Yet another appendix (for Claudia): One last thing about „Hamlet“ …

 Even though I obviously cannot find an end I still think that I am in no danger of getting started on “Hamlet” “for real” because I would have to do all the work that Dover-Wilson did – at least where the “reading” is concerned. And I suppose he will still be a much better reader than I am. Which I still think has little to do with being a scholar of Shakespeare as such. Of course it has for the purpose of publishing lasting and proven “truths” about his plays. Which is not at all what I am trying to do – but sometimes you just “fall on them”. And I don’t even think it happens very rarely if you take the text seriously – potentially all of it! (Which I think is impossible to do in “Hamlet” anyway, but Dover Wilson has gone pretty far with this.) And if you are a CONFIDENT reader, trusting your own instincts and experience. Because there are limitations to the achievements of a “historical” school of reading to which Dover Wilson belongs. And they are basically the same that I have already laid down playfully rather at the beginning of my blog. Of course we can “unearth” a lot of really important content in the play by acquiring knowledge about its historical situation and especially about how it has probably been performed at the time, as Dover Wilson proves, but it would be impossible to have a comprehensive and exact knowledge of the historical circumstances appertaining to any play from a context as remote as this - and probably any text at all. Because there are always historical facts, especially biographical, that might be much more important than the historical context, and which nobody knows anything about anymore. Basically, it doesn’t really matter if we know who Shakespeare was or not, and not even that he was a man of the theatre – which is valuable information but not at all NECESSARY to still understand what his plays are about.

By which I don’t mean at all that this kind of information isn’t very useful FOR digging up what is in the play because in “Hamlet” the biggest part literally is “below the surface”, and very little of it is stated “directly”. Which usually is the fun of it, but in “Hamlet” it is certainly an awful lot of work as well. And, whereas for example in “Macbeth” there are still only a few sentences and words I know I don’t understand, in “Hamlet” there is still a lot. One of the reasons for it I understood reading Dover Wilson, because there is so much ironic content there, and that largely rests on quoting proverbs or colloquialisms that “we” don’t understand anymore – much more than in most of the other plays. And a lot of it is quite important, even for understanding a reply or a whole scene. So, at least in “Hamlet”, there is a language barrier there still, for me. Here I am moving on even thinner ice than I usually do, and I am well aware of it.

Nonetheless, in my opinion, there is something which is always “there” when we are reading something – or are watching it in the theatre. Which is the potential existence of THE COMPLETE TEXT “in” the person who is doing the reading. Which is always a process that gets terminated somehow but can always potentially go on. And as there certainly is a great danger of going wrong in a “subjective” reading process because we single out part of the text according to what we think is important concerning our own personal situation and experience, there is, in my opinion, exactly the same danger in selecting part of the historical information, or what we think we know about Shakespeare, to “pin down” the meaning of the text. And, in my personal experience, there are much more examples of this kind of going definitely wrong by selecting single historical issues than by trying to seriously connect with the complete text AS A HUMAN BEING. Because I am convinced that it is human beings these texts were written and performed for, though partly human beings who were scholars as well, of course. But mainly intelligent human beings with a sense of humour and an ability to FEEL. And I am convinced there are still more of them among us than we usually think, if they’d just try and give it a go. And that’s the reason I think we always “have” the complete text at our disposal, everything that is really important, though there might be different degrees of difficulty of getting at it. (I remember that in “The Crucible” I had the impression that the COMPLETE text was given to me so clearly by the actors that I am not THAT pissed off of not being able to see it again as I usually would have been. Though I am, of course! Whereas “Hamlet” is definitely something like a black piste which requires a “daring” reader. And I obviously like to be that, even though there ensued some very questionable reading in this case. Though no “real damage” or “life-changing” experience so far.) And I think, by the way, that’s basically what Schiller wrote. And what I found astonishing about reading “him” was that I found myself in total agreement with him about this – I’d never have thought!

(And if more of the kind of readers I just described would read my blog I could recommend to them the next very entertaining and intelligent U.S. film I have seen: “Hail Caesar!” Which contains a satirical but, in the end, moving version of the “idealist” dilemma.  At least I found it moving  (and hilarious at the same time) when George Clooney as Hollywood star Baird Whitlock overcomes his temporary “infection” with communism and moves everybody on the set , and presumably the audience in the cinema!, by pleading exactly the same values the communists stand for. Not because of WHAT he says, I think I barely noticed!, but because of the superior and convincing display of the emotional content. The ultimate triumph of “matter” becoming “form” – which, as stated in this film,  might very much be the point of what “Hollywood” is about …)

But now to the reason I wrote this (last?) appendix and dedicated it to Claudia. We had another long conversations about Shakespeare and other things we “read” just last week, and she brought up an issue which I later recognized as rather important, and which lead to another discovery concerning “Hamlet”. It was an issue that scholars obviously have agreed on – and I judge they are right because it was basically about what puzzled me about Hamlet and on what I had hit myself the moment I came to look for other “heroes” in Shakespeare. Even earlier, actually, quite in the beginning when I began to develop an interest in Hamlet because of the perspective of Benedict Cumberbatch playing him. And in this case the historical point of view is rather crucial – though not something that you couldn’t dig up using very general historical knowledge.  But, in this case, THINKING of the play as something with a “place” in history, is rather helpful and revealing. Because “Hamlet” is seen as a play where two different frames of reference for judging human beings exist. I already figured out that, for example, in “Macbeth” there actually IS a dilemma because there is not just the inhuman act of killing somebody who is his kinsman and his king, but the question what will become of his life when he doesn’t take his one “career opportunity”.  And what makes it a potentially “tragic” decision is that he feels the pressure of this and is finally unable to overcome it – though he knows he should.  But he can’t because he is completely “held” by an outdated frame of reference that is basically much “older” than Shakespeare himself, but still relevant and understandable to his audience. So, Macbeth’s potential “happiness” comes to an end THE MOMENT the witches hail him as king. It’s what seals his fate. And he doesn’t know it …

Hamlet knows, though. He knows what happiness really depends on, which is – as he talks about with Horatio – true peace of mind. And, deep inside, he probably isn’t convinced that he will achieve that by doing his duty: to kill Claudius and to become king. But what probably makes “Hamlet” so especially complicated is that the new frame of reference wasn’t really “there” yet. At least not for Hamlet himself who believes that he has to do his duty, and that there is basically no way out. I think we have to take it more seriously than we would in a contemporary context how Macbeth is always picked on by his wife for not being a “man”. Because, if he isn’t a man – WHAT is he? And maybe – just maybe!  - trying to find a “way out”, somehow, being inventive about the fact that there MIGHT BE a choice, is what makes Hamlet special, and why I saw him as potentially “heroic” – which is highly questionable of course. Not being a man somehow just doesn’t appear to be top of the list of his problems. There is very thin evidence still, but maybe “Hamlet” is about the appearance of a new “species” of mankind which we think we are so familiar with and which I would call an “individual”.  But, at the time, this might have been kind of a heroic existence. Probably still is?

Of course I rather like heroes with swords, and there are still lots of them “out there”. Take your pick! But everybody will probably agree that being a ruthless fighter doesn’t make Macbeth a “hero”. But what it is that makes a hero, even though it appears important to me, I don’t think I figured that out yet. And there are of course different forms of heroism. But maybe the point here is that it may be too difficult for Hamlet himself to figure out. Maybe even Shakespeare himself didn’t, in the end. And I’d rather like to think that everybody who “does” Hamlet, and every audience that watches the play, tries to figure it out for themselves every time this happens. Like I did. And isn’t THAT great!