The Dialectics of Appearances and Reality (act ii, scene i)
This paper focuses on the first scene of Act II (the apricot scene) and explores the themes of simulation and dissimulation, and the dialectics of appearances and reality, which fashion the scene’s unity. The first part examines Bosola’s harsh satire of courtiers and lawyers who would be ostentatiou...
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| I publikationen: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/asf, |
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| Huvudupphovsman: | |
| Materialtyp: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Språk: | Anglais |
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Arrêt sur scène / Scene Focus
2023
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| Länkar: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sammanfattning: | This paper focuses on the first scene of Act II (the apricot scene) and explores the themes of simulation and dissimulation, and the dialectics of appearances and reality, which fashion the scene’s unity. The first part examines Bosola’s harsh satire of courtiers and lawyers who would be ostentatiously “eminent”, and the verbal jousting about secret ambition that opposes the spy to the steward. The second part shows how pretence comes in a variety of forms : social hypocrisy (publicly pretending to be what you are not), protection of privacy (hiding the Duchess’s pregnancy) and meditation on mankind (denouncing “painting” and “rich tissue” as vain covering). The third part presents Bosola’s book of diseases, his deciphering and aggravating of the Duchess’s symptoms, and the animal references (“prodigy”) and horticultural metaphors (“grafting”) he uses to sarcastically comment upon deformity and hybridization. The Shakespearean intertextual resonances at work in the scene are also taken into account (Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale). |
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