Much Ado About Nothing における : 眼差しのレッスン

Takikawa, Mutsumu

This paper is intended as an investigation of the magical power of theatrical gaze in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (Ado), especially referring to the antitheatrical literature in early modern England. As Carol Cook points out, gazing into an object in this play is “always an act of aggression”; to be gazed into “is to be emasculated, to be a woman” (76), whereas it is fair to say that, in Ado, gazing into an object in terms of theatrical practices fashions the gazer into another subject; both Benedick and Beatrice are transformed into lovers “set on fire” (Gosson, Plays Confuted in Five Actions 108) through the theatrical practices enacted by Don Pedro and others; Claudio, by fixing a scopophiliac gaze on the theatrical deception designed by Borachio and Don John, is turned into the slanderer of his lover. We can be fairly certain that this transformative power of gazing in Ado derives from the “infect”ing power (Gosson 108) of gaze represented in the antitheatrical tracts, judging from Stephen Gosson’s statement: “vice is learned with beholding, sense is tickled, desire pricked, and those impressions of mind are secretly conveyed over to the gazers, which the players do counterfeit on the stage. As long as we know ourselves to be flesh, beholding those examples in theaters that are incident to flesh, we are taught by other men’s examples how to fall” (108). Shakespeare, in this festive comedy, fashions lessons on gaze out of the antitheatrical magical gaze, transforming anti-festive subjects to “blithe and bonny” (2.3.65) and “giddy” (5.4.106) ones.

Much Ado About Nothing における : 眼差しのレッスン

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