Shakespeare, actually

From the bait thread that was just deleted:

>If you can't understand the meaning inherent in Hamlet's most famous monologue, even without any context, you probably shouldn't be on a board called Veeky Forums.

The fact that Hamlet is being watched and, further, knows he's being watched, significantly changes the meaning of his words. They are then layered over with a patina of irony, bathos over pathos. It's not 'just' a meditation on death and suicide--we hear Hamlet's more candid feelings about these things in the graveyard scene--but a 'playing to' his perceptions of Claudius' and Polonius' own anxieties, neither of whom he holds in high esteem. 'On its own', it's petty mewling. In context, it's another spring in the trap that is the play.

Those in glass houses, and all that.

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warosu.org/lit/thread/S667543#p667573
shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.3.1.html
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cool

Pynchon has revisited our precious board.

Strap in, fellas

the only author that posts here is tao lin

False. Go read the Shakespeare conspiracy thread from 5 years back.

This isn't a conspiracy though, it's basic shit

And Mira

It's not about the conspiracy, it's about his depth of knowledge, his analysis of TCoL49, his knowledge of the canon, his writing style, and the plethora of subtle clues he dropped, the specifics of which I will provide when Im not on my phone at work.

Anyone who read the introduction to Slow Learner knows with full certainty that it was Pynchon, our lord God.

I'm talking about this thread

Oh yeah. My initial post was meant to be ironic. My B

Agreed. Great argument concerning the To Be or Not To Be monologue.

The best monologue though is the All Ocassions Do Inform Against Me - the pinnacle of the bard

I find when I post what seem to me uncontroversial interpretations of Shakespeare's plays and characters--like Shylock being a scapegoat figure rather than a typical Jewish villain--I am shouted down by dum-dums with only passing acquaintance with the subject matter. This may have been a bait thread, but I am very curious about

>like Shylock being a scapegoat figure rather than a typical Jewish villain--I am shouted down by dum-dums with only passing acquaintance with the subject matter.

not /pol/ but this is Harold Bloom's entire argument about the play; it only functions if Shylock is the villain and Bloom can't understand why Shakespeare made him convert in the end. Bloom considers it a masterpiece but still anti-semitic, although, in his words, less so than the Gospel of John.

Bloom isn't the greatest Shakespearean but I think he's right about the function of the play.

As I see it, forced conversion is yet another cruelty enacted upon Shylock by his Christian tormentors. Even if salvation can only be found through Christ, communion taken 'unworthily', i.e. without belief, is a sin against the blood and body. So it's a false redemption they are 'offering' to Shylock, and they know it.

and me

bumping for information on this thread

Haha that was MY comment! I will forever be known on Veeky Forums as Anonymous!

warosu.org/lit/thread/S667543#p667573
If you actually follow the threads (there were multiple) all the way to their conclusion you'll see the anons ended up deciding it was a different author. But its still nice to believe Tommy P. used to come here.

Anyway, are you going to post the rest of the context? Or only the parts that make you look clever?

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

This being a PS to but directed at

The context in which the speech is situated?

shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.3.1.html

The conte(n)t of the original thread was another matter entirely, which I don't care to have repeated here.

The thing is, though, at what point does Hamlet actually realize he is being watched?

>Or only the parts that make you look clever?
> another matter entirely, which I don't care to have repeated here.

I guess that's my answer.

I'm sorry, do you have anything of value to contribute? Or do you just want it known that your feelings have been hurt? Noted. Dismissed.

At least II.ii, when he encounters R&G and discovers them as agents of Claudius.

>If you can't understand the meaning INHERENT in Hamlet's monologue..."
And then you go on to talk about how the context changes the meaning. Are you implying its context changed THE INHERENT MEANING OF THE WORDS, IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE USED?
By the way I believe the word you were looking for, which I should have swapped for "monologue" was soliloquy. "monologue" is so plebian.

while you make a decent enough point that warrants discussion, you could better get your point across by using words and lines that back up your argument. If you're going to go out on a limb (which I'm not saying you are or aren't, but, by putting others down for not understanding something and then attempting to explain it, you are doing a disservice to yourself and thus us), you should quote these "candid" feelings that Hamlet is talking about in the graveyard scene. How are his thoughts on those before Yorick, and then thoughts ON Yorick, not kaleidoscopic, and thus part of his never-ending Daedelus well of intelligence? You are chalking this up to playing games with Claudius and Polonius? Show me proof!

It's debate to know whether Hamlet knows he's being watched certainly before Ophelia arrives, and I'm liable to tend towards the fact that he does believe so, AFTER she shows up. Even if she has, what's to say that Hamlet is not lamenting. It takes a mighty soulless perspective to not jive with that. And of course, reading any critic (Goddard comes to mind as the best in this sense, because he acknowledges himself), will show you that there is no RIGHT interpretation of Shakespeare. BUT, if we're going to play, let's play. If we're going to assume that he is being watched, which words in his soliloquy show these perceptions and anxieties you're talking about? Since you have no foundation to base this off, and rather you spout crapshoot claims, I'm liable to stay with the notion that Hamlet really is opening up here, especially considering that his world has crashed down around him: his mother, someone who he has known to be all that a mother needs to be, has fallen from grace, and so has subsequently Hamlet,because of his genius and moral sensibility (A.C. Bradley's perspective). Who here has not felt at one point in their life that their world has changed? Certainly no one with a modicum of intelligence and sensibility and who has also grown to a point where their parents are no longer what they seemed to be.

