Shakespeare's Paraliptic Characters

Abstract

This thesis straddles the intersection of two contemporary topics in Shakespeare scholarship: the newly resurrected practice of character criticism and Shakespeare’s use of meta-rhetorical principles to inform his dramaturgy. The goal of this study is to illustrate how Shakespeare may have used the effect inherent in paralipsis, a rhetorical device he relied on heavily, to craft four often overlooked characters and punctuate the themes of their respective plays. Since the power of paralipsis comes in the trope’s ability to draw attention to something’s absence, suddenly the omitted Falstaff in Henry V, the neglected Cicero in Julius Caesar, the marginalized Fortinbras in Hamlet, and the abandoned Fool in King Lear all take on a greater significance when examined through a paraliptic lens.

For the better part of the last four hundred years, the absences of these seemingly disposable characters have received scant critical attention, and the paltriness of these parts has rarely been granted any artistic merit; instead, the underwhelming – or, in the case of Falstaff in Henry V, nonexistent – roles of these four characters and their unexpected disappearances have long been ascribed to theatrical economy or Shakespeare’s assumed inattentiveness as a playwright. I will contend, though, that these seemingly shallow roles gain considerable depth and dimension when examined paraliptically, and that Shakespeare’s application of this meta-rhetorical effect in crafting these characters fits with his development as artist in the middle part of his career. Therefore, by rooting this study in the long history of inferential character criticism and the mounting research in meta-rhetorical theory, I will examine the centuries of criticism surrounding these four characters, will execute a close reading of their parts, and, in an attempt to find symbolic value in their marginality, will explore the gaping voids their absences leave in their respective plays. By pressing these gaps, this thesis concludes that there is more than meets the eye with these four characters, and when studied paraliptically, they each serve as foils for their protagonists, manipulate Renaissance expectations of character types, and underscore their respective plays’ themes.