The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0403 Friday, 24 July 2009
[1] From: Aaron Azlant <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 18:44:49 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0389 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[2] From: Steve Sohmer <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 19:00:16 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[3] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 21:27:58 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[4] From: Martin Mueller <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 22:07:00 -0500
Subj: Shakespeare and Aristotle
[5] From: David Bishop <
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Date: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 10:46:56 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[6] From: David Basch <
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Date: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 12:51:22 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[7] From: Joe Egert <
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Date: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 12:07:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0389 What is Hamlet's flaw?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Aaron Azlant <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 18:44:49 -0400
Subject: 20.0389 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0389 What is Hamlet's flaw?
>I can do no better than to cite James Hammersmith:
>http://www.jsu.edu/depart/english/gates/shtragcv.htm
>
>It is indeed foolish to insist on a tragic flaw in Hamlet. Aristotle
did not
>write the bible for tragedy. Indeed, the conventional idea of a tragic
flaw
>does not adequately explain even Antigone in her play, not to mention
Romeo
>or Juliet. Hamlet is universally praised or respected by everyone in the
>play except himself. We can best understand him as a positive character
>overwhelmed by circumstance, like Antigone.
>
>Richard Regan
I just wanted to co-sign this. Shakespeare disregards many of the other
recommendations in the Poetics -- unity of time + place, lack of
episode, limitations on sadness, to name a few. He also insists upon
consistency of character, which is a point that /Hamlet/ manifestly
rejects -- what with its titular characters many, competing
motivations. I don't see why Shakespeare would decide that he somehow
needed to uphold the idea of a tragic flaw for his hero in this
context, especially since this would have the ultimate effect of
rationalizing Hamlet's motivation.
-- AA
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Sohmer <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 19:00:16 EDT
Subject: 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Dear Friends,
Hardy is right (as usual) about these Hamlet threads.
Briefly, Hamlet names his tragic flaw: that inner voice, conscience,
which (he claims) makes cowards of us all. But does it?
Do any of these characters exhibit pangs of conscience: Gertrude,
Polonius, Laertes, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildernstern, Horatio? Not
even Old Hamlet's Ghost. Claudius has a pang of conscience while
praying, but overcomes it. Only Hamlet has a conscience.
By the way, except for Horatio all eight the characters enumerated die
without shriving time allowed.
Hope this helps.
Steve
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 21:27:58 -0400
Subject: 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
I agree entirely with Martin Mueller's insightful post about tragedies
of errors (although this is perhaps for another thread), except for this
statement:
>Shakespeare's other tragedies are not tragedies of error in that
>quite specific sense of plays that are rooted in a 'theory' or
>perhaps better a 'methodology' of drama that is rooted in the
>theory and practice of comedy.
Surely, _Romeo and Juliet_ is the quintessential comedy gone wrong with
the tragedy flowing directly from errors.
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Mueller <
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Date: Thursday, 23 Jul 2009 22:07:00 -0500
Subject: Shakespeare and Aristotle
Richard Regan <
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>There is no evidence that Shakespeare know Aristotle's Poetics:
>
>http://www.jsu.edu/depart/english/gates/shtragcv.htm
>
>http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/si-01/si-01hagen.html
The question of whether Shakespeare knew Aristotle's Poetics depends on
what you mean by 'Aristotle', 'Poetics', and 'know'. It is quite likely
that Shakespeare never picked up a book that had the Poetics in it,
although some scholars -- e.g. Louise Schleiner -- have made a
plausible case that Shakespeare's direct knowledge of ancient sources
was a lot less 'less' than Jonson said it was.
But whatever direct knowledge Shakespeare had or didn't have,
Aristotle's Poetics was one of the most heavily edited and commented on
books of the sixteenth century. In the middle of the century three great
commentaries by Robortello, Maggi, and Vettori went through the text
word by word. Their interpretations set up a framework of an
Aristotelian dramaturgy that dominated European literary criticism for
several centuries. Sidney's Arcadia and the wonderful conversation
between the canon and the curate about drama in Don Quixote (1.48) are
striking evidence of the common elements that are shared across Europe.
Aristotle's Poetics, in a 'mash-up' that includes Horace and Roman
comedy, was in the air. It was something you knew about perhaps without
even knowing that you did. But Shakespeare plays very knowingly with the
'Aristotelian' unities when he aggressively violates them in the
Winter's Tale and even more aggressively observes them in the Tempest.
So it is an entirely reasonable thing to think about Shakespeare's plays
within an Aristotelian framework, whether you think of Aristotle as an
author for all ages or, more plausibly, think of Shakespeare as
operating in a theatrical or dramaturgical environment that was in very
particular and pervasive ways shaped by Aristotle's Poetics and the
reflections it engendered. The 'tragic flaw', however, is not a very
central concept in that Aristotelian environment. Historically speaking,
it belongs to a later phase of Aristotelian reception, with Hegel and
the Schlegel brothers as the dominant voices, in which the opposition of
'ancient' and 'modern' is lined up with an opposition of 'objective' and
'subjective' and the Aristotelian concept of 'hamartia' is associated
with the basic constitution of the protagonist's self.
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <
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Date: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 10:46:56 -0400
Subject: 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Maybe the flaw in the tragic flaw idea is that it reduces the hero to
one essential quality, "solving" the play with a formula that is too
abstracted, and too simply centered in the hero, to do justice to the
array of forces involved.
In high school I was taught that Macbeth's tragic flaw was his ambition.
This is certainly an element of his tragedy, but it would not function
as it does without the spur provided by Lady Macbeth. Not to mention the
witches, and much else.
So to say that Hamlet makes errors, or is overrighteous, that Romeo is
impulsive, etc., seem to me unsatisfying ways of understanding these
plays, because they are too abstracted from the specific content of each
play. I also have trouble taking Hamlet's failure to kill Claudius at
prayer, for example, as simply an error.
