The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0439 Thursday, 6 August 2009
[1] From: John Knapp <
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Date: Wednesday, 05 Aug 2009 18:41:33 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[2] From: Nicholas Clary <
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Date: Thursday, 6 Aug 2009 07:04:29 -0400
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[3] From: David Bishop <
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Date: Thursday, 6 Aug 2009 12:07:07 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Knapp <
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Date: Wednesday, 05 Aug 2009 18:41:33 -0500
Subject: 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
While I have found the conversation about Hamlet's "flaw" stimulating --
should one assume a familiarity with the Greek "Hamartia," not so much a
personality issue but a choice (or choices) made? -- I must take issue
with the esteemed John Drakakis when he suggests that, at "the risk of
sounding prescriptive, we have a responsibility as teachers of
undergraduates and postgraduates to familiarise ourselves with current
analytical discourses within the discipline, even if we have quibbles,
radical disagreements, etc about the relevance or otherwise of
particular terms."
Drakakis refers to Jacques Derrida, whose statements and
deconstructionist arguments generally were (I believe successfully)
refuted over twenty years ago in the eyes of many critical theorists.
Beginning with Robert Scholes's *Textual Power* (Yale UP, 1985), to John
Ellis *Against Deconstruction* (Princeton UP, 1990), to Norm Holland's
"The Trouble(s) with Lacan" on the PsyArt Net (1998) to the much more
recent Joe Carroll's *Literary Darwinism* (Routledge 2004), almost no
one -- outside the church of Deconstruction/constructivism/PoMo
generally -- thinks these arguments are "current analytic discourses;"
they haven't been in the thinking of many in criticism for a long time.
While I would agree that Drakakis's arguments are "rigorously textual,"
I would hope he would rethink his theoretical grounding.
With Respect,
John
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nicholas Clary <
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Date: Thursday, 6 Aug 2009 07:04:29 -0400
Subject: 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Those interested in a compact survey of opinions about characters (and
the play as a whole), which are arranged in chronological order, might
take a look at www.hamletworks.org and choose the tab "About Hamlet."
Bernice Kliman has done an admirable job in selecting and transcribing
pertinent excerpts from annotations in editions of the play and from
other scholarly publications.
Nick Clary
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <
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Date: Thursday, 6 Aug 2009 12:07:07 -0400
Subject: 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0435 What is Hamlet's flaw?
John Drakakis speaks in his accustomed abstract way about Hamlet, while
denying that what he says is abstract. I'd call that a gap between words
and action. But to call it that fails to specify the particular problem
here. Do I think, for example, that he's lying? Of course not. John
Drakakis says his words are not abstract, and John Drakakis is an
honorable man.
So evidently I need to explain, more clearly, what I mean by "abstract".
The "gulf between words and actions" is abstract because it could refer
to, among other things, good manners, absent-mindedness or anonymous
generosity. "Separation" is not necessarily a problem. It depends on the
circumstances. This phrase could refer to Hamlet's self-excoriation for
speaking daggers at Claudius but using none, or to Claudius saying a
prayer of repentance (apparently) while not really meaning it. These
seem to me examples, perhaps, of irresolution, but with quite different
emphases. Claudius wants to be Christian, but can't; Hamlet wants to be
unChristian, but can't. The phrase might also describe Macbeth, or
Othello, or The Merchant of Venice. To say why this "gulf" is "the
problem" of Hamlet is not as easy as saying that it is. Or even that no
qualified professional would need, or request, any further explanation.
To take another example of what I would call excessive, unanchored
abstraction, what does it mean to say that the ghost "authorises
meaning"? It may mean that he represents a value system that demands
that the son of a murdered father take revenge. But if so, we might say
that Christianity "authorises" a rival meaning: that taking revenge,
especially by killing a king, is damnable. When Laertes says "I dare
damnation", the daring comes from the ghost's value system and the
damnation from Christianity.
Laertes knows that to take revenge he must throw away certain values:
allegiance, vows, conscience and grace. Allegiance and vows -- his
subject's duty to the king and the state -- might be taken to represent
yet another value system, distinct from the ghost's or Christianity. I
think Shakespeare is suggesting, by using Laertes as a kind of
contrasting mirror, that these are values Hamlet can't so easily bring
himself to jettison. Laertes also differs from Hamlet in being a private
person, free, unlike the prince, to carve for himself.
I suspect that in speaking of a "gulf between words and actions" John
Drakakis means to refer to, among other things, Hamlet's, and perhaps
Shakespeare's, streak of skepticism. All ideals end in dust. But
Hamlet's skepticism is a mood, a potentiality: his belief can fade and
also revive. He can see Yorick in his grave and still want Heaven to
forgive Laertes, and care about leaving behind a wounded name. These
grand abstract phrases, so familiar to John Drakakis and his colleagues,
when brought down to earth by being given an intelligibly specific
meaning, often, it seems to me, turn out to make the play sound simpler
than it is.
Best wishes,
David Bishop
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