Section A - evidence blocks Flashcards
BP1
“rooted” together in youth but have since “branched apart” b/c must abjure “childhood affections” for more “mature dignities” (Camillo)
From the play’s onset, Camillo, in conversation with Archidamus, recounts how their two kings were “rooted” together in childhood but have since “branched” as their “mature dignities” have forced them to abjure their “childhood affections”. Burgeoning with rich natural imagery, this conflict between maturity and childhood is established as the key determiner of growth throughout the play, as it seems that in order for Polixenes and Leontes to thrive they must “branch” and leave their nostalgia for youth behind.
BP1
“Nine changes of the wat’ry star” (Polixenes)
The threat of the “feminine self” is evident from the play’s onset when Polixenes explains to his childhood friend, Leontes, that he must soon return home to Bohemia for it had been “Nine changes of the wat’ry star” since he had left. Evoking the human gestation period, “nine changes” coupled with the female symbol of the moon, the “wat’ry star”, draws Leontes’ attention to Hermione’s pregnant body, establishing her as a maternal figure in his eyes. Thus, Polixenes’s opening line encapsulates the play’s key dilemma, in that the “feminine self” is a necessary life-sustaining force within the adult psyche, and it is also a severing influence on male homosocial bonds - a worrying encroachment on Leontes’ hyper-masculine self-identity.
BP1
“twinned lambs that did frisk i’the sun” (Polixenes) vs “three crabbed months that had soured themselves to death”
Yet, Leontes fails to recognise this universal truth, instead choosing to remain planted in Polixenes’ recollection of their halcyon days as “twinned lambs that did frisk i’the sun”, the pastoral pattern of diction and soothing phonics evincing a keen tone of yearning. This stands as a sharp contrast to Leontes’ contemptuous memory of the “three crabbed months that had soured themselves to death” as he waited for Hermione’s hand in marriage, conflating maturity in nature with decay and loss of vitality. Thus, the psychoanalytic critic Janet Aldeman posits that Leontes’ inability to leave behind Polixenes’ version of a “static and nostalgic male pastoral” forms the origin of delusional compulsion to X
BP1
“as like as eggs” (Leontes)
After accusing Polixenes of having an affair with Hermione, Leontes seeks to confirm his relation to his son, Mamillius, who Reid names the “masculine self”, by claiming they are “almost as like as eggs”. Strongly associated with pregnancy, Leontes’ curious choice of the word “eggs” reveals his latent womb fantasy in which he desires to regress to an infantile state, prior to the intrusion of the “feminine self”.
BP1
“recoiled twenty-three years” to see himself “unbreeched” w/ his “dagger muzzled” (Leontes)
These insecurities prompt Leontes to falsely accuse Polixenes of having an affair with his wife and, so, he turns to his young son, Mamillius, who the critic Stephen Reid names the “masculine self”, imagining himself “recoiled twenty-three years”, “unbreeched” and with his “dagger muzzled”. In reference to the garments worn by pre-pubescent boys, Leontes’ plea to be once more “unbreached” reveals his latent desire to regress to an infantile state - the most beloved incarnation of his past. Moreover, the phallic imagery and martial symbolism of “dagger” antagonises sexual maturity, blaming it for bringing destruction upon his pre-Oedipal past world.
BP1
“straight declined, drooped, took it deeply” (Leontes)
Resultantly, despite the maternal overtones of Mamillius’ name, Leontes attempts to negate all
feminine influence from tarnishing his beloved “masculine self”, separating him from Hermione in spite of Camillo’s advice to “be cured of this diseased opinion” and Paulina’s offer of “words as medicinal as true”. Consequently, Mamillius “straight declined, drooped, took it deeply”, the plosive alliterative ‘d’ sound accentuating the brutal impact that this had for both mother and child alike, culminating in their subsequent deaths and thus the final annhilation of Leontes’ psyche (and core familial relationships), with his “masculine self” dead and his “feminine self”, the newborn Perdita, exiled.
BP2
“boring the moon with her mainmast” + “chafes and rages” w/ “yeast and froth” (Clown)
Following the deaths of Antigonus and the Mariner, the Clown histrionically recounts the final movements of the Sicilian ship - a vehicle for Leontes’ arrogant abandonment of Perdita, who is evidence of his sexual maturity -, as the ocean “chafes and rages” with “yeast and froth” around it. Through this personification of nature and the symbolism of “yeast” as a substance that grows, the play is imbued with a renewed sense of vitality after Leontes’ tyrannically suppressed maturity, especially that associated with the natural world, in Sicilia.
