1.º Una vez finalizada la construcción, instalación y obra,

In the last section we have demonstrated the central role of the virtual events in narrative. Demonstrating the significance of the virtual has been the main contribution of possible worlds theories in narratology. However, we have pointed to the lack of any treatment of probability in these possible worlds accounts of the virtual or possible. A discipline that combines the interest in both notions of the virtual and the probable is rhetoric. The spread of rhetoric in early modern learning also accounts for the pivotal place which these two notions occupy in the Shakespeare canon. In this section I shall argue that Shakespeare’s familiarity with and use of the notions of the virtual and the probable is attributable to the prevalence of rhetorical thinking in early modern England. Below I shall examine the role of virtuality and probability in Classical and early modern judicial rhetoric. Then I shall investigate how this rhetorical education has shaped relevant aspects of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Throughout this study I am mainly concerned with one branch of rhetoric called judicial rhetoric.4Originally, rhetorical theory and practice are deeply rooted in the judicial system of accumulating evidence by amassing probabilities on one side of the case. In fact, rhetoric owes its first emergence to the need to

argue for lawsuits in front of the judges. As Robert P. Burns puts it, “If the trial is the heart of the law, then the law is rhetorical, for rhetoric rules where action under uncertainty is necessary” (2006, 444). This was especially the case during the Greek and Roman periods. After the decline of the Roman Empire, and through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the interest in and practice of rhetoric moved from the forum into the schoolroom, and rhetoric featured as a major discipline in Medieval and Renaissance educational systems.

The three notions of the possible, virtual and the probable, feature prominently in rhetoric. The possible, in its varied manifestations as the contingent events of the past, has played a large role in the defining the scope of the art of rhetoric (Strauver 2009).5 Classical rhetoricians have defined the subject of their discipline as being the contingent, mainly in the sense of the past events whose existence is shrouded with indeterminacy and uncertainty. The association of the art of rhetoric with the notion of the contingent dates back to Aristotle.6 In response to Plato who observed that rhetoric has no specified subject, Aristotle retorts by asserting that rhetoric has a subject and that its subject is the contingent (Gaonkar 2006). Aristotle declares that the subject of deliberation, as a rhetorical method, cannot be the necessary, but the possible: “The subjects of our deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities . . . about things that could not have been, and cannot now or in the future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this nature wastes his time in deliberation” (I.ii.1375a5-7). The notion of contingency also features in later accounts of rhetoric. The author of Rhetorica

ad Herennium defines the statement of fact in terms of certainty and possibility

at the same time: “The narration or Statement of Facts sets forth the events that have occurred or might have occurred” (1.2.3; emphasis added). Quintilian gives relatively the same definition: “The statement of facts consists in the persuasive exposition of that which either has been done, or is supposed to have been done” (4.2.31; emphasis in original).

The virtual, in the sense of the private embedded narratives or the mental constructions, also crops up fairly frequently in rhetorical writings. Rhetoricians seem to be quite aware of the extent to which the orator needs to project these mental constructions of his audiences and the judges in order to be able to predict their reactions and respond proactively. Rhetorica ad Herenniumadvises

that the orator guide and affect the audiences’ minds and thoughts by masterfully exploiting his knowledge of their private knowledge and intentions, or to put it technically, by predicting their virtual domains. For example, it advises that the orator must use the exordium to prepare his audience, most importantly the judges and jury, to listen to the oration attentively. It astutely states that: “We shall have attentive hearers by promising to discuss important, new, and unusual matter” (1.4.7). Quintilian also recommends that the orator addresses his audiences’ private domains through many means. He states that the function of the exordium is to “prepare our audience in such a way that they will be disposed to lend a ready ear to the rest of our speech” so much so that “we gain admission to the mind of the judge in order to penetrate still further” (4.1.5). This can only be achieved if the orator can surmise what the audience is

possibly thinking of at that very moment, so that he can react accordingly. By

the same token, the orator must weigh the effect of every tactic on the judge’s opinion so that, by projecting the possible courses the judge’s thinking might take, the orator can plan to lead it in the courses most favourable to him. Quintilian recommends that the orator show himself weaker in acting and dissembling in comparison to his opponent, because “a scrupulous judge is always specially ready to listen to an advocate whom he does not suspect to have designs on his integrity” (4.1.9; also 4.1.56). The author of Rhetorica ad

Herennium observes that an indispensable trait of the orator is to be “well aware

of the means by which belief is ordinarily affected” (1.6.10).

