The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0427 Monday, 3 August 2009
[1] From: John Briggs <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 21:30:40 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[2] From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 16:47:47 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[3] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Sunday, 02 Aug 2009 17:42:24 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[4] From: David Bishop <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 20:10:38 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[5] From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 18:22:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[6] From: John Drakakis <
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Date: Monday, 3 Aug 2009 13:14:00 +0100
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[7] From: Jim Ryan <
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Date: Monday, 03 Aug 2009 11:22:51 -0400
Subj: Hamlet's flaw
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Briggs <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 21:30:40 +0100
Subject: 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
While we are on the subject of tragedy and fatal flaws, I don't think
anyone has pointed out that Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare's
"tragedies" in the following terms:
[most excellent for the stage] "for Tragedy his Richard the 2, Richard
the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and Romeo and Juliet."
Just what did Meres think was Henry IV's fatal flaw?
John Briggs
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 16:47:47 -0400
Subject: 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
I promise, Hardy, that this will be my last word on this subject for a
while and want to thank everyone reading this thread for bearing with my
sometimes lengthy responses. I'll try to keep this short.
David Bishop and David Basch both invoke the law (admittedly in quite
different ways) in their recent responses. Bishop believes that his
proposed themes (transformation of revenge into justice and the
replacement of absolute monarchy with a government of law) offer
something more concrete on which to interpret the play than Drakakis'
claim that one of the pressing issues is the separation of word and
action. What Bishop doesn't recognize is the way Drakakis' position is
intimately bound up with questions of law. Whether or not Hamlet
(strictly in the legal terms of his time) is justified or not in killing
Claudius depends, in part, on the ability of certain actions to signify
clearly and unambiguously, something I have been arguing they do not do.
This brings us to Basch's argument that had Hamlet killed Claudius at
3.3, he could have easily persuaded the court that the slaying was
justified because the King was guilty of murdering Old Hamlet. But what
would his evidence have been? The word of a ghost, Hamlet's own
"prophetic soul" that told him the King was guilty, and Claudius' rising
upon the talk of the poison.
Working within Basch's hypothetical, let's imagine a prosecuting
attorney's likely response to this scenario. First, Hamlet's witness is
the victim himself, now a spirit who confesses this piece of information
only to Hamlet and who has the annoying habit of only being visible to
certain people at certain times. Not a sterling defense witness. Second,
we have Hamlet's own belief in the rightness of the ghost's words. But
this simply assumes as fact what has yet to be demonstrated. Lastly, we
have Claudius' rising at the moment when Lucianus, the nephew, poisons
his uncle, the King. Again, let's imagine the scene:
Hamlet: But your honor, what about the King's confession of his guilt.
Judge: When precisely did he do that?
Hamlet: Well, when he got up suddenly during the play at the talk of the
poisoning!
A clever lawyer has merely to assert here that Claudius rose in response
to a perceived threat coming from his mad nephew, who claims to talk
with ghosts and who has in fact confessed his frustration over his lack
of advancement to his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He might go
on to note that Claudius didn't rise at all the first time he saw the
poisoning occur (in the dumbshow) and that it was only when the poisoner
was identified as the nephew to the King that Claudius was at all
disturbed.
In his defense, Basch suggests that the witnesses to the Mousetrap would
side with Hamlet, him being the people's favorite. But here's what the
only witnesses whose voices we actually hear see the situation:
following Claudius' opening in 3.3 that "I like him not, nor stands it
safe with us / To let his madness range" Guildenstern says that "Most
holy and religious fear it is / To keep those many many bodies safe /
That live and feed upon your Majesty" (3.3.8-10, Arden 2nd). Here the
talk is all about the possible violence that might come to the state
from Hamlet. One could reasonably argue that this exchange, coming as it
does after the King's rising in 3.2), suggests that the parties involved
perceived a threat of violence from Hamlet not evidence of Claudius' guilt.
Of course a very clever lawyer would simply argue that Hamlet's only
real piece of evidence to this point (Claudius' rising) could signify
any number of things, from a fear that Hamlet was gunning for him to an
involuntary response to the call of nature. It isn't that it CANNOT
signify his guilt, only that it does not unambiguously do so.
To argue that it does is to claim more than the text allows us. It
certainly means this to Hamlet, but that it signifies with any certainty
at all remains the vital question from a legal standpoint. This is not
to suggest that the play is reducible to a legal drama, but questions of
law and justice form part of its center of interest and it is to these
questions (as well as to others) that the issue of the correspondence
between meaning and action addresses itself.
