August
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1921 Wednesday, 1 August 2001 [1] From: Brian Haylett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 19:30:19 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1901 Re: The Tragedy of Claudius [2] From: John Drakakis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 1 Aug 2001 12:28:48 +0100 Subj: RE: SHK 12.1914 Re: The Tragedy of Claudius [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Haylett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 19:30:19 +0100 Subject: 12.1901 Re: The Tragedy of Claudius Comment: Re: SHK 12.1901 Re: The Tragedy of Claudius John Drakakis writes: >Look at Horatio's description of Old Hamlet's conflict with >Old Fortinbrass, and look at ho Hamlet nominates as ruler of Denmark. But what is Horatio's position? Is 'emulate pride' something he admires? Is 'valiant Hamlet' qualified by the line that follows? Yes, Horatio speaks of violence, but it is not proved that he does not criticise it. As for Hamlet's nominating of Fortinbras as his successor, can you give one logical reason why he does so? Is it consonant with the Hamlet we have seen? Is it loyal to his father? Or is it another fine misjudgement? (Or convenient dramatic conclusion?) > Of >course, neither you or I would regard this kind of violence as >acceptable, but the difference between us is hat you want to project >your own sensitivities onto the play. I submit that what that does is >to distort the action. Blessed are the peacemakers. >I think what Brian and Sean need is a good dose of Brecht. While Shakespeare did not have the advantage of Brecht, he did know the Bible. In peace, Brian Haylett [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 1 Aug 2001 12:28:48 +0100 Subject: 12.1914 Re: The Tragedy of Claudius Comment: RE: SHK 12.1914 Re: The Tragedy of Claudius It's a little difficult to know where to begin to respond to Sean Lawrence's comments, except to say that he seems to be starting from the assumption that Claudius is a 'real' person. If he argues that ethics is NOT uncontaminated then I think he needs to tell us in what the contamination consists, or is this simply a mystery beyond human comprehension?. As I understand him, he seems to be arguing in favour of a blanket humanism that is entirely indiscriminate: we can let Claudius off the hook because he's 'human'. This is precisely the kind of liberal position that gets itself in serious difficulties when confronted with real choices (as opposed to those that literary and/or theatrical texts offer us). As for the comments on politics versus ethics and my alleged naivete.. surely, philosophy is little more than politics conducted at the level of theory isn't it? I've read as much Cavell as I want to, but Cavell is interested among other things in the extent to which a text subverts itself. Such a formulation would, of course, be pertinent in relation to the discussion of Claudius. The question is: to what extent is Claudius aware of his potentially subversive powers, or is he, like other figures in the play, caught in a series of contradictions that no ideology can occlude? Claudius isn't a philosophical conundrum, and so we need to be careful about the kinds of questions that we can ask of various aspects of the structure of the text of Hamlet. The debate with Brian Haylett began over the issue of genre, and genre exerts some power over particular examples. How we theorise the operations of that power, or the negotiations that are produced as a consequence is an important question. Also, we surely ought not to think of these particular examples outside the notion of 'politics' broadly conceived as involving the variable distribution of forces within particular fields of activity. Here Sean's claim that 'politics' is a discreet discourse is worse than naive...it's plain wrong. If he is asking whether there can be any politics without a 'morality' (and this I take it is the import of his comment about violence) then that IS a complex question and can't be answered simply. I much admire Levinas's work but I have serious reservations about the way it gets wheeled out to justify an uncritical 'ethics' as the mystified origin of vague humanisms. I don't propose to ask Sean if there are any circumstances in which his liberalism would permit the use of violence. I'll rather stick to Hamlet and point out to him that the play extols violence as an effective means of sustaining power. It subscribes to the myth that there are some forms of violence that are not acceptable (e.g. Claudius') but that there are others that are e.g. Old Hamlet, possibly Fortinbras, and to some extent Hamlet himself. Here we might want to look closely at the