Monday, October 22, 2007

Dismemberment, Tapestries, Diana, and Imogen

During Giacomo's description of Imogen's chamber, he mentions the "chimney-piece [of] Chaste Dian bathing." On one level, this image mirrors Imogen's chastity. Yet one must remember that the view of "Chaste Dian bathing" is the substance of the transgression that results in Actaeon's transformation and grisly death in Ovid's Metamorphoses. So the picture could also signify the defilement of chastity. If this is the case, then Imogen figuring herself as a tapestry that must be "ripped" (if she indeed is false) coincides with Actaeon being torn apart by his own hounds. Posthumus contributes to the dismemberment imagery by vowing to "tear her [Imogen] limb-meal." Since the textual evidence supports a multivalent interpretation of the Diana picture in Imogen's chamber, does a similar indeterminacy surround the Antony and Cleopatra tapestry? How are we to read this tapestry?

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