Re: Quiet list? there's always "Salinger and Buddhism"
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:57:44 +1000
> With roughly 70-100 people privately assuring me each day that this
> thread is the most compelling activity the list has ever seen, I proudly
> offer the latest in our fascinating, two-person colloquy:
Really? I didn't know we had a spectator sport going here! (:
> > These are obviously all valid questions - but I wouldn't say
Shakespeare
> > for example strove to be deciphered.
>
> Was Franny pregnant? Was Ophelia?
Ah. I take that back. Shakespeare was a bad example to use - I forgot he
lived in the midst of an age where deciphering was basically the favourite
cult of literature. People like John Donne wrote almost specifically
indecipherable stuff so people would have the fun of working it all out (I
actually heard Donne being compared to Joyce the other day. It's a very
interesting comparison - Donne deconstructed the poem, and Joyce the
novel). And, as you mention, there are all the intricacies they used to get
around having their heads cut off et al by allegorising the worries of the
state in history plays.The best way I've heard this summed up is : `It was
OK to say `Something is rotten' as long as you added `In Denmark' (:
> Did Hamlet and Ophelia sleep together? Her songs seem to suggest so, as
> does (in at least one reading) the flower sequence. Clearly, her
> madness and subsequent suicide are related to her father's death. But
> they are also tied to her relationship with Hamlet, and sexuality is a
> big concern there.
I think these and the other questions all show why Hamlet is such a great
and vastly reinterpretable text. It *is* ambiguous; as ambiguous as life
itself, which is why we still get so much out of it. The idea of different
`readings' comes very much into play here, which is why everyone has their
own different Hamlets, Holdens, Seymours etc in their head - we attempt to
provide our own individually tailored answers where they are none. But
again, we have to be careful not to fall into the Bible Code syndrome; to
find stuff that simply isn't there. For example, the idea that in King
Lear, the fool and Cordelia are the same person, is interesting as a
theory, but textually can only ever be a hypothesis.
> Shakespeare is a true
> pioneer of ambiguities and loose ends.
You're right (: And I think a lot of what are called loose ends are
intentional ambiguities, too - the so called Problem Plays interest me more
than some of the more conventional ones. I've just finished a paper on
Troilus and Cressida, which is an excellent example of this. There's always
the interpretation that something not traditionally structured is somehow
badly made or incomplete, but I believe he was simply working with a
different aesthetic - a pretty bold experiment for someone in a populist
industry such as his own.
> At points, I think, he stops just short of openly asking to be
> deciphered. _Richard II_ deals with--and can be seen to question--the
> divine right of kings. Why perform it on the eve of the Essex rebellion
> in front of Queen Elizabeth?
Ah - a question with an actual answer, this I like! (: Shakespeare's
company (I believe it was Leicester's Men at this time) were actually paid
to do this performance against their better judgement (and presumably
without knowing the political purpose) by the Essex rebels, to inspire the
crowds. They even argued that it was an old play they hadn't done for years
and it wasn't likely to pull a huge crowd, wouldn't they prefer to do a
comedy etc, but the rebels were willing to pay something like five times
what they usually got for their performances. As it happened, they did get
into trouble for it - Augustine Phillips, one of the Leicester's Men and a
major shareholder) actually got put in jail for it briefly, until it was
revealed that they had been paid to perform it and was let off after
testimony was given by other members of the company. That of course isn't
to say that Shakespeare wasn't a closet revolutionary and anti-monarchist
anyway. I think he was.
> I guess what I've wandered off into is
> that Shakespeare had a subversive strain in him--but it was a subversive
> strain that required deciphering.
I think the cult of deciphering as we know it pretty much originated in the
Renaissance - literal ciphers were a very big thing in those days, somewhat
akin to computer encryption today.
You could say the most famously deciphered (or over-deciphered) book in
history is the Bible. People are finding new messages in that all day.
There's even a book about it, `The Bible Code' in which a guy claims to
have worked out a formula (i.e. the third letter in every third word or
something) for which you can find hidden prophesies - the most famous
predicting the assassination of Yitzak Rabin. Unfortunately for him, a
scientist using the same formula has proven that given the astronomical
possibilities of such a code, you can come up with just about anything. In
`War and Peace' for example he found `OSWALD ALONE SHOT JFK. BOTH DIED'
amongst many other things. What this all leads to though is this human
desire, especially in a holy text like that, to find the answers that hide
between the lines.
> > Don't they? I know one of the first things I think about now when I
come up
> > with an idea is: will I render this as a play? a short story? a poem?
Which
> > would best serve my idea?
>
> I thought about this one for a while and concluded that I don't really
> know, after all. I suppose it's different from person to person.
> Salinger, it seems, works with a flexible mold, mostly inside the
> boundaries of prose. A dash man--but some of those ideas started as
> short stories, only to become longer stories or even novels.
Yes. I think, as I said, that that point where the short story suddenly
gets too long to be a dash but too short to be a marathon is the
interesting point where the two aesthetics meet. I do think there are
times, though, when he limits himself (in the earlier short stories) and
this is often to his advantage - `Franny' for example has to be one of the
most perfectly structured and written short stories ever penned. In some
ways I appreciate his craftsmanship more when he can slide this perfect
meaning into a very compact case.
Hey, everyone out there! This isn't Wimbledon you know - you can join in
this discussion if you want!
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442