aesthetic structure of the play, and to ask questions about the extent to which it is successful in producing ideology. I think not, and for a variety of historical reasons. I thank him for the Charles Taylor reference. But perhaps, finally, he needs to think about what Brecht actually proposes in texts like The Messingkauf Dialogues and the New Organum for the Theatre. And lest he thinks that Brecht is nothing more than a left-wing ideologue, he might like to consider texts such as Mother Courage and The Life of Galileo that constantly resist the most politically correct kinds of reading. Cheers, John Drakakis _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1920 Wednesday, 1 August 2001 [1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 14:29:37 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge [2] From: Cliff Ronan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 18:34:24 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge [3] From: Richard Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 15:47:29 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge [4] From: John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 1 Aug 2001 08:55:34 +0100 Subj: RE: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge [5] From: Richard Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 15:28:42 -0700 Subj: Caesar's Revenge II [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 14:29:37 -0400 Subject: 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Comment: Re: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge >>"You gentle Heavens. O execute your wrath >>On vile mortality, that hath scornd your powers. >>You night borne Sisters to whose haires are ty'd >>In Adamantine Chaines both Gods and Men >>Wind on your webbe of mischiefe and of plagues, Nancy Charlton comments: >This sounds more like the Shakespeare of the Pyramus and Thisbe skit in >MND than like King Lear. <snip> I think I'm trying to say >that even as a ceremonial invocation, this speech doesn't have the >emotional intensity or verbal richness of Shakespearean speeches on >similar occasions. It bears a certain resemblance to the opening speech in 1HVI, but its even worse. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cliff Ronan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 18:34:24 -0400 Subject: 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Comment: Re: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Dear Richard Kennedy, You are right to wonder about "Caesar's Revenge"; it covers so much of Roman history that it is natural to speculate about its connection to Shakespeare's two Civil War plays. But I don't think it can be by Shakespeare, though he probably read it. Bullough decides that there is "by no means certain that Shakespeare knew *Caesar's Revenge,* yet thinks that Schanzer may be right in tracing *Caesar* 3.1.258-75 to *Caesar's Revenge* 2526. See Geoffrey Bullough, *Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare* 5.33-35 and Ernest Schanzer *N & Q* 199 (May 1954):196-97. Cheers, Cliff Ronan [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 15:47:29 -0700 Subject: 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Comment: Re: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Answering one by one. Mike Jensen: Posting "Caesar's Revenge II" today, no joke. Wm. Williams: Thanks for the[1606] info., I'll get on it. Nancy Charlton: Yes, I wouldn't argue that CR is the "mature" Shakespeare. And no doubt some of the parallels can be dropped. John Briggs. Nor do I know what that 1607 date might mean. John Briggs. Wonderful find in "Shakespeare Studies," and I'll go get it. I'd wondered about "Antony and Cleopatra" myself, and she soon comes on the scene, a blond virgin full of trouble. [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 1 Aug 2001 08:55:34 +0100 Subject: 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Comment: RE: SHK 12.1911 Re: Caesar's Revenge Mike Jensen asks plaintively: >I'm sorry, but I must have missed something. Did the whole post >appear? Is this a joke or a parody? A parody of Shakespeare? Or a parody of Shakespearean scholarship? Alas, no. Deadly serious in both cases! John Briggs [5]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 15:28:42 -0700 Subject: Caesar's Revenge II CAESAR'S REVENGE - II "Caesar's Revenge" is STC 4339, U.of Mich."University Microfilm," Reel 722, and I've not found it printed out anywhere. As noted on the title page, "Caesar's Revenge" was "Imprinted for Nathaniel Fosbrooke and John Wright...." The first 1609 edition of Shakespeare's "Sonnets" was published "To be sold by" William Aspley. But some are published "To be sold" by John Wright. And so