enter shakespeare. hum 2052: civilization ii spring 2012 dr. perdigao january 27-february 1, 2012
TRANSCRIPT
Enter Shakespeare.
HUM 2052: Civilization IISpring 2012Dr. Perdigao
January 27-February 1, 2012
• Born 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon; father a glove-maker
• Social mobility possible; merchant class could sell goods for money for land; father becomes prominent in town council but later goes bankrupt
• Early life, during father’s success, probably attended town grammar school, learning Latin, history, classical literature; did not attend college but well-educated
• Shakespeare started writing plays in 1590, mostly comedies and histories• 1600-1611, mostly tragedies and romances
• Successful in his time; regarded in 1600 as best playwright; earns money, buys father coat of arms and largest house in Stratford
• Stops writing in 1611, goes home; dies in 1616
• 1558: Elizabeth became queen (1558-1593)
• Question of female ruler after Mary
• Long period of peace, avoided wars, prosperity
• Shakespeare’s works reflecting state of the country with change in genres
Establishing Shakespeare
• With Reformation, increase in literacy, popularity of plays
• Period of colonization—danger, fear, change, and hope in plays
• Changes in beliefs, science
• 1576—first theatre built in London
• Fear of influence of plays, regulations
• Ideas of women, thought to be dangerous and wild, not allowed to perform in plays
• Idea of “society, a polis, going to pieces—or even more, with its realization that it has already gone to pieces” (2407).
• “sense of disenchantment,” idea of adopting an “individual code of conduct” (2409), connection to DQ
Framing
• Use of language to convey complex opinions and feelings
• Use of metaphors, images, and created fast-changing English vocabulary with new words invented
• Question if Shakespeare wrote Hamlet
• Different readings of Shakespeare:
• Deconstruction: language lacks coherent meaning, no final sense to be made; “Death of the author”
• Marxism: ideas about class, politics; question if Shakespeare was politically conservative
• Feminist theory: patriarchal society with little freedom for women
Re-readings
The Magical World of Puppetry
Poor Shakespeare
• As revenge tragedy, popular play
• Hamlet plagiarized from earlier play
• Conflict of old ethos of honor and new centralized state
• Legal system became more centralized, powerful; revenge not acceptable with new justice system
• Tension between avenging death and following legal system
• Someone wants revenge but knows it is wrong
• Play speaks to the role and responsibilities of the individual
• Definition of the hero is changing, becomes less violent
• Concerns with relationship between past and present; dead come back and ask to be avenged
On revenge
• Plot turns on revenge
• Society unable to impose justice because it is corrupt
• Individual responsible to seek revenge because society cannot take care of it
• Revenge is both necessary and wrong, putting hero in a bind
• Revenge hero gets revenge but appears corrupt after “housecleaning” and he eventually dies (killed by self or others)
• All end up dead
Conventions in revenge plays
• Renaissance outlook—positive view of human achievement vs. the negative view (melancholy, sense of void and purposelessness) (2407)
• Disenchantment with the world in which he lives; “Ideals that once had power and freshness have lost their vigor under the impact of satiety, doubt, and melancholy” (2409)
• Influence of Machiavelli—idea of sneaky, scheming characters, using poison; hero becoming Machiavellian; acquisition and maintenance of power, investigation of means to that end (murder plots)
• Malcontent—character feels wronged, abused by system
• Metadrama—calls attention to the fact that it is a play; plays within the play to act out plot
• Life as permeable, play between reality and illusion
• Seeming to be versus being
Themes
• Structure of play and language
• Spying and acting, reason versus emotion (as justification for action)
• Family relationships and psychology
• Gertrude and Ophelia
• Death
Themes
• Play between inside/outside (scene 1 to scene 2)
• Place of corruption
• Sons avenging fathers
• Presence of the ghost, supernatural; idea of “unnatural”
• Claudius’ treatment of the “Norway problem” versus Old Hamlet’s
• Question if people are good on the inside or corruptible from the outside
• Spying
• Reynaldo on Laertes; King and Polonius on Ophelia; Ophelia on Hamlet; delegates in Denmark
• Spying—within, between families, foreign policies
• Denmark—unstable, lack of trust
• Appearance versus reality—hiding, exposure
Acts I and II, Acting 101
• On Gertrude’s actions (I.2, 130)
• Marcellus: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.4, 91)
• Ghost: “Mark me” (I.5, 2); “remember me” (I.5, 90)
• Idea of what is “unnatural”
• “whole ear of Denmark” (I.5, 36)
Acts I and II, Acting 101
• Discussion of madness between King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Polonius, and Ophelia (II.2, 93)
• “To be, or not to be” (III.1, 56): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YHMYkUrV7A
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07IQp9uaIWg&feature=related
• The Mousetrap (III.2)
• In the bedroom, enter Freud (III.4, 53)
Act III, if he chooses
• Idea of acting—as doing something or pretending to do something
• Actors as “players”
• Relation of action and emotion
• Delays—Hamlet as not emotional, coward, doesn’t know if ghost is telling the truth
• Laertes—moves immediately to revenge, as foil to Hamlet
• But uses dishonorable method for “honorable” actions
• Laertes’ change of heart—Claudius to blame, not honorable actions
To act or not to act
• By act III, all original patriarchs are dead
• Sons left to avenge deaths, idealize fathers after death
• Identities of sons in crisis
• Polonius’ death—lives and dies behind façade
• Ophelia, Gertrude—weak, passive
• Characters disgusted by power women have over them, power struggle
• No strong male figure
• What’s rotten in Denmark? Hamlet: women; Hamlet’s attitude toward women
• Difficult to discern Shakespeare’s attitude because thoughts and actions given to characters
Gender divides
• Spirituality, idea of fate
• Hamlet praying
• Skulls in graveyard
• Death as both joke and tragedy
• Words to Horatio
• Retelling of story
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds5nhGEk0Bc
Death, death, more death
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApcrdI-XPdU -- Band of Brothers St. Crispin's Day Speech
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owW4paF6lSQ -- Hamlet Rap
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iM1kb3b9t8 -- Melvin trying to read Hamlet
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRXa6qGgTZ8&p=92AA609ABDE3D793 -- Starts teaching Hamlet and assigning parts
Civilization and Youtube (thanks to Brittany)