SHAKSPER 2005: Gertrude-Ophelia
From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 12/01/05
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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1986 Thursday, 1 December 2005
[1] From: Jay Feldman <jfel873@verizon.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 07:41:00 -1000
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
[2] From: Margaret Litvin <mlitvin@uchicago.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 12:59:13 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1965 Gertrude-Ophelia
[3] From: Bill Lloyd <Bnklloyd@aol.com>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 13:02:03 EST
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
[4] From: John W. Kennedy <jwkenne@attglobal.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 13:20:53 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
[5] From: Larry Weiss <larry@lweiss.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 13:50:31 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
[6] From: Donald Bloom <dbloom@asms.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 14:33:58 -0600
Subj: RE: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
[7] From: John Reed <finarphin@comcast.net>
Date: Thursday, 01 Dec 2005 06:45:25 +0000
Subj: Re: Gertrude-Ophelia
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jay Feldman <jfel873@verizon.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 07:41:00 -1000
Subject: 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
". . . thinking spectators/readers cannot help but wonder why Gertrude,
who was apparently an eyewitness to Ophelia's death, did not help her or
call for help - the drowning takes a long time, even in the telling on
stage!"
A non-scholar's response to Ed Taft's answerless question:
- It is Gertrude's breathing time of day. She has climbed the four
flights to the ramparts and looks on the high eastward hill where the
stream flows. There she spies Ophelia's danger and instantly orders her
ladies and guards to her aid. She remains to observe. -
Works for me - Jay
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Margaret Litvin <mlitvin@uchicago.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 12:59:13 -0500
Subject: 16.1965 Gertrude-Ophelia
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1965 Gertrude-Ophelia
Couldn't resist belatedly chiming in from a cross-cultural perspective.
In the Arab world, there is a fairly accepted reading among directors
and critics that accuses the whole Claudius regime, not just Gertrude,
of Ophelia's murder. The evidence is pretty much the usual: lack of
witnesses at the drowning; Gertrude's too-flowery elegy; and the textual
hints of Claudius' excessive interest in Ophelia, whether as an
attractive woman or as a source of subversive talk ("Pretty Ophelia ...
Follow her close, give her good watch, I pray you."). One Egyptian
critic admits she is haunted by Claudius' earlier line, referring to
Hamlet: "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."
But what makes this interpretation work on stage is the character of
Claudius, played as a plausibly monstrous tyrant, à la Saddam. No "king
of shreds and patches" here, but one who plays off the audience's own
lifeworld and political assumptions. Then everything snaps into place:
the conflation between madness and political dissent; the extrajudicial
killing rigged to look like accident or suicide; and even the
suspicious-minded reading between the lines that such an interpretation
requires.
It's an open question whether such a reading is interesting or
warranted. What it highlights about Hamlet is the atmosphere of fear,
doubt, and intrigue that dominates the play as a whole. Everyone
conspiring, no one knowing whom to trust.
Best regards,
Margaret Litvin
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bill Lloyd <Bnklloyd@aol.com>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 13:02:03 EST
Subject: 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
Ed Taft writes:
>It's not so easy to tell when a question is silly and when it isn't.
I agree. As I said:
>It's difficult without some preliminary discussion to determine which
textual
>or critical theories are 'crackpot'... Sometimes there's not a clear
demarcation,
>but rather a continuum between responsible speculation and crackpotation
And probably the word 'crackpot' has been overused. I meant 'silly' as a
milder alternative, but perhaps I/we should stick with the more neutral
but still frank 'improbable' or 'unlikely' when we want to express this.
Ed again:
>I've been silent throughout much of this debate because apparently I'm
>part of the problem ("marginal academics"?)...
>I think that Shakespeareans who fancy themselves more learned, more
intelligent, and
>more published than riffraff like me ought to hold their fire and
>remember the lesson of Goddard. To a lesser extent, his story also holds
>>true for the likes of A.C. Rossiter, L.C. Knights, and a host of others
>in the 50s and 60s who were once thought to be "crackpots."
>... Let me offer a modest proposal to my self-proclaimed literary betters:
>sometimes you can learn from those who are not as smart as you are. This
>is one case in point.
