Maurine Slaughter
Teaching Shakespeare 2006 Research
Log
Although I’ve taught Shakespeare for only a year, I’ve
taught a course called Psychological Literature for more than twenty
years. I’ve long been interested in
sleep and dreams, and I’ve found that my students are interested, too. Thinking about Julius Caesar, Macbeth,
and The Tempest, I was fascinated by
the importance of sleep, sleeplessness, sleepwalking, dreams, etc., in all of
them. Jay Halio
expressed some surprise that I wasn’t pursuing a topic related more directly to
the arts, since I teach at
Margaret Mauer’s
When I received the handout on the Library Research Project, I noted that two of the three sources should be Folger-owned. The material on typography was a little worrisome, but I was relieved to hear from Margaret Mauer that the essays could be narrative and first-person. When I mentioned to her that I worried about whether my log would be specific enough, she said not to fetishize the log itself; that was just to make us feel as if we were somewhat productive, even when we inevitably reached dead ends.
So, armed with such handouts as “Selected Web Resources for Early Modern Studies,” “TSI 2006: Treasures from the Folger Library Collections,” “Primary Sources for TSI 2006: Sample Bibliography/Suggested General Topics,” and “The English Short Title Catalog,” I signed in and entered the reading room on July 6. I had a little trouble getting my computer configured for the wireless network, but Betsy helped. I performed Hamnet searches on Shakespeare and sleep, and then a librarian introduced me to Iter and EBO. I tried searching for sleep and then dreams. I used the subject categories such as dream interpretation, and I discovered that an hour in the Folger didn’t go very far! I found lots of references to Cicero, Dante, Hill, Ben Jonson, Ovid, Paracelsus, Pindar, Spenser, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Artemidorus. I got accustomed to searching in the “Other” section on the Folger Library website, and I got accustomed to accidentally exiting out of my search and retracing my steps.
When I searched more generally through Hamnet,
I found some useful secondary sources. I
realized these were not the primary source treasures I was supposed to be
seeking, but I thought it would be helpful to get my bearings, and, since I
wasn’t precisely pursuing one of the suggested topics, I could make further use
of the bibliographies in my secondary sources.
I obtained two books from the Modern Stacks; I read Michael Weidhorn’s chapter, “Dreams in Seventeenth-Century English
Dramatic and Narrative Works” in Dreams
in Seventeenth-Century English Literature, and I read Marjorie Garber’s Dream in Shakespeare: from Metaphor to
Metamorphosis, especially her introduction and chapters on Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Tempest.
Having often referred to her more recent Shakespeare After All this past year, I felt confident orienting
myself in this way. I spent all day on
Saturday (
Having requested Plutarch and Thomas Hill on Saturday, I washed my hands and picked up the rare books on Monday, July 10. I cushioned Plutarch but still had to be told to cradle the book. I read the Thomas North (1595) translation, since I was unable to read Greek. I read the sections on both Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus. I read Thomas Hill (1576) to the best of my ability, but I was disappointed to find that my ability didn’t take me very far. I felt privileged to examine his book on dream interpretation, but I had to scan for passages that I could actually read. I spent two short library periods working with Plutarch and Thomas Hill. I bookmarked sites I found on Artemidorus, Thomas Hill, and Plutarch, and I made sure I had appropriate copies. I went upstairs for the Loeb Classical Library Book XI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which I also copied. I looked up sleep, bed, slumber, rest, etc. in the online Oxford English Dictionary, just to see what the status of such language was in Shakespeare’s time. I reviewed the assignment and checked into getting some microfilm copies but concluded I didn’t need them; I had saved lots of images on my computer. I was a little disheartened and embarrassed that I didn’t locate some great materials in Galen and Hippocrates; the medical/physiological side to my topic had seemed more promising.
On July 13, I loved Jeremy Ehrlich’s class on using online Shakespeare concordances, and back in my room that evening, I certainly looked up appearances of sleep, dreams, slumber, repose, rest, bed, etc., as well as words related to wakefulness. On July 14, I was fascinated by Paul Menzer’s discussion of “second sleep,” and I resolved to find out more about that.
Today is July 15, and I’m working in the
Later on July 15: I
did actually find in the
Primary Sources
M. Slaughter
TSI 2006
From Hippocrates, “Aphorisms,” Section II:
Hippocrates,
“Aphorisms.” Great Books of the Western World:
Hippocrates/Galen. Vol. 9. 2nd Ed. Adler,
Mortimer J. (ed.).
