The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.1082 Wednesday, 6 December 2006
[1] From: Paul E. Doniger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 5 Dec 2006 19:14:24 -0800 (PST)
Subj: Re: SHK 17.1077 Dying Unshriven
[2] From: Will Sharpe <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 06 Dec 2006 15:02:01 +0000
Subj: RE: SHK 17.1077 Dying Unshriven
[3] From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Subj: Editor's Note
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul E. Doniger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 5 Dec 2006 19:14:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 17.1077 Dying Unshriven
Comment: Re: SHK 17.1077 Dying Unshriven
Cheryl, Louis, et al,
I can accept the possibility that Horatio's comment may be seen as a
criticism -- at least that is one viable interpretation. Michael
Pennington says it should be a "reproof" followed by "a silence in the
theatre" (_Hamlet: A User's Guide_ NY: Limelight Editions, 1996: 184),
and that seems a perfectly reasonable approach to me, although not the
only approach. Actually, considering Hamlet's short line just before
Horatio's comment ("Thou know'st already."), the pause could come before
he speaks rather than after. But a reproof or a criticism is a far cry
from horror. Also, it could be quite simply a quiet reaction that
carries no reproof at all. Horatio is something of a stoic who is "not
passion's slave;" consequently, it's quite probable that his comment
carries no judgment in it at all. Hamlet's self-defense (if that's what
it is) may come from his own inner turmoil or sense of guilt and not at
all from Horatio's personal reaction to the news.
Paul E. Doniger
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Will Sharpe <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 06 Dec 2006 15:02:01 +0000
Subject: 17.1077 Dying Unshriven
Comment: RE: SHK 17.1077 Dying Unshriven
Oh dear, it's happening again. 'Dying Unshriven', a fair yet fatal
question on something related to the action of Hamlet, has become yet
another pretext for talking about what Hamlet means. Kenneth Chan writes:
[PROSEQUOTE]
This is definitely true if we selectively use only the portions of the
play that suits our interpretation, while ignoring the rest. On the
other hand, if we have to fit our interpretation to the entire play -
every portion of it, without leaving anything out - we will find that
there is actually very little room for multiple varying interpretations.
Then, and only then, will we come close to the meaning of the play as
Shakespeare intended.
[/PROSEQUOTE]
Some thoughts on lost-ness. As literary historians, we occasionally
trawl through Henslowe's Diary and The Annals of English Drama looking
at play titles that have not survived, for multiple reasons, but let's
just say that the point is that we know they existed because we have
written evidence, but we're never going to know these plays, in spite of
our intense desire to do so. However, in this case there is still the
possibility that we might one day know them if they are found somewhere,
such as in the libraries of stately homes etc. It is very unlikely that
we are ever going to find Shakespeare's diary in the library of a
stately home or anywhere else, and even less likely that we are going to
find his mind, so we can say, I feel confident, with absolute certainty
that we are never going to know 'the meaning of the play as Shakespeare
intended'. All we are left with is a stalemate. It would be as
impossible for us to recreate a lost play, word-for-word (I should say
the odds are billions to one) as it would be for us to uncover the lost
meaning of Shakespeare as he sat down, quill in hand, to compose Hamlet.
But here's the thing: if I were to publish a book tomorrow that either
a) reproduced, word-for-word, the Ur-Hamlet, or b) correctly rendered
Shakespeare's intended meaning for Hamlet, there would be no way for
anybody to know that that's what I had actually done in either of these
cases (unless we found the Ur-Hamlet in a stately home, or in Thomas
Bodley's grave etc. and verified it). If we accept this, the only
recourse left open to us when it comes to Shakespeare's lost meaning
behind a text that we do have is to manufacture our own around this
cultural edifice, to witter on about it in the hope of convincing others
of our interpretations. Once we accept that anything we say about Hamlet
will be our own, or somebody else's who isn't Shakespeare, we can see
the fruitlessness of the exercise of striving for authentic meaning, the
crusade that will take the faithful follower into the holy presence of
truth. Perhaps these discussions might be more fruitful if we used them
as a springboard for discussing the state of scholarly ideas about these
phenomena, such as Terence Hawkes's work on this very matter of making
meaning out of Shakespeare and what's been published since to
challenge/augment it. In fact, I remember Hardy suggesting this very
thing a few months ago: that we should have round-table discussions,
with guest moderators, that might actually involve hard research and
considered opinions on published work. That way, this forum might become
what it was intended to be: a way of using technology to maintain a
scholarly community, a sort of year-round conference that allows ideas
to be swapped without needing to all fly to a particular city. Sadly, it
seems to be going the way of most things on the internet, where any old
thing can get published.
Will Sharpe
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Subject: Editor's Note
Will Sharpe above has raised two issues that I wish to comment on.
[1] Interpretations - Pet Theories - The Meaning of Shakespeare -
Shakespeare's Intentions - Hidden Truths - TRUTH and so on
A major issue that has troubled me in recent years as the editor and
moderator of this list involves the vast disparity between the ways that
the majority of academics and non-academics regard reading/interpreting
Shakespeare. I unfortunately so not have the time right now to explore
the implications of the statement I have just made. In fact, I spend a
large part of an entire semester in graduate course in Research Methods
making the distinction between reading and interpreting. Suffice to say
when in the past I have mentioned that I am thinking about banning
discussions of Hamlet or the sonnets it is generally in response to my
frustration with those who are using the discussion to present for
xteenth time the MEANING of this or that, by which they usually mean
their own pet theory that they are convinced in the one and only way to
interpret the meaning of the work, the TRUTH. Will has well expressed
the futility of such efforts here.
[2] Round Table Discussions
Indeed, I recently initiated a thread about the possibility of adding a
new feature to SHAKSPER, round table discussions with guest moderators
on focused topics, something like an electronic version of SAA seminars,
carried out online. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be a great deal
of interest in my proposal - undoubtedly, because so many of us have
little extra time. For this reason, I have not pursued this possibility.
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