John Wright had a hand in both "Caesar's Revenge" and the "Sonnets," published two years apart. CAESAR'S REVENGE Act I, Scenes 2 & 3 SCENE 2: Caesar comes upon Brutus, who asks Caesar to take his life, for that Brutus took Pompey's side in the battle. A melodramatic moment that Caesar gives over, saying "True setled love can neere bee turn'd to hate." Brutus exits with a prophecy. "Caesar thy sword has all bliss from me tain, And givest me life where best were to be slain" SCENE 3: Anthony enters "From sad Pharsalia blushing all with blood," to set wreaths, laurels, and palms on Caesar's victory, yet Caesar laments the civil war twixt himself and Pompey, the carnage of war. "Thee this accursed soyle distainde with blood Not Christall rivers, are to quench thy thirst. For goaring streames, their rivers cleereness staines: Heere are no hils wherewith to feede thine eyes, But heaped hils of mangled Carkases, Heere are no birdes to please thee with their notes: But ravenous Vultures, and night Ravens horse." Anthony recoils from this "womanish compassion," reminding Caesar of the "lakes of blood" Caesar has himself springed. Anthony hasn't spit for Pompey, but wants to let loose "Noble fire" upon the lot of them. "Let Pompey proud, and Pompeys Complices Die on our swords, that did envie our lives, Let pale Tysiphone be cloyed with bloud: And snaky furies quench their longing thirst, And Caesar live to glory in the end." Caesar sees the logic of this, and an un-named Lord enforces Anthony's call for blood: "O Pompey, cursed cause of civill warre, Which of those hel-borne sterne Eumenides: Inflam'd thy minde with such ambitious fire, As nought could quench it but thy Countries bloud." The "ambition" of Pompey, by this place, has been glanced at three times, Anthony: "Let then his death set period to this strife,/ Which was begun by his ambitious life." At the end of Scene 3 Caesar is persuaded to track Pompey to his death, compassion turned to bloody murder. "No not all Africk arm'd in his defence Shall serve to shrowd him from my fatall sworde." [Exit] End Act I, Scene 3 In these pages 6 - 10, some more likeness of "Caesar s Revenge" and Shakespeare. CR is my paging. Act I, Scene 2 follow your chase, and let some light foot steeds - 6 some light-foot friend post to the Duke - Rich. III which can no more pierce Brutus tender sides - 6 I kiss these fingers...and lay them gently on thy tender side 1 Hen. IV heere lyeth one that's boucher'd by his sire - 7 the son, commpell'd, been butcher to the sire Rich. III Act I, Scene 3 to wade in blood of them that sought my death - 7 wade to the market place in Frenchmen's blood - K. John and make us wade even in our kindred's blood -- Rich. II in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more - Macbeth oft did he seek to turn his fiery steed - 8 and high curvet of Mar's fiery steed - All's Well that Phaeton should check thy fiery steeds - 3 Hen. VI mounted upon a hot and fiery steed - Rich. II gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds - Rom. & Juliet for goring streams, their rivers cheerless stains - 8 should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore - 1 Hen VI wherewith to feed thine eyes - 8 that makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye - All's Well but ravenous vultures and night ravens hoarse - 8 the hoarse night-raven tuns the cheerless voice - 45 the raven himself is hoarse - Macbeth and nought could quench it but thy country's blood - 9 our blood shall quench that fire - K. John and by Thessalian Temple shapes his course - 9 he'll shape his own course in a country new - Lear Next time, wise Cato reviews the situation, Pompey packing for Africa, Caesar on the hunt. Richard Kennedy _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1919 Wednesday, 1 August 2001 From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 13:48:24 -0400 Subject: Re: To be or not to be Andy White writes that "[Ophelia] loves and trusts her father too much for her own good." Right, and that's one reason why Hamlet is angry at her. As soon as Ophelia attempts to give back Hamlet's "remembrances," which she would never do of her own volition, Hamlet knows that she has become a tool of her father, and it's only a short step from there to the conclusion that he and she are being watched. But there is surely a lack of insight/empathy here on Hamlet's part! Who else in this play may love and trust his father too much, and may be allowing himself to be used as a tool to further a father's ends? --Ed Taft _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1918 Wednesday, 1 August 2001 [1] From: Paul E. Doniger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 12:09:11 -0400 Subj: Fw: