Showing papers on "Hamlet (place) published in 1973"

A Hamlet Without The Prince of Denmark

Abstract: The war in Vietnam and many less spectacular ignominies of American foreign policy during the last decades have evoked deep moral revulsion. But men cannot live by revulsion alone; shattering events intensify the quest for an interpretation which would not glide over the surface, but would try to uncover a method in the madness. Among many attempts to meet this need, Harry Magdoffs The Age of Imperialism stands out as one of the most important. During the four years that have passed since its appearance, it has exercised profound influence on the work of young radical scholars, won respectful treatment from the liberal critics, and

"Aureng-Zebe" and the Ritual of the Persian King

Abstract: Aureng-Zebe's irresolution conspicuously echoes Hamlet's, and the "luxurious Pomp" and music enforce a moral on mutability similar to that of the ensuing "life passage" admired by Dr. Johnson, but the allusion to "the Persian King," presumably fraught with a significance clear to the Restoration audience, remains obscure. Scott and Saintsbury attempt no explanation, while Summers, ignoring the explicit relationship between this tenuous regality and imminent death, misleadingly cites classical sources regarding the "proverbial luxury of the Persians."2 In 1675, however, Dryden's reference to a Persian monarch doomed amid opulence recalled two analogues, one literary and one historical, which lent ironic point to his hero's situation.

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and the Irony of History

Abstract: LUTARCH'S account of the death of Julius Caesar at the hands of the republican conspirators Brutus and Cassius provided Shakespeare with a story ideally suited to his dramatic intents. In general politically neutral, the story as Plutarch recounted it contained many examples of supernatural phenomena commenting upon political events. In addition, Plutarch underscored the ironic implications in the actions of the plotters: in trying to end the tyranny of Caesar, they succeeded only in creating the worse tyranny of the Triumvirate. Ultimately the very swords that they had used against Caesar were conveyed into their own bosoms. In words drawn from Hamlet, the "enginer [was] hoist with his own petar."' Shakespeare made little attempt to "distance" his material. Rome emerged in his version looking very like contemporary London, even to the notorious clocks, and Caesar, Cassius, and Brutus became recognizable English types who would have been perfectly at home in the reigns of Richard II or Henry IV. Indeed the lesson taught by Julius Caesar was the same lesson contained in the English history plays: not that killing a tyrant was wrong, but that men are not the masters of their own fates. A greater power than man's controls the events of history. What man actually accomplishes by his deeds is rarely what he had hoped to achieve. To quote Hamlet again: "Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own" (III. ii. 223). The Player-King in The Murder of Gonzago thus emerges as one of the greatest spokesmen of the Shakespearean world view. What we intend, and what we actually accomplish, are often vastly different. Man-may propose, but he does not dispose. Whether the plot involves the assassination of a would-be tyrant, or revenge against a usurping uncle who has murdered his brother the King, the path to the goal is rarely direct. Shakespeare made this point transparently clear in both Hamlet and Julius Caesar. The opening scenes of Julius Caesar 'present two vividly contrasted philosophical points of view, that of Caesar and that of Cassius. The men reason in different fashions. Cassius is clearly identified with an atheistic and materialist world view. "You know that I held Epicurus strong/ And his opinion" he tells Messala (V.i.77-78). An Epicurean was a man who did not credit the supernatural, feeling that the universe and man were self-governing, and that man was therefore the agent of his own destiny. In Shakespeare's plays the

Who said that--Hamlet or Hamlet?

Abstract: IKE every play, Hamlet is a complex rhetorical structure, a series of verbal and visual cues which guide its audiences' responses. The function of these cues is to create a coherent dramatic experience in the minds of its audiences, for that is j finally where all plays are enacted. At the same time, however, the speeches, gestures, and settings, all those things which serve as rhetorical cues, come together as dramatic phenomena in creating an apparently self-contained world on stage. Thus, about a single speech we may say either, "Here Hamlet reveals such and such about himself," or, "Here we learn to take this perspective rather than that one upon the action." The fact that we may say either or both points to an essential characteristic of dramatic art: the fact that in plays phenomena are used rhetorically. Because they are, we may demand of any play that it both be and mean. But difficulties arise when we assume that all speeches ought to be referable both to character and situation and to the play's address to its audience; or, failing that, when we assume that all speeches ought at least to be referable to character and situation. Here audiences of Hamlet have a distinct advantage over dramatic critics, because audiences may be content to observe the world on stage and respond to its rhetoric without worrying overmuch about the relationship between the two while critics must perforce attempt to understand both, with particular attention to their relationship. That is by no means an easy task at any level, even the simplest, for it is not always clear whether a particular speech serves both rhetorical and mimetic intentions. Or to put it another way, it is not always clear who the speaker of certain lines may be persumed' to be. Most exchanges in Hamlet offer no particular difficulty: the motives for speeches and the sources of speeches in the emotions and thoughts of the characters are roughly self-evident. Hamlet tells us 'that he thinks of himself as a "rogue and peasant slave," and then proceeds to tell us why. There are some sequences, however, in which the emotional and intellectual sources of speeches are not self-evident, and to understand these we are forced to hypothesize a continuous inner life for the characters of which we see only the phenomenal outgrowths. In sequences of this sort, we assume that the characters themselves are speaking out of some part of their beings that we do not see, and we take what they say as cues which guide us toward the configurations of their inner lives. In such speeches which are literally non sequiturs or somehow literally inappropriate in tone or quality, we get a sense of the reality of characters, and from these speeches we are led toward characterological analyses. Speeches of both sorts, the self-evident or the characterizing, may be treated indifferently under rhetorical or mimetic analyses, and what is said may be referred either to the address the play makes

