If you take a look at the sources that influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (his first tragedy as well as his first Roman play), Seneca's Thyestes and Ovid's story of Philomela from Metamorphoses, you'll see that the bloodiness of his play didn't come out of nowhere. Even by today's standards, these works are nasty. Not that Shakespeare didn't match them in this regard: he did. In fact, thanks to his unequaled verisimilitude, he surpassed them, and created a play that is harrowing to watch or read. But as I mentioned in my previous post, I think recent audiences and commentators are getting past this fact and seeing some of the many qualities that the play contains. I also mentioned in my last post that I think the writing of the play was crucial to Shakespeare, and that I would try to demonstrate some of the influence the play had on his later career. Here we go: 1. In the storyline itself, there are strong parallels with Coriolanus (particularly the story of Lucius joining forces with an opposing army to subdue Rome) and King Lear (not only are the opening scenes very similar in terms of stagecraft, but the subplots involving Edmund and Aaron are introduced and then integrated into the main plots in very similar ways). 2. The scenes set in the Andronici mausoleum can be seen as precursors to those in the Capulet tomb in Romeo and Juliet. 3. In terms of the story's arc, a very clear parallel can be drawn with Macbeth, as the two title characters go from being highly decorated and respected warriors to infamy in the eyes of their societies, from which point they discover their inner natures. 4. The theme of madness, real or assumed, as it pertains to Titus, of course brings Hamlet to mind. 5. Tamora's first speech in the play, in which she begs for her son's life by describing the importance of mercy, is clearly the seed that led to Portia's famous words in The Merchant of Venice. 6. The four other works set in Rome that he was to write later (in order of composition, The Rape of Lucrece, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus), which treat in every case a major turning point in Roman history, can all be seen as an attempt to answer the central question posed by this play (and which may have influenced the title of one of the most famous works in the study of history, Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire): What happened?

In terms of the number of lines, Hamlet is the longest play in Shakespeare, and the title character the longest part. Of course, the fact fits in with one of its central themes: the relationship between words and deeds, and how they mix in human minds and lives. One great example occurs in 1.3. As Laertes is leaving to return to Paris, he says goodbye to Ophelia by warning her not to trust in Hamlet's romantic interest. The scene begins thus:

LAERTES

My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:

And, sister, as the winds give benefit

And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,

But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA

Do you doubt that?

LAERTES

For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,

Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

OPHELIA

No more but so?

He then goes on to explain that Hamlet, as a prince, can't entirely speak for himself, and if Ophelia gets fooled by his words that she will lose her reputation permanently. This takes him thirty-five lines. Her answer, one of the most wonderful moments in the play, tellingly, receives less than one line in response:

OPHELIA

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES

O, fear me not.

Here's a link to the scene (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.1.3.html).

Further to yesterday's post, I'll continue with my defense of Shakespeare's use of puns by having a look at a scene from Hamlet which shows how they are often used in argument. In this case (1.3), Polonius is questioning Ophelia about the nature of her relationship with the prince, and receives the reply: "He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders/ Of his affection to me". Both the answer and the word "tenders" infuriate him, and he becomes fixated on it and attempts to use it as a way into Ophelia's way of thinking. Thus we get the following, in which he puns on the word three times, while showing that he's aware of the device (almost apologizing for it), and repeating another word of Ophelia's ("think") which he also attempts to twist to his advantage:

LORD POLONIUS

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

LORD POLONIUS

Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby;

That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,

Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;

Or--not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,

Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool.

I'd argue that it's a mistake to think of punning as no more than a stylistic choice. Rather, it's an integral part of conversation and argument, and happens all the time.

Many current critical approaches to Shakespeare seek to place his work firmly in his time period, the product of the social and political forces of his day. But I'm rarely convinced that they're onto anything. Yes, it must be granted that these things were factors in his output (as was food to eat and air to breathe), but they were transcended by a superior power: the force of his mind. To not understand this is to not understand Falstaff or Hamlet or the history plays. In fact, it is the history plays that are often brought up in these contexts, and having spent quite a bit of time with them recently, I'm even more convinced than I was before: Any attempt to diminish Shakespeare's work, to consider it dated or of decreasing relevance is to bring these results upon one's own. Think about it: how could the creator of Falstaff, a character who easily slips out of any attempt at ideological restraint, allow it to happen to himself?