Following the deaths of Antigonus and the Mariner, the Clown histrionically recounts the final movements of the Sicilian ship - a vehicle for Leontes’ arrogant abandonment of his “feminine self, Perdita -, fruitlessly “boring the moon with her mainmast” while the sea “chafes” and “rages” around it. Here, the image of the ship striving in vain to “bore” the now reclaimed female emblem of the “moon” stages a violent conflict between X and Y, as the personification of nature as a site that “chafes” and “rages” in Leontes’ psyche signals the unleashment of the “feminine self”.
BP2
“no shepardess, but Flora/Peering through April’s front” (Florizel)
Similarly, sixteen years later at Bohemia’s sheep-shearing festival, Florizel lauds his beloved Perdita, queen of this “meeting of the petty gods”, as “no shepardess, but Flora/Peering in April’s front”. Connoting spring, femininity, and regrowth, Florizel’s compliment inserts audiences directly into what Aldeman views as a “decidedly female pastoral”. In this way, to Reid, the feminine domain of Bohemia represents a dream sequence within Leontes’ psyche, forcing to him to confront the demands of the present and relinquish those of his past.
BP2
“I’ll be thine, my fair,/Or not my father’s” (Florizel)
Moreover, acting as a foil to Leontes, Florizel is keen to disown his patriarchal identifiers, proclaiming to Perdita: “I’ll be thine, my fair,/Or not my father’s”. Emphasised by the Latinate translation of his name, denoting ‘flower’, Florizel’s disregard for his past obligations in favour of his present relationship with Perdita models for Leontes a healthier, balanced relationship that supports mutual growth.
BP2
F’s “father, by some accident/Should pass this way as I did” b/c omen of “good falcon” (Perdita)
This idea is further divulged by when Perdita expresses her fear that Florizel’s “father, by some accident/Should pass this way as I did”, serendipitously guided by the omen of “good falcon”. This recognition that nature can be both good and evil positions Perdita and Florizel’s relationship as a foil to that of Leontes and Polixenes, as while the former appears prepared for inevitable intrusions into their idyllic pastoral, Leontes’ denied the possibility denied the possibility of his fantasy world’s downfall, ironically resulting in even greater tragedy.
BP2
“O Proserpina… lets fall [flowers]/From Dis’s wagon” (Perdita)
Additionally, Perdita’s role as Leontes’ “feminine self” proves essential to his emotional rehabilitation when she entreats “O Proserpina… lets fall [flowers]/From Dis’s wagon”. Through this mythical allusion, Perdita is positioned as a Proserpina-like figure – an emissary for seasonal change -, acknowledging that her stay in Bohemia is only temporary – like a dream – and so she does not promise Florizel the static relationship Leontes’ psyche so delusionally craves.
BP3
“Welcome hither,/As is spring to the earth” (Leontes)
In particular, psychoanalysts may take issue with the aforementioned allusion to the myth of Proserpina, conjured again when Leontes welcomes Florizel and Perdita to his court “As is spring to the earth”. This is because Perdita is ultimately a victim of male control, escorted between worlds against her will, thus rendering her identification with Perdita, Leontes’ “feminine self”, highly problematic since it suggests that he remains keenly invested in his previous habits of controlling sexual growth, as he did with his “dagger muzzled”.
BP3
“embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her” (3rd Gentleman)
Likewise, in the Third Gentleman’s recount of the father and daughter’s reunion, Leontes “embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her”. Contrasted against the affectionate connotations of “embraces”, the sense of restriction apparent in Leontes’ treatment of his “feminine self”, “clipping” Perdita, indicates he is still keenly invested in his delusional processes of controlling the female body - a site of Oedipal anxieties that keep him bound to X
BP3
“They were to be known not by garment, nor by favour” (3rd Gentleman)
Likewise, in the Third Gentleman’s recount of Leontes’ reunion with Polixenes, he notes that “They were to be known not by garment, nor by favour”. Through this parallelism, ‘the myth of the twinned lambs’ once again takes precedence in Leontes’ mind as he appears unable to abjure his childhood devotions.
BP3
“was not wrinkled, nothing/So aged as this seems” (Leontes)
At last, when Leontes sees Hermione’s statue, he remarks that in memory she “was not so wrinkled, nothing/So aged as this seems”. Whilst this may appear to be evidence of Leontes’ progress in appreciating the beauty of maturity, psychoanalytic readers would recognise this remark belies the triumph of his toxic delusions, in that by rendering Hermione a sexless vessel, he has successfully reduced all threats to his past self to icons he can possess forever.
