Abstract
In this thesis, I examine how metatheatrical remarks illuminate the tension between the dissimulation required to become a fictional character and the dissimulation that a fictional character invokes. Using three lines of philosophical inquiry, I analyze how Shakespeare differs in his inclusions of dissimulation across Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Hamlet. First, I establish the parameters of dissimulation as inspired by Francis Bacon’s 1625 essay, “Of Simulation and Dissimulation.” Second, I use Lionel Abel’s theory of metatheatre to outline the tendencies of characters to realize they exist within works of fiction. Third, I introduce the problem with referentiality in fiction and establish how both dissimulation and metatheatre complicate this issue. While the considerations of dissimulation and realizations of fictionality differ across these three plays, putting these texts in conversation illuminates the relationship between dissimulation, metatheatre, and referentiality. I consider how Macbeth, Cleopatra, and Hamlet all realize their existence is contingent on the dissimulation of their respective actors. These characters recognize that all dissimulation they invoke as these characters is second to the dissimulation required to become these characters. Contrastingly, Lady Macbeth, Antony, and Claudius, also dissimulate, yet never consider their fictionality. Specifically, as characters are made aware of their fictionalities, their relationship to dissimulation significantly changes as they realize that it is something slightly beyond their control as a character. Throughout each chapter, I use a variety of close reading techniques to demonstrate how Shakespeare rhetorically and metrically constructs the specific presentations of dissimulation. Primarily through an examination of metatheatrical remarks I evaluate how metrical irregularities, caesuras, elisions, synecdoche, and metaphor all serve to illustrate the tenuous process of dissimulation.