Shakespeare

[Madiel]

I really doubt anyone is confused about that. I'm not and Jan Kott, despite what you might infer from the title of his book, is not. In fact I'm grateful to the section in his book on Midsummer Nights Dream where he explains the ingredients of folk potions mentioned in the play as they would have been immediately understood at that time, including those in the names of the faeries (including cobweb).

It wasn't the book that inspired my comment.

[hopefullytrusting]

This is one of the most important books when it comes to authorship, in general, but Shakespeare is the case study - it also has an entire chapter dedicated to Hamlet:



From the slug:

"The familiar versions of these plays were created through ongoing revision in the theater, a process that did not necessarily begin with Shakespeare's original manuscript or end when he died. An ascription by the company of any play to "Shakespeare" did not imply that it was following a fixed, authorial text; rather, Marino writes, it indicates an attempt to maintain exclusive control over a set of open-ended, theatrically revised scripts. Combining theater history, textual studies, and literary theory, Owning William Shakespeare rethinks both the way Shakespeare's plays were created and the way they came to be known as his. It overturns a century of scholarship aimed at re-creating the playwright's lost manuscripts, focusing instead on the way the plays continued to live and grow onstage."

[Madiel]

This is one of the most important books when it comes to authorship, in general, but Shakespeare is the case study - it also has an entire chapter dedicated to Hamlet:



From the slug:

"The familiar versions of these plays were created through ongoing revision in the theater, a process that did not necessarily begin with Shakespeare's original manuscript or end when he died. An ascription by the company of any play to "Shakespeare" did not imply that it was following a fixed, authorial text; rather, Marino writes, it indicates an attempt to maintain exclusive control over a set of open-ended, theatrically revised scripts. Combining theater history, textual studies, and literary theory, Owning William Shakespeare rethinks both the way Shakespeare's plays were created and the way they came to be known as his. It overturns a century of scholarship aimed at re-creating the playwright's lost manuscripts, focusing instead on the way the plays continued to live and grow onstage."

Hmm. Interesting, and to a fair extent true although the purpose of the First Folio fairly clearly was to provide definitive versions compared to other versions that had been published.

But it's the case with theatre in general that things will change in the course of a run, or in a later revival. I was reminded only last night about Mozart writing new arias for a later production of Figaro.

[Mandryka]

I haven't yet read it (or even found a copy), but I know Martin Dodsworth's Hamlet Closely Observed is spoken of as a classic.



That's 1985, but I don't think this is the kind of subject where more recent means superior or an advance. except in exceptional circumstances. There may be more recent journal articles on, say, what computer analysis of the text has suggested about this or that.

Just picked it up. Been reading about the Elizabethan concept of honour - the first chapter- on the way home. Seems very thorough, close reading.  It certainly drew the focus of my attention to Laertes and Polonius and Ophelia more than ever before.

[Mandryka]

Some questions about Hamlet

Why is the ghost of King Hamlet invisible to Gertrude?
Could Lady Macbeth have persuaded Hamlet to act?
Is Hamlet a funnier play than Shakespeare's comedies?
Which version of Hamlet is the right one?

[JBS]

Some questions about Hamlet

Why is the ghost of King Hamlet invisible to Gertrude?
Could Lady Macbeth have persuaded Hamlet to act?
Is Hamlet a funnier play than Shakespeare's comedies?
Which version of Hamlet is the right one?

1) One possibility is that in that scene, Hamlet is just imagining he sees the ghost, and the ghost's speeches are his own mind talking to himself. To a degree this also applies to the opening scenes, where Hamlet is the only one to actually hear what the ghost says.

2) No, because she's not Lady Hamlet.

3)One could make it a very dark comedy, but it wouldn't be in the same league as the official Comedies.

4)They're all the right version.

[Karl Henning]

I don't know the source, and I've posted this before, I'm sure... but it's been observed that if Othello and Hamlet swapped protagonists there would have been no drama in either case. Othello would not have hesitated to slay Claudius, and in waiting and watching, Hamlet would have been assured of Desdemona's innocence. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

1) One possibility is that in that scene, Hamlet is just imagining he sees the ghost, and the ghost's speeches are his own mind talking to himself. To a degree this also applies to the opening scenes, where Hamlet is the only one to actually hear what the ghost says.

2) No, because she's not Lady Hamlet.

3)One could make it a very dark comedy, but it wouldn't be in the same league as the official Comedies.

4)They're all the right version.

1) Ghosts in Shakespeare are always capable of making themselves visible to only those they wish. Compare the banquet scene in Macbeth, where Banquo's ghost is only visible to the King and not to any of the other guests. As for the Ghost in Hamlet, it is visible to 3-4 other people including Horatio, and when it beckons Hamlet to follow it, it does so to impart its knowledge to Hamlet alone. Certainly before hearing the Ghosts' speech, Hamlet may have hated his uncle, but he did not think Claudius a murderer. As it is, in the first scene there is also the line "It was about to speak, when the cock crew," or something like that.

4) The first quarto is generally discarded as being likely a corrupt text, and most editions conflate the second quarto and first folio which are in most respects identical except for a few hundred lines here and there.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't know the source, and I've posted this before, I'm sure... but it's been observed that if Othello and Hamlet swapped protagonists there would have been no drama in either case. Othello would not have hesitated to slay Claudius, and in waiting and watching, Hamlet would have been assured of Desdemona's innocence.

