Risk in Timon's, Shakespeare's and Appadurai's Capitalism

Though some of the connections made by Arjun Appadurai during his speech were difficult to follow given the technological difficulties, I found some of his theories on capitalism and its successes and failures to be interesting.  The first of which I puzzled over was the citation of Protestantism as influential on the way the economy is structured. 
 

Protestantism entails uncertainty with regard to one’s fate in the afterlife; for example, even though John Calvin’s brand of religion centered around the understanding that one was already either condemned to hell or slotted for heaven, there was no way for Calvinists to know which fate awaited them.  This uncertainty of religion, Appadurai argued, can often translate to uncertainty in other areas of society, including the economy.  Consequentially, western societies feature unstable economies that require risk and uncertainty (the two terms most frequently referred to during this portion of the talk) to function properly.

This risk translates in many ways, making the economy of the United States one that is infused with uncertainty.  The stock market, for example, is considered a game of chance played with one’s finances.  The debts acquired through these and other forms of “gambling” are used to make profits both for businesses and private individuals.  As Appadurai stressed, we are creating these assets and profits from debt, which is an unstable system on which to build.

While I was listening to this talk, I also thought of Timon.  He is a clear example of the risk game, and played with disastrous results. In borrowing money, he perhaps hoped to make enough profit on these loans to pay his debts back, but instead gave all of the money away to his friends, later finding there was no hope of those gifts being repaid.  These defaults on debts reflects failures of the capitalist system, both in the past decade and in such events as the Great Depression.  Furthermore, the idea of risk and uncertainty, if Appadurai’s theory is to be applied, would imply Shakespeare is writing both from his own context and from Timon’s—both Athenians and Shakespeare’s contemporary Christians had a great amount of uncertainty in their religion, which was seen in their societies in the beliefs that amassing interest and great amounts of wealth were unnatural.  Furthermore, the Senators are believed to have used usury as a way of becoming so wealthy, which was a sin in the eyes of Christians at the time.  That their insistence on being repaid is immediately followed by Timon’s fleeing and death, and the defeat of Athens by Alcibaldes, is indicative of Shakespeare’s opinion on a society built on these principles, and also hints at Appadurai’s theories of why capitalism is unreliable.

Appadurai's Risk, Posthumus' Loss

Although the lecture was interrupted several times because of the bad quality video call, there were some points that I was able to take away from Appadurai’s talk.

One of his main points was that everyone in a capitalist economy is linked together through risk. Some people, or the ”1%”, are the risk takers and the large players in the capitalist economy whom are taking the majority of the risk. Most people are the risk bearers or the “99%” whom are used to absorb the inevitable periods of loss in which risk is taken. 

Those who will take risk and come out losing, thus ending up in debt to those who will benefit from the risk, are caught in a trap in which risk is monetized. This debt can come from many sources such as healthcare, student and schooling debt, and housing payment debt. When consumers take risk and lose, they tend to continue to try to take risk in order to get ahead and generally end up worse off than before, caught in a vicious risky cycle.

This idea of constant risk can be applied especially to Cymbeline, in which we see Posthumus’ risk in betting Giacomo on his wife’s fidelity. In a strange way, Posthumus stands in as a symbol of the risk taker, betting the ring against Giacomo and losing. Imogen and Pisanio stand in as risk bearers in that they have to deal with the aftereffect of Posthumus’ loss, but not so much with a monetary loss, but more against the behavioral effect. They have to deal with the sudden personality change and his plotting to kill Imogen, and ensnaring Pisanio in the process. This order to kill Imogen leads to multiple scenes of discomfort and fear, evidenced by Imogen’s retreat into the unknown wilderness, and Pisanio’s betrayal of the man he serves.

Example of Themester Blog Post: Arjun Appadurai

 
Arjun Appadurai is a senior professor of media, culture and communication at NYU. His (remote) appearance at Themester was arranged in collaboration with a Mellon-funded project, "Framing the Global," and a conference on the same subject.