I'm happy John Drakakis found some value in my opinions, though I'm not
sure what presence is, or how Hamlet is both antidote and poison. But
those questions may be off-topic. As also, perhaps, the question of what
makes a theory idiosyncratic. Is there a non-idiosyncratic theory about
Hamlet? Maybe Hardy has in mind those offered by Amnon Zakov or Margreta
de Grazia.
Best wishes,
David Bishop
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Basch <
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Date: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 12:51:22 -0400
Subject: 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0397 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Richard Regan offers two articles that allegedly prove that the thesis
of a "fatal flaw" could not have been extant within Shakespeare's play,
Hamlet. The articles are most impressive but seem to pose a hypothesis
contrary to fact since the play Hamlet itself includes lines that
specifically speak of the condition of a flaw that poisons all other
qualities of a person, no matter how good. This is expressed in a few
ways in Shakespeare's play, even in the sense of drunkenness in Denmark
that takes away from all other of Denmark's good performance in other areas.
Martin Mueller and Scott Shepherd make the same point in their comment
during the last round on list of this issue and Jim Carroll in the
postings earlier describe Aristotle's view on this issue in his Poetics,
quoting directly from Aristotle on how such "errors or frailties" bring
about changes in fortune, as happens in Shakespeare's plays.
I would also note that the critics that Richard Regan refers to assume
Shakespeare's ignorance of Greek, which I don't believe is warranted by
evidence. I recently saw on television a piece about an English person
who could learn a new language in a week. This was illustrated by having
him learn Icelandic and then, a week later, appear on Icelandic
television on a talk show where he converses in the new language. Does
anyone think Shakespeare lacked such facility, a man who seems to have a
photographic memory? He remembers the myriad words of writers and wrote
in a manner that indicated he had read original literary works in
foreign languages since some of these had not been translated. We
underrate Shakespeare's ability to our disadvantage.
I would note that, as I understand it, when Aristotle was formulating
his treatise on tragedy in his Poetics, he reviewed numerous plays in
seeking out the characteristics of tragedy and used as his example the
"atypical" Oedipus Rex, which clearly illustrated his point in its
making use of "recognition" and "reversal," double factors in bringing
about the play's dramatic impact.
Interestingly, Oedipus's major fault is being the victim of the
predicted fate he was to undergo that had nothing to do with him
personally. However, the dramatist also included Oedipus's human fault
of impetuousness that made him more liable to fall into the trap despite
forewarning.
For the convenience of those who wish to know more about what is in
Hamlet, I present some of the lines below from Hamlet directly alluding
to this issue. I would conclude from these lines that, if Shakespeare
did not get the idea from Aristotle, he invented it anew. Says Hamlet
after witnessing Claudius's crowd reveling in drink:
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth -- wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin --
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, --
Their virtues else -- be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo --
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: the dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal.
(I would note in passing the lines giving Hamlet's argument against
being prejudiced against people of different origins:
As, in their birth - wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin )
It seems that Shakespeare is calling attention to the device that he
uses in his play to create his tragedy of a good man whose faults bring
him to destruction. Notice that these are faults in the play that even
good men don't realize they have and therefore this adds a cryptic note
to his play that makes deeper study of it most worthwhile. I will quote
also from what the Psalmist has to say about such things, which likewise
seem applicable to Shakespeare's play:
PSA 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me
from secret faults. PSA 19:13 Keep back thy servant also
from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me:
then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the
great transgression.
I would suggest that if all the above is not convincing about a poet who
appears to think like Aristotle, it should take some of wind out of the
sails of those persons who presume absolutely on this issue in the light
of the ambiguities raised.
David Basch
[7]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joe Egert <
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Date: Friday, 24 Jul 2009 12:07:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0389 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0389 What is Hamlet's flaw?
Sally Drumm advises us, "Because Hamlet cannot forgive the past, the
future is lost. This is Hamlet's great lesson."
Exactly what part of the past is Hamlet expected to forgive? and towards
securing what glorious future? Vincentio's corrupt Vienna?
Conrad Cook interprets the Ghost as instructing Hamlet to "remove the
usurper from the throne and see worldly justice done." Instead, in their
first encounter, he commands the Prince to (1) revenge a murder, (2)
stop the ongoing "luxury and damned incest" while leaving Momma to
Heaven, and (3) remember him. Nowhere is 'justice' or God's will mentioned.
Hannibal Hamlin notes Shakespeare inherited, among others, the Wheel of
Fortune model for tragedy. Hamlet himself might argue, in his case, the
Wheel is being driven by Providence.
John Drakakis explains, "Once Claudius's guilt is publicly revealed in
5.2 then Hamlet can exact a summary justice, since he is 'technically'
king at this point[...]."
Where is Claudius' guilt for murdering his predecessor publicly revealed
in 5.2? I don't see it.
David Basch denies human agency as an instrument of Providence in
misquoting Hamlet on the "divinity that shapes our ends, rough hewn
though it may be." Shakespeare acknowledges such agency, though shorn
perhaps of prescience of those ends . . ."rough-hew them how we may."
Finally, David Bishop describes the Prince as a young idealist "sure of
his own purity of soul". Did David mean "unsure"?
Also, by the Christian standards of Shakespeare's day, did King Hamlet
("the question of these wars") sin in dueling and slaying King
Fortinbras, even if we accept as accurate Horatio's report of it as
honorable combat based on a "sealed compact"? (fine word "compact"). Was
time itself disjointed that day -- the same day the avenger was born to
set it right? Are we seeking for tragic flaws in the wrong Hamlet?
Remember Laertes' dying words, "The King, the King's to blame."
But which King?
Joe Egert
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