The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0095 Thursday, 14 February 2008
[1] From: Cheryl Newton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 13:13:53 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
[2] From: Connie Geller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 14:15:46 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
[3] From: William Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 22:46:28 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
[4] From: Aaron Azlant <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 23:38:00 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Cheryl Newton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 13:13:53 -0500
Subject: 19.0090 Solid Flesh
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
I've always thought of this as "solid flesh," while the speech ends not
with "a dew" but "adieu." As early as this, Hamlet is contemplating suicide.
Cheryl Newton
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Connie Geller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 14:15:46 -0500
Subject: 19.0090 Solid Flesh
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
I hope a non-scholar can venture a question here: Is there any
possibility that "a dew" is meant to be adieu"? That would leave the
ambiguity of "solid" open.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: William Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 22:46:28 -0500
Subject: 19.0090 Solid Flesh
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
Gordon Williams in his Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in
Shakespearean and Stuart Literature defines "dew" as "sexual emission."
Williams defines "flesh" (entry 5), as "allusive of erection." I leave
"solid flesh" to your imagination. Of course, you will point out that
this is completely out of context. Hamlet could hardly be referring to
coition at this point in the action, could he? Well, two points: death
is a well known aphrodisiac, and Shakespeare could never resist a pun
(as Johnson almost said).
Bill
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Aaron Azlant <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 11 Feb 2008 23:38:00 -0500
Subject: 19.0090 Solid Flesh
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0090 Solid Flesh
Please pardon a moderate diversion from the topic at hand, but whatever
the resolution of sallied /sullied / solid (and there are a number of
convincing cases for the latter in this thread), I find it interesting
that the same line also contains "too too" and appears in a speech that
evolves into a discussion of the two months since King Hamlet has passed.
I don't remember if I've bombarded this list with an inventory of the
many superfluous doubles in Hamlet, but these range quite spectacularly
from doubled characters such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (and the
Ambassadors and Voltemond / Cornelius) to the double interruptions of
the ghost in the first scene (while characters discuss what they have
twice seen two nights' previously) to, as George Wright discusses, the
many hendiadys constructions ("slings AND arrows", "stand AND unfold")
in the play.
"Too too" risks an roll of the eyes, I know, because it doesn't call
much attention to itself-certainly less attention than I have called to
it-but it does have something of an subsequent revival in "double,
double, toil and trouble." I am happy to expand the above list upon
request (and ad nauseum); The Mousetrap contains an unusually large
number of doubles. The pattern is throughout Shakespeare but is most
prevalent in Hamlet and is maybe the most impressively diverse motif
that I know of in literature.
--Aaron Azlant
_______________________________________________________________
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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.