I think I would argue that Falstaff is to comedy what Hamlet is to tragedy: a character who embodies virtually every element of his genre, and more. And just as Hamlet's role, somewhat ironically, contains a lot of humour, so does Falstaff's in terms of sadness. Also, both characters are given great soliloquies that can be appreciated outside of the action. Falstaff's great aria on honour in 1 Henry IV, although perhaps not quoted as often as any of Hamlet's, strikes me as one of the most influential ever written. Not only did it supply Charlie Chaplin, and thousands of other comedians, with the subversive tone at the heart of their work, but it seems to be much closer to a twenty-first century mindset toward war and violence than anything written recently. Here's a link to the scene (http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=henry4p1&Act=5&Scene=1&Scope=scene). The excerpt I'm referring to is found at the end, and is the result of Prince Hal responding to Falstaff's request (to be defended if he's found on the ground) with a joke.

The excerpt from Richard II quoted in yesterday's post contains many forerunners of ideas that would be further explored in Hamlet, as I mentioned. There are even storyline echoes of the latter in lines about kings being haunted by "the ghosts they have deposed", and others "sleeping kill'd". The references to worms, bones, paste, and burials of course bring to mind the churchyard scene (5.1), and then there is the unusual word "antic" which is very important to the plot because Hamlet uses it to introduce his plan to simulate madness ("As I perchance hereafter shall think meet/ To put an antic disposition on").

Finally, there's the overlap in the characters of the protagonists themselves. How much of it there is would be a matter of opinion, but there's no question there is some. One quality they certainly share is the ability to get away with actions quite egregious in nature - in the minds of audiences, anyway - less so with other characters, which is probably due to the way they show their humanity so openly and completely. We forgive them the way we do ourselves.

On a lighter note, here's a link to the highly amusing theme song (I think it's called "Cheer Up, Hamlet") to the first season of the highly amusing television series called Slings and Arrows, which starred Paul Gross and ran from 2003 to 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvmMt_xG1tI&feature=related.

In yesterday's post, I referred to Richard II as a forerunner of Hamlet, and although that would probably not be considered a controversial statement by too many, I'd still like to mention one supporting passage, which I find to be perhaps the most extraordinary in the entire play. It occurs in 3.2, the scene in which Richard returns from his Irish wars and is met with a barrage of bad news: 1. His arrival a day late has led to rumours of his decease amongst his Welsh troops, and they have disbanded. 2. Bolingbroke, returned from banishment to claim the inheritance that Richard commandeered, has gathered followers with every step, and it seems inevitable that a bloodless revolution and Richard's deposition are just around the corner. 3. Richard discovers that his friends and counselors, Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire have all been put to death by Bolingbroke, this after having roundly cursed them for not doing better in the kingdom's defense. And throughout the scene, his followers have tried to shore him up, telling him that he's not defeated yet and so forth, but it's at this point that Richard tells them to stop doing so. Here's the speech (with its seeds of Hamlet):

... of comfort no man speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,

Let's choose executors and talk of wills:

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own but death

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings;

How some have been deposed; some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;

All murder'd: for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life,

Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus

Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence: throw away respect,

Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while:

I live with bread like you, feel want,

Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,

How can you say to me, I am a king?

The attitude that Shakespeare had toward collaborators, sources, actors and other writers seems best described as one of appreciation. It's clear that he recognized that what he was engaged in was part of a larger framework, both as a playwright working in Elizabethan/Jacobean London, and as a literary artist "for all time", to use Jonson's famous words, and that to be successful (as he was) would require working with and learning from other people. His level-headed attitude toward himself is also a model to learn from. A series of accomplishments of the magnitude that we're considering here doesn't happen without a disciplined and philosophically advanced self-image. In fact, it's interesting to think of him, on a personal level, in contrast with some of his most famous characters, Lear or Hamlet for example, who have trouble seeing themselves accurately. Harold Goddard concludes his very interesting essay in The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951) by calling Shakespeare "an unfallen Hamlet", after having explained that the prince, the character most approaching the capacity of Shakespeare, having to choose between force and art, fatally selects the former. It's purely conjecture, but it must be said that it's difficult to imagine Shakespeare ever having done the same.

