In Much Ado About Nothing, Claudio asks the distraught Leonato, “Are our eyes our own?” (4.1.71). Claudio’s question, a demand for confirmation of truth as Claudio, under the influence of Don John has come to view truth, serves as a touchstone for this study of four Shakespearean comedies – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest – and Othello.
My project is rooted in an analysis of two umbrella-like structures found in the plays, one of which I call comic imposition and the other, tragic imposition. In the context of comic imposition, I explore Shakespeare’s representation of misdirected love, moments of grace and forgiveness, and the inadvertent intertwining of eyes and perception which occurs as characters choose to love freely. In the context of tragic imposition, I consider the dramatist’s representation of the fragility of human perception – its easily corrupted nature – and the degeneration of will which seemingly accompanies corrupted perception. In addition, I consider various modes through which individual acts of imposition take shape, as well as instances of resistance, a dynamic privileged especially in the comedies. Concerns central to my project include the comic conventions of disguise and magic, the vice of slander, the elusive forces of grace and love, and finally, the elemental magic of an island cosmos that “cares” (The Tempest 1.1.16).
In the only tragedy to be included here, Iago’s command to Othello, “Wear your eyes thus” (Othello 3.3.201), sets the stage for Shakespeare’s representation of corrupted vision and the limitation of resistance. In contrast, the comedies privilege another dynamic: Egeus’ courtly imposition in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is countered by Theseus’ forest resistance, while the potentially-tragic modes emblematic of Twelfth Night are balanced by “A natural perspective, that is, and is not” (Twelfth Night 5.1.215). Vincentio’s admonition to Mariana, “Against all sense you do importune her” (Measure for Measure 5.1.431), transforms the Duke’s fear-bound journey underground in Measure for Measure into one of love and resistance, while The Tempest, with its representation of an island’s power to subvert tragic imposition and its intimations of a Cosmic Consciousness transcending human perception, closes this study.