These rhetorical recipes reflect a deep awareness of the role of the virtual domain in directing people’s motivations and intentions. In terms that Marie- Laure Ryan would favourably use, the relation of the orator to the judge is like that of the agent to the subagent, with the former guiding the latter to the implementation of his own plan, which necessitates that the orator projects all the thoughts that would go through the audience’s mind. In the same fashion, Quintilian holds that the orator must implant in the judge’s mind the thought that his fortune would be deplorable should he lose his case (4.1.29). And so it seems that most of the effort of the good orator should consist in dealing with the virtual domain of his listeners, sometimes adding to them some refreshments or even alleviating their fears and obsessions. This also works well not only with the judges, but also with the orator’s opponent, whose

possible actions and reactions should be weighed rightly by the orator: “Nor is

the art of anticipating what is likely to be said against us without its use” (4.1.49). The notion of probability, in the sense of plausible convincing persuasion, also secured a pivotal place in rhetoric. For Aristotle, the main method of persuasion is the enthymeme, which is a form of argument like the logical syllogism. It differs from the syllogism of logic in that while the premises of logical syllogisms should be ‘certain,’ those of the enthymeme should be ‘probable.’7To Aristotle, “the theory of rhetoric must be concerned ... with what seems probable8 to men of a given type” (I.ii.1356b32-5). The orator cannot aspire for certainty but could strive to augment the probability of his arguments. Quintilian also holds that the orations should be probable and use probabilistic reasoning: the orator’s statement of facts should be “lucid, brief and plausible” (4.2.31). The significance of the ‘probability’ requirement gets clearer when he separates it from ‘truth,’ for not every true is probable: “There are many things which are true, but scarcely credible, just as there are many things which are plausible though false” (4.2.34). In De Oratore, Cicero also mentions ‘plausibility’ as a requirement of the statement of facts (2.19.80; 2.80.226). And he has already made the same point in De Inventione (1.29.44).As far as the nature of the probable is concerned, the Rhetorica ad Herennium characterizes it as having the features of “the usual, the expected, and the natural” (1.9.16). The notion of ‘probability’ also gets directly under focus when the Rhetorica ad

Herennium includes it within Conjectural Issue: “Through Probability one proves

that the crime was profitable to the defendant, and that he never abstained from this foul practice. The subheads under Probability are Motive and Manner of Life” (2.2.3).

This emphasis on the probable in rhetoric came down to the rhetorical tradition of the Renaissance. In Aphthonius’s Progymnasmata, a handbook of rhetorical exercises which is ascribed to Aphthonius the sophist and which was the main rhetoric textbook in English schools during the Renaissance, narrative is defined as “Narratio est expositoi rei factae vel tanquam factae” (Narrative is the exposition of what happened or what might have happened) (1572, 17v). He then mentions four characteristic features of narrative, one being ‘probable’ (ibid.). In Foundacion of Rhetorike, Richard Rainolde follows this tradition citing ‘probability’ as a prerequisite of narrative: “Probable, as not unlike to be true”

(1563, 13v). In his The Arte of Rhetorique, one of the most comprehensive accounts of the discipline in Elizabethan England, Thomas Wilson follows on the heels of previous rhetoricians in defining the conjectural issue: “The Oration conjectural is, when matters be examined and tryed out by suspicions gathered, and some likelihode of thinge appearinge”(1553, 50v; emphasis added).The examples he gives suggest that the orator has to collect signs that whip up the probability of his claim against the other claims.9Although all these signs do not breed certainty, yet their job is to increase the probability of the crime being committed by the accused person. In possible worlds terms, the orator is trying to construct a virtual course of events (since the real course is irretrievably lost), and in doing so he is excluding the other courses the event might have taken instead. In order to convince the judge that this virtual course is the real one, the orator has to augment probabilities on that virtual side.

