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
