The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1947  Monday, 6 October 2003

[1]     From:   Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 3 Oct 2003 05:57:55 -0700 (PDT)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.1938 Hamlet

[2]     From:   C S Lim <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Sunday, 5 Oct 2003 10:33:19 +0800
        Subj:   SHK 14.1938 Hamlet


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 3 Oct 2003 05:57:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 14.1938 Hamlet
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.1938 Hamlet

Don Bloom, musing about Hamlet, writes, "There are times when I wonder
just how much of this play can be said to make sense. The question,
though, is how something that seems to contradict itself can be so
superb."

Always one to defend Hamlet the play as the greatest *drama* in the
history of western literature, and Will S as its great author, I will
certainly weigh in on this one.

My friend and mentor Henry Miller once responded to a critic who accused
him of contradicting himself by referring to something Walt Whitman
wrote, and I quote from memory, and expect to be corrected by some more
hip with Whit than me, "I contradict myself?  So, I contradict myself."

In my way of reading both authors: so what?  Where's the crime or sin of
an author contradicting himself or herself?  We all do it all the time,
as human beings, and that is what makes us human.  But then, I
acknowledge that Will S is leagues above us all as an author, yet know
not that he had aspired to Godhead or Godhood!

By the way, I also think the opening line of *Herzog* is one of the best
*hook* openings in western literature, as well.  And the rest of the
novel confirms it!

Bill Arnold
http://www.cwru.edu/affil/edis/scholars/arnold.htm

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           C S Lim <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Sunday, 5 Oct 2003 10:33:19 +0800
Subject: Hamlet
Comment:        SHK 14.1938 Hamlet

I think it was C. S. Lewis who in a similar vein said that if Hamlet is
a failure, let's have more failures.

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