Up to a point, yes. Hamlet would certainly have seen through Iago's deceptions, but even Othello could not have just committed an act of regicide against Claudius solely on the word of a ghost. As the play makes clear, Hamlet knows the ghost could have been a demon from hell, and he needs some way of testing the veracity of the ghost before he can possibly act: "The spirit I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape, and out of my weakness and my melancholy abuses me to damn me." That's why he puts on the play, and not just to waste time indulging in some amateur theatricals. Claudius's behavior during the play scene is the evidence Hamlet needs to corroborate the ghost's accusations. Unfortunately Hamlet blows everything immediately afterwards by killing Polonius, and this gives Claudius the excuse he wants to ship Hamlet to England with the plan of having Hamlet executed there.

[Mandryka]

1) Ghosts in Shakespeare are always capable of making themselves visible to only those they wish. Compare the banquet scene in Macbeth, where Banquo's ghost is only visible to the King and not to any of the other guests. As for the Ghost in Hamlet, it is visible to 3-4 other people including Horatio, and when it beckons Hamlet to follow it, it does so to impart its knowledge to Hamlet alone. Certainly before hearing the Ghosts' speech, Hamlet may have hated his uncle, but he did not think Claudius a murderer. As it is, in the first scene there is also the line "It was about to speak, when the cock crew," or something like that.

That's very plausible but one thing's bugging me - he says "Oh my prophetic soul." He seems to have hated his uncle because of the incest and the speed of his mother's re-marriage - which poses the question, why didn't he intervene?  And why such a detestation of Levirate marriage? Nobody else besides Hamlet seems concerned in the slightest.

[(poco) Sforzando]

That's very plausible but one thing's bugging me - he says "Oh my prophetic soul." He seems to have hated his uncle because of the incest and the speed of his mother's re-marriage - which poses the question, why didn't he intervene?  And why such a detestation of Levirate marriage? Nobody else besides Hamlet seems concerned in the slightest.

I wouldn't take "Oh my prophetic soul" to indicate that Hamlet was aware of what was after all a secret assassination. Hamlet is initially disgusted by the speed of the marriage, yes, but since Claudius is a capable ruler and to all indications an honorable man, Denmark is content to look the other way. (Surely we can think of modern instances where a society is equally content to do so.) And Hamlet had no grounds to intervene. Until the ghost's revelation, he had no reason to believe a murder took place at all.

[JBS]

But one can imagine a scenario in which the Ghost causes previously inchoate suspicions in Hamlet's mind to coalesce and surface. Being away at college would leave some gaps, but Hamlet while growing up would have plenty of opportunity to note any signs of sibling jealousy and underhanded behavior on the part of Claudius.  "Oh my prophetic soul" might mean "it's obvious now that you mention it".

[Karl Henning]

Up to a point, yes. Hamlet would certainly have seen through Iago's deceptions, but even Othello could not have just committed an act of regicide against Claudius solely on the word of a ghost. As the play makes clear, Hamlet knows the ghost could have been a demon from hell, and he needs some way of testing the veracity of the ghost before he can possibly act: "The spirit I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape, and out of my weakness and my melancholy abuses me to damn me." That's why he puts on the play, and not just to waste time indulging in some amateur theatricals. Claudius's behavior during the play scene is the evidence Hamlet needs to corroborate the ghost's accusations. Unfortunately Hamlet blows everything immediately afterwards by killing Polonius, and this gives Claudius the excuse he wants to ship Hamlet to England with the plan of having Hamlet executed there.

How all occasions did inform against him. I move we accept as emended.

[Madiel]

Marrying your dead brother's wife was not THAT unusual amongst the upper crust so as to arouse suspicion on its own.

Ask Henry VIII.

[SimonNZ]

Is Hamlet a funnier play than Shakespeare's comedies?

I'd rephrase that as: "is there more wit (caustic, sardonic, irreverent, etc) in Hamlet than there are jokes in the comedies?"

And quite possibly...but none of it should be played for chuckles.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Marrying your dead brother's wife was not THAT unusual amongst the upper crust so as to arouse suspicion on its own.

Ask Henry VIII.

Similarly switching sexes (from Iolanthe): "He shall prick that annual blister, marriage with deceased wife's sister."

[San Antone]

Some questions about Hamlet

Why is the ghost of King Hamlet invisible to Gertrude?
Could Lady Macbeth have persuaded Hamlet to act?
Is Hamlet a funnier play than Shakespeare's comedies?
Which version of Hamlet is the right one?

Shakespeare's comedies are not called that because they are "funnier" than the tragedies, but because they end with all characters alive and enjoying happy resolutions to their problems which occupied the previous action. 

The tragedies are such because the main characters die after succumbing to the fatal flaws of their characters.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Shakespeare's comedies are not called that because they are "funnier" than the tragedies, but because they end with all characters alive and enjoying happy resolutions to their problems which occupied the previous action. 

The tragedies are such because the main characters die after succumbing to the fatal flaws of their characters.

True. The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado about Nothing both have serious elements to their actions, but both end with happy resolutions. (I'm well aware some might not say this about Merchant.)

[Karl Henning]

On t'other hand, I recently watched Comedy of Errors which was one of the first of the plays ever I read, but which I've pretty much neglected since. It is great-grandfather to the Marx Bros.

[JBS]

On t'other hand, I recently watched Comedy of Errors which was one of the first of the plays ever I read, but which I've pretty much neglected since. It is great-grandfather to the Marx Bros.

And itself is derived from a play by Plautus, Menaechmi. But Shakespeare improved it by doubling the mixed-up pair (in Plautus, there's only one servant) and deleting the less admirable aspects of the married twin's character. Shakespeare also added in the characters of the Antipholi's parents. In Plautus the father died when his sons were still young children, and the mother not present.

One curious plothole in both Plautus and Shakespeare is that the brother from Syracuse arrives in Ephesus (Epidamnus in Plautus) because he's searching for his long lost twin, but it doesn't seem to occur to him or his brother or either of the servant brothers that the mistakes in identity they encounter are signs that he has stumbled over the person he's looking for.