I hope I am not perceived as attacking or looking down on Ed Taft,
because that's not the case. Ed is not riff-raff, and 'literary betters'
[did someone actually say that?] would be a [ahem] value judgment. Let's
all be 'serious students': if I possess any wisdom it's in realizing how
little I really know. "But I learn, Mr Fawlty, I learn!" I searched
SHAKSPER for the origin of the phrase "marginal academics" and found
Jack Heller saying:
>... volume of discourse cannot, by itself, demand
>affirmation. Postings persist and vanity publications are touted despite
>any number of efforts to show where their ideas are flawed-and good
>academics do expect their own ideas to be critiqued. I find it is hardly
>possible to discuss Hamlet (Measure for Measure, Merchant of Venice)
>anymore on this list without the discussion being taken over by marginal
>or non-academics with axes to grind.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I don't think Jack was referring to Ed. I
won't say who I think he was referring to.
It can be hard to disagree vigorously and still be civil, but let that
be our goal [he said preachily]. I am willing to be chastened and will
read the Gertrude-had-it-in-for-Ophelia thread more carefully. I think
it may perhaps be a case of 'considering too curiously', but it's not
like I've never done that before myself. As to Ed's statement that:
>thinking spectators/readers cannot help but wonder why Gertrude, who was
>apparently an eyewitness to Ophelia's death, did not help her or call
>for help - the drowning takes a long time, even in the telling on stage!
... I thought that was a dramatic convention for moving the plot along,
which it's true seems odd to we who have been raised on realism.
Peace and love [really],
Bill Lloyd
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <jwkenne@attglobal.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 13:20:53 -0500
Subject: 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
S. L Kasten <kostensl@012.net.il>
>Act IV scene 5 begins with the Queen uttering six emphatic
>monosyllables the, last of which, the pronoun "her", implying
>to me the same sort of rejection as "that woman" uttered by a
>former US president.
Implying to /you/, perhaps, but not, on balance, to me, or, it would
seem, the vast majority.
>In our case "her" refers to a newly orphaned young woman whose
>putative fiancé has gone off his rocker and whose only surviving
>relative is off in Paris. Whence the Queen's unambiguous animus?
I see no "unambiguous animus", but rather a fear to face Ophelia, which
is quite another thing.
To my sicke soule, as sinnes true nature is,
Each toy seemes prologue to some great amisse,
So full of artlesse iealousie is guilt,
It spills it selfe, in fearing to be spylt.
>What are the "dangerous conjectures" Horatio refers to? They
>apparently are strong enough to justify his summary overriding
>of the Queen's "will not".
Actually, F1 assigns the "dangerous conjectures" speech to Gertrude, the
character of "Gentleman" being absent, and the Queen "overrides"
herself. But if we assume the Q2 text, Horatio is in no position to be
"overriding" the Queen; he advises, she consents.
As to what the "dangerous conjectures" are, the most obvious answer
would seem to be that they are the very conjectures that dominate the
scene from Ophelia's exit on.
>Upon which, the Queen in an aside gives us a glimpse of her state
>of mind: jealousy and a guilt that threatens to engender more guilt.
Do I detect here an application of what C. S. Lewis would have called
the "dangerous sense" of "jealousy"? "Jealous" and "zealous" are
etymological doublets, and "jealousy" in Shakespeare does not always
mean the sin of Othello and Leontes.
>Of which there is no overt sign in her lyric description of Ophelia's
>death, nor in her unctuous "sweets to the sweet" hypocrisy, the threat
>of dangerous conjectures or grounds for guilt and jealousy ending with
>Ophelia's death.
The above verges on circular argument, "proving" that Gertrude is a
hypocrite because she speaks hypocrisy because -- lo! -- she is a hypocrite.
>This play has so many words; in general it is hard to find a superfluous
>one in anything he has written.
In respect of the /plot/, forsooth? This is sheerest unexamined
bardolatry; Shakespeare writes thousands of words that are superfluous
to his plots.
>What got into the author to lengthen
>the play with this introduction to Ophelia's mad scene? Are we being
>blinded by our attitudes to Motherhood?