I see I have not kept my word and that my own actions run quite counter
to my professed desire to keep this short. Isn't it always thus?
Cheers,
Eric Johnson-DeBaufre
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Sunday, 02 Aug 2009 17:42:24 -0400
Subject: 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
I agree with most of what Eric Johnson-DeBaufre has said, but with one
tiny quibble (which, however, might have significance): Eric says,
>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.
I don't think that Hamlet misconstrues Claudius's actions. Claudius is
in fact seeking absolution and arguably expressing a degree of remorse.
But, what Hamlet misses and Claudius gets right is that these voicings
are of no consequence theologically as Claudius has not made and cannot
possibly make a "perfect act of contrition" so long as he retains the
fruits of his sins. (I realize this might inspire a debate on the
grander subject of Catholic doctrine in this play, but to me the issue
is all but foreclosed by the Ghost's declaration about being in Purgatory.)
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 20:10:38 -0400
Subject: 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
In saying that Eric Johnson-DeBaufre was reviving an old argument I had
in mind versions that have appeared recently, and not so recently, on
this list. However, I'm happy to consider the argument only as Eric
himself presents it.
He agrees that the audience knows Claudius to be guilty, as a result of
the ghost's revelation and also the guilt-confirming "painted word"
speech. Yet he believes that Claudius's rising may not confirm his
guilt. It may instead indicate his response -- fear? anger? -- to the
revelation that Hamlet is threatening, by calling Lucianus "nephew to
the king", to kill him. Would not his sense of being threatened have to
arise from his guilt, and also from his sense that Hamlet has somehow
discovered it? If so, what does the "nephew" add to the situation? If
Hamlet had said, "Lucianus, the poisoner", should we imagine that
Claudius would not have risen, and as a result would have revealed
nothing? Or that he would not have felt Hamlet was threatening him? And
if he does reveal nothing about his guilt with his rising, to whom does
he reveal nothing? To Horatio, who doubts whether any guilt has been
revealed? Horatio agrees with Hamlet. If you think his agreement is
restrained, and it might be that Shakespeare intended us to feel this,
could it not be that Horatio is not expressing doubt about what was
revealed but is trying to influence the increasingly manic Hamlet to
calm down? To go back to an old response, by Harold Jenkins, what would
be the point of this supposed ambiguity? That "in the world of Hamlet"
(as opposed to what world?) ambiguity sometimes causes problems? But to
deny that a particular action, in a particular context, is ambiguous
does not amount to denying the existence, at other times, of ambiguity.
Eric speaks as if "the correspondence between meaning and action" has a
straightforward meaning. He's sure that "this link" is "desired". As far
as I can understand what he means, he's saying, for one thing, that
actions can be misinterpreted. Yes, I agree. He's also saying that
sometimes people dissemble by acting in a way that intentionally
misleads other people. Yes, I also agree. As far as the understanding of
action goes, though, I believe that we do understand some actions,
sometimes, in context, even though our deep knowledge of human action,
of how, for example, the chemistry of our brains is involved in our
actions, has limits. Criticism, I think, involves distinguishing
contexts, and degrees of ambiguity, rather than insisting on the
all-pervasiveness of ambiguity, even though we might agree that in some
absolute sense, which requires its own particular context, ambiguity is
all-pervasive. If Eric means that it would be good if we could
accurately read each other's thoughts at all times, I have doubts about
whether that would always be a good thing. So perhaps I don't find the
"correspondence between meaning and action", even if we could agree on a
meaning of that phrase, as simply "desired" as he does. Nor do I think
we are meant to feel, wholeheartedly, that Hamlet ought to be rushing to
take his revenge. The confirmation of Claudius's guilt removes Hamlet's
supposed excuse for delaying. Then he heads for his mother's closet-not
Claudius's. There's a mystery in Hamlet's delay, at every stage. I think
this is more likely to be what occurs to an attentive audience than the
"ambiguity" Eric sees and I do not.
I think Eric is trying to say something about the play, but the
generality of his terms works against the clarity of his meaning. In my
reply to John Drakakis I went into this further. Eric's attempts to
ground his view of the play in these very general terms, which he
apparently thinks have a more straightforward meaning, here, than I
think they do, seems to me to unnecessarily impede understanding.
