Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Shakespeare and the Protestant Mind
- Divine [ ]sences
- ‘An alien people clutching their Gods’?: Shakespeare’s Ancient Religions
- ‘He drew the Liturgy, and framed the rites’: The Changing Role of Religious Disposition in Shakespeare's Reception
- Jonson, Shakespeare, and the Religion of Players
- The Bard and Ireland: Shakespeare’s Protestantism as Politics in Disguise
- ‘Every Good Gift From Above’ Archbishop Trench’s Tercentenary Sermon
- Anthony Munday and The Merchant of Venice
- Perfect Answers: Religious Inquisition, Falstaffian Wit
- When Suicide Becomes an Act of Honour: Julius Caesar and Hamlet in Late Nineteenth-Century Japan
- Religion in Arden
- A Wedding and Four Funerals: Conjunction and Commemoration in Hamlet
- Between Religion and Ideology: Some Russian Hamlets of the Twentieth Century
- Of Shadows and Stones: Revering and Translating ‘the Word’ Shakespeare in Mexico
- Ministers, Magistrates and the Production of ‘Order’ in Measure for Measure
- The Hebrew Who Turned Christian: The First Translator of Shakespeare into the Holy Tongue
- Shakespeare and English Performance Style: The European Context
- All At Sea: Water, Syntax, and Character Dissolution in Shakespeare
- King John, König Johann: War and Peace
- The Tempest’s Forgotten Exile
- The Old Lady, or All is Not True
- Shakespeare Performances in England, 2000
- Professional Shakespeare Productions in the British Isles January-December 1999
- The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study 1 Critical Studies
- 2 Shakespeare’s Life, Times, and Stage
- 3 Editions and Textual Studies
- Books Received
- Index
The Old Lady, or All is Not True
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2007
- Frontmatter
- Shakespeare and the Protestant Mind
- Divine [ ]sences
- ‘An alien people clutching their Gods’?: Shakespeare’s Ancient Religions
- ‘He drew the Liturgy, and framed the rites’: The Changing Role of Religious Disposition in Shakespeare's Reception
- Jonson, Shakespeare, and the Religion of Players
- The Bard and Ireland: Shakespeare’s Protestantism as Politics in Disguise
- ‘Every Good Gift From Above’ Archbishop Trench’s Tercentenary Sermon
- Anthony Munday and The Merchant of Venice
- Perfect Answers: Religious Inquisition, Falstaffian Wit
- When Suicide Becomes an Act of Honour: Julius Caesar and Hamlet in Late Nineteenth-Century Japan
- Religion in Arden
- A Wedding and Four Funerals: Conjunction and Commemoration in Hamlet
- Between Religion and Ideology: Some Russian Hamlets of the Twentieth Century
- Of Shadows and Stones: Revering and Translating ‘the Word’ Shakespeare in Mexico
- Ministers, Magistrates and the Production of ‘Order’ in Measure for Measure
- The Hebrew Who Turned Christian: The First Translator of Shakespeare into the Holy Tongue
- Shakespeare and English Performance Style: The European Context
- All At Sea: Water, Syntax, and Character Dissolution in Shakespeare
- King John, König Johann: War and Peace
- The Tempest’s Forgotten Exile
- The Old Lady, or All is Not True
- Shakespeare Performances in England, 2000
- Professional Shakespeare Productions in the British Isles January-December 1999
- The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study 1 Critical Studies
- 2 Shakespeare’s Life, Times, and Stage
- 3 Editions and Textual Studies
- Books Received
- Index
Summary
The third scene of Act 2 of All Is True rewards particular consideration as it is almost literally, and certainly symbolically, central to the play. The scene is described by R. A. Foakes as follows,
For her [Katherine's] divorce follows the brief scene between Anne and an Old Lady - the only scene in the play devoted to Anne - in which Anne, as it were, is 'queened': it is a scene of rich and complex meaning, of bawdry and high spirits, in which Anne's promotion as Marchioness of Pembroke foreshadows her further elevation. Out of Anne's pity for Katherine grows the Old Lady's series of quibbles, playing always on the idea of Anne becoming queen (or 'quean')
anne By my troth and maidenhead, I would not be a queen.
old l Beshrew me, I would, And venture maidenhead for't, and so would you For all this spice of your hypocrisy. (2.3.23-6)
The placing of this gay little scene of Anne's rise before the trial lends added poignancy to Katherine's refusal to yield.
Foakes's synopsis is of an innocuous and amusing exchange; he regards Anne Boleyn's expression of sympathy for Queen Katherine, soon to be supplanted by Anne herself, as genuine despite the Old Lady's allegation of Anne's hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not a word which Shakespeare uses without deliberation. How seriously then are we to take remarks of the Old Lady whose speech is riddled with ambiguous ironies?
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- Information
- Shakespeare Survey , pp. 234 - 245Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001