Shakespeare's “Deceptive Cadence”: A Study in the Structure of Hamlet

Abstract: V.aP { ATE in Act III, Hamlet, his anger mounting with the cascade of suspicion, spying, incest, and treachery, discovers he has been betrayed even in the privacy of his mother's chamber. He strikes at the figure of the betrayer, whom, at least j momentarily, he takes to be his uncle, but with the arras pulled aside he finds, instead of Claudius, poor bumbling Polonius. At this point, the possible resolution of revenge dissolves in repentance for the "wretched, rash, intruding, fool" for whose accidental slaughter Hamlet realizes he must "answer well." The effect on an audience of this sudden aborted resolution is similar to the effect of what in classical music is called a "deceptive cadence," in which the usual impression of conclusion given by the chords of the "perfect" cadence is broken when the concluding tonic chord of the sequence "is-deceptively-replaced by some other chord,"' just as the King, on whom Hamlet's revenge must be concluded, is-deceptively-replaced by Polonius. In the design of the tragic rhythm of Hamlet, this "deceptive cadence" modifies the last segment of the tragic curve to effect a more subtle and varied emotional sweep. It becomes one of the factors which raise the raw materials of the dramatic revenge formula and the narrative tales of Amleth to a profoundly reverberating play. The examination of the structural place and effect of the stabbing of Polonius undertaken here will, hopefully, cast some light on the important subject of Shakespeare's tragic design: the relatively little-studied skill which builds into a potential dramatic performance a relevant pattern of events reflecting, and exciting the feel of, some of our deepest life experiences, such as the violent passage from willfullness to compassion we travel with King Lear. This is not to offer any fresh interpretation of Hamlet in the usual sense of a pyschology of the characters and their behavior. It is, instead, a description of the effect of one of the structural patterns manifest in the play.2 The analogy to music, specifically to the deceptive cadence, is purely suggestive and not meant to imply that the stabbing of Polonius is a deceptive cadence in Hamlet or that Shakespeare was consciously trying to imitate a form which is most frequently employed in music composed after

