Shakespeare's Demonology: A Dictionary

Q2 Arts and Humanities Shakespeare Studies Pub Date : 2016-01-01 DOI:10.5040/9781472500403
D. Willis
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Abstract

Shakespeare's Demonology: A Dictionary By Marion Gibson and Jo Ann Esra London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Marion Gibson and Jo Ann Esra's dictionary of Shakespeare's demonological language is part of the topic-centered Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries series, edited by Sandra Clark, which also includes such works as Shakespeare's Medical Language, Shakespeare and the Language of Food, and Music in Shakespeare, among others. Though called a dictionary in its subtitle, Shakespeare's Demonology is in some respects more like an encyclopedia, with many longer entries that include not only definitions and examples from the plays but also extensive analytic commentary and selected references to scholarly work on each topic. A lengthy and useful bibliography is provided at the end. The dictionary covers a field with porous boundaries; as the authors point out in their introduction, demonologists of Shakespeare's time were interested in a variety of phenomena in addition to demons and devils, including ghosts, spirits, angels, astrology, witchcraft, magic, divination and prophecy. Indeed, the boundaries between the "demonic" and the "natural" or "divine"--and hence between demons and other types of beings--were exactly what was in dispute and required investigation. Gibson and Esra rightly take an inclusive approach in their dictionary, with richly satisfying results. There is, of course, no particular reason to think that Shakespeare's works were grounded in a distinct and internally consistent demonology, given the range of genres he worked in and the varying cultural and historical settings of his plays. Shakespeare does not offer us one cosmology or a single ideological stance; the Macbeth world is very different from the world of The Merry Wives of Windsor or of Henry IV, Part I, or for that matter, of most of the other tragedies. Nevertheless, this dictionary helps us identify some of Shakespeare's characteristic themes and tendencies and see more clearly the cross-currents of early modern thought that engaged his imagination. In so doing, it very successfully fulfills the authors' wish to provide "both a useful reference point and a stimulus to further scholarly work on key terms and ideas" (6). What, then, are some characteristics of the Shakespearean supernatural that can be teased out from this book? One thing stands out clearly: Shakespeare embraces diversity in his conceptualization of the spirit world, in contrast to the more polarized views of Calvinist contemporaries and indeed, most demonologists, whatever their doctrinal affiliation. As the authors put it in their introduction, the "oversimplifying binary structure" of demonological thought "may perhaps be seen as going against the grain of most of his work" (5). Hence, this dictionary calls our attention not only to demons and angels but to a range of intermediate or indeterminate beings, from the relatively familiar (the fairies of Midsummer Night's Dream, Ariel, the ghost of Hamlet's father) to more obscure--ouphs, bugs, urchins, hedge-pigs, goblins, sibyls, mermaids, nymphs, and spirits of many sorts. Such beings could not be easily classified as either good or evil. The highly inclusive term "spirit," very common in