Thus, the two notions of the virtual and the probable were two characteristic landmarks in Renaissance thought due to many factors, chief among which is the spread of rhetorical learning. In the Introduction we have demonstrated the centrality of the notions of possibility and probability in the philosophical, theological, geographical and rhetorical thought in the Renaissance. Among these sites of influence, rhetorical learning was especially effective in the cultivation of virtual courses and probabilistic reasoning. During the Renaissance, rhetoric was the main discipline in the curricula, be it in the grammar schools or in the universities (Mack 2004). According to Gavin Alexander, “Rhetoric became the master–discipline of Renaissance learning and the central focus of education” (2010, 38). That kind of rhetorical learning has also affected the way learners have to project the mental constructions of others in order to anticipate the virtual actions they would take and act accordingly. In his pioneering study, The Tudor Play of Mind, Joel B. Altman argues for the influence of the Tudor rhetorically-centred educational system on the people’s minds and the flexibility of thinking it helped to foster: “what happens to a mind conditioned to argue in utramque partem – on both sides of the question – as Renaissance students were trained to do? Surely one result must be a great complexity of vision, capable of making everyman not only a devil’s advocate, but also a kind of microcosm deity” (1978, 3). Stephen Greenblatt also spots this agility of thought or ‘widening of possibilities’ in the

early modern period, which he calls ‘improvisation,’ by which he means “the ability both to capitalize on the unforeseen and to transform given materials into one’s own scenario,” (1980, 227) or “the ability to insert the self into the sign systems of others” (1991, 98). Greenblatt’s notion of ‘improvisation’ is conceptually and practically kindred to that of the projected plans and the virtual in the narratological sense. To improvise thus means to be able to project the virtual plans of the subagents and act accordingly. This, in turn, is based on calculating the possible scenarios through which the subagent’s actions may go.10

The proliferation of rhetorical education, which highlighted the importance of virtuality and probability, has had its impact on the drama of the period. The relation between drama and rhetoric was very intimate in this period. Generally, drama and rhetoric share the same aim of affecting an audience. Rhetoric, just like drama, is often held in public and in front of an audience. Consequently, the skills required by both arts are characteristically similar, especially the art of delivery in rhetoric and the way it was taught to actors, as we have shown in Chapter One. As Peter Womack puts it, “If theatre was rhetorical, that was partly because rhetoric was already theatrical” (2006, 80). Many Renaissance dramatists were trained in the grammar schools whose syllabi were mainly based on classical rhetorical texts. Moreover, the drama bequeathed these rhetorical tendencies, most forcefully forensic rhetoric, from Classical drama, especially Latin comedy. Latin New Comedy is accredited with this strong forensic tendency, so much so that even rhetoricians like Cicero and Quintilian make reference to and give examples from Terentian comedy. The comic plots of Plautus and Terence bulge with intrigues and misunderstandings which induce characters to conduct inferential processes based on circumstantial evidence to arrive at the real course of events. Forensic rhetorical reasoning was a decisive factor that helped Renaissance dramatists shape their evidential plots and episodes of deception and intrigue. This can explain the forensic or detective-like features of English drama in the Renaissance (Hutson 2007). With occasional exceptions, English Renaissance dramatists were generally used to such forensic techniques; in their plays, they have planted and skilfully manipulated evidence of time and place and made intricate reference to causes and motives. Part of the mimetic appeal of that drama derives from its forensic

legacy. “Evidence, of course, entails representation, and this immediately links courtroom practice to theatrical mimesis” (Mukherji 2006, 3).

