Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery
If Iago’s famous words to Othello defining jealousy as “the green-eyed monster” (3.3.170) clearly associate green with bilious envy, Cleopatra’s reference to her “salad days” (Antony and Cleopatra, 1.5.72) tends to equate ‘greenness’ with fresh innocence. This paper will seek to explore how such flu...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)
2015-06-01
|
| Series: | E-REA |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4445 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1841552572993765376 |
|---|---|
| author | Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNEDE |
| author_facet | Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNEDE |
| author_sort | Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNEDE |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | If Iago’s famous words to Othello defining jealousy as “the green-eyed monster” (3.3.170) clearly associate green with bilious envy, Cleopatra’s reference to her “salad days” (Antony and Cleopatra, 1.5.72) tends to equate ‘greenness’ with fresh innocence. This paper will seek to explore how such fluctuations of meanings correlate with the varied and contradictory visions of nature, youth, and decay prevailing at the time. Significantly, in Jean Robertet’s L’exposition des couleurs (c. 1435-1502), green could serve as an allegory of both vice and virtue, evil and joy, and thus also represent transience and versatility. Once the colour of chivalry, it came to be disparaged, but Vert gai’s vibrant hues and vert perdu’s darker ones still coexisted in proverbs, plays or works of art. Shakespeare’s worlds, even in the very heart of pastoral comedies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It or The Tempest), reveal the same propensity to oscillate between the lightness of ‘gay green’ and the darker, disquieting vein of ‘lost green’. Being transient, changeable or threatening, green worlds are the very realms of ambivalence. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-fea904b714374404950ae9ab18c4374f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1638-1718 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2015-06-01 |
| publisher | Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | E-REA |
| spelling | doaj-art-fea904b714374404950ae9ab18c4374f2025-01-09T12:54:50ZengLaboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)E-REA1638-17182015-06-0112210.4000/erea.4445Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern ImageryAnne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNEDEIf Iago’s famous words to Othello defining jealousy as “the green-eyed monster” (3.3.170) clearly associate green with bilious envy, Cleopatra’s reference to her “salad days” (Antony and Cleopatra, 1.5.72) tends to equate ‘greenness’ with fresh innocence. This paper will seek to explore how such fluctuations of meanings correlate with the varied and contradictory visions of nature, youth, and decay prevailing at the time. Significantly, in Jean Robertet’s L’exposition des couleurs (c. 1435-1502), green could serve as an allegory of both vice and virtue, evil and joy, and thus also represent transience and versatility. Once the colour of chivalry, it came to be disparaged, but Vert gai’s vibrant hues and vert perdu’s darker ones still coexisted in proverbs, plays or works of art. Shakespeare’s worlds, even in the very heart of pastoral comedies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It or The Tempest), reveal the same propensity to oscillate between the lightness of ‘gay green’ and the darker, disquieting vein of ‘lost green’. Being transient, changeable or threatening, green worlds are the very realms of ambivalence.https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4445Shakespearegay greenlost greendevilsmutability |
| spellingShingle | Anne-Marie COSTANTINI-CORNEDE Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery E-REA Shakespeare gay green lost green devils mutability |
| title | Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery |
| title_full | Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery |
| title_fullStr | Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery |
| title_full_unstemmed | Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery |
| title_short | Green Worlds: Shakespeare’s Plays and Early Modern Imagery |
| title_sort | green worlds shakespeare s plays and early modern imagery |
| topic | Shakespeare gay green lost green devils mutability |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/erea/4445 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT annemariecostantinicornede greenworldsshakespearesplaysandearlymodernimagery |