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Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters
Nicholas R. Helms
Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance
Series Editors
Bruce McConachie
Department of Theatre Arts
University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Blakey Vermeule Department of English
Stanford University Stanford, CA, USA
This series offers cognitive approaches to understanding perception, emotions, imagination, meaning-making, and the many other activities that constitute both the production and reception of literary texts and embodied performances.
More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14903
Nicholas R. Helms Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters
Nicholas R. Helms
University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance
ISBN 978-3-030-03564-8 ISBN 978-3-030-03565-5 (eBook)
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: ALFRED PASIEKA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Rae Smith, who taught me to love Shakespeare, close reading, and the color purple.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the ongoing support of two organizations: the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at The University of Alabama, where I received my graduate education and generous research funding, and the Shakespeare Association of America, whose seminars have provided the strongest model of an enthusiastic and collegial community I have yet to find in academia. I would also like to thank my mentor Sharon O’Dair for her guidance and her encouragement. I am the scholar she made me to be.
I am also grateful to the following: Steve Burch and Mark Hughes Cobb for teaching me the ins and outs of performing Shakespeare; Austin Whitver and Chase Wrenn for always being available as colleagues and sounding boards for my ideas, even at their most inchoate; David Ainsworth, Jennifer Drouin, and Tricia McElroy for their collegiality; Kate Matheny for encouragement and meticulous line edits; and my wife Alissa Matheny Helms for her support, her patience, and above all, for her continued belief that I can find success following my passion.
Thanks also go to The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Philosophy and Literature, ProQuest, symploke, and Vanishing Sights for allowing the republication of portions of my own work. Full citations for these publications are included in the footnotes and in the pertinent chapter bibliographies.
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5 Integrating Minds: Blending Methods in The King Is Alive and
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CHAPTER 1
The
Mind’s Construction:
An Introduction to Mindreading in Shakespeare
1.1 Mindreading in ShakeSpeare’S Macbeth
There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face. Macbeth (1.4.11–12)
When King Duncan makes his claim about incomprehensible faces, he has just been betrayed by Cawdor, “a gentleman on whom [Duncan] built / An absolute trust” (1.4.13–14). Macbeth then enters in the middle of Duncan’s lines and begins to dissemble his own “black and deep desires” for Scotland’s crown (1.4.51). Duncan clearly has difficulty reading the minds of others. But Duncan is wrong. Such an art exists: Shakespeare’s art links the face and the mind through the audience’s observation of dramatic characters. The “art to find the mind’s construction in the face” is a pair of techniques for reading minds, ones that Duncan fails to use but that Shakespeare employs in his dramaturgy and displays to his audiences. Mindreading—the process of ascribing mental states to others—operates via inference and imagination, and tracking these processes in Shakespeare’s plays shows how misreading and misunderstanding drive Shakespeare’s plots.
In contemporary cognitive science, the analysis of the minds of others is known as mindreading or theory of mind. A commonplace mental task, mindreading has nothing to do with telepathy; it is the attribution of mental states to others. Mental states include sensations, emotions, beliefs, desires, and decisions. To look at another person (or character) and think,
“He’s acting a little crazy” or “She wants to understand her role” is to mindread. (The accuracy of these attributions is another issue entirely.) This attribution can occur pre-consciously—and must, if one’s day-to-day social interactions are to run smoothly—but can also be performed consciously and quite meticulously. Since 1978, when David Premack and Guy Woodruff published an article entitled, “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?”,1 scholars have applied theories of mindreading to such varied subjects as childhood development, autism, the philosophy of mind, mirror neuron research, and literary studies.
Humans have been mindreading one another for quite some time: according to Jonathan Haidt, about 600,000 years.2 Michael Tomasello calls our ability to read one another and to share intentions the evolutionary step that created human society.3 Mindreading is, as Haidt puts it, our “Rubicon” moment, when our species crossed over into humanity. At its core, mindreading is an evolved cognitive faculty that enables group life, laying the foundation for cooperation, altruism, and sniffing out the cheaters among us. However, as with many evolved human capacities, mindreading is not a perfect ability. Humans are only just good enough at reading one another to successfully compete against other, less social species. As Nicholas Epley argues in Mindwise, we are far more confident in our own mindreading abilities than we are proficient in the same: “the confidence we have in this sense [mindreading] far outstrips our actual ability, and the confidence we have in our judgment rarely gives us a good sense of how accurate we actually are.”4 This gap between confidence and proficiency causes much pain and confusion in the world. For Shakespeare, such misreading is the source of his dramatic energy. By experimenting with our evolved capacity for mindreading, Shakespeare crafts characters and stories that can train his spectators and readers to become better mindreaders: if not more proficient ones, at least ones more aware of humanity’s shortcomings. Those shortcomings are often a direct result of the way that inference and imagination compete and cooperate as we read human minds, both everyday and fictional ones.
Inference involves a technique of building statements about a character’s mind upon that character’s exterior, the “face” that character reveals to the world: facial expressions, gestures, statements, and actions. Imagination involves inhabiting the perspective of a character and creating a state of mind that matches that character’s actions. The goal of these two processes is identical—to match the mind to the face, in Duncan’s terms— but the orientations of the processes are distinct. Inference moves from N.
the face to the mind. Imagination moves from the mind to the face. While inference requires the application of knowledge about the world, imagination requires empathy. Shakespeare uses both arts, both methods of construction, to produce his characters.
Duncan’s use of the word art is apt, since art can suggest both technique and creativity. In the early modern period, art primarily refers to “skill in doing something, esp. as the result of knowledge or practice.”5 Art is an acquired skill, such as swimming or warfare, capable of being used or misused.6 In Shakespeare’s work, art can refer to bodies of learning such as education,7 rhetoric,8 medicine,9 physiognomy,10 cosmetics,11 magic,12 and even the practice of courtly behavior and flattery, the art of dissembling, of veiling the true report of one’s state of mind by veiling the face.13 In King Lear, Cordelia calls it “that glib and oily art / To speak and purpose not” (Lr. 1.1.225–6), comparing such falsehood with cosmetics.14 When Duncan claims that there is no art to read the mind’s construction, he is using the first sense of art, claiming that there is no valid, accurate technique for connecting the mind to the face.
In Shakespeare’s work, art is also gaining its modern usage, “the various branches of creative activity, as painting, sculpture, music, literature, dance, drama, oratory, etc.”15 In The Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare presents Lucrece contemplating a painting of the fall of Troy, a moment of ekphrasis—art pausing to represent art—wherein Lucrece contemplates her own trauma at the hands of Tarquin: “In Ajax and Ulysses, O what art, / of physiognomy might one behold! / The face of either cipher’d either’s heart, / Their face their manners most expressly told” (1394–7). The painting is both a skilled and a creative artifact, linking mind and face in ways that Lucrece can observe and learn from. The same blend of the two types of art occurs in The Winter’s Tale, where Leontes finds the statue of Hermione to be a skilled representation of his dead wife: “The fixure of her eye has motion in it, / As we are mock’d with art” (5.3.67–68). Artistic expression may supply the type of knowledge Duncan lacks.
Inference and imagination can also be described in terms of construction. The primary sense of construction evokes a metaphor of building: “the action of framing, devising, or forming, by the putting together of parts.”16 In Duncan’s case, this metaphor is prevalent: “He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust.” Duncan observes exterior signs written upon the faces of his thanes, both the expressions upon their brows and reports concerning their lives: as he reads the bloody Captain, “So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds: / They smack of honour
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both” (1.2.44–45). Duncan built this trust upon his belief in Cawdor’s faith: viewing Cawdor’s face as trustworthy, Duncan reads Cawdor as an honest, faithful man. Cawdor’s betrayal is therefore a deception (1.2.65), and hearing report of Cawdor’s confession leads Duncan to denounce the inferences he builds from human faces. He does not change his habits, however. Duncan honors Macbeth, putting trust in him and shifting the metaphor from buildings to plants, “I have begun to plant thee, and will labour / To make thee full of growing” (1.4.28–29). Perhaps Duncan hopes that such planted honors will be more organic, less artificial and false than the trust he built on the former thane of Cawdor. Yet, with both Cawdor and Macbeth, Duncan constructs an understanding of his thanes by building that understanding out of inferences drawn from observable behavior, speech, and expression, and out of reports of the same delivered by others.
