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)