Epiphanal Encounters in Shakespearean Dramaturgy

Abstract

Epiphanal Encounters in Shakespearean Dramaturgy Robert L. Reid Just before Perdita's reunion with Leontes, a courtly gentleman announces her presence in evangelical terms: This is a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else, make proselytes Of who she but bid follow. (Winter's Tale 5.1.106-09)' Leontes calls her "princess—goddess!" and thus evokes again her role as "Flora," a part of "great creating nature" (4.4.2, 88). In act 5 she is integrated into the sophistications of courtly Art, which thus claims Nature's wonder as its basis (as in Revelation, the jewelled city-court of New Jerusalem finally discloses an Edenic garden at its core).2 But if, like her precursors (Ophelia, Helena, Isabella, Desdemona, Cordelia, Marina, Imogen), Perdita can revitalize the sovereign and his realm, a second recognition scene more conclusively resolves Leontes's abuse of kingship. The awakened statue moves him from generation to regeneration, reveals divinity not only in nature but in grace, the wonder of Hermione's persistent loving forgiveness. These conjoined discoveries , a magical piece of theater, draw on Shakespeare's most potent dramaturgical device: epiphany, a recognition that awakens faith in spiritual identity, arousing the spiritual body. As a "showing-forth" of essential reality (in Christianity, of Jesus' divinity),3 epiphany in The Winter's Tale occurs not simply in the final recognition scenes but throughout the play. Hermione 's gracious love is apparent from the outset, is acutely confirmed in her majestic self-defense during the trial, and achieves fullest impact in her radiant unsilencing and tender attentiveness in the final scene; yet it is perceived by Leontes only after sixteen years of grieved absence, aided by Paulina's stern counsel and consummated in her artful direction of the iconic statue scene. Epiphany thus depends on the seer (and the experiential process 518 Robert L. Reid519 and artful management of seeing) as much as on the quality of what is seen.4 The "reall presence," Richard Hooker says, "is not ... to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthie receiver of the sacrament."5 To achieve such vision, Lancelot Andrewes in a sermon of 1597 urges continual effort: "look again and again; or . . . 'think upon it over and over again', ... to supply the weakness and want of our former lack of attention."6 The spiritual reality is always there but not always perceived— often is strangely opposed and obscured. I In The Origins of Shakespeare Emrys Jones finds four features ofmystery plays that recur regularly in Shakespeare's plays: stress on the antagonists' "virulent malice"; their "conspiratorial method"; their "legalistic" and "hypocritical speech-tones," a loquaciousness that contrasts Jesus' silence; and Jesus' "progressive isolation" and abuse.7 Jones's focus on the darkest aspects of the mystery cycle accords with Shakespeare's earliest plays: the first history tetrad highlights the egocentric persecutors (Margaret, Cardinal Beaufort, Richard III); those who are baited (Gloucester, York) seem Christlike only in their subjection to torment. Victims in later plays (Richard II, Desdemona, Lear, Edgar, Cordelia, Timon, Coriolanus) offer richer analogues;8 but in none of these does Jones treat the positive aspects of the mystery plays: epiphany of the incarnate deity, shown in an outpouring of forgiving love;9 change from worldliness to spirituality through suffering;10 and spiritual empowerment of the vulgar and unworthy which evokes empathetic laughter among those who parody the central mystery.'' What central mystery informs Shakespearean epiphany? I will consider five New Testament events widely regarded as epiphanal ; each, with its drama of obstructing agents, appears with increasing depth of meaning in many Shakespearean scenes. Most prominent is Jesus ' Nativity, resisted by Herod, deflected by the innkeeper, and celebrated by shepherds and Magi. John Donne calls it "a day that consists of twelve dayes," and all "make up the Epiphany."12 "Every manifestation of Christ to the world, to the church, to a particular soul, is an Epiphany, a Christmas-day." Priests "who dwell in God's house ... are most inexcusable, if they have not a continual Epiphany ... ; and at the sacrament every man is a priest."13 Richard III and Macbeth stress the subversion ofnativity: deformed...