The Idea of Consent in Shakespeare

Abstract

If consent is one person agreeing together with another person permitting a specific action, what elements within Shakespeare’s plays Richard III, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night specifically comprise the consent that characters like Richard, Hamlet, and Viola obtain that allow them to engage in actions that transform the normative order? This thesis explores the idea of consent in Shakespeare through these early plays, considering how consent is comprised in a history, a tragedy, and a comedy. Drawing on the concepts outlined in John Kleinig’s “The Ethics of Consent,” this thesis considers how (A) might grant consent to (B) to do (ɸ) (5), and the effects of consent on the normative order in which each character operates, locating the conception of consent as a crucial element. I place these readings in contrast to Stephen Greenblatt’s conception of Shakespeare’s dramatization of an absolutist state and Christopher Fitter’s more radical conception of the same period.