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Thursday
21Jan2010

A Few Promises

DateThursday, January 21, 2010 at 12:24PM

(x-posted)

Note: In his Henry James Lectures How to Do Things With Words and BBC Radio talk "Performative Utterances," JL Austin explores a possible class of speech acts called "performative utterances" or "performatives." The basic performative consists of a verb formed in the first person present tense; Austin's central example of a performative is the phrase "I promise..." Austin believes that in saying the words "I promise..." the speaker effects a contract according to familiar conventions. These conventions are generally understood and accepted by both speaker and listener(s) in order for the performative to have "uptake," much like the signing of a formal contract. In an interesting passage, Austin provides a caveat in the case of fictional utterances: "a performative utterance will... be in a peculiar way hollow or void if said by an actor on the stage, or if introduced in a poem, or spoken in soliloquy" (pg 22). This caveat has important implications for the Wordhoard analysis which follows.

I decided to look at the verb "promise" as it is used in Shakespeare's work. My hypothesis was that any uses of the verb "promise" will occur early in the text and any accompanying verbs will be acted out in later scenes. For example, if a character says in line one of a play, "I promise to be faithful," then one would expect under my hypothesis that the same character will demonstrate in his/her actions either faithfulness or unfaithfulness with certain expected consequences. To test this hypothesis, I ran a series Wordhoard searches.
Search #1 Parameters
->Find Word...
Corpus: Shakespeare
Lemma: promise(v)
Group by / Order by: Work / Frequency
Group by / Order by: Work Part / Location

 

Search #1 Findings: Ten Lowest Frequencies
  1. Henry VI, Part 2 (1 match, 0.41 freq.)
  2. Richard II (1 match, 0.46 freq.)
  3. Love's Labour's Lost (1 match, 0.48 freq.)
  4. Julius Caesar (1 match, 0.52 freq.)
  5. Pericles (1 match, 0.56 freq.)
  6. Sonnets (1 match, 0.57 freq.)
  7. Two Gentlemen of Verona (1 match, 0.59 freq.)
  8. Hamlet (2 matches, 0.68 freq.)
  9. Othello (2 matches, 0.77 freq.)
  10. King Lear (2 matches, 0.79 freq.)
I expected the lower occurrences of the verb "promise" to indicate texts where promise-making falls flat or is shown primarily in action. Some of these findings are very interesting. In Henry VI, Part 2, the solitary use of the verb "promise" occurs in scene two of the first act. Duchess Gloucester reveals her ambitions for her husband, Duke Gloucester and Lord Protector of England. She wants her husband to murder the King and supporters-- "these stumbling blocks"-- in order to assume full power over England. In a desperate attempt to stay ahead of her competitors, the Duchess becomes involved with conjurers to portend the future. She consults John Hume, a priest, and Hume reports that Bolingbroke has agreed to aid her:
This they have promised, to show your highness
A spirit raised from depth of under ground,
That shall make answer to such questions
As by your grace shall be propounded him.

The significance here is twofold. First, Hume is reporting a promise, not making one. We witness the "peculiar" hollowness of an unconventional promise. The Duchess can rely only on Hume's report as an assurance that she will get what she wants, not Bolingbroke's actual promise. Such second-hand acceptance of a promise takes a special leap of faith, especially so if one is already involved with treasonous schemes. The Duchess is entering a dubious contract to use illegal practices to aid her treason. Thus, early on in the play, the characters mire themselves in a very damaging scheme.

In an interesting coincidence, four of the ten plays listed above contain the verb "promise" in the second scene of the first act. (Even more interesting: nine other plays have "promise" in the second scene. Why the second and not the first or third?) Three of the plays listed above-- in Henry VI, Part 2, in Love's Labour's Lost, and in Julius Caesar-- use "promise" in a past tense formulation, meaning all three are reports of promises and not actual promise-making acts. The exception is King Lear, where Edmund speaks with his half-brother Edgar:
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed
unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child
and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of
ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and
maledictions against king and nobles; needless
diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of
cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.
Here we have a solid, straightforward promise where Edmund promises Edgar that terrible civil strife will cause havoc. Everything Edmund lists will occur in the play, much of it as a result of his own actions. The second use of "promise" completes the prophecy, as Kent asks in the final scene:
Is this the promised end?
The answer seems an unequivocal "yes."
Finally, in Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Henry is the solitary promise-maker. In act one, scene two he says to his father:
...when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised...
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
in act three, scene two he says to his father:
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which if He be pleased I shall perform
in act four scene three, Hotspur observes of King Henry:
The king is kind; and well we know the king
Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.
and Prince Henry reverses his initial denial of a promise with the maxim:
Who never promiseth but he means to pay.
Thus we see Hal's immaturity early on in act one, his first attempts to change in act three, a minor character state clearly what it takes to be King in act four, and finally Hal take on a mature perspective in the final act. Prince Henry begins the play as an adolescent refusing to make full promises and ends a young man denying his former position. In a word-- "promise"-- we have a major theme of the play.
AuthorJared | Comment1 Comment |
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