The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0038 Wednesday, 15 February 2006
[1] From: Jim Blackie <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 14 Feb 2006 14:10:38 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0030 Deceitful Plays
[2] From: Joseph Egert <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 14 Feb 2006 23:22:10 +0000
Subj: RE: SHK 17.0030 Deceitful Plays
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Blackie <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 14 Feb 2006 14:10:38 -0500
Subject: 17.0030 Deceitful Plays
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0030 Deceitful Plays
<Arnie Perlstein >
>It is my opinion that Shakespeare's practice in regard to mysteries in
>his plays was twofold: (i) he would temporarily mislead the
>audience/reader by setting up certain apparent circumstances, but then
>explicitly debrief us/them sometime during the play as to how those
>apparent circumstances were not actual. Hermione is an extreme example
>of that; and (ii) he would permanently mislead the audience/reader by
>setting up certain apparent circumstances, but then not explicitly
>debrief us, but instead would create leave it to the inquisitive reader
>to dig deeper and realize that there has been a mystery all along which
>was solved "offstage".
Being familiar with the plays in questions and having read the responses
here in the forum, I cannot understand Arnie Perlstein's persistence in
equating Shakespeare with some cheap plot trickster, busily setting up a
repetitious series of some strange dramatic shell games with the
audience. <New points, I hope, follow directly>The examples he provided
in earlier messages have been ably refuted by others as untrue - the
audience is never fooled into believing one thing while another is true.
It is time to become disabused of this notion and stop following this
notion down some rabbit hole looking for a Deus ex Machina. To accuse
him of this demeans his writing and suggests his enjoyment of a smug
superiority over an audience of simpletons. WS never insults his audience.
<Larry Weiss >
>>"Elsewhere, we see Julia, Portia, Rosalind, Kent, and Edgar disguising
>>themselves.....His providential escape is announced to Horatio and us
early
>>in 4.6."
<Arnie Perlstein >
>But is it really providential? Is it even real? My point is that all
>these masqueraders/disguisers/dissemblers in his plays are there for a
>metadramatic reason, i.e., that they are stand-ins for Shakespeare
>himself, in relation to his audience.
While I agree that it is always useful to the intellect to question the
meaning of what we read (or view on stage), there comes a point where
this examination no longer can bear any decent fruit. The question "What
is reality?" won't help us out here, neither will ignoring the obvious
intentions of the author and substituting our own existential
uncertainties into the play and labeling it something esoteric, such as
"meta-drama," or some other post Renaissance meta-concept. So let's
backtrack. -- The point being defended by others is that WS has written
what he intended, has made it as clear as he was able, and that it
was/is understandable by his audience. The point being made about a
disguise seems simple and apparent to me: *the wearer of the disguise is
not what he seems*. If there is some other point to this, it cannot be
some Hitchcockian self-revelation of an actor/playwright named Will
Shakespeare who was familiar but not famous for much of his career.
Would he engage in some self-congratulatory scheme such as this, which
screams "what a clever lad am I!"? He clearly was known for his work in
his "post-early" period, but was by no means some Elizabethan celebrity
winking at the audience with a self-conscious, self-centered
"meta-presence" on the stage. He was no Andy Warhol. Is there a need to
continue to insist on sub-texts when there is no textual support for any
of this? What would even be the point?
Jim Blackie
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 14 Feb 2006 23:22:10 +0000
Subject: 17.0030 Deceitful Plays
Comment: RE: SHK 17.0030 Deceitful Plays
Arnie Perlstein believes "most of the audience is onstage, but doesn't
even realize it."
Arnie's emphasis on Shakespeare's pervasive ambiguity rather than
blatant deception is well-taken.
Let me illustrate. Early in HAMLET, Claudius chastises the inky-garbed
Prince for his unmanly grief as "a fault to nature...whose common
theme/Is death of fathers.../From the first corse till he that died
today..." Did the first corpse Abel die a natural death? Does anyone in
this tragedy, parent or child, die a natural death? Is this
Shakespeare's way of slyly reminding us that unnatural manslaughter
comes naturally to Fallen Man?
Moreover, the young in this play die, like Abel, before they can wed and
bear fruit in Holy Matrimony. Is the Devil at work here? Christian
doctrine held that envious Satan strove not only to damn the souls of
the willing, but to do so before they could partake of the Sacrament of
Matrimony and reproduce themselves. In HAMLET the possessed elders,
after sinfully abusing each other, pass on their demons (mouth-to-ear)
to their young who proceed to sinfully abuse each other in a suffocating
atmosphere of suicidal distrust and suspicion, all ending in madness and
fruitless death. The Demonic is not restricted merely to the Ghost. The
Demonic, allied with the elders, blasts the budding young and blocks
their attempts at friendship and fertile love. Does Death extend a
demonic claw to snap the "envious sliver", supplanting any wedding
procession with one of burial for the possessed Ophelia?
Finally, why does Claudius designate childless Abel as the first
"father", murdered by his brother Cain, a natural father of children?
Are we being signaled that Claudius is young Hamlet's true father? For
that matter, who is young Fortinbras' true sire. Was it his uncle
Norway, now impotent and bedridden? Or, irony of ironies, had sinful
King Hamlet partaken of the widow Fortinbras, another of the victor's
spoils, as was so often the case. Has the true and rightful heir to King
Hamlet come to power in Denmark at last?
Tis a puzzlement!
Joe Egert
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.
|