As for David Basch, his ideas of plausibility and mine are very far
apart, and I tend to doubt whether this gulf can be crossed. If Hamlet
were to kill Claudius and say that he knew Claudius did the murder
because a ghost told him, and because Claudius walked out of some
Italian play, I don't think it's plausible that Hamlet's succession
would have proceeded as smoothly as David imagines.
Best wishes,
David Bishop
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Sunday, 2 Aug 2009 18:22:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
It's clear from the responses here that many believe the Ghost is intent
on justice through PUBLIC revenge. Yet nowhere does he couch his command
in such terms. Instead he demands that young Hamlet unequivocally prove
by slaying the slayer that he is the dead King's loving son and true
heir, and not someone else's bastard. Some would argue that Hamlet in
fact fails this test of legitimacy:
http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2005/1379.html
Arnie Perlstein elsewhere asks "whether any interpreter has actually
made the case" for the Ghost being a Devil in disguise.
Arnie, pick up Prosser's HAMLET AND REVENGE, and allay all doubt. This
demon of a Ghost (or Father Death as I call him) hungers for as many
human scalps on his belt as he can muster. Any premature slaughter of
Gertrude or even Claudius might deny him his Feast at the end. One can
imagine this demonic force (Hamlet's madness?) preying on the Prince's
melancholy to excoriate sweet Ophelia, to seek damnation for Claudius,
to strike at the unseen Polonius. A creative director would have his
Hamlet at these moments appear blasted with hairs standing on end.
John Drakakis is puzzled. "What text", he wonders, leads me to insist
Claudius' guilt for the murder of his predecessor is NOT publicly
demonstrated in 5.2? Why the text(s) of the play HAMLET by one William
Shakespeare et al. At least, a close reader like David Bishop agrees.
Perhaps, as frontstory, Horatio "spills the beans" in 5.3, but not in 5.2.
David Basch upbraids this lowly amateur for concluding too hastily from
limited facts. He'll be happy to learn I miscorrected his misquote,
substituting "may" for "will". One more device "ouerthrowne".
Serves me right for being "overly wise." Eh, David?
Conrad Cook explains:
"Since a character flaw is the imbalance of virtue that causes the
protagonist to critically slip up, whatever it is that motivates Hamlet
not to kill Claudius, and to kill Polonius, is (I think) our prime
candidate for a character flaw in Hamlet."
Sorry, Conrad, after many attempts I still cannot unravel this. Perhaps,
Hardy permitting, you can elaborate for our benefit. And isn't the
'flaw', contra Steve Sohmer, a defect in conscience, and not an excess?
Hamlet's doubt in the benevolence of the Ghost never really leaves him,
despite desperate efforts to convince himself.
Michele Marrapodi sees the killing of Polonius as "Hamlet's only
mistake." I see that mistake as acting on insufficient evidence here as
elsewhere. He is plagued by relentless doubt throughout. While we as
audience overhear Claudius' damning confession, Shakespeare withholds
such certainty from Hamlet himself, even in Act V, when he appears to
leave certainty to a higher power. That higher power permits the Ghost
to engineer the mass slaughter of both innocent and guilty. When Laertes
cries, "The King, the King's to blame", does Shakespeare mean the King
of Kings? Is Hamlet the Devil's scourge as well as God's?
David Bishop thinks "the convention is to believe the ghost, who in
Hamlet is, I would say, powerfully believable. In fact, extremely hard
to disbelieve." Then, why does Hamlet suffer so many recurring doubts
and need so many proofs? And why does Shakespeare surround these ghostly
appearances with such demonic atmospherics, as Prosser details? David
also notes elsewhere the commission to England to kill Hamlet is
evidence of Claudian tyranny. Doesn't Hamlet's forging of this command
and counterfeit deaths of R &G cast suspicion over the authenticity of
the Ghost's commission to kill Claudius. Is the Ghost himself a forgery?
Many thanks to Ed Taft for his support, and to all contributors for
making such discussions so intriguing.
Your fellow resolute,
Joe Egert
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Drakakis <
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Date: Monday, 3 Aug 2009 13:14:00 +0100
Subject: 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0423 What is Hamlet's flaw?