Shakespeare, embraced a wide variety of beings across the moral spectrum, making it "a term fizzing with dangerous, anxious energy" (175). Often, a spirit's exact nature was hard to pin down. Puck, for example, is variously called fairy, spirit, and goblin; though not as benign as Ariel and a trickster like many devils, he stops short of being truly cruel or destructive, instead retaining what the authors aptly call an "indefinable edginess" (158). Other beings straddled boundaries of natural and supernatural. Mermaids, as half-human sea-creatures were natural if monstrous, but also sometimes interchangeable with sea-nymphs or water spirits and seductively dangerous like female demons. Shakespeare sometimes associates mermaids with benevolence and harmony, the authors note, but other times with a predatory, siren-like power that makes them resemble witches (134). …
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《莎士比亚的恶魔学词典》
《莎士比亚的魔鬼学:一本词典》,作者:马里昂·吉布森和乔·安·埃斯拉,伦敦:布卢姆斯伯里出版社,2014年。玛丽昂·吉布森和乔·安·埃斯拉的莎士比亚鬼神语言词典是由桑德拉·克拉克编辑的以主题为中心的雅顿莎士比亚词典系列的一部分,该系列还包括莎士比亚的医学语言、莎士比亚与食物语言、莎士比亚的音乐等作品。虽然在副标题中被称为词典,但莎士比亚的《魔鬼学》在某些方面更像是一部百科全书,其中有许多较长的条目,不仅包括戏剧中的定义和例子,还包括广泛的分析评论和对每个主题的学术著作的精选参考。最后提供了一个冗长而有用的参考书目。该词典涵盖了具有多孔边界的领域;正如作者在前言中指出的那样,莎士比亚时代的鬼神学家除了对恶魔和魔鬼感兴趣外,还对各种现象感兴趣,包括鬼魂、精灵、天使、占星术、巫术、魔法、占卜和预言。事实上,“恶魔”与“自然”或“神”之间的界限,以及恶魔与其他类型生物之间的界限,正是争论和需要调查的问题。吉布森和埃斯拉在他们的词典中正确地采用了包容性的方法,并取得了令人满意的结果。当然,没有特别的理由认为莎士比亚的作品是建立在一个独特的和内部一致的恶魔学基础上的,考虑到他所创作的流派的范围和他的戏剧的不同的文化和历史背景。莎士比亚并没有给我们提供一种宇宙观或单一的意识形态立场;《麦克白》的世界与《温莎的风流娘儿们》、《亨利四世(第一部)》或其他大多数悲剧的世界都大不相同。尽管如此,这本词典帮助我们确定了莎士比亚的一些特色主题和倾向,并更清楚地看到了早期现代思想的交叉潮流,这些思想吸引了他的想象力。通过这样做,它非常成功地实现了作者的愿望,即提供“一个有用的参考点和对关键术语和思想的进一步学术研究的刺激”(6)。那么,从这本书中可以梳理出莎士比亚超自然的一些特征是什么呢?有一件事很明显:莎士比亚在他对精神世界的概念中包含了多样性,这与同时代的加尔文主义者以及大多数恶魔学家的两极分化观点形成鲜明对比,无论他们的教义归属如何。正如作者在前言中所言,恶魔学思想的“过于简化的二元结构”“也许会被视为与他的大部分作品相悖”(5)。因此,这本词典不仅让我们注意到恶魔和天使,还让我们注意到一系列中间或不确定的存在,从相对熟悉的(仲夏夜之梦中的仙女、哈姆雷特父亲的鬼魂阿里尔)到更晦涩的——乌夫、虫子、海胆、树阴猪、地精、女妖、美人鱼,仙女和各种精灵。这样的人不能轻易地划分为善或恶。具有高度包容性的“精神”一词在莎士比亚的作品中非常常见,它涵盖了各种各样的道德范畴,使其成为“一个充满危险、焦虑能量的术语”(175)。通常,灵魂的确切性质很难确定。例如,帕克被称为仙女、精灵和妖精;虽然他不像阿里尔那样善良,也不像许多魔鬼那样狡猾,但他没有真正的残忍或破坏性,而是保留了作者恰当地称之为“难以形容的急躁”(158)。其他生物跨越了自然和超自然的界限。美人鱼,作为半人半兽的海洋生物,是自然的,如果是可怕的,但有时也与海仙女或水精灵互换,像女恶魔一样诱人危险。作者指出,莎士比亚有时把美人鱼与仁慈和和谐联系在一起,但有时又把美人鱼与一种掠夺性的、像塞壬一样的力量联系在一起,使它们看起来像女巫(134)。…
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Shakespeare Studies
Shakespeare Studies Arts and Humanities-Literature and Literary Theory
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期刊介绍: Shakespeare Studies is an international volume published every year in hard cover, containing essays and studies by critics and cultural historians from both hemispheres. It includes substantial reviews of significant books and essays dealing with the cultural history of early modern England, as well as the place of Shakespeare"s productions—and those of his contemporaries—within it. Volume XXXII continues the second in a series of essays on "Early Modern Drama around the World" in which specialists in theatrical traditions from around the globe during the time of Shakespeare discuss the state of scholarly study in their respective areas.
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"Try what repentance can": Hamlet, Confession, and the Extraction of Interiority Shakespeare's Demonology: A Dictionary Shakespeare on the University Stage Barbarous Antiquity: Reorienting the Past in the Poetry of Early Modern England The Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature
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