The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0423 Sunday, 2 August 2009
[1] From: David Bishop <
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Date: Saturday, 1 Aug 2009 20:38:50 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[2] From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 11:40:25 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[3] From: David Basch <
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Date: Sunday, 02 Aug 2009 12:10:14 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <
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Date: Saturday, 1 Aug 2009 20:38:50 -0400
Subject: 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Jim Ryan gives a good example of what's wrong with saying that the fact
that "words and actions are separated from each other" is Hamlet's
dilemma. In many cases we see actions without words and have to
interpret them. We also hear words and have to interpret them. These
facts, by themselves, don't say much about Hamlet. I don't understand,
for example, what it means to say the play is a dumb show, but the range
of things I don't understand extends far beyond that statement, or this
play.
When Hamlet says he has that within which passes show he is, in a way,
lamenting the separation of words and actions. But "separation" doesn't
tell us much. It's too abstract. It does not express Hamlet's dilemma,
unless maybe it expresses a human dilemma, that people may dissemble, or
fail to find the words which can express their genuine feelings, or find
themselves unable to repent, or blame themselves for speaking without
acting. But I doubt that many of us would truly wish, for example, to be
deprived entirely of the ability to dissemble, even to lie. Shades of
Jim Carrey in Liar Liar. The world would fall apart.
If I say that Hamlet is about the transformation of revenge into
justice, and the replacement of absolute monarchy with a government of
law, I still have a lot of explaining to do, about how these themes work
in the play -- and in the play as part of the world. But it seems to me
a better hook. It's a generalization, true, but the words "revenge" and
"justice" seem to me to open a more particular, vivid and relevant
doorway to the play than the words "words" and "actions", which are so
vastly general that they seem to float in the ether, not vitally
connected to the words and actions of Hamlet. Claudius's secret crime,
we might agree, is Hamlet's dilemma. But to say that this crime, or
keeping it secret, is a case of words and actions being separated seems
to me to lead not toward, but away from the play. If I say that a lie is
a problem because it's a case of words and actions being separated, do
you feel like you're getting somewhere? There's generalization and
there's overgeneralization. Where to draw the line is a judgment call.
Personally I try not to offer simply judgments but also reasons and
evidence to support them, as I hope this post demonstrates. As for
believing that my judgments, as far as I can understand or support them,
are true, I confess that I do. Not that I think it's impossible for
anyone to argue me out of them, though that might be a challenge. And of
course an interpretation can only cover some aspects of the play.
There's always more to say.
I hope I haven't offended Jim Ryan or John Drakakis, nor insulted them
by entertaining the possibility that they might be offended.
Best wishes,
David Bishop
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 11:40:25 -0400
Subject: 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
David Bishop makes a fine point at the end of his most recent post when
he writes that Hamlet's identification of the poisoner as the King's
nephew provides a motive for hesitation since it draws Hamlet into an
identity with Claudius. This is of course a recurrent issue in the text,
being sounded as early as Hamlet's first soliloquy.
Much of what precedes Bishop's concluding point, however, strikes me as
confused. Bishop claims I am reviving an old argument (Greg's), but
this, to borrow the title of Greg's article (with which I disagree), is
Bishop's hallucination and not my position. Let me be clear: Claudius'
guilt is not a matter of doubt for the audience. The genre of the play
prepares us in advance to accept the Ghost's revelation to Hamlet that
Claudius is a murderer.
But that is not the issue. The (small) issue is whether or not the
Mousetrap succeeds in confirming Claudius' guilt and achieving Hamlet's
objective of grounding that guilt in something firmer than the word of a
ghost. Bishop claims it does: "Shakespeare takes pains to show us,
clearly and explicitly, with the "painted word" speech, before the play,
that Claudius is guilty. Hence we are in no doubt that Claudius rises
because his conscience, as Hamlet predicted, is caught." But this is
just a version of the post hoc fallacy: Claudius rises during the play
after we have been told of his guilt, ergo he rose because of his guilt.
Immediately after this, Bishop states that the King's "rising
straightforwardly reveals his guilt, at least to Horatio, and perhaps,
we should say, to Hamlet." Here again Bishop goes wrong: it is Hamlet
(according to the text) who is far more convinced than Horatio that his
interpretation of the King's rising is correct (i.e. that it is in
response to seeing his own crime represented). Hamlet initiates the
question about the King's behavior and states he'll "take the host's
word for a thousand pound." Horatio's responses ("Very well, my lord"
and "I did very well note him") are far more measured.
I want to suggest that an attentive audience can know that Claudius is a
murderer and simultaneously regard Hamlet's conclusion (i.e. that
Claudius' rising amounted to an admission of guilt) as fallacious since
the rising might be motivated by the perceived threat coming from
Hamlet/Lucianus.
