Chapter four

 

Wooing

 

To arrive at this scenario where a wedding takes place, or the promise of a marriage is made, we have another element that is continually present in Shakespeare’s comedies, namely the wooing (which means “to sue for the affection of and usually marry with”18)

The primary forces behind the comic plots of Shakespeare’s comedies are the romantic sentiment and the erotic desire and the primary action is the overcoming of obstacles (if two characters really love each other they must overcome all obstacles that they are faced with), obstacles that stand in the way of the romantic and sexual fulfillment. The romantic sentiment is always bound up with wooing. Romanticism is about the elaboration of feelings which lead members of opposite sexes to idealize and to fantasize about each other. Wooing is about the approaches they make to each other in order to transmit their feelings and to awaken reciprocal feelings in the other. Wooing is thus the preliminary of marriage, and marriage is but the crowning point of the lives of the characters that appear in Shakespeare’s plays.

If marriage is the denouement of the comedy, wooing is undoubtedly the climax of it, the centre of the plot and its dialogue is concerned with the testing of emotional responses, which constitute the well-understood ritual of courtship.19 Wooing scenes are tests of the maturity and the humanity of the characters involved in them, and also points where the personal affairs intersect with public ones. They are also scenes apt for mockery and satire (usually these scene are the ones that carry most comical value), due to their excessive sentimentality.

The lover is an ambiguous figure, who may excite pity for his painful emotional condition, but also seems ridiculous because of his excessive virtuousness. Romance is almost always accompanied by features that are anti-romantic. The lover becomes a figure of awe and fun. His raptures may be a source of richly flowering, delicate poetry, but they may also lapse into an absurd recital of merely conventional clichés.20 Orlando, in As You Like It write poems to Rosalind on trees, poems that Touchstone mocks for their poor style and which embarrass Rosalind herself.

            Wooing is not a matter of two. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lysander tries to sleep with Hermia, but she refuses. After being turned down he declares his love for her

“One turf shall serve as pillow for us both.

One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.”21

and then continues:

“O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence.

Love takes the meaning in love's conference.  

 I mean that my heart unto yours is knit

So that but one heart we can make of it.

Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath—

 So then two bosoms and a single troth.

Then by your side no bed room me deny.

 For, lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.”22                                        

Hermia  refuses to sleep in the same bed as Lysander for they have not married yet. Lysander, in such an ironic way for us the readers declares his love for her:

“Amen, amen to that fair prayer, say I.

And then end life when I end loyalty.

 Here is my bed. Sleep give thee all his rest!”23

 Not only does Lysander try to seduce Hermia, but because he is under the spell he falls in love with the first person he sees, in this case Helena: 

“Not Hermia but Helena I love.

Who will not change a raven for a dove?  

 The will of man is by his reason swayed,

And reason says you are the worthier maid.”24

There is a broader social context in which it necessarily functions, and personal choice determines a range of complexities in that society (in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Egeus complains to Duke Theseus that his daughter Hermia does not want to marry the man he has chosen for her).

Wooing is also a process of maturation, through it Orlando is emotionally educated by Rosalind/Ganymede in As You Like It. Other plays, such as Much Ado about Nothing or Twelfth Night, focus on a more practical form of wooing, a familiar procedure to Elizabethans, which take into consideration issues such as dowry, social status, strategy and control over one’s own feelings and actions. In The Taming of the Shrew however, there is no such thing as wooing, at least not between Kate and Petrucchio, the latter whom, on the other hand clearly admits that what he is really interested in is marrying a rich woman.

Wooing is thus one of the main elements of Shakespearian comedy and it is very important in the lives of the characters that are involved in, but we must bear in mind that even though the wooing and the comedy ends in marriage, there is still life after the marriage.

And there is still life after the wooing that is not marriage. Luciana in The Comedy of Errors is wooed, but in the confusion created by the two sets of twins, she believes that the man declaring his love to her is her sister’s husband, so she chooses to ignore his wooing. Nevertheless, she is surprised by it, and even flattered. She is “offered the opportunity” of having a submissive husband who is willing to be taught how to speak and think by his wife.

Through this wooing and the promise of a marriage between Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse we are faced with a restoration of order. Virtually, Luciana stops being a no-person (in Elizabethan times an un-married woman was seen as a person who had no opinion and no voice in society) and Antipholus of Syracuse becomes complete.

            We can also observe wooing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, since Demetrius loves Hermia and in a way he is picking on her in order to manage her. On the other hand, when the four lovers are in the wood under Puck’s charm, we can see that both Lysander and Demetrius are wooing Helena in order to win her. But we know that in the end Lysander loves Hermia and Demetrius loves Helena.

            Another example of wooing in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is the couple of Hippolyta and Theseus. We know that their love story is the main plot of the play, because due to their next marriage all the characters are joined in the comedy. We also know that Theseus won the Hippolyta’s love in a battle, but he has won Hippolyta’s heart through wooing. He is able to do everything for his lover, and he is delighted with pleasing her. 

    After having done the individual essay on this character, Rita Costell Chueca has reached the conclusion that for poor Kate in The Taming of the Shrew not even her post-marriage wooing sessions are conventional. These are precisely a taming process more than a traditional wooing. Her sister Bianca, opposedly, receives a conventional wooing with Lucentio’s love poems disguised as latin lessons:

 “Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?”25

   Luciana in The Comedy of Errors receives her wooing scene as well through the Antipholus she believes to be her brother-in-law. This is a critical situation for her and the difference between the wooing tone of the man and her astonishment and offence build a magnificent moment of comicity.

Luciana: “Why call you me love? Call me sister so.”

Antipholus of Syracuse: “Thy sister’s sister.”

Luciana:  “That’s my sister.”

Antipholus of Syracuse: “No, it is thyself, mine own self´s better part,

Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart…”26