From Galen, On Antecedent Causes:
XV.(187)
What then is there to prevent us from filling ourselves up with both food and
drink? Why do we guard against
indigestion, why exercise moderately, why run our lives in a well-ordered
way? So let us learn from Erasistratus and put them all aside, taking no notice of
cold and heat; and the same goes for sleeplessness. For as regards this, first of all it is false
that it encourages indigestion, and secondly even if it did suffice to bring
this about, it would still be well worthy of disregard (according to some
argument at any rate), as the indigestion which it caused is itself incapable
of causing harm. (188) For fever does not arise through indigestion….(190) Never shall we prevent anyone from exercising
all day and all night through fear that they might suffer from exhaustion; nor
shall we forbid them late nights, nor shield them from the summer sun, nor
shall we provide clothing for the servants, or require shoes for
ourselves. For since no harm is done by
hard work, late nights, heat or cold, we shall view these things as empty
superstitions. Nor shall we rebuke those
who have overeaten or got drunk as we used to do when we thought, wrongly, that
some diseases were caused by repletion….(193) Whereas Plato ( a man supremely
knowledgeable about the nature of things), Aristotle, Theophrastus, and before
them …a whole crowd of other natural philosophers told us to guard against
excess, Erasistratus persuaded us to fear none of
them, and we should honor him like a god.
(194) There is just one thing I should like to know in addition to this,
and there isn’t anyone I can ask, as Erasistratus is
dead. If he were alive, he could easily
tell us which things we ought to guard against:
for I myself am quite unable to find out. (195)
For if I do not have to guard against exhaustion, heat, cold, repletion,
sleeplessness, anger, grief or anything else of that sort, I am pretty close to
immortality. Perhaps I ought to take
care lest I am murdered, or lest some wild animal or harmful drug kills
me. But as for the other things which
people used to be afraid of, I am certainly not afraid of them any more; I have
been freed of all them by Erasistratus.
Galen,
On Antecedent Causes. Hankinson, R. J. (ed., trans.).
From Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XI:
Meanwhile, the daughter of Aeolus, in ignorance of this great disaster [to her husband
Ceyx], counts off the nights...praying for the man
who is no more, that her husband may be kept safe from harm., that he may
return once more, loving no other woman more than her. And only this prayer of all her prayers could
be granted her.
But the goddess could no
longer endure these entreaties for the dead.
And that she might free her altar from the touch of the hands of
mourning, she said: “Iris, most faithful
messenger of mine, go quickly to the drowsy house of Sleep, and bid him send to
Alcyone a vision in dead Ceyx’
form to tell her the truth about his fate.”
She spoke; and Iris put on her cloak of a thousand hues and, trailing
across the sky in a rainbow curce, she sought the
cloud-concealed palace of the ling of sleep.
Near the land of the
Cimmerians there is a deep recess within a hollow mountain, the home and
chamber of sluggish Sleep. Phoebes can
never enter there with his rising, noontide, or setting rays. Clouds of vapour
breathe forth from the earth, and dusky twilight shadows. There no wakeful, crested cock with his loud
crowing summons the dawn; no watch-dog breaks the deep silence with his baying,
or goose, more watchful than the dog.
There is no sound of wild beast or of cattle, of branches rustling in
the breeze, n o clamorous tongues of men.
There mute silence dwells. But
from the bottom of the cave there flows the stream of Lethe, whose waves,
gently murmuring over the gravelly bed, invite to slumber…But in the cavern’s
central space there is a high couch of ebony, downy-soft, black-hued, spread
with a dusky coverlet. There lies the
god himself, his limbs relaxed in languorous repose. Around him on all sides lie empty dream-shapes,
mimicking many forms, many as ears of grain in harvest-time, as leaves upon the
trees, as sands cast on the shore.
