Shakespeare

[kishnevi]

And what music/musicians does it mix together?

The link I included will give you a fairly good idea, although the link she used to show the music sources no longer works.

[Brian]

Having never really finished with the subject of Hamlet:

Thanks to various teachers and theatre directors I had always taken it on unquestioning faith that Hamlet "needs" a disguise and he is putting on "an antic disposition" because it allows his suspicions to go undetected.

In a way, the conspiring of events makes Hamlet's case a lot like a 70s/80s paranoia thriller - the kind where only our hero knows the truth, and can't prove it, and it seems like everyone is out against him. Travolta in Blow Out or Hackman in The Conversation: listening to the tape obsessively, aware that nobody else has the evidence you have. The psychic burden hits both characters hard; they can't catch the King as easily as Hamlet does, and persist in uncertainty until the time comes for them to take decisive actions.

I don't think it's a spoiler that in all three cases it ends badly...

But paranoia isn't a commonly remarked-on feature of Hamlet. Maybe this idea is far off-base and nutty. But it seems reasonable to me to suggest that Hamlet's grief and his famous "hesitation" are aggravated by psychological claustrophobia after the ghost's visit.

When I google "Hamlet paranoid", many of the results suggest that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Thanks to various teachers and theatre directors I had always taken it on unquestioning faith that Hamlet "needs" a disguise and he is putting on "an antic disposition" because it allows his suspicions to go undetected.

When I google "Hamlet paranoid", many of the results suggest that he is a paranoid schizophrenic. 

Why putting on "an antic disposition" would allow his suspicions to go undetected is beyond me. Wouldn't a radical change in his manner be exactly what would cause greater suspicion - especially when he spends 50 lines exhorting his friends to secrecy? All Hamlet is saying is that he may ("perchance") act strangely in the future, and if he does so, his friends must not behave in a way that shows they know anything about the matter. (Compare Edgar's "I heard myself proclaimed" speech in Lear, where he finds himself in real danger and chooses to disguise himself as a Bedlam beggar complete with "face grimed with filth," "presented nakedness," and "lunatic bans." Hamlet does nothing like this.)

But this is fun:

http://bestcustomessays.com/prince-of-paranoia-a-study-of-hamlet-s-personality-disorder/

Hamlet's hallucinations are very clear when he sees his father's ghost in his mother's bedroom. He sees and hears his father's ghost while his mother does not: Gertrude: 'To whom to you speak this?' Hamlet: 'Do you see nothing there?' Gertrude: 'Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.' Hamlet: 'Nor did you nothing hear?' Gertrude: 'No, nothing but ourselves.' Hamlet: 'Why, look you there – look how it steals away – My father in his habits as he lived-' (3, 4, 130-136)

Never mind that the "hallucination" was also seen by Horatio, Marcellus, Bernardo, and possibly Francisco. As the Scottish play (the banquet scene with Banquo's ghost, unless you want to make Macbeth insane too), Julius Caesar, and Richard III also make clear, ghosts could make themselves visible to whomever they wish.

With revenge in mind, Hamlet plans to fake his madness so that he may be free to pursue his father's killer.

How faking madness accomplishes this end is beyond me.

Everybody in the play, except for Horatio, believes him to be mad, and I believe he is from the beginning to the end.

KING: "Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, / Was not like madness." Well, gee, when the one person you're supposedly trying to convince doesn't believe you . . . .

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/hamletsanity.html

On this question there are four different hypotheses: (1) That Hamlet was throughout perfectly sane, but feigned insanity; (2) that Hamlet was after his interview with the Ghost more or less insane; (3) that in Hamlet insanity was latent, but was only fully developed after the Court-play; (4) that Hamlet was neither insane, nor feigned to be so.

Of course the gentleman writing this thoroughly incoherent essay doesn't even consider option 4.

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/discuss-wether-hamlet-sane-going-insane-434551

It seems too complicated to assume that Hamlet is sane, pretending to be insane, going insane, and actually insane. If he is insane, he cannot also be insane. And if he is insane, he cannot be sane. Hamlet cannot be sane, insane, going insane, and pretending to be insane or pretending to be going insane.

