2 This nebulous nature of culpability and tragic causality makes it difficult to find any metaphysical or universal justice in these plays as a consequence, the intense sufferings of Brutus and Lear become all the more important both to the plays’ complexities and to their dramatic success. A discussion of Shakespeare’s application of this strategy to Brutus and Lear allows for unique insights into two tragic heroes whose downfalls or punishments are more problematic than those of characters like Richard III and Macbeth, who are more clear-cut villains and therefore incur a greater degree of culpability Lear is a rash character who eventually repents, and Brutus helps drive a plot which, as David Daniell writes, “expresses ambivalence,” because it remains unclear whether or not Caesar deserved to die. Building on that background, I will suggest that Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar and King Lear (1605-1606), makes use of this physiological notion in order to intensify the mental and bodily sufferings produced by the plays’ tragic events. This is important, because, in early modern medical discourse, waking dreams or hallucinations were in fact seen as symptoms of sleep deficiency, and both ailments were linked to humoral imbalances, as the first section of this article will reveal. 1 In both of these plays, the protagonists’ tragic fates are exacerbated by physiological discourses that focus not only on their sleeplessness, but also on their literal or metaphorical waking dreams as both Brutus and Lear come to question their sensory experience and perception. The themes of sleep, dreams, and false sensory perception, however, also offered great tragic potential, and Shakespeare fully explored this possibility when he dramatised Brutus’s inability to sleep and the nightly appearance of Caesar’s ghost in Julius Caesar (1599), and, later in his career, King Lear’s sleeplessness and the character’s ontological uncertainty about whether his misfortune may be a dream (4.217-225). 1591) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595). David Daniell, The Arden Shakespeare, London, Thomson Learn (.)ġ Shakespeare often used sleep, dreams, and sensory illusions for comic effect when he subjected his characters to amusing forms of cognitive bewilderment, as in The Taming of the Shrew (c. 2 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, ed.Stanley Wells, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008. 1 William Shakespeare, King Lear, ed.Dans King Lear, on verra toutefois que les images de rêves et de sommeil introduisent aussi des éléments tragi-comiques qui renforcent le sentiment de douleur et d’injustice. En outre, notre article montre que l’insomnie du Roi Lear et la description métaphorique de sa réalité comme une forme de rêve sont constitutives de cette tragédie qui met en scène l’expérience de la souffrance. Alors que le fantôme de César est souvent interprété comme une visitation surnaturelle, on suggère ici qu’il peut aussi être interprété comme une hallucination provoquée par l’insomnie de Brutus. À cet effet, sont analysées l’insomnie de Brutus et l’apparition nocturne du fantôme de César dans Jules César, ainsi que la privation de sommeil du Roi Lear et son incertitude ontologique quant à la nature potentiellement onirique de ses épreuves.
In King Lear, I also show how ideas of sleeping and dreaming introduce tragicomic elements which, however, ultimately give further magnitude to the sense of pain and injustice.Įn s’appuyant sur la compréhension physiologique de l’insomnie et des hallucinations au temps de Shakespeare, cet article étudie comment les représentations dramatiques d’insomnie et de rêves hallucinatoires renforcent l’accent distinctif placé dans les tragédies de Shakespeare sur la souffrance physique et mentale. Meanwhile I propose that King Lear’s sleeplessness and the metaphorical description of his waking reality as a dream form part of Shakespeare’s design of Lear’s tragedy as one that is primarily concerned with the character’s experience of suffering.
Whereas Brutus’s vision of Caesar’s ghost is often interpreted as a supernatural visitation, I argue that it can equally be read as a physiological hallucination caused by Brutus’s sleeplessness. To that end, I consider Brutus’s insomnia and the nightly appearance of Caesar’s ghost in Julius Caesar, as well as King Lear’s sleeplessness and his ontological uncertainty about whether his misfortune may be a dream. Drawing on the early modern physiological understanding of sleeplessness and hallucinations, this article examines how Shakespeare’s dramatic representations of insomnia and waking dreams support his tragedies’ iconic emphasis on bodily and mental suffering.
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