I wish that David Basch's account of Hamlet's delay were as 'modern' as
he implies. Given the nervousness around the ct of regicide at the end
of the 16th century I doubt whether the Danish 'court' (to be
distinguished from a hypothetical theatre audience) would have seen it
this way. Besides, what proof would Hamlet have, given the attitude of
the Court as represented in Act 1 scene 2. Claudius is worried about
what 'the people' might think, but we see what 'the people' constitute
in Act 4.5, which, whatever else it does, it clearly doesn't condone
'democracy', and it makes it clear what a 'real' revenger risks, and
what the risk is to the regime, if he acts precipitately. The
distinction between what Laertes does and what Hamlet can't do is only
made explicit in Q1 if I remember correctly. Laertes' case is NOT the
mirror image of Hamlet's. This does not fully answer Hamlet's
predicament since we still have to account for his behaviour when
overhearing Claudius at prayer: or should I say THINKING that he
overhears Claudius at prayer, since all he sees is the player king on
his needs in the outward gesture of prayer. Many years ago, Nicholas
Brooke in his 'Shakespeare's Early Tragedies' thought that this was
Hamlet at his most morally repugnant. Perhaps in the light of this
debate we might want to re-think that response, and to suggest that this
is what unrestrained revenge (of the kind that Laertes proposes later)
looks like. There is a double irony here since Hamlet, had he killed
Claudius, would have sent him to everlasting damnation, but had he done
so then he would be guilty of exactly the same behaviour that Laertes
later proposes - behaviour that places him alongside Claudius in the
undermining of the performative efficacy of language. Laertes' rebellion
would undermine language in exactly the way that the 'rebel' Claudius does.
In response to David Bishop, let me say immediately, I see nothing
offensive in contesting these issues. My point in drawing attention to
the 'words/deeds' opposition in the play, was not to reduce the dramatic
structure to a single binary. The gap between words and actions is
something that in a post-Derridean world we may think of as 'natural' or
even axiomatic, but in a culture for which print was a new technology it
carried far wider implications. Hamlet's delay can be attributed to a
number of causes rather than to any one cause. Moreover what we might,
from our modern perspective, read as a 'character flaw' looks a little
different when we think more historically. In a sense Hamlet is a
product of the situation he finds himself, and his 'subjectivity' (a
problematical term in this context) is an effect rather than a cause.
Hamlet's situation doesn't arise because he is a depressive. He is
depressed because the situation he finds himself in offers him no
certainty. I don't think I need to complete this argument since the
conclusion is fairly obvious, although I would emphasise that at the
root of this dilemma is not the inadequacies of language per se, but the
difficulty of finding a language that can transparently represent the
world, and the situation, and that Hamlet needs if he is to make any
action meaningful. In short, we are the inheritors of Claudius and not
Hamlet (an unflattering thought), in part because we accept as axiomatic
a distinction between the 'private' and the 'public' spheres, and
between signifier and signified (Derrida's 'differance'). This is not a
new idea, and though in a different register, precedes Derrida.. It is
there in one form in a much overlooked book by Terence Hawkes, that, as
usual, has anticipated very considerably some of the contemporary
debates about oral and literary language in the Renaissance,
'Shakespeare's Talking Animals' (1973). If ever a book, now out of
print, cried out for re-issue, then this one does.
Cheers,
John Drakakis
[7]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Ryan <
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Date: Monday, 03 Aug 2009 11:22:51 -0400
Subject: Hamlet's flaw
Apparently, I was too terse in my post listing the actions in Hamlet
that are either explicitly or implicitly presented as dumb shows. It is
of course true, as David Bishop writes, that words and actions are
separate in many plays. In Julius Caesar Calphurnia's dream and Caesar's
putting aside the coronet Antony offers must be interpreted; in
Coriolanus action and eloquence are prominent issues. But in neither of
those plays are the actions to be interpreted presented as dumb shows.
In JC the characters and the audience are invited to read omens or
political intentions; in Coriolanus -- another play like Hamlet that
explores the nature of action itself -- we are not invited to think of,
say, Coriolanus kneeling silently before his mother as a dumb show. In
the reflexively mimetic Hamlet, by contrast, physical actions and
particular gestures are treated as dumb shows by the characters of the
drama, as Ophelia puzzles over Hamlet's actions in her closet. As the
specific form Shakespeare's general preoccupation with words and actions
takes in Hamlet, dumb shows are not merely a theoretical issue divorced
from the particulars of the drama. They are rather like the
substitutions in Measure for Measure (though much more finely
calibrated) -- analogous actions that structure the play.
As to revenge and justice, they are not merely moral or social issues in
the play. They are also the occasion for probing the nature of action
itself. And if (as Francis Fergusson reminds us) human action is a
mystery, the play is an "inexplicable dumb show."
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