Image and Meaning in the Kozintsev Hamlet

Abstract: The Kozintsev Hamlet is remarkable for its powerful realizations of important moments in the play. The shots of Yorick's rotten cap and bells sitting at a jaunty angle atop his skull while a melancholy flute plays in the background, Gertrude's gloved black hand embracing Hamlet as the drawbridge closes him in, and the exciting duel which, due to the exaggerated shadows, is also a grotesque Dance of Death are hard to forget. The click of the ominous little casket aboard ship as Hamlet shuts in the death warrant of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the hollow reverberations of the gravedigger's hammer as the courtiers silently make their way back to the fog-shrouded castle, and the contrasts between the funeral, preparations for war, and later the sounds of the wind and troubled horses and the shouts and music of Claudius' revels stick in the memory. Nearly always the significant gesture, the memorable detail: recall the waiting ladies who carry one of Gertrude's elegant dresses out of her closet like a corpse as Polonius enters to spy on Hamlet, the intense look on Hamlet's face when with deliberate skill he shows the player how to pour the poison into the King's ear, Claudius' hand which mimes the pouring of the poison as he slowly rises and relives the nightmare of his crime. Gestures often pierce straight to the heart of a character. Gertrude continually raises her hand to her breast to hide what is there from others and from herself. Hamlet recoils from the blood of Polonius on his hands and attempts to wipe it off on the arras. Claudius smiles his hideous public smile as Gertrude drinks the poison. Changes in costume reflect changes in character and underline the theme of "seeming." Hamlet's monastic robe and later the doublet he straps on to duel with Laertes mark crucial stages in his growth. The Queen in her jewelled public finery, formal hair style, and frozen smile contrasts vividly with the pacing, troubled, solitary woman of the closet scene who seems older and terribly vulnerable. Part of the meaning of Hamlet's attraction to the players is shown in their costume, which is Yorick's, the Fool's motley. The Crown Prince is also the court jester, the detached observer, the madman who shatters conventions, puns, and turns scales of value upside down, the sacrificial figure upon whom all the sins of Denmark can be heaped. Nothing could express more clearly what happens to innocence in Denmark than the transformation of simple, pretty Ophelia first into one of Gertrude's court beauties, and then into a walking emblem of death in an iron corset, heavy black dress, and suffocating veil. The armor worn by Claudius' guards, Laertes. Fortinbras and his men. and, significantly enough, the warlike ghost establishes an important link between different forms of inhumanity. But the film is more than a series of powerful single images. Their effect is a cumulative one. Kozintsev continually urges his viewer to make connections by juxtapositions or repetitions. Some of the juxtapositions are elementary ones, as when he cuts from festive bulls' heads or a panting Great Dane to Claudius, or from Ophelia mad to Laertes mad. Some of the repetition is mere replication of characters which shows how "common" they are. There is a whole bevy of Osrics. any one of whom might come down the stairs to invite Hamlet to the duel. Gertrude's ladies in waiting, Fortinbras' fellow soldiers, Claudius' council - all mirror their betters, while Hamlet's dress, disdain for decorum, and eccentric movements make him unique. But frequently the pattern is more subtle, the links in the mind of the viewer not fully conscious. The proliferating dead fireplaces late in the film contrast with the blazing one stressed by a rising camera as Horatio tells Hamlet of the appearance of the ghost. Empty chairs become important. Claudius calls upon Hamlet to fill his role as his chiefest courtier and his son only to find the place unfilled. Hamlet sits at a table for a long time gazing at the two empty thrones at its head while he thinks upon the possible implications of the appearance of the ghost. …

History and the Histories in Julius Caesar

Abstract: ULlUS CAESAR, a play remarkable for an infinite variety of interpretation, was the turning point of Shakespeare's career. As much as it points ahead to the great tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth, so much does it draw upon the cycle of history plays that Shakespeare had recently completed. The legacy of these histories is illuminated if we can imagine Julius Caesar as the whole drama of the tetralogy telescoped into one play: Rome, like Shakespeare's England during the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, is a study of continuous disintegration and the inevitable progress of power-what Warwick describes to Henry IV as "the necessary form" of things that allowed Richard to prophesy, or "guess," what was to come:

Hollywood and Some Versions of Romeo and Juliet: Toward a "Substantial Pageant".

Abstract: Hollywood, despite a reputation for handling writers badly (if one can believe the stories about F Scott Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker), has nevertheless treated William Shakespeare with singular deference The industry moguls of the Thirties lavished money and energy on a series of supercolossal Shakespeare films There was the Sam Taylor The Taming of the Shrew (1929) starring Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, which was the first iShakespeare film in sound; the Warner Brothers (Max Reinhardt and William ]Dieterle) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), whose elaborate settings and galaxy of stars brought only woe at the box office ("Shakespeare is box office poison"); and the Irving Thalberg-George Cukor Romeo and Juliet (1936), which also failed to lure the masses into the opulent movie palaces of the times Even before then, before the invention of the sound camera, there had been a series of silent Shakespeare films, to include the D W Griffith The Taming of the Shrew ( 1 908), and the Vitagraph Julius Caesar (also 1 908) The sound productions of the Thirties received lavish care and attention Prof George Strunk of Cornell was employed to supervise the script of Romeo and Juliet; Italian Renaissance sets were hammered together on studio sound stages at prodigious expense And yet, it might be said, never have so many spent so much to arouse the admiration of so few A disenchanted Hollywood has since the Thirties, except for the 1953 John Houseman Julius Caesar (starring Louis Calhern, Marlon Brando, and James Mason), turned its back not only on Shakespearean tragedy but on Shakespeare in general Oh yes, there is the astonishing David Bradley Julius Caesar (1948) , produced for $5000 by undergraduates at Northwestern and Chicago with a then unknown Charlton Heston as Antony But that amateur 16 mm production, however worthy of praise, is not Hollywood any more than is the 1 966 Zeffirelli Taming of the Shrew with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, despite its Italo-American sponsorship The great tragedies - Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Lear - have belonged primarily to the British, Russian and German filmmakers, in that order British products such as the superb Olivier Hamlet (1948), the workmanlike Schaefer Macbeth (1960), the Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, the 1970 Polanski-Hefner Macbeth (probably the most exciting Shakespeare film ever made) have eclipsed the work of all others (what, one wonders, would they have done without Olivier?) Most recently the Tony Richardson Hamlet (1969), starring Nicol Williamson, and televised in 1973 by the National Endowment of the Humanities for the edification of the millions, has brought an even more up-to-date, or "relevant," as the vogue word puts it, interpretation of Hamlet to the screen The embodiment of counter-culture defiance - nastiness, surliness, and even arrogance - Williamson's Hamlet assumes the moral superiority of youth to middle age, ignoring the fatal possibility that the innocence of youth may conceal a capacity for evil of no less lethal consequences to mankind than the depravity of middle age The Russians have also filmed the tragedies courageously: there is the Sergei Yutkevitch Othello (1955), whose color cannot quite compensate for the overacting in the bedroom scene when Desdemona is slain (my undergraduates call it the "electric-eyeball scene"); the Kozintsev Hamlet (1964) with music by Shostakovich and the 1970 Kozintsev Lear (neither of which I have yet had an opportunity to see) Even the Germans have made their bid with the Maximilian Schell Hamlet, which shows Shakespeare not only filtered through a lens but also through the alembic of another culture: Schell's dubbed-in English has the metallic ring of spoken German, and his Claudius looks disturbingly like the German U- Boat commanders in the Hollywood war films of my childhood Singlehandedly of course Orson Welles has brought American creativity to the 1948 Macbeth (filmed under incredibly adverse circumstances) and the 1952 Othello, which "took from 1949 to 1952 to complete …