When the maiden entered there
and with her hands brushed aside the dream-shapes that blocked her way, the
awesome house was lit up with the gleaming of her garments. Then the god, scarce lifting his eyelids heavy
with the weight of sleep, sinking back repeatedly and knocking his breast with
his nodding chin, at last shook himself free of himself and, resting on an
elbow, asked her (for he recognized her) why she came. And she replied: “O Sleep, thou rest of all things, Sleep,
mildest of the gods, balm of the soul, who puttest
care to flight, soothest our bodies worn with hard
ministries, and preparest them for toil again! Fashion a shape that shall seem true form,
and bid it go in semblance of the king to Alcyone in Trachin, famed for Hercules. There let it show her the picture of the
wreck. This Juno bids.” When she had done her task Iris departed, for
she could no longer endure the power of sleep, and when she felt the drowsiness
stealing upon her frame she fled away and retraced her course along the arch
over which she had lately passed.
Ovid, Metamorphoses. Miller, Frank
Justus (trans.) Ovid in Six Volumes: IV. Metamorphoses. 2nd Ed. Revised by G. P. Goold.
From Plutarch, Lives:
The Life of Julius Caesar (758-791):
[When asked which death was
best, Caesar] cried out aloud, death unlooked for. Then going to bed the same night as his maner was, and lying with his wife Calpurnia,
all the windows and dores of his chamber flying open,
the noise awoke him, and made him afraid when he saw such light but more, when
he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast asleepe, weepe and sigh, and put
forth many fumbling lamentable speaches. For shee dreamed
that Caesar was slaine, and that she had him in her armes. Others also
do deny that shee had any such dreame,
as amonest other, Titus Livius
writeth, that was in this sort. The Senate having set upon the top of Caesars
house, for an ornament and setting forth of the same, a certain pinnacle: Calpurnia dreamed
that she saw it broken down, and that shee thought shee lamented and wept for it. Insomuch that Caesar was rising in the
morning, shee prayd him if
it were possible, not to go out of the dores that
day, but to adiorne the session of the Senate untill an other day.
And if that he made no reckoning of her dreame,
yet that he would search further of the Soothsayes by
their sacrifices, to know what should happen him that day. Thereby it seemed that Caesar likewise did feare and susect somewhat,
because his wife Calpurnia untill
that time, was never given to any feare or superstitione afterwards, when the Soothsayes
having sacrificed many beasts one after an other, tolde
him that none did like them: then he
determined to send Antonius to adiorne
the session of the Senate….(788)
There was one of Caesars
friends called Cinna, that had a marvelous strange
and terrible dreame the night
before. He dreamed that Caesar had him to supper, and
that he refused, and would not go: then
that Caesar tooke him by the hande,
and led him against his will. Now Cinna hearing at that time, that they burnt Caesars body in
the market place, notwithstanding that he feared his dreame,
and had and ague on him besides: he went
into the market place to honor his funerals….(790).
The vision was thus. Brutus being ready to passé over his army
from the city of Abydos, to the other coast lying
directly against it, slept every night (as his manner was) in his in tent, and being yet awake, thinking of his
affaires: (for by report hee was as carefull a Captaine, and lived with as little sleepe,
as ever man did) he thought he heard a noise at his tent dore,
and looking towards the light of the lampe that waxed
very dimme, he saw a horrible vision of a man of wonderfull greatness and dreadfull
looke, which at the first made him marvelously
afraid. (790) But when he saw that it
did him no hurt, but stoode by his bedside, and sayd nothing: at
length he asked him what he was. The
image answered him: I am thy ill angel,
Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the city of
The Life of Marcus Brutus (1053-1080)
Brutus was a carefull man, and slept very little, both for that his diet
was moderate, as also because he was continually occupied. He never slept in the day time, and in the
night no longer than the time he was driven to be alone, and when every body
else tooke their rest. But now hilest he
was in warre, and his head ever busily occupied to thinke of this affaires, and what would happen: after he
had slumbered a little after supper, he spent all the rest of the night in
dispatching of his weightiest causes, and after he had taken order for them, if
he had any leisure left him, he would reade some booke till the third watch of the night, at what time the Captaines, petty Captaines and
colonels, did use to come to him. So,
being ready to go into
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans,
Compared Together, By That Grave Learned Philosopher and Historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: Translated out of Greek into French by James Amiot, Abbot of Bellozane, on e
of the Kings Privie counsell,
and great Amner of France, and out of French into
English, by Thomas North. Imprinted
at
STC 20067, Folger Shakespeare Library.
