterances
that flow from an individual's mind reflect the co ordinating powers of the
subconscious strata of that mind.

b) In subsequent studies we consider in comparisons between passages in works by
different authors. In such cases the principle producing coherence must be attributed to
powers transcending the bounds of any one individual author's mind.

c) I also hope to make textual comparisons combining both comparative approaches
designated above.


___________________________________________________________





CASE 1: The following citations, with the exception of the final one, are from the
works of Shakespeare. In them the word "to wander" ranges in meaning and
connotation from the negative to the positive for reasons to be discussed shortly.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
Sonnet XVIII
_________________________________________________________________
'T may be, again to make me wander thither.
'Wander', a word for shadows like myself
The Passionate Pilgrim XIV
__________________________________________________________________
Cinna. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Caesar, And things unluckily charge my
fantasy: I have no will to wander forth of doors, Yet something leads me forth.
Julius Caesar Act III Sc. III
________________________________________________________________

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale
Thorough flood, thorough fire
I do wander everywhere
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act II, Sc. 1
I am that merry wanderer of the night
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 1
_________________________________________________________________

Der, welcher wandert diese Strasse voll Beschwerden,
wird rein durch Feuer, wasser, Luft und Erden:

Whoever wanders this path full of woes
becomes pure through fire, water, air and earth

Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute

--------------------------------------------------------------

How is it possible that the manifold associations of the verb "to wander" do not pose contradictions but rather reflect the
essential "lexical unity" of that word? One might suppose from the first two citations that the word had a predominantly negative
range of meanings for Shakespeare, for it refers to the lost condition of dead souls or implies that human life is transitory and
futile. The citations from A Midsummer Night's Dream, on the other hand, show that the verb "to wander" can convey very
positive associations.

The implications of the verb "to wander" in the passage cited from Julius Caesar pose a highly ambivalent mixture of positive
and negative suggestions, which I now compare in the light of the word's contextual setting in this drama and of Tynjanov's
theories concerning the effect of words found in poetry and literary passages.
We begin with the word understood at the primary level of significance, that is: according to its immediately recognisable sense
in terms of its context as it might be ascertained when one reads a text in standard language.


1. When "wandering" from his house, Cinna exposes himself to great physical danger
and consequently succumbs to the fate of death. We have noted the association of
"wandering" and death in Shakespeare's eighteenth Sonnet.

2. His death results from an absurd confusion of identity stemming from the fact that
he is a namesake of Cinna the conspirator. Among other negative implications of "to
wander" is that of becoming disoriented, confused and subject to error.

3. Through its association with Cain, "wandering" evokes thoughts about violence and
war.

4. The import of "to wander" in the dramatic context of the Third Act of Julius Caesar
is not entirely negative. Cinna's dream conveys a promise that Cinna and Caesar
should "feast" with each other, which implies that they will be united in death. Death
then opens the door to possibilities never realised on earth. It is the path leading to a
spiritual dimension where ideal relationships thwarted by the exigencies of physical
limitations, are fulfilled. This pertains, whether we consider the ideal love of Romeo
and Juliet or the ideal harmony of ruler and poet to which Petrarch and later artists
and poets during the Renaissance aspired. This harmony is symbolised by the laurel
crown, the honour bestowed on emperors and poets. Cinna's choice of the word
"fantasy" has implications that transcend the sense of the word that accords with the
overt meaning of Cinna's utterance. "Fantasy" bespeaks the poet's powers of
creativity and hismental freedom. Irony attaches to the sarcastic utterance that Cinna
should die on account of his bad verses. Cinna poses the only dramatic
representation of a poet in Shakespearean drama of which I am aware. The Romantic
poets, by contrast, were much hampered in their attempts at drama by their inability
to depict much other than a dramatic self-representation of the Poet. Cinna
experiences a dream. The affinity between dreaming and "wandering" most clearly
manifested in a play which is defined as a dream by its very title, a play in which the
verb to "wander" acquires an entirely felicitous significance.

