The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0318 Monday, 15 June 2009
[1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 12 Jun 2009 12:57:39 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
[2] From: Steve Roth <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 13 Jun 2009 08:21:05 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
[3] From: Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 13 Jun 2009 12:24:47 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 12 Jun 2009 12:57:39 -0400
Subject: 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
>Claudius seems to become king by virtue of his blood relation to King
>Hamlet although, later, it appears that Laertes may become king via
election
>due to his popularity.
This is not a contradiction. Claudius was elected king, evidently
receiving more votes than Hamlet ("popp'd in between th' election and my
hopes"), presumably by the assembly of nobles who in fact elected Danish
kings. Relationship to the deceased king was probably a factor, but
surely was not determinative. (It is curious to consider why the
electors made this choice and whether they were not right to do so.)
Laertes, on the other hand, was not being elected; he was being
installed via rebellion.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Roth <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 13 Jun 2009 08:21:05 -0700
Subject: 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
It's just worth noting that F1 and Q2 are quite a mess regarding the
recipient of Claudius' instruction to "give her good watch." (See TLNs
2744-2760.) Horatio is present in both versions, but in F1 Horatio's Q2
speeches are given to a "Gent." (The only speech given to Horatio in F1
is given to the queen -- more appropriately it seems, given the "Let her
come in" command -- in Q2.) Horatio is not present in Q1, FWIW.
And Horatio is definitely not present (in any edition) when Ophelia's
death is reported, hence he doesn't know about her death -- only her
madness -- in the graveyard. So that's one Horatio problem partially put
aside.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 13 Jun 2009 12:24:47 -0400
Subject: 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0312 What ho, Horatio
It is impossible to address all the supposed loose ends in Hamlet and
futile to hope for much in the way of general agreement, but a good
number of those discussed on this thread are truly red herrings. Let me
point out a few and offer what I consider plausible explanations for the
benefit of the distressed.
1. Hamlet is not necessarily ignorant of Ophelia's death. What the
audience sees him being surprised by is that the approaching nighttime
burial being performed with such maimed rites is hers; not quite those
of a suicide, but apparently the best that the church will go along with
even after the influence of "great command." And from Laertes's
reaction, one may infer that the matter was up in the air until the last
moment, a time when Horatio was away from Elsinore being conducted by
the pirates to the secret place where Hamlet was waiting. If Horatio
reported to Hamlet only Gertrude's false (as I have argued elsewhere)
but official report of the drowning as an accident, Hamlet's reaction is
exactly what we should expect.
2. Fortinbras's highly dubious "recklessness," if that's what it is,
occurred before his financial problems were resolved by his uncle, when
he no longer had to worry about his "stomach" and the economic effects
of disinheritance resulting from his father's fatally bad bet with old
Hamlet. As we hear in The Threepenny Opera "First feed our bellies and
then talk right and wrong;" so Fortinbras was willing to talk right and
wrong after his uncle awarded him a generous allowance, confirming that
the motivation of his earlier invasion threat was purely economic. I
have also dealt with this elsewhere, in articles available online at
Hamletworks.org
3. The ghost does not reveal the secrets of his prison house, his
"partial" revelation being nothing more than the vaguest reference to
details that everyone believes already. If you want the real skinny, die
unshriven and find out first hand.
4. The ghost reprimands Hamlet for his blunted purpose while Hamlet is
reproving Gertrude -- after being told expressly not to direct his
mandate for revenge against her. Isn't that what we should be thinking
about in interpreting the ghost's words, rather than Hamlet's
willingness to kill someone (Polonius) in possible hope of getting at
his real target, Claudius? Many have argued that the added lines in The
Murder of Gonzago related to Gertrude in one way or another, so this is
hardly a new suggestion.
5. Passing over the other listed points as largely not requiring
answers, it seems clear that the famous claim of inconsistency in the
"undiscovered country" passage is entirely specious, and Hamlet's words
have nothing at all to do with the matter of ghosts, revenants, nor
benign or diabolic spirits. Hamlet is mulling the question "how to get
it right" in the matter of earthly choice, how to model his behavior so
as to avoid the dreads of post mortem torment such as reported by his
father's ghost and thus made an issue in the play, and as generally
believed in any event. The inability of a traveller to return from that
bourne, in this context, is adequately (and exclusively) explained by
understanding it as meaning that one doesn't get a mulligan; one cannot
come back to earthly life in order to relive and correct wrong choices
in the matter of suffering or taking arms against the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune, and so on. If someone else's shade comes back to
deliver ambiguous messages to the living, that's another matter; it is
the context or back story for, but not the subject of the "to be"
soliloquy.
With all there is to be said and thought about the play, these supposed
inconsistencies strike me as the sort of "gotchas" we hear thrown about
on talk TV and radio, arising from insufficiently attentive and
energetic observation, reading, and thinking about subtle distinctions
and nuances that are said to have engaged the wiser sort back in
Shakespeare's day. They are not what makes the play deep and rich but
distractions from it.
Cheers to all,
Tony Burton
_______________________________________________________________
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.