Subjectivity and intimacy in Shakespeare and Jonson: Toward an antifoundational history of culture (Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare)

This dissertation examines texts of Shakespeare and Jonson in light of the transformation of intimacy and selfhood that culminated in the Renaissance. I analyze the emergence of "finite" (secular) depth in literature and individuals. My pragmatism combines an antifoundational, non-reductive view of selfhood with a cultural historicism that stresses long durations.; The Reformation's attempt to channel all sex and romance into an idealized institution of marriage is celebrated by Shakespeare's early plays. But his great tragedies and problem plays dissect this ideal and protest the elimination of irregular relationships such as clandestine marriage. After his moralistic early work Ben Jonson also resisted the new mores championed by Puritans. Jonson offers a tolerant, liberated, relatively nonsexist vision of the relations between the sexes.; Hamlet fascinates us by reflecting the trauma of epochal shifts in love, kinship and selfhood. Its problematic emotional turmoil is a reaction against modern romantic marriage ("we will have no more marriages") and a registering of the shift away from extended-family taboos (broken by Claudius and Gertrude's "incest") toward exclusive nuclear-family (Freudian) ones. The modern regime of intimacy entails the increased concealment of instinctual drives evident in the Renaissance revolution in manners, which Norbert Elias noted reflects a development of the superego. If concealment implies a deeper psychic structure, famous problems surrounding Hamlet may be obscurities intended to enhance depth. Our view inward is partially obscured to produce subjective depth, much as layered objects create pictorial depth. Shakespeare's linguistic treatment of subjectivity represents a pragmatism that can advance antifoundational theory. As Hamlet's characters test hypotheses about other minds (as in the play-within-the-play), the semiotic process underlying concept formation is outlined.; Hamlet's depth is constructed by the same riddling method that Jonson uses in The Silent Women to render a hidden portrait of True-Wit. Jonson's centered self helped transform the soul into secular wit (creative intelligence), which the Enlightenment reduced to Cartesian mind. Hamlet and The Silent Woman dramatize the difficulty of forging intimate bonds among deep selves. This isolation was aggravated by print culture's favoring of communication lacking immediacy, which sheds light on Shakespeare's attitudes toward publication. The enigmatic "Phoenix and Turtle" is a troubled reaction to print culture's de-emphasis of intimacy. The first to publish plays in folio, Jonson was attuned to print culture; his contributions to Shakespeare's Folio suggests he felt allied with---not threatened by---its power.