Near the end of Hamlet's opening scene, Horatio and the guards, Marcellus and Bernardo, are trying to warm themselves (both physically and psychologically) after a rough night. After all, they've seen the ghost of their previous monarch, dressed for battle, march by them twice without giving them even a small acknowledgement. They've also had their worst fears confirmed regarding the state of the nation - i.e. they are preparing for war and there is an immanent threat of invasion at hand. And so Marcellus tries to revive their spirits by recalling a set of beliefs related to the Christmas season:

Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

The unexpected mention of the holiday in an unlikely setting (the battlements of a castle) render the moment even more poignant. It can also make us consider the importance of imaginative ideals of peace and good will in an imperfect world. Let's hope that, with the help of great art, we continue to move in the right direction. Happy holidays.

I've mentioned the long, intricate second scene of act two from Hamlet in a couple of posts, and today I'd like to look at it again, but this time from the interactionist perspective that has been of considerable recent interest in my thinking about Shakespeare's characters. I've always thought of the scene as a sort-of "day in the life of Hamlet", as we watch his interactions with Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the players. (After all of this, it ends with the second great soliloquy that begins with "Now I am alone./ O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!") It's also occurred to me that it alone could be the basis of an interesting production, maybe a film version that employs a long single shot - similar perhaps to the one that opens A Touch of Evil, directed by Orson Welles, who was also an important interpreter of Shakespeare. Or perhaps this idea isn't original - I think Branagh's splendid version may have used this technique. Never mind.

Anyway, the main point that I'd like to make about its content is this: Hamlet's behaviours with the other characters cover a broad spectrum, and they are partially influenced by the reactions of those he is dealing with; but when he's left alone, he is as surprised by his own thoughts as he was by the interjections of the others.

Continuing with the topic of interactionist theory and Shakespeare, let's consider the play that comes immediately to mind whenever psychological and/or philosophical exploration becomes the issue. Hamlet, according to my theory anyway, was written for the purpose of finding a storyline that would allow the audience to watch a young, talented, honest person be turned inside out in a variety of situations. From this perspective, the best way to "understand" this complex and contradictory character is to realize that his actions are a surprise to him as much as they are to us. And assuming that the character has in his mind an over-arching plan for how he will behave throughout the entire play (or even a scene or line ahead) is an error; when the part is acted that way, boredom is the most common result. As I mentioned the other day, the character does not know what is going to happen next; the actor does, but that's quite a different matter. (Rupert Everett, when discussing his excellent performance in the film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream from 1999, said that he simply tried to say his lines as though he were just thinking of them.)

And to support my theory regarding the intentions of the playwright in this case, I would point out how Shakespeare often gives broad hints regarding his thematic subject matter at the beginnings of his plays, usually in fairly innocuous ways. The opening here is a simple question, but one that continues to puzzle human beings to this day: "Who's there?"

One of the most important books in the history of Shakespeare criticism, Caroline Spurgeon's Shakespeare's Imagery and What it Tells Us, first published in 1935, contains many enlightening observations. One of the most telling is her comparison of Shakespeare's use of recurring image patterns with the illustrations found in the illuminated poetry of William Blake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake#Illuminated_books). First, she gives an astonishingly accurate description of these unique masterpieces, and in particular the illustrations found in them: "These are not, for the most part, illustrations in the ordinary sense of the term, the translation by the artist of some incident in the narrative into a visual picture; they are rather a running accompaniment to the words in another medium, sometimes symbolically emphasising or interpreting certain aspects of the thought, sometimes supplying frankly only decoration or atmosphere, sometimes grotesque and even repellent, vivid, strange, arresting, sometimes drawn with an almost unearthly beauty of form and colour."