Thanks to his grammar school education, Shakespeare must have been fairly familiar with these rhetorical techniques and exercises, which is directly reflected in his plays. Early in his career, Shakespeare has tried his hand and mastered this form of forensic rhetoric. Always in the plays characters are faced by certain problems which they try to solve using this forensic way of reasoning. Shakespeare’s fascination with the richness and complexity of the virtual and probable is prominent throughout his career: examples of that range from the use of forensic reasoning to solve the puzzles of the double twins in The

Comedy of Errors, to the intricate way in which Don John weaves the

accusation of adultery against Hero in Much Ado about Nothing; it also features in Hamlet’s various techniques to prove Claudius guilty of his father’s murder. In these and many other examples, Shakespeare has masterfully shown how characters, faced with a tricky situation, try to choose among the conflicting interpretations by weighing evidence on each side of the case, and then take side according to which one is more quantitatively probable. Characters in Shakespeare tend to use this sort of reasoning to work out the virtual narratives, which only incidentally converge with the actual ones. This crafty improvisation has long been considered a characteristic feature of many a Shakespearean character, not restricted to villains, but also to good characters. The trick played in Much Ado about Nothing by Hero, Don Pedro, Claudio and Ursula on Beatrice and Benedick to help them fall in love with each other is a well-knit improvisation. All forms of disguise practised by Shakespeare’s heroines are benign examples of improvisation. In all these examples, these improvising characters seek to proliferate the domains of the virtual, thus alienating the other characters’ thinking from the actual state of affairs. However, when this is done on a felonious ground, this divergence between the actual and the virtual can be tragic, as in Othello, or comes perilously close, as in Cymbeline, unless generic conventions dictate the contrary, as we shall see below.

In addition to its concern with probabilistic thinking, Renaissance drama also addresses the virtual domain in relation to what Katharine Eisaman Maus (1995) calls ‘inwardness’. Knowledge of the virtual domain or the private worlds of characters allows us to access the inward selves of these characters.

Inwardness and interiority, moreover, have been associated with the authentic and genuine self, in contrast to the merely outward form which mainly implies inauthenticity. Maus observes that in the Renaissance the value of inwardness is emphasized by writers, religious and otherwise, and the accessibility of the virtual domain of other people featured significantly in the period as the question of how to know what other minds are thinking of. Theatre, however, has a special tension with inwardness due to its investment in the material outward display. With the playwrights’ insistence on the limitations of their theatrical medium, “theatrical representation becomes subject to profound and fascinating crises of authenticity” (1995, 32). But the inaccessibility of the virtual is nevertheless recommended by some new approaches to practical politics as evidenced by Nicolo Machiavelli. The successful prince, Machiavelli advises, is one who can keep his real intents and thinking inaccessible and hidden from other people, while he himself should attain an understanding of how others think. This dangerous dissociation between the actual behaviour and the virtual domain is pertinent to the rhetorical insights which emphasized that the orator should manage the perceptions of his audiences to his own advantage. Machiavelli’s ideas, as Hugh Grady (2002) convincingly argues, have much to bear on a certain mode of representation of politics in Shakespeare. The question of inwardness and the accessibility of the virtual and private worlds of characters are pertinent to our analysis in this Chapter, and will feature prominently in our discussion of the character of Bolingbroke in Shakespeare’s

Richard II.

In this section we have demonstrated how the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries has been affected by the rhetorical education of their time. Among other things, this influence has been manifest in their dealing with the virtual and the probable in their plays. One area of this influence is the use of forensic methods that heavily rely on probabilistic reasoning. Another common theme which these notions have raised is the reality vs. illusion which has many manifestations in early modern drama, one of which is the practice of disguise, misconception and mistaken identities. Moreover, they are also relevant to the idea of inwardness and the irresistible urge readers and characters feel to access other characters’ virtual domains. These notions also illuminate the theme of deception that prevails in drama, be it carried out for good or evil