The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0730 Tuesday, 30 October 2007
[1] From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 09:08:09 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[2] From: Carol Barton <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:16:37 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[3] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:14:26 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[4] From: Helen Whall <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:28:31 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[5] From: Carol Morley <
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Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 09:08:59 +0000
Subj: RE: SHK 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[6] From: Lynn Brenner <
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Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 17:24:01 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[7] From: Scott Shepherd <
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Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 18:56:31 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: R. A. Cantrell <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 09:08:09 -0500
Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
>See
>Hamlet's soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 3 when he decides against killing
>Claudius while the king is kneeling "at prayer." The lines from
>3.3.72-96 only reveal Hamlet's reaction to what he thinks is happening.
>As an audience, we have just had the privilege of hearing Claudius
>remark about his inability to pray because he is unwilling to act by
>giving up his queen and his crown and so we know that part of what
>Hamlet says is most certainly not true. Hamlet says he will not "take
>[Claudius] in the purging of his soul, / When he is fit and seasoned for
>his passage" (3.3.85-6). While this represents the "truthful" reaction
>on the part of Hamlet, it is not the "truth" of what is really happening
>with Claudius.
It has long been my view that Prince Hamlet, when not in the action of
the play, is seen by the audience as watching the play with them. He
steps in and out of the play; in to take his part, out to either watch
or to deliver his soliloquies directly to those who have shared his view
of the action. There are many passages in the play such as the one above
quoted that can be best explained in this manner.
All the best,
R.A. Cantrell
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Carol Barton <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:16:37 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Nicole Coonradt is correct. I think your friend may have
misinterpreted--or misrelated?--the professor's meaning. A soliloquy
reflects the "truth" as the speaker *perceives* it--that is, he or she
is thinking private thoughts, and is not being duplicitous or
disingenuous or otherwise masking his or her true feelings and beliefs.
But that is not to say that the speaker *knows* the truth: Othello
believes that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him, Gloucester believes
that Edgar has betrayed him, and Romeo believes that Juliet is dead, but
that doesn't mean in any of those cases that what the speaker *thinks*
is true reflects truth in the empirical sense. Thus when Othello says
OTHELLO
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree.
he truly believes that his wife has betrayed him--"it is the cause" for
which he is about to kill her, "else she'll betray more men." He's
wrong, but he's not "lying." Similarly, when Hamlet sees and hears his
father's ghost in the bedchamber scene (but Gertrude doesn't), it makes
us wonder how "true" the things he has reported previously in soliloquy
were--but we never suspect him of *lying* either.
Hope that helps make the distinction clear.
Best to all,
Carol Barton
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:14:26 -0400
Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
I think Nicole Coonradt is spot on when she says
>Soliloquy is thought verbalized so that the audience knows
>what the character is thinking. I don't know of any definitions
>that say "soliloquy = truth," ergo, whether *what* the person
>speaks is "truth" is a different thing. That would be to say, by
>extension, that "thought = truth," wouldn't it?
An author might want us to understand that a character misperceives the
actual situation and, therefore, describes it inaccurately in soliloquy.
In that case, the author will usually provide ample clues as to the
"actual" state of facts. But (with the possible exception of theatre of
the absurd), a drama would be far too chaotic if a character lies to the
audience about what he or she is thinking -- i.e., what the author
expects the audience will understand from his words about his state of mind.
Given this rule, what do we make of the following from "How all
occasions ..." (26 monosyllabic words, beginning and ending with caesurae):
... I do not know
Why yet I live to say, "this thing's to do"
Sith I have cause, and will and strength, and means
To do't. ...
No fair peeking at the thread we had a few years back.
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Helen Whall <
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Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:28:31 -0400
Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Soliloquies are a fascinating way to bring up other issues of "knows to
be true" versus "believes to be true" versus material truth verses
truthy truth. The only reliable "knows to be true" soliloquies rely on
material truth. A character tells us what he or she has "really" done or
what will be done. Here the convention helps with exposition even as
setting up for the audience that knowledge-tease, dramatic irony. When
soliloquy seems to be more a matter of the character thinking out loud
(sort of the three little circle beneath the cartoon balloon), the
speaker "believes" what he or she says to be true, and it may be, even
if we in the realm of dramatic irony know differently. Or, in the realm
of never-ending interpretation, we believe the character is wrong or
that the character is self-deceiving. Anyone think of a soliloquy that
breaks down those premises?
Helen Whall
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Carol Morley <
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Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 09:08:59 +0000
Subject: 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: RE: SHK 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
For me, soliloquies show the audience the character unmediated by the
need to perform to any other on stage intruders. They DO show us exactly
what the characters are thinking- that seems to me to be exactly their
point, and 'meaning'. Of course, some characters are so fundamentally
twisted/ dishonest/ dumb/ self-deluding that they wouldn't be expected
to deliver 'truth' at any price, but the characterisation, at these
points, I believe to be consistently truthful to the character's inner
lives. And that's a meaningful theatrical convention too.
Carol Morley
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lynn Brenner <
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Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 17:24:01 -0400
Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
>Virtually every soliloquy Macbeth has consists of rationalization
>and self-deception. Antony has one short soliloquy; it consists
>of fooling himself about why he is going to ditch his wife and
>run back to Egypt. The proposition is 'true' only if it means that
>we're supposed to think that this is what the character is thinking.
>In that form, of course, it's also meaningless.
Surely not. Watching Macbeth and Antony deceive themselves adds
immeasurably to our understanding of who they are and how they see
themselves. It's even more interesting when the character who's
rationalizing his actions is someone who prides himself on seeing the
world as it really is -- e.g., Iago.
I assume the professor means that in a soliloquy, the character is
telling the truth as he sees it. I think he's right about that.
Lynn Brenner
[7]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Scott Shepherd <
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Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 18:56:31 -0400
Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie
The truth-in-soliloquy principle is not meant to rule out self-deception
or cases where the speaker is simply misinformed. The idea is that the
soliloquizing character will not knowingly tell us something he does not
actually believe.
Not everyone agrees with this. For example, some readers don't trust
Iago when he says he suspects his wife with Othello. Or Hamlet when he
claims to think the ghost "may be the devil."
The truth-in-soliloquy argument says it's absurd to imagine Iago or
Hamlet practicing deception not on another character but on the audience
itself. The common-sense understanding being that the audience doesn't
exist in Iago's or Hamlet's imaginative reality, so there is no one to
lie to, therefore no point in lying.
The counter-argument I suppose is that in a real theater there *is* a
felt relationship between the audience and a fictional character who
addresses them directly, and in that context we should not be surprised
to detect the sort of posturing, defensive justifications, ass-covering
omissions, etc. that one ordinarily detects in a person explaining his
actions to "the public" or some other sort of interested nonparticipant.
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