Construction can also refer to grammar—“syntactically arranging words in a sentence”17—or translation—“analyzing the structure of a sentence and translating it word for word into another language; construing.”18 While Duncan contemplates the minds of others from the outside in, working from the face to the mind, Rosse takes the opposite tack, imagining the mind and contemplating how it might express or translate itself in the face. Rosse describes to Macbeth Duncan’s reaction to hearing the news of Macbeth’s victory:
The King hath happily receiv’d, Macbeth, The news of thy success; and when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight, His wonders and his praises do contend, Which should be thine, or his: silenc’d with that, In viewing o’er the rest o’th’selfsame day, He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself did make, Strange images of death. As thick as hail, Came post with post; and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence, And pour’d them down before him. (1.3.89–99)
Rosse recounts his own delivery of that news to Duncan in the first scene (1.1.46–68), a brief exchange during which Duncan only inquires from where Rosse has come, cries “Great happiness!” (1.1.49), and pronounces Cawdor’s death and Macbeth’s new title (1.1.65–68). Rosse’s N. R.
first conclusion, that the King “happily” listened to news of the victory, is straightforward: Duncan himself proclaimed his happiness, and Rosse needs only believe that Duncan was speaking the truth to believe that Duncan was happy. Rosse then explains that the King is “silenc’d” in hearing of Macbeth’s bravery and “personal venture,” debating within himself to whom the glories, “wonder and praises” of the day belong, himself or Macbeth. Duncan does not report such an internal struggle, and Rosse only notes that Duncan grew silent after hearing the news. There are no other external signs of Duncan’s state of mind. Rather than drawing inferences from this limited evidence, Rosse imagines himself to be in Duncan’s position, asking how he would react if he were receiving the news of Macbeth’s success. Duncan’s reception of the news is inflected with Rosse’s experiences in battle: the struggle of the rebels becomes Duncan’s struggle about who deserves the day’s praises; the blows of battle become the hail of posts; and Duncan contemplates Macbeth’s resolve, “nothing afeard” of the bloodshed he has caused, an image Rosse does not include in his original report to Duncan but which is readily apparent to Rosse, face to face with the blood-spattered Macbeth. Because Rosse cannot infer from Duncan’s silence, he imagines a state of mind for Duncan that coheres with Duncan’s face.
Like Duncan, Shakespeare’s other characters seldom employ inference and imagination accurately. Shakespeare stages breakdowns in each process, and misread minds are central to his construction of character. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, for instance, are obsessed with ensuring that others misread them. When Lady Macbeth first proposes the murder of Duncan, she reacts to a change in Macbeth’s expression, urging him to secrecy.
Macb My dearest love, Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady M. And when goes hence?
Macb. To-morrow, as he purposes.
Lady M. O! never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like th’innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t. (1.5.58–66)
Lady Macbeth shifts from the veiled threat on Duncan’s life to exhortations to secrecy; the text does not contain Macbeth’s reaction to the threat, but Lady Macbeth finds his face too revealing, and the success of their plot seems to lie in Macbeth’s ability to maintain a façade rather than in the execution of the assassination. He must disconnect his mind from his expressions, allowing Duncan to build trust upon a false face. As Macbeth concludes at the end of the act, internalizing his wife’s advice, “Away and mock the time with fairest show: / False face must hide what the false heart doth know” (1.7.82–83). False, like glib, has connotations of both deceit and artificial appearance: false faces, false painting (makeup), false expressions. At first, however, Macbeth delays to commit to the plot: “We will speak further” (1.5.71). He does not address his wife again until she interrupts his frenzied cogitations that evening, at which point he chooses to abandon the murder and enjoy the “golden opinions” his martial prowess has won, “Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, / Not cast aside so soon” (1.7.33–35). Lady Macbeth has misread her husband. She presumed his compliance with her plot and believed that “the valour of [her] tongue” had overcome “th’milk of human kindness” in Macbeth (1.5.27, 17). Instead, his reluctance comes as a shock and she questions his motives:
Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire? Would’st thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ Like the poor cat i’th’adage? (1.7.35–45)
She delivers a series of five questions, only interrupted by an insult to the quality of his love for her. She seeks reasons for Macbeth’s behavior, reasons that her original inference about Macbeth’s ambition—and the impediment to that ambition, too much kindness—was inaccurate. Perhaps, she argues, his hope for the crown was fraudulent at the start (“drunk”) or has “slept” and must be fully awakened by her questions; or perhaps, Macbeth wants his desires and his accomplishments to conflict— to desire the crown yet “live a coward.” These are leading questions, not
so much earnest inquiries as they are provocations for some explanation from Macbeth, some new ground upon which to base her inferences.
Macbeth only protests, “Pr’ythee, peace. / I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more, is none.” (1.7.45–47). Lady Macbeth rejects this construction.
What beast was’t then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place, Did then adhere, and yet you would make both: They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. (1.7.47–54)
Again Lady Macbeth points to the contradiction she sees in Macbeth’s behavior between his desires and his actions. When Duncan was absent— “Nor time, nor place, / Did then adhere”—Macbeth was eager to murder him and possess the crown. Now that Duncan is vulnerable as their guest, Macbeth has lost his resolve: “their fitness now / Does unmake you.” Lady Macbeth cannot infer why Macbeth’s mind moves at odds with his environment, as he seems to lose ambition when he gains opportunity. In truth, Lady Macbeth has been the resolute one: her belief that Macbeth was committed to Duncan’s murder is a projection of her own certainty onto her husband.
Seeing that her expectations do not fit Macbeth’s behavior and that her questions have gone unanswered, Lady Macbeth changes her tack. Rather than seek to infer Macbeth’s mind, she encourages him to imagine her own, placing himself in her perspective.
I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this. (1.7.54–59)
The story of her loved yet battered child seems initially unconnected to the interrogation she has been conducting. Only after she has told the story and conjured up the image of the brainless infant body does Lady Macbeth
verbally connect the story to Macbeth’s own experience, concluding by imagining herself to be in Macbeth’s position: “had I so sworn as you have done,” to murder Duncan and claim the promised crown. However, her vivid tale largely acts as an invitation to Macbeth’s own imagination. She compares Macbeth’s ambition to something from her own experience, her love for a child she has nursed. She then concludes that abandoning such loved ambition is the equivalent of murdering that child. Her husband is on the verge of committing such a monstrous act. By inviting Macbeth to consider her love and loss, Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth’s mindreading to spur him to action.
One wonders if Macbeth sympathizes with Lady Macbeth’s pain in this imagined moment, the visceral loss of a child. As Macduff notes, “He has no children” (4.3.216). But did Macbeth once have children? Was the child Lady Macbeth spoke of Macbeth’s son? Within the bounds of the text, these are unanswerable questions. For much of the past century, these have also been unaskable questions, thanks in large part to L.C. Knights’s 1933 “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?” Knights critiqued the Shakespearean character criticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, holding up A.C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy as the culmination of this trend: “It is assumed throughout [Shakespearean Tragedy] that the most profitable discussion of Shakespeare’s tragedies is in terms of the characters of which they are composed.”19 Knights rejects this emphasis on character on the grounds that such criticism disregards Shakespeare’s text:
In the mass of Shakespearean criticism there is not a hint that ‘character’— like ‘plot’, ‘rhythm’, ‘construction’ and all our other critical counters—is merely an abstraction from the total response in the mind of the reader or spectator, brought into being by written or spoken words; that the critic therefore—however far he may ultimately range—begins with the words of which a play is composed.20
For Knights, character criticism such as Bradley’s misses the text in pursuit of an “abstraction” in the “mind of the reader or spectator,” a by-product of an encounter with the text. Character criticism risks losing the text by treating characters as if they were real people and chasing down information from their fictional biographies that lies outside the scope of the play. Knights’s title, “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?”, is from his perspective a nonsense question, as no such children appear within Macbeth and knowledge outside the written play is unnecessary for what he later calls “our imaginative response to the whole play.”