From Thomas Hill, The moste pleasuante arte of the interpretacion
of dreames whereunto is annexed sundry problemes with apte aunsweares neare agreeing to the
matter, and very rare examples, not like the extant in the English tongue:
“The Preface”:
…The worthy Romaynes, seldome toke any greate matter in hand, before theyr
soothsayers or wyse men broughte
them good or bade tydinges…If now he [the dreamer]
have his knowledge of divination, what a comfort will it be to hym that examing the
circumstances in their due tyme & order, that prognosticate
what each thinge portende. And thereby may solace himselfe
with good happes, and labour
to prevent or hinder the imminent misfortune, or at the least areme hymselfe to stronglye with patience as quietly to beare
them: for a mischiefe
knowen of before, and diligently loked
for, is not so grevous as when it commeth
on a sodeyne.
It is a wonderful thing and almost incredible that dreames
should have such vertu in them, were it not that God
hath revealed it unto us: When he himselfe, as a meane, often [sent?]
them, to open unto his people of Israeil, his secrete
wil and pleasure….But alas, our ignorance maketh us so blynde, that we know
them not, until they passé….
Gathered by the former Auctour Thomas Hill, Londoner and now newly Imprinted at
Folger Shakespeare Library.
[First three images of the Preface.]
Maurine
Slaughter
Research Essay
TSI 2006
I have some personal interest in the topics of sleep and
dreams, as of course everyone does. I’m
told that as a toddler I toddled about the house, no matter what time I got up
in the morning, saying, “
Although I’ve taught Shakespeare for only one year, I’ve
long taught courses such as American Literature, Southern Literature, Short
Story, and Psychological Literature, and I’ve always found that my students,
too, are fascinated by the subjects of sleep and dreams, especially in
relationship to the arts. It’s
astonishing how many literary works had their origins in dreams or in
half-waking states. (Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,
Tracing patterns of imagery and ultimately writing a literary essay would not necessarily require long hours in the Folger Shakespeare Library, but I began to wonder about Elizabethan attitudes toward and understanding of sleep and dreams. Also I grew more interested as I heard Margaret Mauer’s lecture, “The Poets in Julius Caesar,” and when I heard Stephen Dickey’s lecture on the role of Lucius. Margaret’s lecture led me straight to Plutarch’s Lives, which I had always understood to be one of Shakespeare’s sources, but which I always thought of as matter for footnotes. Her lecture made me think about, among many other things, Cinna’s dream before Caesar’s assassination. Stephen’s lecture led me to wonder not only about the sleep-starved Lucius, but also the seldom-sleeping Brutus. Much later (in TSI time—actually about a week), Jeremy Ehrlich acquainted me with online concordances, which allowed me to confirm that I had many
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of the relevant passages in mind in this play. Finally, Paul Menzer referred to the “second sleep” concept and the Ekirch article, which I would gladly have pored over in the beginning of my research. (The bibliography will give me plenty of directions for future research!)
My original concept was more about sleep than about dreams, but my research tended to yield more about the latter. Perhaps this is because of the ineptitude of my searching, or perhaps it is related to the particular niche of the Folger Library, but I suspect that Shakespeare’s contemporaries and predecessors found dreams to be the more colorful topic.
I had eagerly looked for sleep comments from Hippocrates, “father of medicine,” but when I found some, I thought they were quite obvious: “Both sleep and insomnolency, when immoderate, are bad.” (I was also surprised by his relentless interest in such topics as hemorrhoids—but Hippocrates didn’t seem to relate hemorrhoids to immoderate sleep or insomnolency.) I knew that Galen had connected dreams to certain humours such as black and yellow bile, but basically I found that he bestowed his blessing on the choice not to sleep. (It isn’t true that sleeplessness causes indigestion, he said, but if it were true, that would still not be a problem, because indigestion is not dangerous.) By Shakespeare’s time, as illustrated by both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the emphasis was decidedly more psychological rather than physical. The two are inseparable, though, and the physical is symptomatic of and metaphor for the psychological. Caesar said that he distrusted Cassius and preferred instead men that were fat and “such as sleep a-nights” (JC, 1.2.203); the men who denied themselves food and sleep were the dangerous ones.