At this point the only insane ones appear to be the people writing these essays.

I submit that Hamlet was neither insane nor ever pretends to be otherwise. Hamlet is so cryptic, so lightning fast, so paradoxical and punning from the start of the play to the finish, that many are led to conclude he's feigning madness. But he sounds no different at the start of the play (i.e., before the supposed feigned madness) than he does later. You may be assured that the more Hamlet despises you ("I am glad on it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear"), the more cryptic and difficult he will become. But save for a couple of brief passages where he's obviously teasing Polonius (who is probably the author of the idea that Hamlet is crazy), everything Hamlet says makes perfect sense, though much of it may be difficult to unravel at first hearing.

[(poco) Sforzando]

In a way, the conspiring of events makes Hamlet's case a lot like a 70s/80s paranoia thriller - the kind where only our hero knows the truth, and can't prove it, and it seems like everyone is out against him. Travolta in Blow Out or Hackman in The Conversation: listening to the tape obsessively, aware that nobody else has the evidence you have. The psychic burden hits both characters hard; they can't catch the King as easily as Hamlet does, and persist in uncertainty until the time comes for them to take decisive actions.

I have always thought of Hamlet as a gigantic cat-and-mouse game, one where the roles of pursuer and pursued keep changing, and no one beyond the two principals really knows the stakes involved. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "catching the King as easily as Hamlet does"; Hamlet to my mind faces considerable difficulty in exacting the vengeance required of him – not so much because he is indecisive or oversensitive or unable to act (after all, sooner or later he is responsible for taking eight lives including his own), but because external circumstances make bringing Claudius to judgment very difficult.

One of the clichés about Hamlet is that if Hamlet killed the king right away, there would be no play. If such were the case, Shakespeare could be legitimately accused of artistic sloppiness, of just wasting 2-3 hours with filler. But as scholars like Eleanor Prosser and Bernard Grebanier have argued, Hamlet's first task is to ascertain whether the Ghost was telling the truth, and he hits on the device of presenting the play in hopes that Claudius will give himself away.

(The play provides ample support that supernatural beings might be demons in disguise attempting to lure humans into actions that might damage their immortal souls: "I'll cross it, though it blast me." "Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd," "What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord . . . . / And there assume some other horrible form, / Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason / And draw you into madness?" "The spirit that I have seen / May be the devil: and the devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps / Out of my weakness and my melancholy, / As he is very potent with such spirits, / Abuses me to damn me.")

Since the play scene doesn't occur until well past the half-way point ("O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a / thousand pound"), Hamlet can hardly be accused of failing to act or hesitating, especially when the fatal next move he makes is to impulsively kill Polonius and thus give Claudius the upper hand.

Even so, when Hamlet returns to England, armed with evidence that Claudius sought his own life, and convinced that now is the time to act ("is't not perfect conscience,/ To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd, / To let this canker of our nature come / In further evil?"), the court still accuses him of treason when he finally kills Claudius, and his final act is to ensure his reputation remains unstained by preventing Horatio from following him in death.

[Brian]

Sorry for the infelicity - by "catch the king," I meant the play and not the murder.

Hamlet faces a major problem even after the play is presented, in that, should he kill Claudius, he will find it near-impossible to explain this to his countrymen. I suppose you touch on that here:

the court still accuses him of treason when he finally kills Claudius, and his final act is to ensure his reputation remains unstained by preventing Horatio from following him in death.

The only real evidence of Claudius's murder is (1) the testimony of a ghost, and (2) Claudius behaving oddly after seeing a play. Horatio can testify that the ghost really did appear, although not exactly what the ghost said. The truth is, Hamlet needed a confession from Claudius - not a coded one (like leaving a theatre), but one that a witness could verify.

Maybe it's lucky for him that he was not relying on a real system of justice. 

