The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1358 Monday, 22 August 2005
[1] From: Colin Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 19 Aug 2005 09:10:55 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
[2] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 19 Aug 2005 12:32:53 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
[3] From: Jim Blackie <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 19 Aug 2005 13:09:56 -0400 (EDT)
Subj: RE: SHK 16.1339 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
[4] From: Kenneth Chan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 2005 08:33:09 +0800
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
[5] From: Kenneth Chan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 2005 08:55:21 +0800
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
[6] From: Florence Amit <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 21 Aug 2005 02:57:29 +0300
Subj: Subject: 16.1339 Shylock, Hamlet, et al
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Colin Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 19 Aug 2005 09:10:55 -0700
Subject: 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
"I still admit to textual discussion as a necessary good/evil when
considering Shakespeare as the Brit Bard."
I have no doubt that Bill, the director, and Burbage, the actor, had
many a discussion on text,
"Hey Bill, James is in the audience next week, we got to get this thing
down to two hours."
"Then cut one of the bloody soliloquies, Richard, you have seven of the
damn things."
"Right you are, Bill."
Colin Cox
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 19 Aug 2005 12:32:53 -0400
Subject: 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
>If anyone had told me ten years ago that my finding that the play Hamlet
>is Shakespeare's version of the Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes, I would
>have laughed in their face.
It might be a hopeful sign if your condition is of recent onset.
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Blackie <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 19 Aug 2005 13:09:56 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: 16.1339 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1339 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
John-Paul Spiro wrote :
"J. Dover Wilson's book is fine, but if you think he has "resolved" the
issue, you need to read the play again."
I have, indeed, read the play again. And again. And have listened to
audio renditions and the BBC TV production (which seems the closest to
what WS intended if I were to be asked) and Olivier's film and even Mel
Gibson's. I have read essays from A.C. Bradley, T.S. Elliot and others.
The theories and principles of John Dover Wilson hold together best for
me. I am not proposing that anyone join me in agreement, as there are
some stretches in the interpretations, but I thought, on the whole, he
did a nice job of proving just what had been said here elsewhere, that
WS knew what he was doing, that it all holds together and it all makes
rationale sense if seen in perspective.
In brief, as I noted earlier, Wilson asks that we consider the play 1)
as acted, as if we never saw the play before nor knew the outcome, 2) in
the context of Elizabethan knowledge and sensibilities (Wilson kindly
includes in his volume's appendices various essays from that period that
support his positions), and 3) not impose post-Elizabethan (I think he
points to Romanticism and Historicism as the most prevalent positions)
thought processes or interpretations upon the work in any attempt to
discover what WS meant.
With all due respect, perhaps what is needed is not for me to read the
play again, but for you to read Wilson again. My copy is heavily hi-lighted.
Jim Blackie
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kenneth Chan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 2005 08:33:09 +0800
Subject: 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
V. K. Inman writes:
>"There is a hermeneutics principle at work here that is invalid. It is
>that Shakespeare makes sense. Certainly, if anything can be gleaned
>from centuries of Shakespeare criticism, it must certainly be that his
>plays are largely beyond our ability to reduce then to sensible
>aphorisms. To say that perhaps Shakespeare intended this is hardly,
>"rashly leaping to the conclusion that Shakespeare intended his plays as
>mere fodder for multiple conflicting interpretations." On the other
>hand if there is a single, simple, interpretation intended which has not
>come to light yet, perhaps Shakespeare intended this be the case-that it
>should long be undiscoverable. In either case looking for a single,
>simple, aphoristic interpretation of a Shakespeare play in extremely
naive."
Actually, Shakespeare does make sense. Practically all his plays,
including Hamlet, are meticulously crafted to convey specific profound
messages for humanity. Why then, you ask, have these messages been
missed over the centuries?
The answer is surprisingly easy to state. We miss Shakespeare's messages
because we do not wish to hear them. They hurt. Why?
Shakespeare's messages are aimed squarely at us, the average population,
and that is why they hurt. Most other literary writers aim messages at
those with weaker or less-than-average morals. The "more moral" majority
then readily grasps their meaning, partly because the message is
actually not applicable to the majority - we do not require it, and
hence there is no need for us to adjust our lives to conform.
Shakespeare's messages, on the other hand, do apply to the average
population, but to fully accept the message requires us to change our
perspective, and even our lifestyle, and change generates resistance.
The message hurts, and we do not wish to hear it. So, consciously or
subconsciously, we may simply refuse to accept what Shakespeare wants us
to feel.