>-like Shylock being a scapegoat figure rather than a typical Jewish villain

this is a very uncontroversial opinion, though the "evil jew" theory is probably held equally next to it, for some reason. I just don't see how anyone could read the play (especially see it performed) and not see how he is somewhat justified in his wrathful conniving. He watches as his estate and family and wealth crumble around him, all while being treated as an animal. He's treated even worse than that, he's treated as a senile old man and an obstacle by Jessica and co. (iirc that's his daughter's name) when in fact he is a lively and very sharp person. He's quite a weird character. Not a villain for sure, more like something of a tragic antihero. He's not an evil jew, he's more of a man who happens to be jewish in the wrong place at the wrong time, and tries to overcome this until his hubris gets in the way.

>will show you that there is no RIGHT interpretation of Shakespeare

Well there are good arguments and weak arguments. Hamlet is more of a rorschach test of the critic's/reader's creativity (what type of constructive (sometimes mis-)reading they can offer) but yeah OP's argument would probably have value with actual citations and... well, an argument

It's not a soliloquy, as others can hear what he is saying, and take note of it.

There is no 'inherent meaning' in the speech, was part of my point. However, IF there were, the speech would not warrant the interest and acclaim it receives, as the sentiment is rather lame, especially compared with Hamlet's other adventures in thought.

he is the only one on stage so it is a soliloquy

Indeed there is. Indeed there is.

No, he is not. Ophelia is on stage waiting for him, while Polonius and Claudius are watching from off-stage.

The actual arrangement and entrances/exits of characters would largely be up to directorial choice in a production, but this is the configuration as presented in most editions.

my bad. Just checked the text--you're right.

This is a lot to respond to, and I'm not fully prepared for most of it. However, as to the topic at hand, I would refer to the final speech of II.ii, which immediately precedes TBONTB. In it speech Hamlet curses himself for his ineptitude and his general slowness to action, and ends with a new resolve to 'catch the conscience of the king'. Now, The Mousetrap is ostensibly the instrument for this end, but Hamlet is also aware, after his confrontation with R&G, that he is suspected by his elders. (Also, c.f. Claudius just before Hamlet's entrance in II.iii:
O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!
(ambiguity in reference, even 'anachronicities', are common literary tools employed by Shakes. It establishes a webbing of association that is meant to carry through the work)
It would be very strange for Hamlet to proceed as if he was not being watched when he has just been given clear evidence that he is, and when he already knows he cannot trust anyone save Marcellus and Horatio.

Further, I think there is a deliberate symmetry between Hamlet's TBONTB and Claudius' 'O, my offence is rank'. In each, bother are being observed by the other, and in each, both are actively deceiving the other, and in each, both are successful in deferring the other's intent--for a time.

thank you for responding and backing it up.

I should add that I think Hamlet is complex and intelligent enough a personality to considers and perform multiple levels simultaneously, and I believe that is exactly what is going on in the TBONTB speech. While I think he is playing up the melancholic aspects of the speech for Claudius and Polonius and probably even Ophelia's benefit, there is underneath that a genuine consideration of the dilemma he is posing: what to do in the face of the unknown.

Interesting, it's been a while since I've read it but I think Bloom was pretty adamant that Shylock's acceptance of the conversion was a cruelty on Shakespeare's part. That Shylock shouldn't have converted considering all the humanity he had been given, but his final acceptance was to paint Shylock as ultimately having no backbonde, I guess.

But what you've said is interesting because it shows both Christians and Jews to be acting unworthily. Gotta reread it now.

>If you actually follow the threads (there were multiple) all the way to their conclusion you'll see the anons ended up deciding it was a different author.

No one decided shit. It remains unsolved.

Ehhh, that style of humor doesn't seem like Pynchon to me. Perhaps he's mellowed out since TCoL49 and GR (haven't read his newer stuff), or maybe it's the posting format, but there's a certain cadence in his deliveries that seems lacking here.

>No one decided shit. It remains unsolved
Well sure no one had any hard evidence, but there was a consensus that it was some particular author. I don't wanna sift through all my bookmarked threads at the moment, but I'm pretty sure the author's first name started with a 'M', maybe Max?
I kinda thought that also, but it's the reasons pointed out, together with the puzzle he was weaving together regarding his identity and the name he chose for his email address (which came up in a different thread), and all of that together with "well doesn't he just kinda seem like the type of guy who would browse Veeky Forums".
Whatever, I want to believe.

The guy was certainly not your average channer though. Not only because he was very well read, but because his use of greentext and not liking to other posts; either that, or he was aware someone was going to pick up on those marks.

However it was, he definitely played us.

Some retard saying it was Dave Eggers doesn't prove shit. It's unsolved.