Last night I revisited scene II.1 and thought that that was a big part of why Hamlet is portrayed as "mad". For one thing, they say he's "mad." But if Hamlet is merely grieving, or sincerely quivering in anxiety/paranoia over the weight of what he's just found out, that alleviates one of the play's big mysteries. After all, it's always seemed awfully cruel to me that Hamlet would feign madness by immediately alienating/ruining his girlfriend.

[Brian]

P.S. But what do you suppose the "antic disposition" line means?

[Brian]

Larger excerpt from Samuel Johnson's Hamlet commentary:

IF the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterised, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations, and solemnity, not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt.

The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.

Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.

The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.

The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious.

[(poco) Sforzando]

P.S. But what do you suppose the "antic disposition" line means?

I would answer obliquely, by starting with a character who unquestionably pretends madness. Here is Edgar in King Lear:

I heard myself proclaim'd;
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place,
That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may 'scape,
I will preserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth;
Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!
That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am.

Bedlam by this time was already considered London's hospital for the insane, and obviously this is an extreme, carefully considered scheme by one who senses himself in danger. Here is some of Edgar's language when feigning insanity:

Bless thy five wits! Tom's a-cold,--O, do
de, do de, do de. Bless thee from whirlwinds,
star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some
charity, whom the foul fiend vexes: there could I
have him now,--and there,--and there again, and there.

And here is some typical language by a character in Hamlet who goes insane:

Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
what we may be. God be at your table!

Now here is Hamlet, asking his friends not to give him away if he starts behaving strangely in the future:

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,

Unlike Edgar, who presents a carefully considered scheme, Hamlet at most says he might behave strangely or oddly. And you'd be hard put to it to find language from Hamlet that remotely resembles what we hear from Poor Tom or Ophelia. By contrast Hamlet is witty, punning, contemptuous of his enemies, intellectual, and always on point:

KING CLAUDIUS
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
HAMLET
At supper.
KING CLAUDIUS
At supper! where?
HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end.
KING CLAUDIUS
Alas, alas!
HAMLET
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING CLAUDIUS
What dost you mean by this?
HAMLET
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
KING CLAUDIUS
Where is Polonius?
HAMLET
In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger
find him not there, seek him i' the other place
yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within
this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
stairs into the lobby.

The second passage is easy enough, while the first is all about the great food chain whereby worms and maggots feed on dead human corpses of whatever rank (with a pun on the Diet of Worms that condemned Luther in 1521), and then men use the same worms as bait to catch the fish that men themselves eat, thus making it possible for a beggar to eat a king long dead. But at any performance the assholes will always start cackling as if to say, "I've got it! He's crazy! Ho-ho-ho!" (No, you don't get it. You don't get it at all.)

(Somehow MS Edge on my Windows 10 laptop doesn't seem to support the quote or other icons from the editing toolbar. Maybe I'll make this prettier on my desktop at home.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

Sorry for the infelicity - by "catch the king," I meant the play and not the murder.

Hamlet faces a major problem even after the play is presented, in that, should he kill Claudius, he will find it near-impossible to explain this to his countrymen. I suppose you touch on that here:The only real evidence of Claudius's murder is (1) the testimony of a ghost, and (2) Claudius behaving oddly after seeing a play. Horatio can testify that the ghost really did appear, although not exactly what the ghost said. The truth is, Hamlet needed a confession from Claudius - not a coded one (like leaving a theatre), but one that a witness could verify.

Maybe it's lucky for him that he was not relying on a real system of justice. 

Last night I revisited scene II.1 and thought that that was a big part of why Hamlet is portrayed as "mad". For one thing, they say he's "mad." But if Hamlet is merely grieving, or sincerely quivering in anxiety/paranoia over the weight of what he's just found out, that alleviates one of the play's big mysteries. After all, it's always seemed awfully cruel to me that Hamlet would feign madness by immediately alienating/ruining his girlfriend.