For it is in our imaginative response to the whole play—not simply to what can be extracted as ‘character’, nor indeed to what can be simply extracted as ‘theme’ or ‘symbol’—that the meaning lies; and Shakespeare calls on us to be as fully conscious as we can, even if consciousness includes relaxed enjoyment and absorption as well as, sometimes, more deliberate attention to this or that aspect of the whole experience.21
Character is both a reduction and an extrapolation: it is less than “the whole play,” and it is “an abstraction from the total response.” For the literary critic, as Knights conceives him or her, the proper level of analysis is textual, and character operates at a different pitch. Lady Macbeth’s hypothetical children (or lack thereof) have no textual presence in the play, and an interest in those children is a distraction from Shakespeare’s work. Contrary to Knights, I find such interests central to Shakespeare’s plays. There may be no certain answer within Shakespeare’s text to the question, “how many children had Lady Macbeth?” I would venture to guess she had at least one.22 Yet, the answer to that question—the reality of Lady Macbeth’s having had a child—drives the play. By imagining Macbeth’s stifled ambition and urging Macbeth to consider her own past experience— “How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me” (1.7.55)—Lady Macbeth overcomes her husband’s reservations and convinces him to murder Duncan. The murder plot will stall unless Lady Macbeth can read Macbeth’s mind properly and move him to action. He seems convinced by the comparison of his ambition to Lady Macbeth’s absent child, responding with a fear of failure rather than of the execution of the act: “If we should fail?” (1.7.59). Macbeth’s mind has moved on to the aftermath of the murder, and the plot moves forward as Lady Macbeth’s assuages these relatively minor fears: “We fail? / But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail” (1.7.60–62). The rest of the scene deals with details of the murder plot rather than Macbeth’s reservations.
But why is Macbeth convinced by the tale of Lady Macbeth’s lost child? As Macbeth says of his own unspoken ambitions, “Present fears / Are less than horrible imaginings” (1.3.137–8). The imagined horror of murdering a king outweighs present fears—of warfare and of the wyrd sisters— because it is absent and unspeakable:
My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man, That function is smother’d in surmise, And nothing is, but what is not. (1.3.139–42)
Macbeth’s mind is shaken and smothered by what he cannot yet know but can only imagine. Lady Macbeth counters that suffocation with her own imaginative transport: the vivid image of a bashed yet beloved child. She overcomes her misreading of Macbeth’s mind and encourages him to do the same—to see his own ambition clearly as a beloved child like that which she once nursed. Only through a clear reading of Macbeth’s mind can Lady Macbeth perfect her rhetoric to persuade her husband to act.
As with Lady Macbeth’s children, so with Macbeth’s mind: the reader has no direct access to knowledge about either. Instead, the reader can only question, and the energy of such questions drives Shakespeare’s plays. Reading (and misreading) minds through inference and imagination is something human beings do, whether in fictional worlds or in everyday life. The goal of this book is to apply the language of reading minds to Shakespearean character criticism in the hope of clarifying how Shakespeare’s characters misunderstand one another and of showing how the mechanics of misunderstanding are central to Shakespeare’s plays.
1.2
Overview Of the ChapterS
In this section, I outline the following chapters, tracking inference and imagination in Shakespeare’s plays and using the language of mindreading to analyze moments of misreading. Shakespeare manipulates these mechanics of misreading to cultivate an early modern audience for his plays, an audience that can track the fictional minds of his complex characters and that continues to contemplate the moral ramifications of the existence of such characters even after leaving the playhouse. Misreading fuels Shakespeare’s popular appeal and the enduring effect his works have had upon modern and early modern culture.
In Chap. 2, “Reading the Mind: Cognitive Science and Close Reading,” I draw on contemporary cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, particularly on the work of Simon Baron-Cohen and Alvin Goldman, to identify two methods of mindreading: inference (the theory-theory of mindreading) and imagination (the simulation theory of mindreading). I engage current debates about the usefulness of character criticism, but I begin by addressing L.C. Knights’s tongue-in-cheek question, “How many children had Lady Macbeth?” Knights crystallized discontent with nineteenth-century character criticism, a discontent that was picked up by American New Critics and subsequent post-structuralist critics of many stripes. Like Michael Bristol, Jessica Slights, and Paul Yachnin, I argue for a literary criticism that considers
characters as if they were real people living in recognizable worlds. I add to this conversation by using terms and concepts from cognitive science that provide clarity to discussions of character. In this chapter, I apply cognitive science to discussions of character in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece. Given its slow and meticulous depiction of character, The Rape of Lucrece acts as a primer in how methods of mindreading can be employed to close read characters. Theories of mindreading offer criticism a language with which to analyze moments of reading and misreading and to consider the mental workings of fictional characters in Shakespeare’s plays. By focusing on such moments of misreading, Shakespeare trains his spectators and readers to be better mindreaders, ones who are wary of the pitfalls of misreading in drama and in everyday life.
In Chap. 3, “Inferring the Mind: Parasites and the Breakdown of Inference in Othello,” I demonstrate how parasitic characters in Renaissance drama pry into the minds of others via inference. My focus is Othello’s Iago, a character who uses early modern men’s anxiety over women’s chastity to overload other characters’ mindreading capacities. Cognitive science has demonstrated that when a person is presented with too many mental states about which to draw inferences (more than four or five at once), that person loses the ability to track those states accurately. I argue that Iago hides his malignity beneath chains of inferences he constructs for others, chains designed to overburden and disrupt inferential mindreading. I also track the development of the parasite character type in Machiavelli’s La Mandragola, Jonson’s Volpone, and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi.
In Chap. 4, “Imagining the Mind: Empathy and Misreading in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing,” I shift my focus from reading minds through inference to reading them through imagination. As is the case with inference, imagination breaks down in characteristic ways that result from a one-sided method of mindreading. Recent criticism of Much Ado About Nothing has focused on the inferential errors that Claudio makes when he misinterprets Hero’s blush in act four. I shift the focus of the discussion from misinterpretation of facts to misreading of emotions, arguing that Claudio’s trouble is not external—social forces or erroneous impressions—but internal; he follows the tide of imagination and his emotions and fails to combine inferential distance with his own imaginative readings of others.
In Chap. 5, “Integrating Minds: Blending Methods in The King Is Alive and Twelfth Night,” I discuss two ways to integrate inference and imagination. First, I show how Kristian Levring and Anders Thomas
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Jensen’s The King Is Alive—an appropriation of Shakespeare’s King Lear—exemplifies a story that leans heavily on imaginative rather than inferential character building, presenting a wayward Shakespearean director who offers immediate empathic context as a key to character rather than inferences based on historical context or psychological backstory. Second, I discuss how inference and imagination might be integrated through conceptual blending by tracking ambiguity in Twelfth Night, specifically regarding Duke Orsino: inference and imagination can blend together to produce ambiguity and surprise. A reading of Orsino could be wholly imaginative (focusing on his melancholy) or wholly inferential (focusing on his social role and authority as Duke). When Orsino threatens to kill Cesario in the final act, these two interpretations suddenly combine into one via conceptual blending, the cognitive ability to combine discrete inputs into a coherent, gestalt-like whole.
In Chap. 6, “Finding the Frame: Inference in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet,” I treat inference as a framing device for moments of imagination. For Shakespeare’s plays focused on decay—Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet—the early modern theory of spontaneous generation is an important frame for imaginative mindreading. Romeo and Juliet, for instance, each make pivotal decisions based upon their understanding of how decay functions, as a process immanent and imminent at the point of death. To that end, this chapter brings together recent work in animal studies and in cognitive ecology to consider the affects that animal (and insect) life have upon human cognition. Understanding the choices Shakespeare’s characters make can require setting aside our own contemporary theories of decay and inferentially adopting theirs, thinking through the lives of carrion flies as we think through the lives of these young lovers.
In Chap. 7, “Reading Incoherence: How Shakespeare Speaks Back to Cognitive Science,” I argue that Shakespeare’s plays enable a balance of inference and imagination that lets readers contemplate states of mind outside the neurotypical realm of experience, such as madness. Contemporary cognitive science has shown difficulty conceptualizing non-normative modes of thought, particularly those the field classifies as “empathy deficit disorders,” such as autism, psychopathy, and sociopathy. While theories of mindreading can break down in the face of such modes of thought, Shakespeare deliberately pursues these difficult cases of mindreading, using them as the crises through which comic closure or tragic
consequences can be explored. For instance, Fletcher and Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen depicts the mad as opaque to society, inaccessible to inference or imagination alone. Incoherence operates similarly in King Lear, a play where Shakespeare omits explicit motivations for his characters’ actions, crafting easily misread minds that catalyze his play’s conflicts and moral dilemmas. In these plays, a balance of inference and imagination offers a way through the seeming incoherence of madness.
