The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.0945  Thursday, 19 May 2005

[1]     From:   Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 18 May 2005 18:19:33 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 16.0934 Dating Hamlet

[2]     From:   D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 18 May 2005 13:49:38 -0500
        Subj:   RE: SHK 16.0934 Dating Hamlet


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 18 May 2005 18:19:33 +0100
Subject: 16.0934 Dating Hamlet
Comment:        Re: SHK 16.0934 Dating Hamlet

Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

 >No, Claudius does not represent Renaissance Humanism. It's hard to know
 >what his value structure is, if any.

He could, perhaps, be seen to represent Renaissance Machiavellianism --
that, specifically, rather than a Machiavel figure.

Robin Hamilton

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 18 May 2005 13:49:38 -0500
Subject: 16.0934 Dating Hamlet
Comment:        RE: SHK 16.0934 Dating Hamlet

Edmund Taft writes

 >In answer to Don Bloom's queries:
 >
 >The older, coarser values are the illustrated by both Old Fortinbras
 >and Old Hamlet, who put the acquisition of land before anything else,
 >including the welfare of their own people and their own kingdoms. The
 >newer, Renaissance values are incarnated in Hamlet himself: his
 >friendship with Horatio, his greeting to the players, the Hamlet Ophelia
 >remembers at the end of 3.1. But as the play goes on, Hamlet himself
 >grows coarser, as is generally acknowledged by critics, for example, in
 >his treatment of R&G.

Well, um.

I still find myself just a trifle puzzled.

I grant you that land speculation through combat to the death is not
exactly a good, but it doesn't seem to me a Satanic evil.

I will also grant that friendship, by contrast, is a definite good, but
I'm not sure why the Middle Ages is described as lacking that virtue.

Finally, are Renaissance rulers notable for their devotion to "the
welfare of their own people and their own kingdoms"? I have not thought
so, but perhaps I am thinking of the wrong ones

Just wondering,
don

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