SHK 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals [2] From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 12:38:16 -0400 Subj: SHK 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals [3] From: Steve Roth <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 10:11:13 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals [4] From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 13:19:15 -0400 Subj: RE: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul E. Doniger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 12:09:11 -0400 Subject: 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals Comment: Fw: SHK 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals I have two final comments that I would like to share regarding this thread: 1. I have never been comfortable accepting that Hamlet doubts the honesty of the Ghost. It seems to me that his "Devil" comments in the 2.2 soliloquy are post hoc excuses for following a plan of action that he decided on earlier (the double-meaning in "His majesty shall have tribute of me;" and then: "We'll hear a play tomorrow ... Can you play 'The Murder of Gonzago'? ... You could for a need study a speech ... ."). Hamlet's intent in presenting _The Mousetrap_ to the court (his first act of revenge!) is to get Claudius's conscience caught, reveal his guilt to all the court, and have justice done openly, thus accomplishing his revenge without tainting his mind OR his soul. 2. I think Claudius views the dumbshow with outward calm, as others have suggested (here I agree with Grey and not Dover Wilson), and is more disturbed by Hamlet than by the inner play. The key lines, for my money, come when Hamlet urges the player Lucianus to begin. At first he addresses the actor: "Leave thy damnable faces ... ," but then he curiously says, "Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge." To whom is he speaking here? Lucianus is not an avenger. Why should anyone call for revenge before the murder of Gonzago? No, I rather think that Hamlet intends these lines for Claudius. Hamlet is the croaking raven -- he's been 'croaking' all through the performance of _The Mousetrap_, and he has been dressed in raven-colored suits since act 1. Of course, it is he who is calling for revenge, and in his desperation to "catch the conscience of the king" is digging the knife deeper into Claudius to get a reaction from him. Claudius, as some have suggested, now knows Hamlet's intent (and knows what Hamlet knows), and he uses the "love of Gonzago's wife" line as a convenient excuse for giving o'er the play, pretending offense outwardly, but inwardly feeling a need to take some action to stop Hamlet; unfortunately for Hamlet (and Polonius) the excuse for action comes swiftly. Paul E. Doniger [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 12:38:16 -0400 Subject: Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals Comment: SHK 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals Hamlet begins, not with the words 'Who's there?', but with Francisco's silent entry, followed by that of Barnardo. The latter's sudden wordless terror, presumably accompanied by a hasty hoisting of his partisan, the large military spear, into some sort of offensive position, sets the play alight well before any utterance. This disturbing sequence --a soldier preparing to strike at a comrade who wears the same uniform-- sends signals of fear, confusion and uncertainty that are all the more potent for being non-verbal. The play ends without words too. T. Hawkes [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Roth <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 10:11:13 -0700 Subject: 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals Comment: Re: SHK 12.1908 Re: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals >From: Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > > >The reversal of conventional order in the matter of the exchange between >sentries, to which Weiss has referred, conforms also with other >indications to the same effect, <snip> These reversals and "jugglings" are also quite in keeping with the reversal of roles and disorder played out in winter revels--boy bishop, prince of fools, christmas prince, etc.