Good Fooling: Modality and Linguistic Action in Shakespeare's Comedies

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of modal verbs and rhetoric in the creation of Shakespeare's comic action. I argue that by focusing on the characters' uses of language in these plays, we can recover a sense of subjectivity and agency for Shakespeare's comic characters, instead of treating them as mere "types" swept along by the force of comic convention. Modal verbs--"can," "may," "must," "ought," and "will"--encode and enact subjectivity at the linguistic level, demonstrating a speaker's perceptions about the action of the main verb: whether a speaker thinks an action is possible or impossible, likely or unlikely, necessary or merely beneficial. Modal verbs therefore indicate an entirely different category of comic action: not just the oversized action of mistaken identity or farce, but the more subtle mental activity that underpins all subsequent action. Likewise, an examination of Shakespeare's comic rhetoric reveals that, far from being inconsequential or merely decorative, it is a force in its own right; I argue that the characters' insistence on the overt use of rhetorical devices, wordplay, and logical debate is a form of action that creates the comic world. Characters use strategies derived from logic and rhetoric in order to persuade themselves and others into positive action, achieving comic endings by verbal means.