By "lengthen the play" are you referring to the difference between Q1
and the others (for in Q1, Ophelia is heralded by
/King/ Hamlet is ship't for England, fare him well,
I hope to heare good newes from thence ere long,
If euery thing fall out to our content,
As I doe make no doubt but so it shall.
/Queene/ God grant it may, heau'ns keep my Hamlet safe:
But this mischance of olde Corambis death,
Hath piersed so the yong Ofeliaes heart,
That she, poore maide, is quite bereft her wittes.
/King/ Alas deere heart! And on the other side,
We vnderstand her brother's come from France,
And he hath halfe the heart of all our Land,
And hardly hee'le forget his fathers death,
Vnlesse by some meanes he be pacified.
/Qu./ O see where the yong Ofelia is!
rather than the scene we know), or do you simply mean that Shakespeare
made the play longer than it would have been had Ophelia entered /sans/
prologue?
>Invoking Shakespeare's "dramaturgical practice" brings to mind the
>compositional practice of Beethoven who wrote nine symphonies, each of
>which is comprised of four distinct movements except for the one in
>which the third movement blends without a pause into the fourth. Would
>anyone argue that Shakespeare was not big enough to stray with effect
>from the strictures of "practice"? What was it that Henry said to
>Catherine about their being the ones to make custom rather than being
>its slave?
It were far more coherent to adduce Beethoven's composition of the
"Enigma Variations", were it not for the unfortunate snag that Beethoven
did not compose the "Enigma Variations". You are positing that
Shakespeare, even as did Elgar, concealed a principal theme, leaving it
to be deduced from the matter surrounding it. That is all very well for
a denizen, like Elgar, of the Late Romantic, but (I believe) without
parallel in Early Modern dramaturgy.
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <larry@lweiss.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 13:50:31 -0500
Subject: 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
>Gertrude's narrative about how Ophelia drowned is just one of many
>instances in the play that are designed to cast doubt on Gertrude and
>make her a character draped in shadows. When did her affair with
>Claudius begin? Was she involved somehow in Old Hamlet's death?
>Did she know about it? Does she now?
Maybe she just goes through life in an alcoholic stupor.
[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Donald Bloom <dbloom@asms.net>
Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2005 14:33:58 -0600
Subject: 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1975 Gertrude-Ophelia
S. L Kasten writes
"Act IV scene 5 begins with the Queen uttering six emphatic
monosyllables the, last of which, the pronoun "her", implying to me the
same sort of rejection as "that woman" uttered by a former US
president. In our case "her" refers to a newly orphaned young woman
whose putative fiancé has gone off his rocker and whose only surviving
relative is off in Paris. Whence the Queen's unambiguous animus?
Animus?
Surely this is fear, not hate. Not that Gertrude is afraid of physical
attack (probably) but merely the resistance of anyone to dealing with a
emotionally painful and guilt-inducing situation. Contending with the
deranged is always extremely difficult, and anyone would tend to avoid
it if possible. Even without that, I would have no desire to speak with
the daughter of a man my son had killed.
Gertrude has two very good reasons for avoiding Ophelia, neither of them
requiring this imagined animus.
Cheers,
don
[7]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Reed <finarphin@comcast.net>
Date: Thursday, 01 Dec 2005 06:45:25 +0000
Subject: Re: Gertrude-Ophelia
So there is another class of objection: what might be called
"attachment," or guilt by association with other ideas equally bizarre.
I don't think that's a good objection; after all, there are plenty of
people who believe in weird stuff, such as flying saucers, the germ
theory of disease, and that the planet earth was formed in six days.
Numbers, or proportions, of believers doesn't mean much.
I also don't think that just because the dialog does not clearly
indicate the necessary action is a very good objection either, and I
hope to return to this point in another post, heretical though it may be.
But I have the feeling by now that lack of evidence or wrong method of
reconstruction doesn't really account for the vehemence of the rejection
of the idea. There must be something else, possibly of a more
philosophical or religious nature, that leads to the notion that
Gertrude could not have killed Ophelia. I wonder what it is. It's
probably unconscious, or otherwise hidden, but maybe we can ferret it
out. "Gertrude could not have killed Ophelia because...." Because what?
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