The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0388 Friday, 17 July 2009
[1] From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 16 Jul 2009 16:31:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0382 Hamlet without Hamlet
[2] From: Arnie Perlstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 17 Jul 2009 10:04:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subj: Hamlet without Hamlet
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 16 Jul 2009 16:31:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0382 Hamlet without Hamlet
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0382 Hamlet without Hamlet
Hannibal Hamlin writes:
"I certainly wouldn't argue that scholarly arguments aren't sometimes
far-fetched, but the point about "adamah" may not be. Of course,
Shakespeare had even less Hebrew than Greek, but he could easily have
known a few key words from easily accessible biblical commentaries, some
of which I'm certain he read. I'd have to hunt around more to make a
specific case for "adamah," but Raleigh explains the Hebrew pun on
"Adam" and "adamah" in his History of the World, and he was no Hebrew
scholar either."
A quick EEBO search for "adamah" yields 70 hits in 45 records, among
them the Ralegh citation above, and from Baxter's SIDNEY'S OURANIA
(1606), "Pan blessed her [Eve], and call'd her Adamah,/ A female earth,
and after Nekebah."
Joe Egert
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Arnie Perlstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 17 Jul 2009 10:04:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Hamlet without Hamlet
>In her always enlightening and often entertaining book, Margreta de
>Grazia summarizes and assesses the modern critical tradition, beginning
>two centuries after Shakespeare's old-fashioned play first took the
>stage and still very much with us. She makes a sweeping claim, and she
>strongly supports it in a series of interlinked essays. Her contention
>is that the Hamlet created by modern philosophers and critics,
>psychologically disturbed, phallically deprived, Oedipally repressed,
>exemplar of modern subjectivity, type and symbol of modern
>consciousness, draws attention away from Shakespeare's great and complex
>historical tragedy. For Hamlet to appear modern, she argues, the premise
>of _Hamlet_ must drop out of sight.
What a pity that in making what i am sure is a good argument for her way
of interpreting the play, de Grazia feels it is necessary to invalidate
an approach to interpreting Hamlet as a psychologically disturbed
genius. Hamlet is an anamorphic play, and it probably admits of numerous
plausible, coherent and alternative interpretations. I find it
fascinating how often those who favor one of them include in their
argument the dissing of the others.
Arnie Perlstein
Weston, Florida
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