In Chap. 8, “Mindreading as Engagement: Active Spectators and ‘The Strangers’ Case’,” I argue that mindreading is an engaged process for readers and spectators, for they risk becoming implicated in the creation of characters. While much mindreading can occur automatically and unconsciously, both inference and imagination draw upon the mindreader’s own knowledge and experiences to flesh out the target of mindreading. As such, all literary characters are constructed, in part, from a mindreader’s own mind. The mindreader is implicated with—and changed by—those characters, and Shakespeare’s plays deliberately cultivate this engagement. I illustrate this engagement through Shakespeare’s “The Strangers’ Case,” a monologue that Shakespeare added to Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle’s Sir Thomas More. In the monologue, Thomas More uses inference and imagination to persuade a riotous, xenophobic crowd of Londoners to lay down their weapons and adopt the perspectives of the strangers in their city. Shakespeare depicts the power of mindreading to quell strife and to promote compassionate thought. Misreading complicates and enlivens this engagement: mindreading makes for interesting literature when it is fractured, inaccurate, and disrupted. Shakespeare pursues such moments of misreading and structures his plays around them. For Shakespeare, misread minds can be the foundation for understanding his plays and characters.
Moments of misreading are the breaks in mindreading that reveal that this common cognitive process is neither easy nor to be taken for granted. Misreading reveals the profound cognitive labor involved in each act of understanding another mind and the twofold risk of such labor: that the reader will fail to read others accurately, and that the reader will be changed by the encounter with another. Shakespeare cultivates these moments of misreading because their dramatic energy is central to his plays. Careful and sustained critical attention to such moments can benefit both Shakespearean criticism and cognitive science, for the cognitive process of mindreading is at the heart of both disciplines.23
nOteS
1. Premack and Woodruff, “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?”, 515–26. Premack and Woodruff answered their question in the affirmative.
2. Haidt, The Righteous Mind, 237–40.
3. Tomasello, “Understanding and Sharing Intentions,” 675–91.
4. Epley, Mindwise, 12.
5. “art,” n. 1.1. Oxford English Dictionary (hereafter OED).
6. The bleeding Captain, when describing the stalled battle between Duncan and Cawdor’s forces, compares the battle to “two spent swimmers, that do cling together / And choke their art” (Mac. 1.8–9).
7. LLL 1.1.14, 4.3.326; Tro. 4.4.77; TN 1.3.92.
8. Ham 2.2.95, 99; MM 1.2.174.
9. Mac. 4.3.143; Rom. 5.3.243.
10. Luc. 1394. Physiognomy is the study of, as Montaigne writes, “the conformity and relation of the body to the spirit.” Montaigne, The Complete Essays, III.12, 809.
11. Ham. 3.1.50; MM 2.2.184.
12. Mac. 3.5.9, 4.1.101; Tmp. 1.2.1, 5.1.50.
13. Cym. 3.3.46.
14. Glib means both “smooth and slippery” and “easily pronounced,” referring both to painted faces and to easy lies. “glib,” adj., A.1., A.3.b. OED.
15. “art” 7. OED.
16. “construction,” n. I.1.a. OED.
17. Ibid., II.5.a.
18. Ibid., II.6.
19. Knights, “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?”, 272.
20. Ibid., 273.
21. Knights, “The Question of Character in Shakespeare,” 219.
22. Peter Stallybrass has argued the contrary—that Lady Macbeth has both had children and not had children, marking her paradoxically as both mother and witch. Stallybrass, “Macbeth and witchcraft,” 104–18.
23. This book is based upon my 2015 dissertation at The University of Alabama, “To Essay the Mind: Shakespearean Character and Theories of Mindreading.”
BiBliOgraphy
Bradley, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. UK: Penguin Books, 1991. First published in 1904. Epley, Nicholas. Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. N. R. HELMS
THE MIND’S CONSTRUCTION: AN INTRODUCTION TO MINDREADING…
Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Vintage Books, 2013.
Helms, Nicholas R. “To Essay the Mind: Shakespearean Character and Theories of Mindreading.” PhD. diss., University of Alabama, 2015. ProQuest.
Knights, L.C. “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?” “Hamlet” and Other Shakespearean Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979a. First published in 1933.
———. “The Question of Character in Shakespeare.” “Hamlet” and Other Shakespearean Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979b. First published in 1959.
Montaigne, Michel de. The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Translated by Donald M. Frame. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965.
Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. Last Modified June 2018.
Premack, David, and Guy Woodruff. “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (1978): 515–26.
———. Macbeth. Edited by Kenneth Muir. London: Arden Shakespeare, 1962.
———. Measure for Measure. Edited by J.W. Lever. London: Arden Shakespeare, 1965.
———. Romeo and Juliet. Edited by René Weis. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2012.
———. The Rape of Lucrece: Shakespeare’s Poems. Edited by Katherine DuncanJones and H.R. Woudhuysen. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2007b.
———. The Tempest. Edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. London: Arden Shakespeare, 1999. Revised 2011.
———. The Winter’s Tale. Edited by John Pitcher. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010.
———. Troilus and Cressida. Edited by David Bevington. London: Arden Shakespeare, 1998b.
———. Twelfth Night, or What You Will. Edited by Keir Elam. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2008.
Stallybrass, Peter. “Macbeth and Witchcraft.” In Shakespeare’s Late Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Susanne L. Wofford, 104–18. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.
Tomasello, Michael, M. Carpenter, J. Call, T. Behne, and H. Moll. “Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (2005): 675–91.
CHAPTER 2
Reading the Mind: Cognitive Science and Close Reading
In this chapter, I enter the debate about the usefulness of character criticism, joining critics such as Michael Bristol, Jessica Slights, and Paul Yachnin in arguing for a criticism that considers characters as if they were real people living in recognizable worlds. Mindreading is the human ability to look at a person or a literary character and contemplate what that person is thinking, feeling, and planning. Drawing particularly on the work of Simon Baron-Cohen and Alvin Goldman, I review contemporary cognitive science and the philosophy of mind to identify two methods of mindreading: inference (the theory-theory of mindreading) and imagination (the simulation theory of mindreading). I add to this ongoing conversation by applying cognitive science to discussions of character in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece. Given its slow and meticulous depiction of character, The Rape of Lucrece acts as a primer in how methods of mindreading can be employed to close read characters.
2.1 CharaCter CritiCism and the importanCe of Lady maCbeth’s ChiLdren
Despite his titular question, “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?”, L.C. Knights does not directly address the possibility (or irrelevance) of Lady Macbeth’s children himself. Nor does A.C. Bradley, whom Knights critiques. Though Bradley analyzes Macduff’s “He has no children”
N. R. Helms, Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters, Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03565-5_2
(4.3.216) at length, he concludes, “It may be that Macbeth had many children or that he had none. We cannot say, and it does not concern the play.”1 For Bradley, Macbeth’s possible children earn consideration and summary dismissal; Lady Macbeth’s do not warrant mention. Bradley does, however, dwell at length on Macbeth’s ambitions before the play’s action and, more importantly, before the prophecies of the wyrd sisters:
But when Macbeth heard them he was not an innocent man. Precisely how far his mind was guilty may be a question; but no innocent man would have started, as he did, with a start of fear at the mere prophecy of a crown, or have conceived thereupon immediately the thought of murder. Either this thought was not new to him, or he had cherished at least some vaguer dishonourable dream, the instantaneous recurrence of which, at the moment of his hearing the prophecy, revealed to him an inward and terrifying guilt. In either case not only was he free to accept or resist the temptation, but the temptation was already within him.2
Here one can see the grounds for Knights’s complaint against Bradleyan criticism. In analyzing Macbeth’s fear—which he accepts from Banquo’s report: “why do you start, and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?” (1.3.51–52)—Bradley does not turn to Shakespeare’s text to look for evidence of Macbeth’s state of mind; instead, he posits that Macbeth’s behavior is unintelligible unless one imagines Macbeth’s mind before the play even begins.