--that echoes throughout the Tudor period (and before), and throughout Hamlet. I argue in chapter 2 of my book <http://princehamlet.com>, building on initial discoveries by Steve Sohmer, that the mousetrap is played on Twelfth Night, and the graveyard/swordfight on Valentine's Day, which in 1602 was Shrove Sunday. The action of the play encompasses the revels season at court--from October 31 to Shrovetide. Shrovetide in particular is intimately connected with role reversals and revels (and rebellion). >For students like Weiss and White, with whom I most >wholeheartedly agree, and It is clear to me that the depiction of >disorder and uncertainty are an essential element of "Hamlet" and its >mystery, of Hamlet's character, and of the audience's experience. The understanding that we've (I think) come to here of the dumb show--that it contributes to that uncertainty of knowledge--adds to that key aspect of the play. >such private views of the matter >are inevitable necessary and exclusive. An interesting difficulty is discerning between: o Those things that simply must be true in a single, exclusive sense, that constitute the basic "sense" of the poem--who does what and when (Gertrude definitely married Claudius, and Hamlet definitely had audiences with Ophelia, though we only know of these things by first-, second-, or third-had report) and o Those that may have multiple, uncertain, or ambiguous interpretations/meanings (too many examples to bother citing any). >Indeed, there are good reasons why such uncertainty spoke loudly to the >spiritual and intellectual climate of Shakespeare's time, Indeed, indeed! Worth a new thread? >The departure would >then certainly not be unambiguous evidence of guilt for murder, nor even >of guilt for marrying for money (although that is surely what happened), >but only of anger at Hamlet's presumption in implying he might employ >those tactics against him. Or, simply, presumption at threatening to kill him in front of the whole court! >From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > > >Andy White argues that > >>He [Claudius] has to suffer in the afterlife, just as he made his brother >>suffer Purgatory needlessly. It's a concept that is alien to us, but > >would be taken for granted back then. > >I'm not sure how "taken for granted" it would have been. Leaving >vengeance up to the almighty was a tenet of Christianity, was it not? This is a great question. Doesn't this make Hamlet doubly presumptuous in taking revenge--not just preempting the lord's prerogative in speeding Claudius' death, but even worse, seeking to determine where he will spend his afterlife? >From: David Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > > >I doubt very much that we are intended to feel that the court audience >at the Mousetrap takes the nephew, Lucianus, as Hamlet's threat to kill >Claudius. How else could the courtiers interpret that scene, and Claudius' response to it? This is a real question, not a challenge. I think Dover Wilson nailed this one, and I haven't seen any explanations to compete with his. >I think the nephew to the >king (Hamlet's switch from duke) indicates the problem, in Hamlet's >mind, that revenge would require the same crime, regicide, that Claudius >committed. Agreed (an insight I hadn't come to). But that's not its only implication. >A too curious concentration on the dumbshow, and a demand >that Claudius react to it immediately, seems a product of too much >leisure thinking, and of our familiarity with the play. It could be played either way, successfully and without contradicting the text. But critics have been asking forever why Claudius reacts when he does, not to the dumb show. It's a darned curious question that I don't think has been answered satisfactorily (or at least I haven't read a satisfactory answer, until this thread). >The dumbshow takes everyone, especially those who >haven't been warned, by surprise. Including, according to Wilson, Hamlet! I like that interpretation. >When Claudius walks out >we're prepared, and unlike Gertrude or the court we know the real reason >why. And also unlike Hamlet. >If he kills him now, he may think, he'll meet >his dearest foe in heaven--or would, if killing him would not send >Hamlet himself to hell. It's all very cleverly twisted Oh, that's very nice. I hadn't made the connection between Hamlet's "dearest foe" and Claudius. Thanks, Steve http://princehamlet.com [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 Jul 2001 13:19:15 -0400 Subject: RE: Hamlet's Clashing Ideals David Bishop rightly notes that "Christianity prohibits revenge while the ghost demands it." Implicit in David's comment is Hamlet's need to answer two questions: not just whether Claudius is guilty as charged, but also whether the ghost is a good ghost (and thus reveals the will of heaven), or a bad ghost (and thus may be using the truth to damn Hamlet and effect an unsanctioned revenge). Thus, even if we accept that the mousetrap reveal Claudius's guilt, Hamlet's work is not done. He now must somehow solve the question of the ontological nature of the ghost. How does he go about doing that? --Ed Taft _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>