The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0443 Monday, 10 August 2009
[1] From: Sally Drumm <
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Date: Thursday, 06 Aug 2009 20:52:43 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0439 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[2] From: John Drakakis <
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Date: Friday, 7 Aug 2009 15:29:16 +0100
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0439 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sally Drumm <
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Date: Thursday, 06 Aug 2009 20:52:43 -0400
Subject: 20.0439 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0439 What is Hamlet's flaw?
>almost no one -- outside the church of Deconstruction/constructivism/PoMo
>generally -- thinks these arguments are "current analytic discourses;"
How, then, are "current analytic discourses categorized?" And as such,
aren't these categories just new names for the same principles? What is
current and how long does it stay that way? Who makes the rules?
Writers? Readers? Scholars? Concerns that purchase intellectual
property? Ah! Lyotard's The Post Modern Condition comes to mind as
prescient of this thread! Genius! Also, while Derrida's linguistic
theories might have been challenged, so were those of space forwarded by
Einstein. And even Stephen Hawking admits to a propensity for changing
his mind. As Saussure wrote, "Language never errs, it just takes a
different viewpoint (Course in General Linguistics, 5).
While Derrida's theories may not be relevant to scholars, in literature
his work began a trend among authors that continues in popularity with
undergraduates who read, as reckoned by what drama club members were
reading during recent rehearsals.
Sincerely,
Sally Drumm
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Drakakis <
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Date: Friday, 7 Aug 2009 15:29:16 +0100
Subject: 20.0439 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0439 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Thanks to John Knapp. I was simply offering examples of things that I
expect professionals working in the field to know about. I expect them
to know a lot more too.
As for David Bishop I think we shall just have to agree to disagree. I'm
afraid that I don't use literary texts as opportunities to launch off
into my own speculations . . . at least, not the kinds of speculations
that I would be willing to discuss in a professional arena such as this
one. Scepticism is important in 'Hamlet', granted, but David Bishop want
to have the monopoly of meanings and then to claim that anything that
doesn't fall within the parameters that he marks out is 'abstract'. Let
me try again (ever the optimist!) When I talk about the difference
between 'words' 'thoughts' and 'actions' I am not making a general point
about 'language', I am discussing a particular Shakespearean text, and
trying to account for the ways in which it might represent these issues.
I am also declaring the co-ordinates of my own critical discourse, that
might emphasise certain things differently from, say John Knapp. What I
am NOT doing is using the text as launch pad for some kind of reverie
about whatever 'I' happen to be interested in. So when I make the point
about Old Hamlet's authorising of meanings, I base that speculation (and
it is a speculation) upon various con-texts (the term was launched by
Peter Hulme and the late Francis Barker) that might allow me, within
reason, to speculate. Of course, David Bishop might like to tell me that
'he' authorises his own meanings. If he does, and the evidence of his
own 'reasoning' suggests that he does, then my response is perfunctory:
I couldn't care less about how 'he' authorises meanings in isolation
from the text we are discussing. It will tell me a lot about his
politics (which on the evidence so far are very different from mine). My
concern is to try, and in full consciousness of what I'm doing, to raise
a question that this particular text 'Hamlet' raises itself and in its
own way. My job is to unravel my perceptions from anything that I might
want to carelessly label 'historical' (a process that the uneducable Joe
Egert seems not to have grasped as witness his recent response to
Terence Hawkes), and then to construct a set of plausible arguments that
we might discuss. I assume that others do the same, although I am
becoming sceptical of that as this strand continues.
Cheers,
John Drakakis
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