She then brilliantly relates Blake's work to Shakespeare's by comparing the effect of these illustrations to the one created by poetic image patterns in the plays: "Thus, as the leaping tongues of flame which illuminate the pages of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell show the visual form which Blake's thought evoked in his mind, and symbolize for us the purity, the beauty, and the two-edged quality of life and danger in his words, so the recurrent images in Macbeth or Hamlet reveal the dominant picture or sensation - and for Shakespeare the two are identical - in terms of which he sees and feels the main problem or theme of the play, thus giving us an unerring clue to the way he looked at it, as well as a direct glimpse into the working of his mind and imagination." Tomorrow, I'll summarize some of Spurgeon's thoughts on the imagery of Romeo and Juliet.

I ended yesterday's post by using an unacknowledged quotation from Hamlet. (By the way, it seems as if Shakespeare is the only writer whom it's OK to quote without citation - otherwise we'd be swimming in footnotes.) It's from Ophelia's mad scene, and it's another fascinating example of how some of the passages containing the greatest wisdom come from some of the most unlikely sources: in this case a character who has gone mad, and who beforehand, had revealed of herself very little, and certainly not this kind of philosophical depth. The exact line is this: "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be", and it is often overlooked because it's hidden between two lines more in keeping with our perceptions of how a mentally troubled person would speak: "They say the owl was a baker's daughter" and "God be at your table!". But just as Lear's madness brings out his most sane reasoning - as opposed to the beginning of the play when he's technically sane but his actions are the opposite - so does Ophelia's. For the first time in the play, she understands the horrific results of the ambition, treachery and violence that have infected the court and her life. And although it is too late for her, she passes from the play with words and actions "no stronger than a flower", but which have retained their beauty and depth in the imagination of everyone who has read or seen the play.

While preparing for my upcoming lecture on Romeo and Juliet (next Wednesday at 11 am at the Atwater library), a realization came to me regarding Shakespeare's use of poetry. It occurred to me that no other form of writing could contain all the complexity of life - its changes and ambiguities, the fact that we have to search and think to find meanings in events, our psychological upheavals and lack of inner consistency, the way that words and objects can have meanings far beyond themselves - all of these are best expressed, and perhaps only expressed, through poetry. Shakespeare, the "Chief Poet", as Keats called him, allows us to see the workings and potentials of our minds through the unwavering quality of his poetic writing. And even his prose is poetic, as you know from this justly famous passage: "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" Shakespeare shows us not only what we are but also what we may be.

One of the most thrilling experiences that one can have as a spectator is to see a Shakespeare play acted and directed with intelligence and passion. Watching an actor explore the inner workings of his or her character, and then conveying these discoveries to the audience - and making them share in the emotions - is unforgettable. One of the biggest reasons that Shakespeare is the holy grail of actors is that his language allows so much room for their thoughts and projections. This brings me to the second of John Ciardi and Miller Williams' four characteristics to be considered by a poet making decisions regarding diction (from their 1959 book, How Does a Poem Mean?): "2. A word involves the whole body." This refers to the fact that spoken words require the human body to be produced, and interpreted, and that there is a purely musical or sonic aspect involved in each of them. And of course, this aspect is particularly important in poetic drama, where the words are the canvas on which the actors paint. So lines like the following (from Hamlet's first soliloquy, in act one, scene two) need to be spoken aloud, with real emotion, to be truly felt:

Within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Try it. I think you'll find that the sounds themselves play a large part in getting the content across.

Style in writing can be seen as the result of decisions made in two areas: syntax and diction, in other words, word order and word choice. This may sound like an over-simplification but I don't think it is, because both are extremely complex in nature, and they can be influenced by a very wide range of factors. However I do believe that it's helpful to recognize that the matter can be distilled to this point, and to keep the concept in mind when reading any writer. Of course Shakespeare is unequaled in both categories, and analyzing his work for the causes and effects of his decision-making in these regards leads to all kinds of interest.

For an example, consider the first words spoken by Claudius in Hamlet (2.1). He is in the delicate position of simultaneously mourning the death of his brother (hypocritically, of course) and announcing that he has married the widow, Gertrude. His psychological state and the difficulty of his task both contribute to the circuitous wording of a relatively simple statement:

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death

The memory be green, and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom

To be contracted in one brow of woe,

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him

Together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,

Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,

With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,

Taken to wife...

The passage works like an overture to his story, which is one of a man conflicted between desire, ambition, guilt and extreme awareness of how he is perceived publicly. And it's just another glittering example of Shakespeare's style and substance, and how they're inseparable.

