[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 46 KB, 296x310, bitches love sonnets.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2696945 No.2696945 [Reply] [Original]

>reading the riverside shakespeare
>critical introduction to 'hamlet'
>>"Certainly 'Hamlet' is problematic, full of doubt concretely as well as discursively projected, using two for one, as it uses two characters and two themes for one."
>read the entire essay
>which two characters and which two themes are we talking about here? author never bothers to explain this.
>later quotes t.s. eliot: "Shakespeare had worked for a long time in theatre, and written a good many plays, before reaching the point at which he could write those twenty-two lines."
>never specified which 22 lines this is talking about
>problems like this throughout the essay

I mean, what the fuck? This is a general-audience work—an *introduction* if you will—not some journal article for advanced literature scholars. That just strikes me as so damn smug. Plus, consider that this appears in the Riverside Shakespeare of all places, the introduction to Hamlet: probably one of the most widely read critical introductions in the English language, so in a sense the author is like the poster-boy for literature study. I mean, shouldn't s/he make an effort to make literature study look *appealing*, and not write in some oblique Ivory McTower fashion that just confirms people's stereotypes about lit scholars?

>> No.2696964

just read the play first, dummy.

>> No.2696968

it's probably the soliloquy homes

>> No.2697027

>>2696945
ts eliot refers to someplace in the first 100 lines of act 1, scene 1, btw

have read the play and still not certain what "2 characters in 1" or "2 themes in 1" could each mean. i have some plausible theories of what he might mean, but that's not really my job, as reader, to write his essay for him. i suspect he didn't really have a consistent idea himself of what he meant, or didn't feel like having to do the chore of defending a specific position (fixed notions being so annoying in the way that they're *fixed*, thus requiring you to stick with it and actually defend it—much easier just to be vague and neglect to define your terms and assertions).

>> No.2697044

>>2696945
Just so you know, OP, something titled "Introduction" doesn't necessarily mean that it is an introduction intended for the general audience, or even much of an introduction at all. I don't know anything about the Riverside Shakespeare, but if it is a scholarly work, then the "introductions" are going to be more like prefatory material intended for people already familiar with the material.

>> No.2697054

>>2697044
I feel like even if it's not written for a general audience, being that vague is just bad writing.

>> No.2697064

here's the source for t.s. eliot's quoted remarks. he's just talking about the first 22 lines of the play in general gushing over shakespeare

http://www.archive.org/stream/poetryanddrama029231mbp/poetryanddrama029231mbp_djvu.txt

the other question is more difficult to guess an answer - and it would be a guess since hamlet lets people make any number of declarations. if he's following eliot there as well he might be using his famous Hamlet and His Problmes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_and_His_Problems)) to focus on the play vs. the play within the play. But that's just a shot.

>> No.2697181

>>2697044
i'm not sure the status of 'riverside shakespeare', but i want to say that it's like a definitive edition for households and schoarly libraries alike. it's a single-volume complete works of shakespeare, along with a critical introduction to every play, a lengthy general introduction, a lot of pictures for historical reference like of contemporary illustrations and photos of shakespearean relics. a heavy focker too, can help prop up young children at the dinner table. it has both lay and scholarly reputations; i can't think of a good analogue, except for maybe 'The New Oxford Annotated Bible' for the Bible.

>> No.2697210

Every character has their pair in the masterpiece, and Hamlet's double is himself, which causes the intellectual claustrophobia of having two minds, his hubris, leading to his downfall. It's no particular pair of characters the introduction is referring to, hence the reason for them being unnamed.

>> No.2697221

>>2697210
Who is Horatio's double?