Appandurai's main field of expertise is the cultural effects of globalization. His talk was unusual for its focus on American economics and their influence of the "global capitalist imaginary."

What struck me in this talk was Appandurai's interest in thinking about the "human side" of our new economy. He said that at present, a small number of us are "risk takers" while the rest of us are "risk bearers" in a market that makes most of its profits from derivatives--that is, bets taken on various loans, swaps or exchanges. Appandurai's question was how this economy became an accepted Western norm. In attempting to push past the Occupy movement's demonization of Wall Street, he offered us an account of the psychology that made derivative capitalism--or the monetization of risk--an economic system to which we collectively acquiesce.

For Appandurai, the source of this system was embedded in American religious thought--specifically, the Protestant Work Ethic as described by the influential sociologist Max Weber. In sum, the effort to prove one's (hoped-for) predestined salvation by doing profitable work is to Appandurai the root of a system that monetizes risk.

All the while, I was thinking about Timon, and the question of whether we can humanize the representatives of capitalism in that play. Does Shakespeare ever tip his attention toward the larger stakes of Athens's economy? Does he try to explain the triumph of capitalism over Timon's vision of unstinting Christian generosity? Or is his play an isolated study of a man on the brink (and over the brink)? Does the religious allegory of Timon make Weber's Protestant reading more or less plausible?

(It would also be generative to think about the monetization of risk in All's Well and Helena's venture capitalism. That play is also about credit defaults and the tension between two competing visions of the social structure)

The problem with Appandurai's talk was that it was almost impossible to hear; he was beamed in over Skype and the whole experience was disastrous. About 30% of the talk was lost to technical difficulties. Nevertheless, as an opportunity to think through finance and social structures, it was pretty provocative and useful for its macro view.

Production Shot of the National production of Timonof Athens: 

Alcibiades in the Athenian Woods leading his men

From the Occupy webpage: protests on Wall Street, 2009

Imagining Sociality: A Wider View

Thomas More's Utopia with Holbein's frontispiece, 1518

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, 1951

Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1709 (Nicholas Rowe)

 

[From 7 photographs of a production of] Cymbeline [starring] Viola Allen [performed in 1906]

From the British Library's account of this 1534 artifact:  This map of the British Isles dates from the period 1534-46 and is by an unknown draughtsman. The source of this map is thought to have been a map of around 1290 which also acted as a source for the Gough Map of 1360.
The cartographer has made significant advances however on this early source map; Ireland is included, shown as an egg shaped island with the fabled Purgatory of St Patrick, a large internal lake populated by many islands to the north west. The outline of Scotland is improved, the cartographer having rejected the contorted Ptolemaic shape of Scotland in favour of a roughly accurate outline. This improvement in the shape of Scotland is because the map is graduated for latitude and longitude (apparently from the Azores), It is the earliest surviving British map to be so. Ireland and Scotland are tinted yellow to distinguish them from England and Wales, but their inclusion on a map of 'England' reveals Henry VIII's hopes for expanding his kingdom. A date of around the late 1530s is probable as the map does not show the advances in knowledge of the coast of Scotland and Wales, notably the outline of the Bay of Cardigan, which was known at court after 1540.
It is possible that this map belonged to Henry VIII and was one of several known to have decorated the galleries of the various royal residences. It is the first known map to record 'hampton corte' raising the possibility that this is where it may have originally hung. 

A Winter's Tale: Imagining Intimacy

Mathilde Odier (1815-1904). Watercolor of Cymbeline bound into a copy of The plays and poems of William Shakspeare. Leipsic: Ernest Fleischer, 1833. 

 Byam Shaw, c. 1900, "Guard Me Beseech Ye"

 

Louis Rhead, 1918, "Softly unloosing the bracelet from her arm" 

Samuel Begg, 1896, Cymbeline, act II, scene II: "O, sleep thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!" 