Over the last couple of years, PBS has broadcast productions of King Lear starring Ian McKellan, Hamlet with David Tennant and Macbeth with Patrick Stewart. All three were splendid, with inspired performances from the lead actors and thoughtful interpretations by directors and casts. McKellen's Lear, for example, is so intense that at certain points I feared for his safety. It's a daring and exuberant performance, even by his standards. It's still available for online viewing at the PBS Great Performances website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/.

Tennant's Hamlet is equally "wild and whirling", full of humour and originality. Patrick Stewart is excellent as Claudius as well, and it's interesting to compare his work in the role with the one he did thirty years earlier in the BBC production starring Derek Jacobi. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available for online viewing in Canada at this point - if I do find it, I'll let you know right away, but libraries will have it.

Finally, the recent version of Macbeth, with Patrick Stewart in the title role, might be the best filmed version I've seen, which is saying something because this play has been done very well many times over. It's not to be missed: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/macbeth/watch-the-full-program/1030/

T.S. Eliot once said, "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood". Jackson Pollock once asked an interviewer: "Do you stand in front of a bank of flowers tearing your hair out and wondering what it all means?" The point I'm trying to make here is that there is a very large part of artistic endeavour that transcends simple comprehension. Perhaps the title of John Ciardi and Miller Williams' 1959 handbook on poetry said it better: How Does a Poem Mean? So when we're dealing with poetic writing, we must keep in mind that it gives off meaning in more and different ways than regular prose: it suggests, compares, symbolizes, even obfuscates (as Nietzsche noted when he said that writers sometimes write to reveal meaning, and at other times to conceal it). For an example of this, let's consider the following line from 2.2 in Hamlet, in which the prince is perhaps toying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or perhaps not: "I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw." In every annotated edition of the play that I've seen, those two sentences are given a different gloss. And the more interpretations I see, the more admiration I have, because I've come to realize no one really knows what they mean. Isn't that great?

Another result of Shakespeare's poetic thinking is that there was a revision necessary, purely on a rhythmic level, for every line written. The metrical considerations therefore put the words through another level of thought, which can lead to improvements not only on a sonic level but also in terms of content. In an earlier post (August 26), I discussed anastrophe, which refers to the unusual syntactical structures (or wording, if you prefer) - and the reasons for them - that are found in poetry. While anastrophe can make the initial reading more difficult, what it creates in terms of beauty, insight and original thought makes the extra effort more than worth it. The following passage occurs when Horatio is revealing the existence of the ghost to Hamlet. Its content is quite simple, or at least it could be phrased that way: Horatio tells Hamlet that the two guards, Marcellus and Bernardo, had seen the ghost the previous two nights, and had described what the ghost was wearing and how it moved. It scared them. They then decided to tell Horatio about it, and when he joined their watch, he saw it as well - just as they had described it. Horatio then closes by saying that the resemblance between the ghost and Hamlet's father is just as strong as the one between his two hands. All well and good, but when the restrictions imposed by writing in verse were applied, we got this:

Two nights together had these gentlemen

(Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch

In the dead vast and middle of the night

Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father,

Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,

Appears before them and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd

By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon's length; whilst they distill'd

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me

In dreadful secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch;

Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,

The apparition comes. I knew your father.

These hands are not more like.

Perhaps the most famous image in drama is Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull (another contender would be the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet), at which point he closes his conversation with the jester's memory by saying: "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that." The concision and directness of the final sentence is truly remarkable, and certainly part of the reason for the scene's renown. There is a scene that is of a similar nature in King Lear, where Lear, in the storm, confronted by Edgar in his disguise as the madman, Poor Tom, says the following:

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy

uncover'd body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than

this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast

no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three

on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated

man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.

The entire passage is of great interest, but the line that I'm thinking of in this context is: "Thou art the thing itself", which rivals the above example from Hamlet in terms of briefness and power. In another sense though, the protagonists are looking in quite different directions. Hamlet's epiphany (like several of his others) concerns the all-conquering power of death, whereas Lear's is a realization about human life, and how much of it he has missed.