The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1754 Monday, 17 October 2005
[1] From: Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Oct 2005 09:06:26 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[2] From: Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Oct 2005 09:06:26 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[3] From: Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Oct 2005 09:06:26 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Oct 2005 09:06:26 -0400
Subject: 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Bill Arnold asks: Was Hamlet only out for revenge in the eyes of
Shakespeare's audience and therefore, hardly heroic? Or was he a hero
who sought justice in the fullest meaning of the word as defined by
Socrates, in Plato's Republic? Did Shakespeare's contemporaries,
frankly, give a damn about this philosophical question?
I think the issue was a hot one to Shakespeare's contemporaries, but
that the dichotomy between revenge and justice is anachronistic and
misoeading. Shakespeare and other contemporaries often used the words
interchangeably. In echoing the famous Biblical image of the earth
crying out after the murder of Abel for divine justice against Cain
(frequently alluded to in theatrical texts, including Claudius's slip in
"Hamlet"), Shakespeare invokes the image on different occasions, using
each of the two words interchangeably:
in King John:
The earth hath not a hole to hide this deed
Murder as hating what himself hath done
Doth lay it open to urge on revenge
and in Richard II
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's dries,
Even from the tonguless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice and rough chastisement;
As far as I can tell, it was Bacon's essay On Revenge, published later
but perhaps written much earlier and more than likely reflecting public
interest and an ongoing discourse, which set up the idea that revenge
was "a kind of wild justice." In apparent consequence, "justice"
assumed the sense of something institutional, impartial, and
appropriate, leaving "revenge" as individual, socially disruptive,
passionate, and excessive. Other selections from Shakespeare's usage
suggest that "justice" reflected the cosmic/divine viewpoint and
"revenge" had to do with its execution and effect upon the transgressor.
But I don't have too much faith in this after-the-text metaphysics.
Shakespeare delighted in multivalent words and situations, and Bill
Arnold has pointed out one of the best. It presents rich complexity for
"Hamlet" and its interpretation, either in bright stage-lit performance
or the murky grottos of academe.
Grotesquely,
Tony Burton
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 14 Oct 2005 09:26:08 -0500
Subject: 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Bill Arnold asks, vis a vis the matters of revenge and justice in
"Hamlet": "Did Shakespeare's contemporaries, frankly, give a damn about
this philosophical question?"
It is hard to imagine a culture that did not concern itself with justice
(including revenge). In fact, justice and a system of meting it out
could be considered one of the defining points of culture.
Whether they gave a damn about it as a philosophical proposition is much
less likely, since only a relative handful would think in terms of such
propositions.
Fortunately, the play deals with a situation not a proposition. Hamlet
has a ghost on his hands, a vow that he's made, the practical problem of
killing a king, and the psychological problem of doing something
irrevocable that he doesn't want to have to do. Anyone will give a damn
about that if it's staged adequately.
Cheers,
don
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stephen Rose <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 2005 11:27:22 +0200
Subject: 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1747 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
I am not sure Shakespeare gave a damn. I read H all the time and keep
coming back to the old story which in S's hands brought pleasure to the
multitudes. In his treatment justice and revenge mingle in H's mind and
the fertile mind of the author plays on the instrument of the
beleaguered Dane and the ambiguity betwixt revenge and justice is but
one of the themes that accounts for the play's enduring interest. Cheers, S
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