Jacob Tonson, 1709, Plate from Rowe's edition of Shakespeare

Anonymous print, 19th c. Innogen in bed

 

James Stow, c. 1770, Innogen in bed 

Ireland's Stuff: Imagining Intimacy

Featured items in the Ireland Scrapbooks including
1) a portrait of the author as a child,
2) the lock of hair sent to Anne Hathaway in the Houghton and 3) Folger volumes,
4) colorized illustrations of Shakespeare in the role of Bassanio
5) and (possibly) in the role of Shylock,
6) the seal of the Ireland family

The Absence of Childhood Innocence

The works Timon of Athens and Lord of the Flies can both be easily viewed as extreme criticisms of human’s social interactions/structure. Both describe the downfall of a society (Timon’s Athens and Lord of the Flies’ makeshift island community) through human relations. While these two are similar in their viewpoints of man, I found (the Cardinal Stage production of) Lord of the Flies to be a harsher/more extreme critique of human sociality.

            The story features young school children as its main characters as they become stranded on a remote island and have to fend for themselves. For me, the key concept to consider was the fact that the characters are children. The child is the archetypal symbol for innocence and purity; a human not yet contaminated by society. However, Lord of the Flies and the Cardinal Stage Company portray these children as savages who resort to killing each other when left alone, a polar opposite from the child’s general image of purity. Though Timon’s tirades against society are formidable, his character is an old man who has had lots of time to experience and be shaped by the corruption of the world. Since the children of Lord of the Flies have just been thrust into their own society, their rapid descent into savagery is a more extreme depiction of human relations.

For Warburton and Boswell, the forgeries were something they had wanted because, in their eyes, they were authentic and had been in the hands of Shakespeare himself. Its strange how something as seemingly insignificant as a piece of paper can bring a certain thrill to someone. I think that I got the thrill from touching all the manuscripts and documents of Ireland because its hard to be sure that these people were who we believe them to be. We don't know who they were, only what books tell us. We don't know the type of person Ireland was, but somehow, by seeing his handwriting and reading his views and forgeries of Shakespeare, it was an insight into hundreds of years ago when Ireland was alive and well. Shakespearean artifacts are especially thrilling because of all of the controversy surrounding his life and his plays. By touching all these things, it somehow makes me feel like I knew Shakespeare and knew that he was the real author of those plays.

posted on behalf of Jacqueline

Human nature vs. society's standards

When looking at Timon of Athens and the stage production of The Lord of the Flies, it’s important to look at the difference between human nature, what we’re born with, and human sociality. I believe Timon of Athens is much more of a negative commentary on the social norms and rules of society, whereas Lord of the Flies comments on human nature, and how easy it is to turn to savages when these rules don’t exist.

First, I think Timon of Athens is more condemnatory of human sociality because the story is set in a sophisticated society, and not on a remote island. The whole premise also deals with the social norm of repaying favors and gifts that you receive from friends. But it shows that if these norms aren’t followed, then a man can go from having everything to having nothing in no time at all. Like in Lord of the Flies, alliances are formed. To me it seemed like everyone that Timon was expecting repayment from collectively refused to help him. If one of them were to help him, I’m sure the rest would too. But that doesn’t happen, like they’re all succumbing to peer pressure. Kind of like in Lord of the Flies, when Piggy asks Ralph to not tell anyone his nickname is Piggy, but Ralph tells them anyways to fit in. 

Lord of the Flies is much more condemnatory of human nature, in my opinion. The children in the play aren’t accustomed to the societal norms that the adults in Timon would be, so when these social relations cease to exist on the island, it isn’t saying as much as when the men of Athens break them. Furthermore, Lord of the Flies shows that human sociality and the norms a civilized society has are thrown out the window when our survival instincts overcome the standards society sets, or when our id overpowers our super ego. Lord of the Flies is about the absence of normal everyday social relations, whereas Timon of Athens shows what happens when these relations are broken.

