Shame and Solidarity in the Sonnets

Abstract

The outbreak of civil mutiny in Rome can be seen, then, to result not so much from the disclosure of Caesar’s “will”—his maleness—as from the disclosure of his wounds, his femaleness, and from the affective power these wounds have in flowing to transform Antony from part to whole, from Caesar’s limb to motivated Orphic speaker, causing stones to rise up. Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed1 Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha? here’s three on ’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, fork’d animal as thou art. King Lear, 3.4.101–1082