I'll take up the Ophelia question later (remember, it's not that Hamlet rejects Ophelia, but that Ophelia on orders from Polonius rejects him), but concepts of justice and law were certainly known in Elizabethan England (see The Merchant of Venice). Yet on the point of "evidence," I would certainly agree that Hamlet faces a major problem in that Claudius has plotted almost the perfect crime, and has the immense royal advantage of ruling by what would be considered divine right. Compare his easy put-down of Laertes's silly effort at usurpation:

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. 

I think that by the end when he returns from England, Hamlet has decided that come what may, whether he has proof or not, he is justified by conscience to finally enact his plan of revenge:

Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon--
He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage--is't not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm?

[Jaakko Keskinen]

As a king, Lear would be seen to rule by divine right, and to be God's divine representative on earth.

Great writers never believe in such nonsense although to give Bill some credit, there is evidence in some of his plays he is capable of avoiding glorifying of absolute monarchy. But often like in King Lear, I don't see that happening. In fact whatever Kent said to Oswald I would probably have said to Lear, for banishing his daughter for failing to suck up to him and it's Oswald I would have called a fool, for being a mindless yes man, which, quite frankly, I find less despicable than banishing your daughter on a whim.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Timon of Athens is often compared to King Lear and while there is much in King Lear that I enjoy and in Timon that I don't like, I think Timon is more interesting play of the two. One critic said that one of the main problems in Timon lies with the fact that unlike with Lear, it's hard to feel compassion for Timon. That is exactly how I feel about Lear whereas towards Timon I felt great deal of pity.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Great writers never believe in such nonsense although to give Bill some credit, there is evidence in some of his plays he is capable of avoiding glorifying of absolute monarchy. But often like in King Lear, I don't see that happening. In fact whatever Kent said to Oswald I would probably have said to Lear, for banishing his daughter for failing to suck up to him and Oswald I would have called a fool for being a mindless yes man which, quite frankly, I find less despicable than banishing your daughter on a whim.

What Shakespeare the man thought about such matters is unascertainable. He may well have not believed in ghosts, but he put ghosts in four of his plays. He may have not believed in fairies, but he made fairies essential to one of his most admired comedies. And when he introduced such characters, he knew the kinds of attitudes his audience would bring to them. Similarly, the doctrine of divine right was commonly understood to be in force in Shakespeare's England, as well as the France of Louis XIV. But as with so many things (like the doctrine of papal infallibility), it was not an unambiguous concept. When Charles I of England took the idea too literally, it led to his downfall and execution. And it was perfectly possible for Shakespeare to create a king with grave flaws, like Lear, both Richards, Leontes, and others. As for what "you" would have done, you aren't a character in the play and your hypothetical actions don't matter in the slightest.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

As for what "you" would have done, you aren't a character in the play and your hypothetical actions don't matter in the slightest.

Oh but they do matter. If the actions of the characters I am supposed to feel compassion towards (and I think it is really evident that you ARE supposed to feel compassion towards Lear) don't resonate strongly enough with my moral compass, I think it is entirely reasonable for me to give some criticism about it. Btw, I like Shakespeare just fine, in case it's not clear, but even The Bard of Avon is not above criticism.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Also, much of what determines whether I feel compassion towards a character, is whether the character in question is interesting. Claudius may have murdered his brother but his touching monologue in act III helps me to feel for his plight, while condemning his actions at the same time. Lear, unfortunately, I don't find that interesting.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Oh but they do matter. If the actions of the characters I am supposed to feel compassion towards (and I think it is really evident that you ARE supposed to feel compassion towards Lear) don't resonate strongly enough with my moral compass, I think it is entirely reasonable for me to give some criticism about it. Btw, I like Shakespeare just fine, in case it's not clear, but even The Bard of Avon is not above criticism.

No, my friend. I've gone over this point with you ten times, and you still refuse to get it. There's no "supposed to feel"; there is only what you do feel. There is ample reason in the play to believe Lear's treatment of Cordelia was monstrously unjust, and also ample reason to feel compassion for him in the later stages of the play. And "you" have no idea how "you" would have behaved had "you" been a courtier in Lear's presence.





