random discoveries in my files
Going through my files, as I try to look back on what sorts of things actually do interest me and what sorts of things I might be able to manage writing about, after all, and I found that I *did* actually write that defense of Horatio (a thing I keep wanting to do, especially after reading a batch of Hamlet criticism that reduced him to a mere watcher), sort of:
31 January 2008
The thing about Hamlet...I think I've said this before, but I'm always surprised when people talk about how Hamlet is over-familiar and people identify with Hamlet or think they know what he's about, and that this is a problem that gets in the way of the text. I've always felt that Hamlet was a foreign country--despite all the familiar lines and moments. My memory of first studying the play in high school consists of strange phrases and images: "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane"; the idea that pelicans were supposed to have fed their young with their own blood; the terrible, terrible price that family honor forces all the play's young men to pay.
And being totally capslock INCENSED about Hamlet's behavior at Ophelia's funeral, of course. We mustn't forget that. "This is I, Hamlet the Dane!" Yeah, well, no one asked you, actually. Like he's got the lock on histrionics in this play, and no one else can have any. "To outface me with leaping in her grave?" Dude, that's her brother. Not everything is about you. I always wonder what Horatio is thinking at this moment. And I wonder if this is something of a break between them--because in the next scene, they seem to be talking past each other, and when Hamlet relates the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Horatio's response seems, to me, rather horrified at Hamlet's callous policy: "Why, what a king is this!" And when Hamlet goes on to ask whether it isn't "perfect conscience" to kill the man who killed his father and attempted to murder him (I'm not sure if this is the first time he states it so plainly to someone else), Horatio doesn't answer. Instead he mentions that Claudius must shortly be aware of what happened in England, which is sort of the equivalent of "I, uh--hey, look over there!" That silence is so odd to me. It's a rare occasion when Hamlet asks a direct question of Horatio about his course of action, it seems like a moment of intimacy--almost like he's pleading for approval--and Horatio sidesteps it entirely. I feel like this scene doesn't get that much love because it's so full of exposition, and crammed full of crazy (pirates and handwriting and signet rings!), but I'd love to see a production someday that does something with Horatio's silences instead of just having him sort of standing around.
Oh, Horatio my dear. I know a lot of his dialogue consists of "Yes, my lord" and "Nay, my good lord," but he's actually kind of wry in this way that you totally miss if you blink--"You might have rhymed," for example, or "I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done." And "If your mind dislike anything, obey it" BREAKS my heart. He's trying so hard to hold Hamlet back, and he can't. He's been watching Hamlet worriedly, I think, since at least "These are but wild and whirling words, my lord," but all he can do is watch. Poor Horatio.
31 January 2008
The thing about Hamlet...I think I've said this before, but I'm always surprised when people talk about how Hamlet is over-familiar and people identify with Hamlet or think they know what he's about, and that this is a problem that gets in the way of the text. I've always felt that Hamlet was a foreign country--despite all the familiar lines and moments. My memory of first studying the play in high school consists of strange phrases and images: "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane"; the idea that pelicans were supposed to have fed their young with their own blood; the terrible, terrible price that family honor forces all the play's young men to pay.
And being totally capslock INCENSED about Hamlet's behavior at Ophelia's funeral, of course. We mustn't forget that. "This is I, Hamlet the Dane!" Yeah, well, no one asked you, actually. Like he's got the lock on histrionics in this play, and no one else can have any. "To outface me with leaping in her grave?" Dude, that's her brother. Not everything is about you. I always wonder what Horatio is thinking at this moment. And I wonder if this is something of a break between them--because in the next scene, they seem to be talking past each other, and when Hamlet relates the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Horatio's response seems, to me, rather horrified at Hamlet's callous policy: "Why, what a king is this!" And when Hamlet goes on to ask whether it isn't "perfect conscience" to kill the man who killed his father and attempted to murder him (I'm not sure if this is the first time he states it so plainly to someone else), Horatio doesn't answer. Instead he mentions that Claudius must shortly be aware of what happened in England, which is sort of the equivalent of "I, uh--hey, look over there!" That silence is so odd to me. It's a rare occasion when Hamlet asks a direct question of Horatio about his course of action, it seems like a moment of intimacy--almost like he's pleading for approval--and Horatio sidesteps it entirely. I feel like this scene doesn't get that much love because it's so full of exposition, and crammed full of crazy (pirates and handwriting and signet rings!), but I'd love to see a production someday that does something with Horatio's silences instead of just having him sort of standing around.
Oh, Horatio my dear. I know a lot of his dialogue consists of "Yes, my lord" and "Nay, my good lord," but he's actually kind of wry in this way that you totally miss if you blink--"You might have rhymed," for example, or "I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done." And "If your mind dislike anything, obey it" BREAKS my heart. He's trying so hard to hold Hamlet back, and he can't. He's been watching Hamlet worriedly, I think, since at least "These are but wild and whirling words, my lord," but all he can do is watch. Poor Horatio.