The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0777 Saturday, 24 November 2007
[1] From: Aaron Azlant <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 13:25:39 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[2] From: Carol Morley <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 18:45:31 +0000
Subj: RE: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[3] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 14:14:25 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[4] From: John Briggs <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 20:59:38 -0000
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[5] From: John W. Kennedy <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 23:10:26 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[6] From: David Evett <
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Date: Sunday, 18 Nov 2007 22:53:04 -0500
Subj: Subject: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Aaron Azlant <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 13:25:39 -0500
Subject: 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Whatever else the soliloquies are, they are also an opportunity for
Shakespeare to present information directly to his audience in a way
that is frequently more explicit than character dialog.
This is not to say, however, that this information isn't frequently
problematic-see, for example, William Empson's "Up-dating Revenge
Tragedy"; among other things, Empson does an excellent job tracing how
each of Hamlet's soliloquies is inappropriate to the plot context that
it is introduced into, both in terms of what is discussed and what is not.
For instance, why is the "to be or not to be" speech delivered after the
ghost's visit would seem to give Hamlet some purpose, why is Ophelia not
discussed despite the focus on her relationship with Hamlet over the
previous few scenes, why does Hamlet refer to death as a metaphoric
country that no traveler has ever returned from despite the fact of the
ghost's visit, etc. Additionally, why does Hamlet's "how all occasions
do inform against me" speech assume that he has the "means" to act even
though he is being shipped off to England by force?
I don't know if the soliloquies offer the chance for characters to lie
outright, but they certainly are a frequent opportunity for Shakespeare
to misdirect.
Best,
Aaron Azlant
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Carol Morley <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 18:45:31 +0000
Subject: 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: RE: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
A hen's incisor for Larry:
In Heminge's Fatal Contract, the wicked queen's right-hand Eunuch isn't
all he/she/it seems, keeping up the misdirection right till Act V.
(Will this little teaser make my edition a pre-Christmas smash after all? )
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 14:14:25 -0500
Subject: 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
>Does anyone believe that Othello has done Iago's office
>between his sheets?
>
>Rather, isn't Iago indulging in self-deception and/or rationalization?
Perhaps Iago is wrong about the facts, but he does not misrepresent his
misguided state of mind.
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Briggs <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 20:59:38 -0000
Subject: 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Steve Sohmer wrote:
>Shakespeare's Chorus(es) address the audience, his soliloquisers don't.
In "Henry V", Shakespeare (possibly unwittingly) presents us with the
concept of an unreliable Chorus :-)
John Briggs
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <
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Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2007 23:10:26 -0500
Subject: 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Steve Sohmer <
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>Lynne Brynner asked if anyone can "cite instances in which a
>character knowingly lies to us, i.e. is shown to have been
>consciously misleading us in a soliloquy?"
>
>Does anyone believe that Othello has done Iago's office between
>his sheets?
>
>Rather, isn't Iago indulging in self-deception and/or rationalization?
>
>This moment supports (perhaps proves) that soliloquies were
>monologues interieurs not addressed to the audience.
I cannot for the life of me see why. Is anyone maintaining that a
soliloquy is addressed to the audience by the actor? I don't see that. A
soliloquy is rather addressed to the audience by the character. Is that
illogical? Yes. That's why it's called "breaking" the fourth wall. It's
a convention, like the distinction between thought bubbles and speech
balloons in comics.
John W. Kennedy
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <
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Date: Sunday, 18 Nov 2007 22:53:04 -0500
Subject: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Subject: Re: SHK 18.0766 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
>Characters are only permitted to speak to the audience
>after the play ends, e.g. 2H4, AYLI, TEM.
All characters speaking from the stage, after whatever the convention is
that signals the beginning of the performance has been carried out, are
speaking to the audience. The question is whether there is a further
convention conveyed by the manner of that speaking that signals to the
audience that the address is as it were unmediated--not ricocheting to
them off that character's own monitoring consciousness or another
character or a real or implied mirror (as in the opening soliloquy of R3
in the Loncraine film) or some supervising diety. And who is to
determine when that second convention will be enacted--who will give
permission, to repeat Steve Sohmer's term? All of us who go often to the
theater have repeatedly seen such moments, in performances of
Shakespeare plays and others, sometimes in forms as egregious as when a
character sits in an audience member's lap and plays with a lock of the
audience member's hair or beard. Hamlet's advice to the players strongly
implies that such moments occurred in the Elizabethan playhouse. Who is
Sohmer, then, or anybody, to know so confidently that playwrights
themselves have not tacitly given such permissions? I have certainly
experienced the unmediated address of a good many Iagos and Edmunds and
Richard Gloucesters as expressing as much or more dramatic truth
(whatever that means) as those other versions of those personages who
scrupulously observed the nominal barrier between stage and auditorium.
David Evett
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