'

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I do get it, I just don't agree with it.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Also, much of what determines whether I feel compassion towards a character, is whether the character in question is interesting. Claudius may have murdered his brother but his touching monologue in act III helps me to feel for his plight, while condemning his actions at the same time. Lear, unfortunately, I don't find that interesting.

Camille Paglia has gone on record as considering "Lear" a much more simplistic play than "Antony and Cleopatra," and G. Wilson Knight, a major critic, was a big fan of "Timon." T.S. Eliot, like our friend Mr. Smith here, considered "Hamlet" a failure (to which Harold Bloom replied, if "Hamlet" is a failure, then what's a success?) but considered "Coriolanus" along with "A+C" to be "Shakespeare's most assured artistic success." I'm sure if you look hard enough you will find someone who thinks "Titus Andronicus" the best thing Shakespeare ever wrote.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I do get it, I just don't agree with it.

Please look up the term "intentional fallacy."

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I'm sure if you look hard enough you will find someone who thinks "Titus Andronicus" the best thing Shakespeare ever wrote.

Indeed, in fact I know several people who think that way.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Last night I revisited scene II.1 and thought that that was a big part of why Hamlet is portrayed as "mad". For one thing, they say he's "mad." But if Hamlet is merely grieving, or sincerely quivering in anxiety/paranoia over the weight of what he's just found out, that alleviates one of the play's big mysteries. After all, it's always seemed awfully cruel to me that Hamlet would feign madness by immediately alienating/ruining his girlfriend.

Ah, the fair Ophelia. Nymph in thy orisons and all that. Though she goes mad herself (to keep her lunatic boyfriend company?), the poor thing does indeed come to believe Hamlet is mad, as do Polonius and so many critics.

One thing I learned when I was first taught Shakespeare well is to not necessarily believe what any one character says of another. Shakespeare's characters often come to erroneous conclusions about each other, and Hamlet is as unjust in his attitudes towards Claudius and others (like Ophelia and R+G) as Polonius is unjust towards Hamlet. The point is to respond to the characters as they themselves behave.

As for the girlfriend thing, as I said above, it's not that Hamlet rejects Ophelia as that Ophelia (on Polonius' orders) rejects him. Polonius specifically tells her to cut off all contact with Hamlet, and she promises to obey. Of course if you're wedded to the theory that Hamlet is insane, going insane, pretending to be insane, pretending to be going insane, or some combination of the above, you'll take the narrative where he shows up in her room as an example. I take that as having nothing to do with the ghost's revelation but rather his reaction to her sudden cutting off of all communication with him. From this, Polonius concludes he's a lunatic, but I don't see any reason to believe that old fool.

We then have the only prolonged interaction between Hamlet and Ophelia, the famous nunnery scene, which begins with Ophelia returning all the gifts Hamlet has given her. It's a complex scene, but it's just as clear that Hamlet begins by gently counselling her to enter a nunnery, as it is that he ends in a total fury from which she concludes he's mad. So why the change? Of course Ophelia is present because Polonius and Claudius are using her as a pawn to test Hamlet, but does Hamlet know this? One critic, J. Dover Wilson, decided to "restore" a "lost" stage direction (not present in any of the three surviving texts) where Hamlet "overhears" P and C deciding to overhear him. But Hamlet says nothing to confirm this, and it doesn't explain why his manner changes so abruptly mid-scene. The sensible way to stage this, IMO, is for Hamlet to become suddenly aware of others' presence in the room. Maybe Polonius makes a noise, or peeks out from his hiding place, or something like that. From there, Hamlet decides he is being used, and erupts in an explosion of anger which the innocent Ophelia totally misconstrues.

Finally, there's the question of whether Hamlet had sexual relations with Ophelia. Branagh was sure he did; however, the only snippet of support comes in a ditty Ophelia sings in her madness. But this is always the problem when a director tries to force an interpretation that is not justified by the text. I conclude that as far as Hamlet "ruining" Ophelia goes, this is a matter that remains in the background and for which there's no clear evidence one way or the other.