Granted, the textual evidence of what Macbeth might be thinking is sparse. Macbeth speaks to the witches after Banquo queries their nature— “Speak, if you can:—what are you?” (1.3.47)—but he does not respond to their prophecy until Banquo has interrogated them at length and they move to depart: “Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more” (1.3.70). In the interim, Banquo further describes Macbeth as “rapt withal” and refers once more to his fear (1.3.57, 60). If Banquo’s description of Macbeth is accurate, one knows that Macbeth is afraid but not why, and the knowledge of why Macbeth is afraid informs the way one conceives of Macbeth’s later actions. For Bradley, Shakespeare’s narrative hangs upon a scene that Shakespeare never wrote or referenced: Macbeth’s dream of reigning as king, a dream that occurs before the prophecy has even been pronounced. Bradley makes the same critical move when he discusses Lady Macbeth’s incomprehension of Macbeth’s reservations: “What beast was’t then, / That made you break this enterprise to me?” (1.7.47–48). Lady Macbeth credits her husband with creating the plan to murder Duncan; Bradley questions whether Macbeth ever actually proposed such a plan:
In the letter he does not, of course, openly ‘break the enterprise’ to her, and it is not likely that he would do such a thing in a letter; but if they had had ambitious conversations, in which each felt that some half-formed guilty idea was floating in the mind of the other, she might naturally take the words of the letter as indicating much more than they said; and then in her passionate contempt at his hesitation, and her passionate eagerness to overcome it, she might easily accuse him, doubtless with exaggeration, and probably with conscious exaggeration, of having actually proposed the murder.3
Bradley’s reading of Lady Macbeth’s lines hinges on his construction of how Lady Macbeth has read her husband and upon his supposition of another missing scene, one in which Macbeth and Lady Macbeth discuss regicide. Both Bradley and Knights recognize that such suppositions lie outside the scope of Shakespeare’s text, yet, while for Knights these suppositions distract from the text, for Bradley they enable its interpretation. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedy, however, is rather light in its use of direct textual evidence. Bradley operates almost entirely at the level of plot and of character, and Knights’s critique of Bradley’s methods successfully appealed to the textual emphasis of New Formalism in the 1930s. As a result, character criticism fell out of favor, and critics dared not inquire about Lady Macbeth’s children or any similar backstories. This critical requirement was reinforced by post-structuralism, which opposed the humanism implicit in A.C. Bradley’s work. In their introduction to Shakespearean Character, Paul Yachnin and Jessica Slights summarize the post-structuralist objections to classical character criticism:
The poststructuralist case against character has two major strains. The first theoretical challenge argues for the impossibility of inward, agential personhood altogether on the grounds that subjects are merely the effects of the social, linguistic, and ideological determinations of individual identity. The second historical challenge argues that inwardness as we understand and experience it did not exist in the early modern period. On both of these accounts, readings of Shakespeare that presuppose an inward, agential personhood are certainly anachronistic and probably also politically retrograde.4
Character criticism like Bradley’s often ignored “social, linguistic, and ideological determinations of individual identity,” but do these forces, in fact, determine identity, or are they instead important factors constituent of identity? A notion of identity that replaces Bradley’s “inner movements” of character with the external movements of society, culture, and ideology may be likewise reductive.5 Furthermore, while understandings
of self, identity, and character have changed since the early modern period, “inward, agential personhood” can be understood as a human rather than a modern phenomenon. As Katharine Maus argues in Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance, “the difference between knowing oneself ‘from the inside’ and knowing other people ‘from the outside’ may seem so fundamental to social life that it cannot be the property of a particular historical moment.”6 Identity is culturally contingent, but every culture plays upon the same fundamental cognitive framework, the same human instrument.
In recent decades, character has returned to early modern literary studies. Yachnin and Slights note:
Having all but disappeared from Shakespeare criticism as an analytic category in the second half of the twentieth century, the idea of character has now begun to reemerge as an important—perhaps even an essential—way of thinking about the political, ethical, historical, literary, and performative aspects of early modern theater.7
This resurgence of character as a critical category is, in large part, due to the resilience of character as a tool for the Shakespearean community at large: “Shakespeare’s characters have continued to have a lively existence for theater practitioners, playgoers, students, and general readers.”8 Despite the protests of Knights and of post-structuralism, of several generations of critics and theorists, character has persisted as a tool for readers and spectators of Shakespeare’s plays outside the tradition of textual studies. Character’s return to criticism can connect vernacular approaches to Shakespeare with critical conversations. As Yachnin and Slights suggest:
character is the organizing principle of Shakespeare’s plays—it organizes both the formal and ideological dimensions of the drama and is not organized by them—and we also argue that character is the principal bridge over which the emotional, cognitive, and political transactions of theater and literature pass between actors and playgoers or between written texts and readers.9
Since Yachnin and Slights’s Shakespeare and Character, character has been analyzed in the work of Michael Bristol,10 Amy Cook,11 Mustapha Fahmi,12 Raphael Lyne,13 and Bruce McConachie,14 among others. Character works as a key element in the way one can discuss acting, cognition, morality, rhetoric, philosophy, and spectatorship. In this book, the study of character will bridge literary criticism and cognitive science, offering a site where
contemporary theories of mindreading provide a framework for analyzing how Shakespeare’s characters misread one another. These moments of misreading stage breakdowns in inference and imagination, breakdowns that drive Shakespeare’s plots and delight both readers and spectators.
In contemporary character criticism, character does not connote the fully fledged modern personalities so often praised in Shakespeare’s drama. Few characters, for example, approach the complexity of Lear or Hamlet, but why should they? The inward depth of Hamlet is distinctive, but as Sharon O’Dair points out in her own discussion of character, “a difference in degree is not a difference in kind.”15 In “On the Value of Being a Cartoon, in Literature and in Life,” O’Dair argues that the study of Shakespearean characters does not need to reinforce traditional assumptions about Shakespeare’s essentialist humanism: “The literary effect of a subject may not imply the truth about human nature, but if such an effect is to be determinate, it must refer to the ways audiences think about the self or their own selves.”16 Instead, the study of Shakespearean characters can call attention to—and in part bridge—the differences between scholarly and vernacular approaches to Shakespeare. She writes,
Playwrights and critics, students of the writerly craft, want to judge characters as parts of the puzzle of how a given play is put together—as words on a page … In contrast, consumers—that is, theatergoers and the many critics who speak to them or in other ways take their task as consumers seriously—want to judge characters as they judge people they know or meet in society.17
Reading, spectating, and engaging in human society involve a common set of processes for reading the minds of other agents, real or fictional. Contemporary character criticism works to tie such processes to the texts that evoke them rather than stigmatize them as common or uncritical.
O’Dair notes that the classic distinction between round and flat characters—or between Shakespeare’s “lifelike” Hamlet and previous, archetypal dramatic agents in sixteenth-century drama—is not a category distinction:
[The people] we find in society, even today—at work, at a restaurant, or in the weight room—are cartoons, caricatures without discernible inwardness, knowable primarily from the outside, in their roles as janitor, postal worker, aerobics instructor; wife, lover, adulterer; or homosexual, heterosexual, switch-hitter. Moreover, it is not just that we know other selves primarily as cartoons or players of roles; we come to know our own selves through
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Notwithstanding the difficulty of the ground, the allied troops continued to advance in admirable order. Other movements took place, the result of which terminated in a complete victory. King Joseph, whose carriage and court equipage were seized, had barely time to escape on horseback. The defeat was the most complete that the French had sustained in the Peninsula.
The Marquis of Wellington, in his despatch, stated that “MajorGeneral the Honorable Charles Colville’s brigade of the third division was seriously attacked in its advance by a very superior force well formed, which it drove in, supported by General Inglis’s brigade of the seventh division, commanded by Colonel Grant, of the Eightysecond. These officers and the troops under their command distinguished themselves.”
In this conflict the E - , under Lieut.-Colonel Gough, had the honor of taking the bâton of Marshal Jourdan. The circumstance was thus alluded to upon the Marquis of Wellington being appointed a Field Marshal. In a most flattering letter, the Prince Regent, in the name and behalf of His Majesty, thus conferred the honor:—“ You have sent me among the trophies of your unrivalled fame the staff of a French Marshal, and I send you in return that of England.”
The E - had one ensign, four serjeants, and eightythree rank and file killed; three captains, four lieutenants, two ensigns, seven serjeants, two drummers, and one hundred and fortyeight rank and file wounded, making a total of two hundred and fiftyfour. The strength of the battalion in the field was six hundred and thirty-seven.
Killed
Ensign Walter O’Grady. Wounded.
Captain Frederick Vandeleur, } died of their wounds. ” James O’Brien, } ” James King.
Lieutenant Philip Higginson. ” William Mountgarrett.
” Thomas Dowling.
” Wright Knox
Ensign John Stafford
” Hilliard
The royal authority was subsequently granted for the word “V ” to be borne on the regimental colour and appointments of the E - , in commemoration of the gallantry of the second battalion in this battle.
Volunteer O’Grady, and Serjeant-Major Wallace, were promoted for their good conduct; and Lieutenant and Adjutant Moore had two horses shot under him in this battle.