5. Let us now consider the positive associations of the verb "to wander" in A
Midsummer Night's Dream. In this drama "wandering" assumes the most general and
inclusive range of associations and implications, allowing all that is meant by
"wandering" - in a lower or partial sense - to be subsumed and brought into harmony
within the ambit of its highest or universal sense. In one of the citations from A
Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck refers to himself as "that merry wanderer of the
night". In the other one, however, a spirit speaks of its ability to "wander everywhere"
in sympathy with the elements of fire, water and air. In the context of the play
"wandering" takes on the significance of the power of the imagination to overcome all
physical limitations. With this sense in mind Goethe, called Shakespeare the
greatest "Wanderer" in his "Speech on Shakespeare's Day". The association of
"Wanderer" and "night" is a feature in Goethe's poetry as it is in A Midsummer
Night's Dream. A coincidence? I do not believe so, but before entering into a
discussion of this question, let us try to find some common denominator in the
ranges of associations aroused by the verb "to wander".


In the first citations the verb absorbs from its context a negative sense to do with shadows and the absence of the sun's
presence or some diminution of sunlight. In view of the contrast between winter and summer informing the 18th Sonnet and
the Passionate Pilgrim, "wandering" is relegated to the negative pole in oppositions between light, summer, youth and life, on
the one side, and shadows, winter, old age and death, on the other. A Midsummer Night's Dream reveals "wandering" in its
most positive aspect.

The play's very title hints at the fundamental reason for this positive range of associations. In terms of ancient mythology,
midsummer marks the sun's fullest possible incursion into the realm of night. If we agree with Jung that the sun in ancient
mythology symbolises the libido's quest for union with its source, midsummer symbolically represents the greatest intrusion of
the sun into the realm of night, betokening at least a partial attainment of the libido's quest for unionwith "the night", the
anima. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the negative aspects of wandering, though hinted at, undergo a process of sublimation.
Where confusions occur, they are the source of fun and playfulness, as when magic induces amorous feelings for the most
unlikely object of affection. Even the spectre of death becomes ludic in the tragi-comedy enacted by the amateur troupe
composed of Athenian artisans.

The action of Julius Caesar is set just before the vernal equinox, which in ancient mythology marks the symbolic death of the
solar hero preceding his victory over death and winter. This victory is foretold by Cinna's dream. The unity underlying the
apparently contradictory senses of "to wander" springs from what Jung referred to as "the collective unconscious", allowing us
to infer that the scope of this unifying influence extends beyond what is attributable to imaginative powers of William
Shakespeare, Goethe or any other genius, a conclusion drawn by Professor Willoughby, in principle at least, in his article "The
Image of the 'Wanderer' and the 'Hut' in Goethe's poetry".

There is an uncanny resemblance between the use of "to wander" in A Midsummer Night's Dream and that of "wandern" in
the libretto of Mozart's Magic Flute. Schikaneder, who wrote the score, was a Shakespearean actor and may have been
influenced by his knowledge of the play. There is evidence that the Queen of Night was originally cast in an essentially positive
role belied by the evil intentions later ascribed to her. The ambivalence of the figure suggests to my mind that Mozart and
Schikaneder teetered on the edge separating the classical high evaluation of the sun and the romantic fascination with the night.
3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

____________________________________________

ANNOTATIONS:

1. M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, Romantic Theory and Romantic Tradition
(London / Oxford / New York, 1953).


2. E.D. Hirsch, Jr., "Objective Interpretation", PLMA 75 (1960).


3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Zauberflöte, published by Kurt Pahlen (Goldmann
Schott: Munich, 1978; 4th ed. 1982), pp.154-158. Kurt Pahlen assesses the evidence
for the theory that Mozart at Schikaneder's instigation reversed the roles of the
Queen of the Night and Sarastro making the former good fairy a power for evil and the
former sorcerer the wise and noble priest of the Sun. Evidently a rival theatre
company pipped Die Zauberflöte to the post by staging an opera that bore striking
similarities to Mozart's opera. The opera in question was entitled Die Zauberzither
oder Kaspar der Fagottist with music by Wenzel Müller, a popular composer of
melodies. In Kurt Pahlen's view the Queen of Night's first aria - composed before the
alleged change - conveys profound and noble sentiments that do not accord with the
supposedly evil character of the Queen of Night.