Alfred Drake (California State University - Fullerton)
ajdr@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

Shakespeare’s tragedies are as much social and collective as they are individual. Many of the tragedies stage not only the downfall of an erring protagonist but the lasting damage done to an entire society in the wake of grave errors and violent conflict. This virtual (online) panel will concentrate on Shakespeare’s exploration of the fragility of human community and polity in his tragic plays. Papers may adapt this theme to the histories, romances and comedies as well.

In Shakespeare’s tragic plays, the lamentable outcomes are seldom confined to the flawed protagonists and those nearest to them—often, we are dealing with the corruption and destruction or near-destruction of whole societies. Even when, as in Macbeth, for example, there seems to be a tolerable civic recovery, there is deep exposure of the fragility of the society concerned. Malcolm takes the throne at Scone, and all seems well, but what has Macbeth’s weird-sistered descent to spiritual annihilation and physical destruction revealed? That a good king and the stability of the realm he embodies are scarcely a match for the “vaulting ambition” of a well-placed man who suddenly breaks bad. Lear’s arrogance and errors turn Britain into a druidical hellscape; it may be true that “a dog’s obeyed in office,” but by the end of King Lear, the gods have stood up so strongly for bastards that it’s hard to conjure a dog who would actually want the office. It would be easy to multiply these examples: the blood-drenched transfer of power from Claudius to Fortinbras at the conclusion of Hamlet; the hollow invocations of community in Timon of Athens; the cruel takedown of all that was “Rome” in Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare seems determined to show that any civic order is fragile and that once it is breached or shattered, rebuilding it is at best a slow and painful process. The intensity and persistence of the most powerful people’s desire for security and advantage see to that, and repeatedly, the lesson is taught that when civic shadows and illusions are all that keep the “monsters of the deep” down, merely dispelling such illusions of sustainable civility is sure to prove disastrous.

This virtual (online) panel will concentrate on Shakespeare’s exploration of the fragility of human community and polity in his tragic plays. (Papers that adapt this theme to the histories, romances and comedies will be considered as well.)