The larger issue involves the significance of this moment in terms of
one of the play's larger themes, a theme Bishop has already dismissed in
some measure as a "grand abstract pronouncement" in his response to John
Drakakis. As I suggested earlier, one of the play's central issues
involves the correspondence between meaning and action. In the world of
Hamlet the desired link between these things is broken. And it is broken
both ways. Thus on the one hand we face the difficulty of making
uncertain meaning from actions -- Hamlet believes the King's rising
signifies his guilt but, as 3.3 shows, he also takes the King's praying
(wrongly) as a sign of repentance, suggesting that perhaps Hamlet's
ability to derive the truth of meaning from action is impaired. Meaning
cannot be derived straightforwardly from action in 3.3, suggesting that
we perhaps err in following Hamlet's belief that it arises
unproblematically at 3.2. On the other hand, it means that meaning does
not always prove a sufficient motive for action. Hamlet has reasons in
abundance to take revenge on Claudius but cannot seem to act (see the
end of 2.2) or can only act in the "wrong" way by "unpack[ing] [his]
heart with words."
Bishop's position that some actions bear on their surface
straightforward meanings is one that the play (in my reading) subjects
to profound skepticism and interrogation. In a world where the public
act of mourning is signified by certain kinds of dress, how is one to
distinguish between true and false grief? In such a world the link
between the act and its meaning remains terribly broken, leaving Hamlet
with the impossible task of trying to stitch them together.
Cheers,
Eric Johnson-DeBaufre
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Basch <
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Date: Sunday, 02 Aug 2009 12:10:14 -0400
Subject: 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0418 What is Hamlet's flaw?
I am happy about the discussion on list of the play within the play
incident in Hamlet. Not that I agree with all the views presented
interpreting what happens in this play. The advantage has been that many
things have been put on the table to chew on by others not deep into
taking sides in the controversy. Given the hundreds of persons that
presumably will review the discussion, the views presented that are
rooted in the personal preoccupations or at the extremes of plausibility
will be shaken loose and readers on list will be getting closer to the
plausible meaning of the events Shakespeare presented in his play.
I believe that David Bishop has made valuable contributions to this
discussion in his own careful analysis of the sequence of action in
question. He plausibly (at least to me) sets out the events that tell
that Hamlet intended to catch the conscience of the king and actually
catches it too. But, in my opinion, after following him along for the
most part, he at the end veers off on a tangent that takes the action of
the play off the track. Because he comes so close to in his plausible
narration, I feel impelled to try to rescue his account. David wrote:
>Finally, we might note that the reenactment of the crime with
>a nephew does seem to superimpose Claudius's killing of his
>brother on Hamlet's proposed killing of Claudius, reminding
>us, quietly, of what we might take to be a thought that might
>have occurred to Hamlet: that if he kills Claudius he will
>become, at least in the eyes of the world, like Claudius: a
>murderer and a regicide. Thus a reason for hesitation is
>incorporated into the moment which is supposed to remove his
>hesitation.
Let us back up a moment in considering David's comment. The play within
the play is supposedly based on a previous known play, which Hamlet has
somewhat modified. If that is the action, it would be too much to expect
that there is a previous play that fully delineates the action in
Claudius's crime. To have had such a play is implausible. Hence, Hamlet
was presumably limited by the events of the earlier play with its
scenario of a nephew murdering his Duke Uncle. But this is not a problem
since there is enough of a correspondence in the play to the details of
King Hamlet's murder.
No doubt, Claudius seeing the dumb show and taking account of the later
dialogue of the characters in play is somewhat unsettled, certainly
enough to ask Hamlet: "Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence
in't?" But as the action proceeds to the attention of all, Claudius cracks.
It is plausible, as David asserts, that the play's action describing a
nephew as the perpetrator of the Duke's killing could have played a part
in further focusing Claudius's attention to the fact that, in staging
this play, his own nephew, far from being mad, was gunning for him and
made his outburst more dramatic.
Judging from the situation, I maintain that, had Hamlet acted at the
time, he could reasonably have persuaded the Danish court that he acted
against Claudius as blood avenger of his father's murder. I see no
evidence in the play that Hamlet or Horatio thought otherwise.
In fact, Hamlet only stays his hand because, finding Claudius at prayer,
he self-righteously over reached to attain a possible future, perfect
vengeance that would send Claudius to damnation. Nothing else stays
Hamlet's hand. I would mention that noted commentator William Hazlitt
presented this exact thesis of Hamlet's hesitation long ago.
Those on list who think that Hamlet, the favorite of the people, would
be punished by the Danish court for regicide of their king, against a
king for whom a plausible case could have been made that he had attained
his throne through murdering his brother, are overlaying their own
judgments on to the situation. The one to be charged with regicide,
Hamlet, would have been the heir to the throne and the people's
favorite. Without a doubt, he would have gotten every consideration
possible in explaining his case from those who would judge him, the very
people who observed Claudius's reaction to the play.
For some who think that they have better judgment on what Hamlet thought
about this, that is, over what Hamlet himself expresses in the play are
on thin ice. In fact, Hamlet never gives it a thought. Those who see
different are superimposing irrelevant considerations on to the play and
would make nonsense of its action. Seeing this clearly is key to
understanding the play for then we see clearly how Hamlet here trips
himself up by his hidden character fault on his way to further such
faulty actions as the play proceeds until he does himself in by his own
intemperate actions.
David Basch
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