What really interested me in the Galen passage was the suggestion that if physical problems such as sleeplessness were not matters of concern, then there was not much to fear at all beyond murder and violent deaths, and we are all “pretty close to immortality.” (Or perhaps I misread Galen’s tone and he is sardonic?) The comment made me think about how closely tied to sleep our humanity is; if we don’t have to worry about sleep, and about various physical excesses, then perhaps we don’t have to worry about being fully human, either. Lucius might need to worry about sleeplessness, since his sleep is constantly interrupted by Brutus. Lucius is a sympathetic (never minor!) character because of this need and desire to sleep, while Brutus is just the sort of dangerously sleepless person that Caesar should have feared.
If the ancients were sometimes less than impressed with the importance of sleep, they certainly were taken with the vitality of dreams. I read some of Artemidorus of Dalianus, a contemporary of Marcus Aurelius, who wrote Oneirocritica, on the interpretation of dreams. Many centuries before Freud, he interpreted a great variety of dreams, such as those involving a man having sex with his mother.
The Folger doesn’t seem to own an early modern edition of Artemidorus’s Oneirocritica, but it does own Thomas Hill’s 1576 book on dream interpretation. Like Artemidorus, Hill
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emphasizes the interpretation of dreams, and the passage
I selected from the Preface suggests that dream interpretation can be helpful;
a knowledge of “divination” of negative dreams might help us to avert the
disasters that dreams portend. (This is
an interesting comment on the capacity for humans to exercise free will.) Hill reminds the reader that dreams were
often sent from God, and he says finally that he hopes to offer some guidance
so that the reader may overcome his typical ignorance about dream
interpretation. Clearly in Shakespeare’s
time and many centuries earlier, people were interested in dreams and how to
interpret them. This point made me think
not only about dream interpretation in Julius
Caesar, but about the whole concept of interpretation in the
play. Early on,
As I read the Ovid passage about Alcyone and her husband Ceyx, I thought of the Calpurnia/Caesar and Portia/Brutus marriage. Alcyone’s husband, too, met with great disaster. Juno sent Iris to Sleep in order to have him send Alcyone a vision containing the truth about what had happened to Ceyx. Alcyone recognized the “shade” of her dead husband, and finally the couple were transformed and reunited as birds. In Ovid, Sleep is addressed by Iris as “mildest of the gods, balm of the soul.” Shakespeare’s Portia is also concerned about her husband, Brutus, who has been denying himself this balm and further refuses to tell her what troubles his soul. Calpurnia, rightly concerned about her own husband, trusts her dream enough to request that Caesar stay home, but Caesar, less sympathetically human or more humanly ambitious than Calpurnia, is tempted by the thought of the crown.
I presume Shakespeare knew this story in Ovid, and I know he relied heavily upon Plutarch, especially for the characterization of Brutus. Most interesting is Plutarch’s statement that Brutus “lived with as little sleepe, as ever man did.” In the section on Brutus, Plutarch adds again that Brutus slept little because of his moderate diet and because he was so “occupied” with “waighty matters.” Brutus never slept in the day and only slept at night when everyone else was asleep. (Was this paranoia because of one’s vulnerability during sleep?) Shakespeare’s Brutus not only continually deprives Lucius of sleep, but he also deprives himself, as Portia observes. To some extent he is manipulated, too, since Shakespeare makes it clear that Cassius contributes to Brutus’s
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sleeplessness, as Brutus then contributes to that of Lucius (2.1.1-5). Cassius says “We will awake him and be sure of him” (1.2.169), as if a rested Brutus might not choose to be a conspirator. (Of course the darkness and secrecy of night can only further the conspiracy, too.) Throughout the play, the less innocent and less human characters are driven to awaken those who are more innocent, more human. Brutus knows that his sleeplessness is tied to conspiracy and conspiracy is a “dreadful thing,” a “hideous dream” (2.1.65-68). He says, “Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, / I have not slept (2.1.64-65), and the short line emphasizes the importance of his sleeplessness. Finally Brutus anticipates the rest that he has denied himself: “Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest, / That have but labored to attain this hour” (5.5.45-46). After denying himself sleep for so long, Brutus will run on his sword and kill himself far more willingly than he killed Caesar.
I am convinced that Shakespeare, knowledgeable about ancient and contemporary concepts of sleep and dreams, was also brilliantly alert to the possibilities for characterization inherent in individual sleep habits and attitudes toward dreams. I realize that I have merely begun to investigate this huge topic, but my researches have led me to questions that I am still curious about and that I believe my students will fruitfully pursue as well.