The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0378 Wednesday, 2 July 2008
[1] From: Kenneth Chan <
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Date: Monday, 30 Jun 2008 10:33:26 +0800
Subt: Re: SHK 19.0364 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
[2] From: Robin Hamilton <
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Date: Monday, 30 Jun 2008 03:42:43 +0100
Subt: Re: SHK 19.0371 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kenneth Chan <
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Date: Monday, 30 Jun 2008 10:33:26 +0800
Subject: 19.0364 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0364 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
Hugh Grady writes:
>The discussion on intention in this Roundtable has been a very full one,
>but I have one more topic to add to the mix: the issue of aesthetic meaning
>in the discussion of the interpretation of Shakespeare's works. I want to
>emphasize the difference between a conventional message, delivered in
>a concrete social context from a known speaker to a known audience -- and
>the communications situation of an artwork -- let us take the drama as an
>example -- in which language is put to fictional, emotive purposes outside of
>normal social contexts, by an author or authors whose words are formed
>within generic and theatrical traditions not invented by the author and mediated
>by actors, directors, and others, to an audience of persons not personally
>known and representing a multitude of personal biases, intellectual frameworks,
>and familiarities with the story, language, and conventions of the drama.
Hugh Grady's point with regards to aesthetic meaning is an important one.
Concerning authorial intention, let us imagine, for the sake of argument, that a
playwright did carefully craft an entire play as a cohesive unit for the purpose
of conveying a specific meaning through the emotive medium of drama, a process
of reaching the audience by having them live through the experience. Certainly,
we must concede the possibility that a playwright may have this intention.
The playwright, however, has to contend with the fact that language has its
limitations. The meaning of any isolated sentence or passage may always be
deemed ambiguous to a certain extent because of the limitations of language.
Nonetheless, is it not an over-generalization to then conclude that it is not
even a legitimate or useful exercise to attempt understanding the meaning of an
entire play (as a whole unit) as the author intended? Are the limitations of our
language so severe that even the intended aesthetic meaning of an entire play -
carefully crafted to convey a specific meaning - rendered completely irretrievable?
Kenneth Chan
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robin Hamilton <
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Date: Monday, 30 Jun 2008 03:42:43 +0100
Subject: 19.0371 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0371 SHAKSPER Roundtable: Shakespeare's Intentions
How to escape the regress of intention?
How do we know what the intention of the author of Hamlet/"Hamlet"/_Hamlet_ *is?
We know it because he writes_here_, that this is what he "means".
He says it (except he doesn't) *here, in a set of words:
"This is what I meant in Amleth."
Comes down to it, it's text(s) all the way down.
I 'believe' in Hamlet in the same way that I believe in god.
"Intention" is literary criticism's equivalent to intelligent design.
{Somewhere, some person, it might have been Derrida, but I think it was earlier
with Kierkegaard in _The Concept of Irony With Constant Reference To Socrates_,
points out that Socrates refused to write anything down due to his distrust of
the written word, with the result that Plato promptly transmogrified him into a
figure created in orthography.
Angels weep!}
Robin Hamilton
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