SHAKESPEARE & THE ART OF LYING
What notions of falsehood, and, axiomatically,
of truth, emerge from a reading of Shakespeare’s
works? Does Shakespeare subscribe to the concept of
absolute truth being attainable or of truth being
contingent, relative? Polonius declares that he will
find where truth is hid though it were hid indeed
within the centre, and Hamlet in his letter to Ophelia
declares, “Doubt truth to be a liar,/ But never
doubt I love.” However, are we to take these
statements at face value or enquire into their context
and the nature of the person who speaks the lines?
Does Shakespeare address the poststructuralist problem
of language not being a mirror to reality or to truth?
Is falsehood, degrees and variations of it, all we
are to be content with? After all, Shakespeare himself
confesses in Sonnet 110, “I have looked on truth/
Askance and strangely.”
The five-day workshop, jointly organized
by the Shakespeare Society of India and the Indian
Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, to be held at
the IIAS, Simla, from October 3 to October 7, 2009,
will explore the many facets of lies, deception, truth
and half-truth that feature so prominently in the
Sonnets and the poems (“When my love swears
that she is made of truth,/ I do believe her, though
I know she lies”) the history and Roman plays,
in the comedies, in the tragedies where falsehood
has dire consequences, in the problem plays where
distinctions are often blurred, and in the romances
where, ostensibly, falsehood is defeated and truth
is vindicated. Some attention should also be paid
to the fact that there is an art to make falsehood
resemble truth. One may recall that Othello claims
that Iago is a “fellow…of exceeding honesty,”
after Iago insinuates against Desdemona’s fidelity.
Shakespeare is past master of the art of lying, he
compares his art to that of a dyer, and he is also
aware of the serious repercussions of this nimbleness
in colouring the truth on the art-nature debate that
raged in the Renaissance. Are truth and its representation
inextricable or does the artistic representation of
truth become in itself a kind of art of lying?
The organizers look forward to receiving
papers not necessarily confined to an examination
of Shakespeare’s works alone, but also to classical,
Biblical and Renaissance notions of falsehood and
truth. More, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Bacon, Bruno
and other thinkers of the age have deeply influenced
Shakespeare’s notions of falsehood and truth.
Too, the workshop will entertain papers on Shakespearean
criticism and on stage and film versions which focus
on the representation of falsehood and truth. Papers
may include a discussion of how contemporary political
ideologies may colour the reinvention of Shakespeare’s
works.
The aim of the workshop, to be held
over five days, unlike that of a seminar, is not so
much to arrive at firm conclusions but to raise questions
that are exploratory in nature, to have an in-depth
discussion on the variety and seriousness of Shakespeare’s
thoughts on this issue and, in the process, to re-think
a concern that can never be out-of-date.
SHAKESPEARE & THE ART
OF LYING
SUGGESTED TOPICS
· Hypocrisy, Sincerity and
Role Play in the History Plays