Brutal Boys and Malicious Men

               In my opinion, Timon of Athens creates a more condemning, and depressing, view on human sociality as compared to Lord of the Flies. The fact of the matter is that in both stories, humans are portrayed in a very unattractive light, but there is one distinct difference; Lord of the Flies is not necessarily condemning of the human race as a whole. In the discussion at the production of Lord of the Flies, a very valid point was brought up that the group demonstrated in the play was a very small part of the population as a whole: a group of boys ranging an age span only from young children to mid teenage boys.

                The group in Timon reveal a much larger representation of the population, spanning class, gender, and age ranges across the unsavory characters. This group includes, but is not limited to, Timon’s rich friends, the servant Lucilius, whose position he elevates in order that he may be married, and Ventidius whom he helps out of debtor’s jail, all of whom refuse to help Timon in his time of need. Shakespeare also includes other characters that prove to be less than honorable in nature throughout the story like the thieves and female prostitutes whom are easily bribable to carry out heinous deeds, such as when Timon commands the prostitutes “whore still; Paint till a horse may mire upon your face, A pox of wrinkles!” and the prostitutes answer “Well, more gold: what then? Believe't, that we'll do any thing for gold” (4.3.146-149). Even the leaders of this “civilized” society of Athens greedy and insensitive to their own citizens and to justice when they blindly refuse Alcibiades’ desperate pleas until he threatens to destroy them. 

The Misanthropes: Timon and the Lords

It doesn't take a careful close reading or deep analysis to determine that Lord of the Flies is far and away a more cynical and misanthropic work of art than Timon of Athens. Whereas Timon is a play about society's corruption and lack of compassion, LOTF is a play about mankind's inefficacy even to cultivate civilization, much less rise to a point where a wealthy benefactor like Timon could exist.

Part of what makes LOTF so much more cynical a work of art is that its subject matter the world of children, not that of adults. A group of children are stranded on an island and attempt to establish a civilization that will hold them together, but are undone by what the author indicates is Original Sin, i.e. innate evil. The story subverts the idea that children are innocent, that man is a fundamentally good, benevolent being. Rather, in the universe of LOTF, children, and by extension all humans, are innately corrupt and need of society's prodding and contorting in order for them to not destroy one another. This corruption is most evident in the character of Jack, who (d)evolves from a good, pleasant choir boy, to a blood-lusting barbarian that cares only for instant gratification and could care less whether the boys are ever rescued from the island to enjoy the fruits of civilization again. By the end of the story, the two most awkward boys on the island, Simon and Piggy, are killed by the other boys barbarism, indicating that in a society of and by children the weak and slower ones are eaten by the impatience and short-sighted instincts of the others. In the end, the civilized protagonist, Ralph, is only saved from being killed by the others through a chance rescue. LOTF is a play driven by and about Original Sin.

Contrast this with Timon, a play set in the adult world, where there are painters, poets, senators, and benefactors. Most of the characters are depicted in a negative light by Shakespeare as they exploit the goodwill of the naive Timon. When Timon goes bust and none of his former beneficiaries help him in his time of need, he becomes a (very unsuccessful) hermit and misanthrope. In this story, society is evil and it scorns its individual members, but at the very least society exists. Someone had to be successful in order for the wealth and institutions that are presented in Timon to exist in the first place.

Timon says that society has the potential for corruption. LOTF says that man is simply corrupt.                    

The 'Fan-Girls' of Shakespeare

            Finding something so profound and impacting can lead one to be manipulated. That’s exactly what happened to Boswell and Warburton after examining Ireland’s forgeries. They were victims of deception. Not because of their lack of intelligence, but rather having too much intelligence. These scholars were die-hard fans of Shakespeare and desired nothing more than discovering more information about the bard. For Boswell, he went in thinking and believing that the manuscripts were true. This automatically made him trust Ireland without question. There was no doubt, no skepticism only excitement and delight. Of course, Ireland’s insistence played a large role in this scheme as well. By him constantly reinforcing his findings, this made the public more and more intrigued.