Shakespeare is actually very dramatic in conveying his meaning. He does
not try to conceal his meaning at all. Instead, he continually repeats,
in very dramatic fashion, what he is trying to convey throughout his
plays. It is simply us who refuse to take in the meaning.
Take Hamlet for example. One of the key messages in Hamlet is this:
"death is inevitable but we refuse to take that reality to heart." What
this means is that while we readily admit that "everyone dies," we tend
to behave as though we will live forever. Thus we have not actually
realized we will die.
This failure to confront our own mortality is one reason why we have
missed the meaning of Hamlet for so long. We miss it because the message
hurts and we do not wish to hear it. The play, however, reveals that it
is Shakespeare's intent to make the denial of mortality a key issue. No
other Shakespearean play comes even remotely close to Hamlet in the
number of references to death and its reality.
So it is perhaps worth repeating this again: We should hesitate before
rashly leaping to the conclusion that Shakespeare intended his plays as
mere fodder for multiple conflicting interpretations. It may well be
that we have simply not seen the light yet.
Regards,
Kenneth Chan
http://homepage.mac.com/sapphirestudios/qod
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kenneth Chan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 2005 08:55:21 +0800
Subject: 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1349 Shylock, Hamlet, et al.
John-Paul Spiro writes:
>"To paraphrase your questions: "Life is complicated. Why would
>Shakespeare make his plays like that?"
>Hmm. Why would Shakespeare want to write plays that are like life? I
>have no idea."
Actually, you have paraphrased my meaning wrongly. Shakespeare does
write plays that are like life. However, he does not deliberately set
out to cater them to multiple conflicting interpretations. Shakespeare,
instead, makes very specific points in each of his plays, and he repeats
these points continually throughout the play.
John-Paul Spiro writes:
>"I do not, however, think the plays are like Rorschach tests or open to
>any given interpretation. There are good interpretations (i.e., based
>on what's actually in the texts) and bad ones. Some people isolate a
>few points in the texts and erect a large theory based on those few
>points and then say that theory explains everything. Some people take a
>phrase or sentiment from Shakespeare and find a similar phrase or
>sentiment in another text and therefore conclude a relation. Some
>people compare an event in a text to an event outside of the text (often
>taking place after the text was written)--which can be interesting,
>perhaps, but not particularly insightful about the text itself."
I couldn't agree more. When we interpret any play of Shakespeare, we
must find the meaning that fits in with every part of the play, and not
just some selected portion of it. Shakespeare generally conveys his
meaning via the experience of the play in its entirety. For this reason,
he carefully crafts practically every part of the play to fit the
intended meaning. So if our interpretation can only fit part of the
play, and not the whole thing, we have probably interpreted it wrongly.
Kenneth Chan
http://homepage.mac.com/sapphirestudios/qod
[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Florence Amit <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 21 Aug 2005 02:57:29 +0300
Subject: Subject: 16.1339 Shylock, Hamlet, et al
David Basch is amazed that he has found "Shakespeare's version of the
Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes", in "Hamlet". Yet if one takes into
account the "Prophetic soul" of the prince that appears in
transfiguration after transfiguration including Jesus and the Hebrew
prophets, until it climaxes with Luther than the references have their
due place in a long list of allusions from holy writings and events of
self-revelation.
The Lutheran example shows Hamlet a Reformation Protestant, to be under
siege on two fronts: externally by the Catholic church and its
materialism (allegorically his mother) and internally by the attack upon
his soul dealt by doctrine that is applied too severely: However no
matter how faulty his orientation it was a necessary prelude to the
truth, for " If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets they will
pay no heed even if someone should rise from the dead" Luke 16:3 .
Hamlet's "sweet religion" includes the Calvinistic anticipation of
'election'. It is this that makes Hamlet's loath to stain himself by
what is perceived as pagan 'revenge', a sin. But his father's, the
king's injunction is really based upon scripture: "... if a man has
the presumption to kill another by treachery you may take him even from
my altar to be put to death" Ex. 21: 12. It can only be Hamlet who has
that authority. But he is paralyzed and his searing doubts cause him to
weep, before the image of Pyrrus (pyrrhonism: a word for scepticism ).
Only Horatio is there for him (transfigured from Sebastian Castellio, an
"antique Roman") with his requirements of reason and judgment. Hamlet's
confusion reaches a climax when he plots to commit the real sin of
supplanting God's judgment by wanting to execute Claudius at a time that
will damn his SOUL, rather than obeying the commandment quoted above.
However Hamlet is saved. The Lutheran epiphany takes place in Gertrude's
closet when after killing Polonious unintentionally, he begs for
forgiveness, and so acknowledge his own sinfulness. He then is free to
do what he must do.
Florence
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