The army pursued the French, who, after throwing in reinforcements into the fortress of Pampeluna, continued their retreat. Being reinforced, and Marshal Soult, who had been selected by Napoleon for the command of the French army in Spain, with the rank of “Lieutenant of the Emperor,” having arrived, they forced the British to retire on a position in the Spanish range of the Pyrenees; when the brigade, in which the E - was placed, held the right of the position from the 27th of July to the 1st of August, during which the enemy twice made demonstrations of attack. The French being defeated on the 1st of August, retreated and took up and fortified a position in their own territories; the British pursued through the famous pass of Roncesvalles, and on the 8th of August 1813, first came in view of France, and entered its territories on the 10th of November, having during the intermediate period being engaged in skirmishes, in which a few were killed and wounded.
On the 10th of November the British troops were engaged at the Nivelle, from five o’clock in the morning until dark, meeting with a most obstinate resistance in an entrenched camp. The gallantry of the allies, however, drove the French to Saint Jean de Luz. The E - on this occasion called forth from Major-General the Honorable Charles Colville, who commanded the division, and Colonel John Keane (afterwards Lieut.-General Lord Keane), who commanded the brigade, the most animated praises. One ensign, six serjeants, one drummer, and sixty-eight rank and file, were killed;
one lieut.-colonel, four lieutenants, eleven serjeants, one drummer, and one hundred and twenty-three rank and file, wounded. Total, two hundred and sixteen. The strength of the battalion in the field was three hundred and eighty-six.
Killed.
Ensign Hilliard. Wounded
Brevet Lieut.-Colonel—Hugh Gough.
Lieutenant John Kelly, leg amputated. ” Joseph Leslie. ” James Kenelly.
Ensign Henry Bailey
The word “N ,” borne on the regimental colour and appointments, by royal authority, is commemorative of the gallantry of the second battalion of the E - on this occasion.
During the remaining part of the year, the regiment was frequently engaged with the enemy in skirmishes.
Private Robert Smith, of the Grenadiers, was, at the request of Sir Charles Colville, promoted to be serjeant for his gallantry.
Volunteers Bourne and Bagenall, who were attached to the light company, were both severely wounded, and promoted to be ensigns for their gallant conduct. Serjeant Prideaux, of the light company, also distinguished himself.
1814 .
In 1814 the army, strengthened by recruits and recovered men, continued its march into France, and on the 24th of February arrived at Salvatira.
The light company was engaged with those of the brigade, when a much superior force of the enemy attacked them; the light companies were in consequence recalled, and the brigade brought down to cover their retreat. On this occasion two rank and file were killed; Lieutenants Joseph Barry and William Wolsley Lanphier, with
nine rank and file, wounded; and Lieutenant George Jackson taken prisoner.
On the 25th of February the regiment crossed the ford, attacked the French at Orthes on the 27th, and drove them from their entrenchments with immense loss. In this action the second battalion of the E - regiment drew from the general officers in command the greatest praises for its bravery. It had one lieutenant, five serjeants, and eighty-seven rank and file killed; one major, four lieutenants, eight serjeants, and one hundred and fifty-eight rank and file wounded: total, two hundred and sixty-four. The strength in the field was five hundred and fifty-one.
Killed.
Lieutenant James Fitz Gerald. Wounded
Major Frederick Desbarres.
Lieutenant William Mountgarrett.
” James Thompson.
” Grady.
” William Maginnis
In commemoration of this battle, the E - received the royal authority to bear the word “O ” on the regimental colour and appointments.
In an affair which took place on the 19th of March at Vic Bigorre, three rank and file were killed, and two lieutenants and twelve rank and file wounded: total, seventeen. The strength of the battalion was five hundred and seventy.
Wounded.
Lieutenant—William Dunlevie. Lieut. and Adjt.—James T. Moore.
Having continued the pursuit of the enemy and crossed the river Garonne, four leagues below Toulouse, on the 5th of April, and attacked the French on the 10th of the same month at Toulouse on the left of the town, the redoubts were taken and retaken several
times during the day The enemy retreated at night, having suffered great loss; that of the E - was one brevet-major, four serjeants, one drummer, and twenty-two rank and file killed; one lieutenant, one ensign, six serjeants, and sixty-four rank and file wounded: total, one hundred. Its strength in the field was four hundred and sixty-four.
Killed.
Brevet-Major—Henry Bright. Wounded.
Lieutenant—William Wolsley Lanphier. Ensign—Abraham F. Royse.
Patrick Connors never went into action without attracting the notice of his officers. On this occasion he particularly distinguished himself, and was promoted to the rank of serjeant, which situation he retained until his death.
Serjeant Carr, who was wounded at Tarifa, and served with credit in every action with the battalion, distinguished himself; likewise Serjeants Rideaux and Irwin. Lieutenant and Adjutant Moore had a horse shot under him. Private Thomas Byrne was also badly wounded, but recovered, and was promoted.
The royal authority was afterwards granted for the E to bear the word “T ” on the regimental colour and appointments, in commemoration of the second battalion having shared in this battle.
During the night of the 11th of April the French troops evacuated Toulouse, and a white flag was hoisted. On the following day the Marquis of Wellington entered the city amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants. In the course of the afternoon of the 12th of April intelligence was received of the abdication of Napoleon; and had not the express been delayed on the journey by the French police, the sacrifice of many valuable lives would have been prevented.
A disbelief in the truth of this intelligence occasioned much unnecessary bloodshed at Bayonne, the garrison of which made a
desperate sortie on the 14th of April, and Lieut.-General Sir John Hope (afterwards Earl of Hopetoun) was taken prisoner, MajorGeneral Andrew Hay was killed, and Major-General Stopford was wounded. This was the last action of the Peninsular war.
A Treaty of Peace was established between Great Britain and France; Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne of his ancestors, and Napoleon Bonaparte was permitted to reside at Elba, the sovereignty of that island having been conceded to him by the allied powers.
Prior to the breaking up of the Peninsular army, the Duke of Wellington issued the following general order:
“Bordeaux, 14th June 1814.
“G O .
“The Commander of the Forces, being upon the point of returning to England, again takes this opportunity of congratulating the army upon the recent events which have restored peace to their country and to the world.
“The share which the British army have had in producing those events, and the high character with which the army will quit this country, must be equally satisfactory to every individual belonging to it, as they are to the Commander of the Forces, and he trusts that the troops will continue the same good conduct to the last.
“The Commander of the Forces once more requests the army to accept his thanks.
“Although circumstances may alter the relations in which he has stood towards them for some years so much to his satisfaction, he assures them he will never cease to feel the warmest interest in their welfare and honor, and that he will be at all times happy to be of any service to those to whose conduct, discipline, and gallantry their country is so much indebted.”
In addition to the other distinctions acquired during the war in the Peninsula and the south of France, the E - received the royal authority to bear the word “P ” on the regimental colour and appointments.
The war being ended, the battalion marched from Toulouse to Blanchfort, and embarked at Pouillac on the 7th of July, and arrived at Cork on the 20th of that month.
After being inspected, on landing at Cork, by the General commanding the district, the battalion was marched to Mallow to relieve the Twentieth regiment. It subsequently marched to the city of Limerick, and was stationed there for a few days, when orders were received for it to proceed to Middleton, in the county of Cork, to await the arrival of transports.
The battalion embarked at the Cove of Cork on the 23rd of August, and landed at Portsmouth, after a protracted voyage, on the 14th of September. On the day of disembarkation it proceeded en route to Horsham, where the depôt of the regiment was stationed. After a stay of some days at Horsham, it marched to Plymouth for garrison duty, where it remained until December, having taken its tour of a month’s duty over the American prisoners of war at Dartmoor.
On the 6th of December 1814 the battalion embarked for Guernsey, of which island General Sir John Doyle, Bart., the Colonel of the regiment, was Governor, and where it arrived on the 8th of that month.
1816
.
The battalion continued on duty at Guernsey until the 2nd of April 1816, when it embarked for Portsmouth, from whence it marched to Colchester in September following.
1817
.
On the 25th of January 1817, in pursuance of measures being taken for the reduction of the army, orders were received for the
disbandment of the second battalion of the E - regiment, on which occasion Lieut.-Colonel Sir Hugh Gough issued the following orders:—
“Colchester Barracks, 24th January, 1817.
“R O .
“It is with the most painful feeling of regret Lieut.-Colonel Sir Hugh Gough is necessitated to announce to the second battalion, Prince’s Own Irish, that their services as a corps are no longer required, in consequence of the military arrangements it has been found necessary to adopt.