            Shakespeare’s imprint on the earth was immense. His genius and works captivated scholars as well as the common public. Why was he so intriguing? First of all, his works and the depths there was to them. But also Shakespeare’s personal life and how little was known. Who was the man behind the brain? Ireland’s forgeries gave the public a chance to look into Shakespeare’s past and try to decipher who he was. Even today, holding those manuscripts somehow makes us feel closer to Shakespeare even if he had nothing to do with it at all. The reason being, it created so much hype and controversy. Without these forgeries would we ever have tried to find the truth? Many accused Ireland of fraud, but they needed to find the proof to do so. Thus, leading to truth. These works, although fake, allowed people to think and questions who Shakespeare really was, so that today we have a better understanding of separating the truths from the lies. 

Is the fake "truth" better than nothing at all?

Both Warburton and Boswell had pretty much dedicated their lives to the works and life of William Shakespeare.  This is why they were so easily duped by the forgeries of William-Henry Ireland.  Warburton and Boswell were looking for evidence and authentic works of Shakespeare's genius... they wanted the forgeries to be real so their scholarly logical defenses were weakened by the very nature of the subject that they had dedicated their lives to.  They desired, maybe more than anything else, to discover and handle a true Shakesperean artifact and thus that had inadvertantly led them to the humiliation brought on by the forgeries of William-Henry Ireland.  From my experience handling the old books, more like tomes, was very exciting and somewhat surreal.  Just thinking that people almost 400 years ago have been touching and handling the same objects of interest that I was... that is some crazy reality.  It puts perspective on the whole idea of "Shakespeare as a literary god," I mean he has been practically worshipped for almost four centuries now.  His folio and the near perfect forgeries of Ireland are but pieces of the puzzle on how Shakespeare has risen to an untoppable height.  A lowly playwright in England around 1600 is somehow more famous than the queen of England in that time period... I feel that this anamoly was trying to be answered by Warburton and Boswell.  But unfortunately for them, they were mislead by those forgeries.  They desired to peer into Shakespeare's life through an object or personal manuscript that Shakespeare himself had written, they wanted to get to know the legend of Shakespeare on a more intimate, personal level.  Maybe they believed that Shakespeare had written a diary or journal entry in one of his works, so that would give cause to why they had so easily believed the forgeries?  It is all speculation since no known personal journals of Shakespeare have been found; hardly anything with his own handwriting has even been found!  The discovery of a diary handwritten by William Shakespeare would be monumental, the greatest discovery of our day and age since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946.  But in the meantime, we, as literary learners, will have to make do with the forgeries of William-Henry Ireland because learning even a little about Shakespeare is better than being forever in the dark.

Blog prompt: Timon and Ireland

For this week's post you have a choice either to write about Timon and Lord of the Flies, or to write about the fabrications of William Henry Ireland.

Prompt 1:

Which work is more strongly condemnatory of human sociality (that is, the everyday practice of social relations), Timon of Athens or (the Cardinal Stage production of) Lord of the Flies? Please be as specific as possible in your answer, using quotations from the Shakespeare text and careful description of the production (perhaps supported by some Google searching to recover character names, etc.).

Lord of the Flies production still, Cardinal Stage 2013

Prompt 2:

William-Henry Ireland's forgeries of Shakespeare's autobiographica humiliated some fairly important literary figures of the time (Warburton, a major scholar and editor of Shakespeare, and Boswell, the biographer of Samuel Johnson, were both taken in; the letter knelt and kissed the profession of faith). What is it about the prospect of handling a Shakespearean artifact that made these men abandon their good sense and learning? Those of you who felt a thrill handling early manuscripts, consider especially how and why it is that old stuff, handled by long-dead people, gives you a rush. How do things link us in to the past? And in particular, what would Shakespearean things offer those of us who seek to know the poet better? This is prompt asks for a speculative response, but please speculate by means of specifics. Please refer to the Shapiro article and any of the materials on display at our Lilly Library session on Wednesday.

