8. "O Word of Fear:"
Imaginary Cuckoldry in Shakespeare's Plays
Presenter: |
Phillip D. Collington, PhD |
Chair: |
Allen M. Siegel, MD |
Discussant: |
Annette Lachmann, MA |
Self Psychology Page | 22nd Conference Program
Summary
The spectre of cuckoldry is invoked in many of Shakespeare’s plays, yet very few actually contain unfaithful wives. This suggests that the author attributed sexual mistrust to masculine insecurity rather than to feminine infidelity. The "cuckoldry anxiety" inculcated by Renaissance cultural practices produced men who were quarrelsome, self-obsessed, and reliant on approbation from lovers and peers--traits similar to symptoms of what self psychologist Heinz Kohut calls the "narcissistic personality disorder": a hypersensitivity to slights, a solipsistic view of the environment, and a heavy reliance on others to function as "selfobjects" (=people who are experienced as part of the subject’s self). If an afflicted individual perceives his lover to be unfaithful and his peers to be unsympathetic, then the loss of these sustaining selfobjects precipitates an extreme response akin to what Kohut calls "narcissistic rage"--an anger promoted by injured pride and fueled by the hope of revenge. In Chapter One, I survey current critical thinking about Shakespearean cuckoldry anxiety. In Chapter Two, I outline basic tenets of self psychology and inroads it has made into literary criticism. In Chapter Three, I discuss Jaques’ "Seven Ages of Man" in the context of social history, paying particular attention to the foundational stages of life, infancy and childhood. In Chapters Four through Six, I examine the cuckoldry anxiety of young, unmarried lovers in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. In Chapters Seven through Nine, I chart the experiences of jealous soldiers in Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus and Cressida and Cymbeline. In Chapters Ten through Twelve, I will investigate older, more established characters for whom private jealousy hampers the administration of public justice in Othello, The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Winter’s Tale. And in my conclusion, I compare the anxieties of the very old and the very young as depicted in the baiting of Falstaff by the children of Windsor. These plays present striking analogues to self psychology, as they map out complex worlds of interdependent identities the insecure foundations of which are shaken by sudden isolation from selfobjects.