“In making this distressing though necessary communication, and in taking leave of those brave officers and men, at whose head it has been Sir Hugh Gough’s good fortune so long to have been placed, he feels himself on this occasion called upon to recapitulate the leading ones of so many brilliant achievements performed by his gallant comrades now about to separate. The recollection of such scenes must be a source of gratification to all, whether called on to serve their country in India, or to retire to their families and native land. To their Commanding Officer it ever has and ever will be, a source of heartfelt exultation. By their country and by their illustrious master, their services have been duly appreciated, and nobly rewarded by that designation, and by those badges so peculiar, so honorable, and so gratifying.
“The E - had the good fortune to serve under the first General of the age, throughout the greater part of the Peninsular war, and longer than most corps in the service. At the battle of Talavera on the 27th of July, 1809 (when the battalion first encountered the enemy), they had to sustain unsupported the repeated attacks of the advance corps, and did not retire until both flanks were turned, the battalion nearly surrounded by an infinitely superior force, and two-thirds of the officers and men either killed or wounded. The movement of the regiment to the rear, and its formation on the other corps of
the division, was a counterpart of their conduct, in having instantly recovered, on the first attack of the enemy, a temporary confusion which was occasioned by the fire of a British regiment into the rear of the battalion, the thickness of the wood having made it impossible for that distinguished corps to have perceived the new position which the E - had taken up.
“On this memorable occasion the charge of the two centre companies did them and their officers the greatest honor. The gallantry of the whole was conspicuous, and obtained the personal thanks of the brave officer who commanded the division[16] , and who unfortunately fell on the following day, and also the repeated thanks of the officer commanding the brigade.
“At the brilliant action of Barrosa the conduct of the E in taking up the first position under a most destructive fire from the enemy’s artillery, and a column three times its numbers, when it formed with the precision of parade movements, gave a happy omen of the issue of the day. The advance of the battalion in line, its volley into the two battalions of the eighth, and its charge on that corps, called for and received the proudest meed of gallantry, the enthusiastic approbation of such an officer as Sir Thomas Graham.
“This charge was rewarded by the wreathed eagle of the eighth French regiment, and a howitzer: it led in a great measure to the total discomfiture of the right column under General Laval, and nearly annihilated two battalions of one of the finest regiments in the French army: of one thousand six hundred men, which they brought into the field, only three hundred and fifty returned to Chiclana. The ready formation of the right wing from amidst the ranks of the retreating enemy, and their charge on the fifty-fourth French regiment, which at this moment attacked the right of the E - , was rewarded by the marked approbation of their esteemed chief. The ultimate advance of the battalion on the enemy’s guns was equally praiseworthy.
“At Tarifa, a species of service new to the British army called for a renewal of that steady gallantry which marked the conduct of the E - at Barrosa. The immense superiority, in number, of the enemy, added enthusiasm to discipline: the cool intrepidity, the strict observance of orders, the exulting cheer when the enemy’s columns pressed forward to the attack, proved the feelings which influenced the defenders of the breach of Tarifa, and was as honorable to them as soldiers, as their humane conduct to the wounded (when the enemy fled) was to their characters as men.
“The persevering attention to their duty on the walls, in conjunction with their brave comrades, the second battalion of the Forty-seventh, exposed to the continued fire of an enemy ten times the number of the garrison, and to the most dreadfully inclement weather, led to the ultimate abandonment of the siege, and was rewarded by the approbation of their General, their Prince, and their Country.
“The battle of Vittoria renewed the claim the E - had to a place in the third division, and under its lamented leader[17] the battalion acquired fresh laurels. The charge of the Prince’s Own on the hill crowned with the enemy’s artillery, and covered with a strong column, called forth the marked approbation of Major-General the Honorable Charles Colville, as did the pursuit of that column, though flanked by a corps greatly superior in numbers. The cool steadiness with which they preserved their second position, under the fire and within a short range of a large portion of the enemy’s field artillery, although the battalion at this time had lost upwards of half the number it took into the field, showed the steady perseverance in bravery and discipline which ever marked the glorious career of the corps.
“The attack on the fortified hill at the action of the Nivelle, and the gallantry which rendered the conduct of the battalion so conspicuous in the subsequent attacks on that day, called for those animated expressions from Major-General the Honorable Charles Colville and Colonel John Keane, who
commanded the division and brigade, ‘Gallant E !’ ‘Noble E - !’ and deservedly were those titles bestowed.
“The actions of Orthes and Toulouse were also most glorious to the character of the corps, and its conduct was rewarded by the repeated thanks of the Generals commanding.
“Since the return of the E - from service, they have shown, that to gallantry in the field, they add the most essential requisite in a soldier, orderly and correct conduct in garrison, which has acquired for them the approbation of every general officer under whom they have served, and the good wishes and esteem of the inhabitants with whom they have been placed.
“While the foregoing detail will be most gratifying to the gallant men who have survived, the recital must also be consoling to the families of those who fell. The Prince’s Own Irish bled prodigally and nobly; they have sealed their duty to their King and country by the sacrifice of nearly two thousand of their comrades. But, while Lieut.-Colonel Sir Hugh Gough feels an honest pride in recounting these achievements, he wishes to caution his brother soldiers from assuming any exclusive right to pre-eminence over their gallant comrades; the Army of the Peninsula nobly did their duty, and repeatedly received the thanks of their Prince and their country.
“In parting with the remains of that corps in which Sir Hugh Gough has served twenty-two years, at the head of which, and by whose valour and discipline, he has obtained those marks of distinction with which he has been honored by his Royal Master, he cannot too emphatically express the most heartfelt acknowledgments and his deep regret.
“From all classes of his officers he has uniformly experienced the most cordial and ready support. Their conduct in the field, while it called for the entire approbation of their Commanding Officer, acquired for them the best stay to military enterprise and military renown, the confidence of their men, and led to the
accomplishment of their wishes, the Approbation of their Prince, the Honor of their country, and the Character of their Corps. Every non-commissioned officer and man is equally entitled to the thanks of his Commanding Officer. To all he feels greatly indebted, and he begs to assure all, that their prosperity as individuals, or as a corps, will ever be the first wish of his heart, and to promote which he will consider no sacrifice or exertion too great.”
The second battalion was disbanded at Colchester on the 1st of February 1817, having transferred to the first battalion three hundred and thirty effective men, most of whom were embarked in the same month, to join the first battalion in the Bengal Presidency 1817.
EIGHTY-SEVENTH REGIMENT
Madeley lith 3 Wellington St Strand
For Cannon’s Military Records
FOOTNOTES:
[10] A memoir of Lieut -General Sir Charles William Doyle, C B , is inserted in the Appendix, page 92
[11] Lieut.-General Sir William Napier’s History of the Peninsular War.
[12] The following corps were employed in the battle of Barrosa on the 5th of March 1811, viz.—
2nd Hussars, King’s German Legion
Royal Artillery
47th Foot, 2nd batt (flank comp )
67th Foot, 2nd batt
Royal Engineers. 82nd Foot, 2nd batt (flank comp.)
[13] In the midst of the engagement, Serjeant Patrick Masterson seized and kept possession of the Eagle of the eighth French regiment of light infantry (which was the first taken in action since the commencement of the Peninsular war), and for which His Royal Highness the Prince Regent promoted the serjeant to an ensigncy in the Royal York Light Infantry Volunteers; he was subsequently removed to the E - regiment Volunteer de Courcy Ireland, and Serjeant-Major McKeldon, were also promoted to be ensigns for their conduct in this action.
[14] In a letter, dated the 21st of January 1812, from General Viscount Wellington, K B , to the Earl of Liverpool, Secretary of State, appeared the following tribute from that illustrious commander to the conduct of the troops at Tarifa: “I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration of the conduct of Colonel
Skerrett, and the brave troops under his command, nor from recommending them to the protection of your Lordship.”
[15] History of the War in the Peninsular and in the South of France, by Lieut.-General Sir William Napier, K.C.B.
[16] Major-General John Randoll McKenzie, who fell at Talavera on the 28th of July 1809
[17] Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Picton, G.C.B., who was killed at Waterloo on the 18th of June 1815.
SUCCESSION OF COLONELS OF
THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH
REGIMENT, OR THE ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS.
S J D , B ., G.C.B. K.C.
Appointed 3rd May 1796.