Three Filmed Hamlets.

Abstract: I want to compare three different filmed versions of Hamlet: Laurence Olivier's (1948), Richard Burton's (1964), and Richard Chamberlain's (1970). In a strict sense, only the first of these is a true film version. Burton's is really a filmed record of a theatrical performance of the play as directed by John Gielgud. Chamberlain's was directed by Peter Wood and adapted for television by John Barton. Nevertheless, by comparing all three, we can get a clearer notion. I believe, of how Shakespeare's tragedy translates into the medium of film, if we carefully bear in mind the different purposes for which each film was made. The first point to be made concerns establishing the text of the play for the shooting script. Obviously, something must be cut: but how much, and what? Moreover, what principles govern the cutting of the text as it has come down to us in modern editions (actually a conflated text longer than any version of the play Shakespeare ever saw or perhaps hoped to see)? Here two major principles operate. The first involves the particular interpretation of the play that the director has adopted to guide him in making his representation. The other involves the translation of parts of the text into cinematic effects (mainly visual ones, but including such non-verbal aural effects as music, offstage sounds, etc.). It will come as no surprise, therefore, that of the three versions we are considering. Burton's shows the least cutting - only about 500 lines, or approximately 1 2% of the text. This is because the theatrical presentation depends far more than cinema upon the verbal text itself. Olivier's version, besides transposing a number of scenes and passages, cuts about 1900 lines; Chamberlain's slightly more (roughly 2100 lines); each, that is, eliminates about half the total lines in the play. In both of these versions, whole scenes, or huge sections of several long scenes, are eliminated. For example, Olivier cuts all of the dialogue of the first two scenes in Act IV; Chamberlain does also, except for the last five lines of IV.ii. Both versions depend entirely upon the Dumb Show for the play within the play and omit the dialogue of "The Murder of Gonzago." Olivier eliminates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern completely from the play, along with Reynaldo and Fortinbras. Chamberlain, not quite so drastic, keeps all except Reynaldo but eliminates all of II. i as well as IV.iv, which contains Hamlet's final soliloquy ("How all occasions do inform against me"). By contrast, the only unit cutting that Burton makes is the omission of IV.vi, where Horatio receives a letter from Hamlet relating his adventure at sea. The reasons behind these cuts and others are various and instructive. Quite clearly, Olivier and Chamberlain need to compensate for the time taken for purely cinematic effects - the opening shots of Elsinore castle, Hamlet's following the Ghost to a different part of the set, the lively entrance of the players, the pursuit of Hamlet after his killing of Polonius, and so forth. Although this might be an overriding concern, it could not be the only operative one affecting any particular cut. Apart from a general need to shorten a play otherwise over four hours long, other considerations also have to be taken into account, principally that of the basic interpretation of the play. Both Olivier and Chamberlain simplify Shakespeare's Hamlet a good deal, but both attempt, at the same time, to develop a new and integral pattern from the abundant richness of the original / Olivier tries to emphasize the tortured soul of Hamlet anguished as much by sexual revulsion, compounded by suppressed oedipal feelings, as by the terrible duty of revenge. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who help develop the political dimension of the play and the theme of ambition, could then be disposed of, although with them (as with Reynaldo) much of the spying motif is necessarily sacrificed, too. 2 Chamberlain's passionate, idealistic Hamlet gains from the contrast with the toadying "fellow students," and, by retaining them, the great "What a piece of work is man" speech, which Olivier cuts, is preserved. …