The lock of hair William-Henry Ireland enclosed with the letter and verses to Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife).  Houghton Rare Book Library, Harvard.


Responses should not exceed 300 words. Please post by midnight Sunday. We will discuss these responses on Monday.

Staging Shakespeare: The Case of Timon

1) From the Guardian review of the Hytner/Beale production (by the National Theatre):

"One famous unleashing of abuse has been specially garlanded by Hytner so that it's silver platters of steaming turds, not water that Timon delivers as a vengeful banquet for his faithless acolytes. Russell Beale makes the scene shocking in its misanthropic rage, but steeps it beautifully in choking emotion too."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9408166/Timon-of-Athens-Olivier-Theatre-at-the-National-review.html 

2) From Wyndham Lewis's unpublished edition of Timon, in the style of Vorticism 

(So says Wikipedia: Vorticism was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. Though the style grew out of Cubism it is more closely related to Futurism in its embrace of dynamism, the machine age and all things modern.)

 See other images from this planned edition in this piece from Erin Blake on Sarah Werner's excellent blog, The Collation:

http://collation.folger.edu/2013/05/proof-prints-part-one/

3. The Medieval / Morality Play Inheritance:

Contemplation, Perseverance, Imagination, and Free Will. 
From the morality play Hickscorner, in H.W. Mabie, William Shakespeare (1900). 

Lego version of Everyman, the morality play

The Last Supper, Juan de Juanes c. 1560 

All's Well That Ends Well Advertisements

    In my opinion the two trailers are very different, although they are depicting the same production they each show it from a different perspective, one of tragedy and melancholy while the other is of comedy and happiness. The first trailer seems very magical and animated like a childrens fairy tale being shown on stage, the scenes displayed are very colorful and the music is powerful giving the production a majestical feel. It sublimenally throws in scenes from fairy tales like: Little Red Riding Hood and Cnderella and at the end where it shows the poster, Robin Hood. It makes the person watching the trailer, if they have not read the book, think that "all yet seems well", as the king states in his last lines of the play, when the last scene pictured is Helen and the king being joyous and smiling. It is also only narrated in the beginning and the end of the trailer leaving the person watching it to interpret it in their own way. Whereas in the second trailer there is a more happy tone to it, the music is upbeat and in mostly all of the scenes the characters are seen smiling and laughing with one another and there is a less dramatic feel to it. Throughout the trailer the narrator talks about the comedy of the play and the good things more than the tragedy and the bad things of it. To me this is a very inaccurate way of depicting the play because it is not all smiles and happiness, there are times when there are more tears and unhappiness than not. The way I would have advertised it would be putting both of these together showing not just one part of it but both the tragic and the comedic parts of the play, the lines, “that you express content.. with strife to please you..” say it well there is content and happiness as well as tragedy and strife.

Further Thoughts on Producing Timon

Some key claims about the play:

• corrupt text
• unfinished draft
• never performed in Shakespeare's lifetime
• collaborative text
• rediscovered every 25 years

Are these facts explicit in the video samples of the performance?

Timon of Athens: A Different Sort of Trailer / Introduction

The National Theatre Production with
Simon Russell Beale

Simon Russell Beale does Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, and Art History in one fell swoop!

Welcome and Prompt 1: All's Well

Hello and welcome to our course blog.
Those of you brave enough to sign up for All's Well, here is your prompt:


Watch the trailers below, then discuss how the video attempts to introduce prospective audiences to the play. Does the production trailer advertise the play as you would? What seems right and/or good about it? What seems less right and/or good? In our reponse, which should run between 200 and 300 words, please reference the play directly by quoting directly from it at least twice.

Posts are due no later than midnight on Sunday, September 8th. We will discuss them on Monday.