This officer was descended from an ancient Irish family, and was born at Dublin in the year 1756. He was at first intended for the law, which, on the death of his father, he relinquished for the military profession, and was appointed Ensign in the Forty-eighth regiment on the 21st of March 1771, in which he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on the 17th of September 1773, and was wounded while on duty in Ireland. Lieutenant Doyle exchanged to the Fortieth regiment on the 1st of March 1775, and embarked with that corps for North America in the same year. During the War of Independence in that country he served with his regiment in the descent on Long Island in August 1776, and was present at the actions of Brooklyn, White Plains (28th of October), Fort Washington, Haerlem Creek, Springfield, and Iron Hills. In the action at Brooklyn, on the 27th of August, Lieutenant Doyle was brought into notice by conduct which combined the best feelings with the most animated courage. He was Adjutant of the Fortieth, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Grant, who was regarded as a father by the younger portion of the corps. The Lieut.-Colonel was desperately wounded early in the action, which becoming very hot where he lay, Lieutenant Doyle, fearing he might
be trampled to death, rushed with a few followers into the midst of the enemy, and dragged away the body of his friend; but it was too late, for he had expired. This act made a strong impression on all who witnessed it, and produced a handsome compliment from the Commander-in-Chief, General the Honorable Sir William Howe.
Lieutenant Doyle was present at the action of Brandywine, fought on the 11th of September 1777, which was followed by the capture of Philadelphia. He shared in the surprise of General Wayne’s corps during the night of the 20th of September, and was again wounded at the battle of Germantown on the 4th of October. In the latter the Fortieth regiment highly distinguished itself by the defence of Chew’s Stone House, which was occupied under the following circumstances:—About three weeks after the affair of Brandywine, when the American troops were supposed to be totally dispersed, General Washington made a movement with the intention of surprising the British at Germantown. The advanced post of the British army was occupied by a battalion of light infantry and the Fortieth regiment, then commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Musgrove. These troops were attacked about daybreak on the 4th of October by the main body of the American army, commanded by General Washington in person. After a very spirited defence they were obliged to give way to numbers, and to retire towards Germantown. In this retreat Colonel Musgrove took possession of a large stone house, with such of the regiment as were nearest to it. This small body, not exceeding five officers and about one hundred and fifty men, stopped the progress of the enemy’s whole column, consisting of five thousand men, for a considerable time, notwithstanding cannon being brought to bear upon the house. This gallant defence was highly instrumental in saving the British army. In this affair Lieutenant Doyle and two officers were wounded. For this service the detachment was honored with His Majesty’s particular thanks.
In the spring of 1778, General the Honorable Sir William Howe, K.B., returned to England, and the command of the army in North America devolved on General Sir Henry Clinton, K.B. The next action in which Lieutenant Doyle shared was that at Monmouth Court-House on the 28th of June 1778, and on the 24th of October
following he was promoted to a company in the corps raised by Lord Rawdon (afterwards Marquis of Hastings), which was at first named the “Volunteers of Ireland,” but which was subsequently numbered the One hundred and fifth regiment. Shortly after General Sir Henry Clinton assumed the chief command, it was deemed a measure of policy to withdraw from the ranks of the enemy the natives of Scotland and Ireland. Two regiments were raised by distinguished noblemen of these countries; one was designated the “Caledonian Volunteers,” and the other the “Volunteers of Ireland.” The former was given to Lord Cathcart, and the latter to Lord Rawdon, then Adjutant-General in America. The officers were chosen from the line, and Lieutenant Doyle obtained a company as above stated.
In the celebrated retreat through the Jerseys, Captain Doyle acted as Major of Brigade. During the winter of 1779 his regiment was ordered to South Carolina, under the command of Lord Rawdon, where he assisted at the siege of Charleston. After the fall of this place in May 1780, Captain Doyle accompanied Lieut.-General the Earl Cornwallis up the country, by whom he was appointed Major of Brigade, and was honorably mentioned in his Lordship’s despatch relative to the action at Camden, which was fought on the 16th of August 1780.
Upon Lord Cornwallis quitting the province of South Carolina, Captain Doyle served in the same capacity to Colonel Lord Rawdon, who succeeded to the command of this portion of the troops, and soon had another opportunity of distinguishing himself. General Green, having contrived after the battle of Guildford, on the 15th of March 1781, to turn Lord Cornwallis’s left, by a rapid movement penetrated the upper parts of South Carolina, and presented himself before the village of Camden, where Lord Rawdon commanded a small detachment, not exceeding nine hundred men, while the enemy’s force consisted of three thousand regulars, a fine corps of cavalry, and a numerous body of militia, strongly posted on the heights above the village in which the British were quartered. His Lordship seeing the difficulty of a retreat, boldly determined to advance against the enemy. Accordingly on the 25th of April 1781, he chose the hour of mid-day to make his attempt, when least
expected, his march being concealed by a circuitous route through thick woods. This sudden and rapid manœuvre enabled his Lordship to reach Hobkirk Hill before General Green became aware of the movement, and the British gained a complete victory. The exertions of Brigade-Major Doyle on this well-fought field were alluded to in highly honorable terms in his Lordship’s despatch. Having raised the siege of Ninety-six, Lord Rawdon returned to England on account of ill health, when the Brigade-Major prepared to join the Earl Cornwallis in Virginia; but in consequence of the effects of the action at Ewtaw Springs on the 8th of September 1781, he was requested, from his knowledge of the country, to remain in the province to fill a more prominent situation. He subsequently acted as AdjutantGeneral and Public Secretary to Colonel Paston Gould; and on that officer’s decease in the following year, he was honored with the same confidence by his successors, Major-General James Stuart and Lieut.-General the Honorable Alexander Leslie.
Captain Doyle was promoted on the 21st of March 1782 to the rank of Major in the “Volunteers of Ireland,” which corps at this period was numbered the One hundred and fifth regiment. Major Doyle formed a corps of light cavalry from amongst the backwoodsmen, with which he rendered essential service to the army, and was again severely wounded. In the expedition against General Marion he charged the State regiment of Carolina dragoons with his advanced corps of seventy horse, the killed, wounded, and prisoners of the enemy exceeding his whole force. The American War shortly afterwards terminated, and the One hundred and fifth regiment was ordered to Ireland, when Major Doyle was entrusted with public despatches to the ministers.
Peace having now taken place, Major Doyle entered upon a new scene of action, and was returned member for Mullingar in the Irish parliament of 1782, when his exertions were devoted to the improvement of the establishment in Ireland, similar to Chelsea Hospital, for the relief of disabled and worn-out soldiers. The One hundred and fifth regiment was disbanded in 1784, and Major Doyle remained on half-pay from the 25th of June of that year until the war of the French Revolution in 1793, when he offered to raise a
regiment of his countrymen for the service of Government; and his Royal Patron honored the corps with the appellation of “The Prince of Wales’s Irish Regiment,” and it was numbered the E , of which Major Doyle was appointed Lieut.-Colonel Commandant on the 18th of September 1793, and with which he proceeded in the following year to the Continent, with the force commanded by Major-General the Earl of Moira, under whom (as Lord Rawdon) he had served in America.
Lieut.-Colonel Doyle served during the campaign of 1794 under His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and repulsed an attack of the enemy at Alost, on the 15th of July of that year, after having been twice severely wounded, being the first individual of the regiment who was wounded. His conduct was honorably noticed in His Royal Highness’s despatch. Lieut.-Colonel Doyle next proceeded to Antwerp, and ultimately to England for the recovery of his wounds, when he was afterwards appointed Secretary-at-War in Ireland.
In consequence of the reduction of the Prince of Wales’s household, Lieut.-Colonel Doyle lost the appointment of Secretary to His Royal Highness; but, notwithstanding this decrease of income, he closed his political career by a mark of generosity worthy of being recorded. His regiment being still prisoners in France, under the circumstances narrated at page 6., he collected their wives and families, and distributed five hundred pounds amongst them.
On the 3rd of May 1796, Lieut.-Colonel Doyle was promoted to be Colonel of the E - regiment, and proceeded in the command of a secret expedition to Holland, with the rank of Brigadier-General; but contrary winds, violent gales, and unavoidable delays, rendered the expedition fruitless, its object being to surprise and destroy the Dutch fleet in the Helder.
In 1797 Colonel Doyle was appointed a Brigadier-General upon the staff, and was ordered to Gibraltar, where he remained until the expedition was determined on for Malta and Egypt, when, having volunteered his services, he was placed on the staff under General Sir Ralph Abercromby, whom he accompanied to Minorca, Malta, and Cadiz, and was selected as one of his brigadier-generals upon
