distopia

[truepenny]

I can't remember if I've used that pun before or not, but it's definitely apropos at the moment.

Have read John Dover Wilson's What Happens in Hamlet (3rd ed., 1951), plus one chapter of Stanley Cavell's Disowning Knowledge in Seven Plays of Shakespeare (2003, updated edition of Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare) and the Hamlet half of a chapter in Patricia Parker's Shakespeare from the Margins (1996). Have looked at my director's comments on the Hamlet chapter.

Made a couple of corrections.

Am now catching up on LJ with Plush Cthulhu in my lap, because I'm having a highly Binkley-esque anxiety attack about the whole thing.

Waaaaah.

Once more unto the breach, dear Meanies.

Comments

[libskrat]

Just imagine Mighty Plush Cthulhu emerging from the depths of Lake Mendota to swallow up your committee into the eternal depths.

Do you think MPC would consent to detour and swallow up David's committee while It's at it?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean, it's emerging from the depths already. It's only a matter of efficiency to take care of both committees at once. And I feel sure that Plush Cthulhu, in all Its guises,, approves of efficiency. This is why my plush Cthulhu is so helpful when I have work that must be accomplished Right Now. It glares, and I work.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

No anxiety, now. You can do it.

See you in two days! CD of 1919 in hand! [bounce]

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, bribes. Bribes are good.

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

And I am, like Illya, so damn bored of this whole thing it's not even real.

[pameladean]

I was absolutely smitten with the Dover Wilson book the first time I read it. I don't mean that I actually believed his theory, but it was a gorgeous alternate history. Later on, I got mad at him about his views of Shakespeare's women generally.

Pamela

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The bit of it I actually agreed with, and cited in an endnote, was the bit where he's arguing that the Mousetrap has two quite distinct interpretations--the accusation of murder that only Hamlet and Claudius can read, and then the threat of assassination that everyone else recognizes. But Dover Wilson's terribly hampered by not being able to see in the metatheatrical dimension. Not only do we know Hamlet is a character being played by an actor, but Hamlet knows it, too. The play gives much less trouble if one remembers that.

And I actually quite like the reading of Hamlet as bipolar, even if JDW doesn't quite have the language he needs to say it. I think the insistence on making Hamlet "noble" and "adorable" and "heroic" is utter and complete nonsense, but JDW is neither the first nor the last critic to entangle himself in that particular spiderweb.

Mostly I was bored and irritated, but considering the circumstances under which I was reading, I don't think that can be considered much of a surprise. :)