The umptieth (and last!) appendix on „Hamlet“

 

I have done it! I have “cracked” “Hamlet”. Meaning that I have somehow “nailed” the question I was circling relentlessly, and answered it. And I could never have done it without Dover Wilson, which doesn’t just mean that I have now to write STLL ANOTHER appendix when I know at least ten things I would (or should!) rather do. It means that this appendix will have to be STILL LONGER because I have to explain what “happened” when I read Dover Wilson …

But am I really surprised? I mean, I know me … But that is exactly IT! I can’t believe how I ALWAYS underestimate how stubborn I am. And, although I am making up fanciful reasons for something like this all the time, THIS is probably the REAL reason why I like characters like Queen Margaret (who is a horrible person!), or Tolkien’s dwarves, or Scrat from “Ice Age” who was, for a time, my favourite fictional character! Because they just don’t know how to stop. But in truth you never know what the outcome will be, and I somehow don’t see myself as a person running up to a wall and getting her head bloody, but as a sensible person who knows when I am beaten. Well, obviously, I am not, and, once in a while, in a worthy cause, I become “like this”, and then I GET a result. But of course I never believe this in advance because this would be hubris, and hubris doesn’t get you anywhere. At least I think I have by now learned the importance of the RIGHT KIND of humbleness.

Now about Dover Wilson. I MUST make this really short, but it’s difficult because reading his book has unearthed a lot of “ancient history”. Most of it began at uni when I heard a lecture held by the professor I already mentioned in my blog. He was a great fan of the American philosopher of science Karl Popper who laid down a few very simple rules of scientific thinking which this lecture obviously implanted into my brain in a permanent fashion, much more permanent than I had thought. Because in the meantime a lot of things happened, and I had come to the somewhat disappointing conclusion that studying literature is not “rocket science”, but reading. At the same time I became increasingly frustrated with the kind of literary criticism I had to deal with at uni, to the point that I developed a kind of phobia of reading it without really being aware of this. But I already wrote my master thesis largely without using any other literature than the fictional texts I was dealing with, and it was approved. The reason for this, which I wasn’t fully aware of at the time, was that this kind of scholarly writing doesn’t just fall utterly short of the criteria of rocket science, but, as a rule, has very little to do with reading. To understand this it is important to mention that I studied then German literature, not English, and there is still a very different tradition, a bit like the two different theatre traditions, I think. Like in the German “Regie-Theater” (“director’s theatre”), on the field of literary criticism it is the scholar who is “taking over” the text, “bending it” to the rules that he/she thinks should apply to the text because of his/her feminist, post-modern, or whatever, convictions. And I just hated this kind of thing! I was “surrounded” by it though, and couldn’t get away from it if I wanted to “fit in”. At the same time I realized that reading all this stuff was just a waste of valuable time. When I am thinking how slow a reader I have become I cannot even imagine how I managed to read Kant’s “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”, but I did. And I read a lot of other stuff that was equally difficult to read, but there was just no time for REALLY reading feminist crap on top of that. So I think I developed a strategy of not really reading what I was supposed to read, though “faking it” to a certain degree, working instead on MY OWN METHOD of scholarly writing, I think mostly through writing my master thesis. Which is exactly what my professor said to me, by the way, when she had to justify giving me an “A” on my thesis although she probably saw completely through what I had and hadn’t done. (And then, I didn’t really understand her. I didn’t even like her, as I knew she didn’t like me, but, unlike myself, she was very open-minded.) And what I did then, I think, was already rather like what I am doing now, I just had a different label for it. I laboured at NOT obliterating my own attitude towards the text, at least by “smuggling” in a little bit of a personal point of view by being witty or even ironic when appropriate, at the same time going as far as I could observing the principles of “rocket science”. Because, in a way, to me it WAS “rocket science”, and still is, as I stubbornly refused, and refuse!, to take it less seriously than that.

And these rules are basically two which are very simple. They are based on the assumption that every potentially true statement can be refuted by evidence, (whereas no statement which doesn’t just establish a single fact can ever be proved true.) Accordingly, to “produce” knowledge in any field of experience, you have to take care to make statements which can be proved wrong. I believe that, even though it has in fact nothing to do with how rocket scientists actually work, this is the basic rule through which we establish truth in an everyday context. And I even believe that every sensible person uses this rule, usually without being aware of it. It is a bit like the second important rule on relevant reading which everybody uses, except critics!, and which has to do with what we accept as “evidence”, as the object we agree or disagree about. Which is THE TEXT we are reading. I just stumbled over an instance of it which I liked, watching the specials to “The Battle of the Five Armies”, when Richard Armitage said in his interview that he would really have liked to hear what Tolkien scholars had to say on “dragon sickness”. Given how seriously he took Tolkien’s novel as his main point of reference for the character, this is AT LEAST an ambiguous statement – if not an expression of frustration disguised in irony? – of which I fully approved.

So, it has become much too long again, I know, but this is where Dover Wilson comes in. Because he was the first literary critic I read who is taking both of my indispensable criteria for literary criticism as seriously as I do myself. First of all, he is a tremendous reader – much better and more thorough than I could ever be. And THE TEXT is his true aim as well as his limit, which is, in my opinion, the only way to write a scholarly treatise about a work of fiction which might be worth reading because it is USEFUL. In this case not only for other scholars but for the average reader who wants to get a more comprehensive picture of what actually “happens in Hamlet”, as well as probably for somebody who wants to perform this character or is thinking about how to produce the play. And, which became especially important for me, he presents his arguments in a way that makes it possible to contradict them. I don’t believe that this can be quite true, but it was the first time I read something like this that I didn’t feel like Hansel and Gretel in the forest, following the “Holzwege” (= tracks made by the people harvesting wood which end somewhere in the middle of nowhere), frustrated and alone.

Given my bad experience, I am probably quite critical as a “scholar”, always preparing to “pick a fight”. But I went through more than three quarters of the book, obediently following Dover Wilson’s argument, until I became uneasy. I went on with a feeling I wanted to contradict him but didn’t know why exactly and then stopped, frustrated, because I knew I wouldn’t figure it out. It was something I had established about Hamlet quite early on, and which I still believed in, and still didn’t know what it was, exactly. But it had something to do with the necessity of these characters to become people “of flesh and blood” which you would “believe in” when you see them on a stage. Which is probably my main objective reading these plays still, and most of the fun of it. And sometimes, as soon as I see the play, and, in fact, quite often, this happens “automatically”. Even if I see totally different, or contradictory, versions of these characters. My favourite example probably being Claudius whom I have seen played by such eminent actors as Chiaran Hinds, Derek Jacobi, and Patrick Steward (twice!, with a time gap of about thirty years), all of them completely different and equally convincing. Whereas in other cases it doesn’t happen “like that” or at all, as with Richard II – until I saw Derek Jacobi play him, or Macbeth where it hasn’t happened yet, or, of course, Hamlet. Because even though Benedict Cumberbatch “felt” right I couldn’t really figure out why.

Maybe I needed the interval to “catch up” with the book in my head because when I opened it again I realized that there was no need to contradict Dover Wilson because he does that himself. Quite in the beginning of his treatise he writes that Hamlet isn’t – as Goethe says – a “WEAK” character, but that the “sheer weight of the load” is too much for him. Then, following Hamlet through most of his ordeal, he is taking this back step by step, finally stating explicitly that “Shakespeare never lets us forget that he is a failure, or that he has failed through WEAKNESS OF CHARACTER”. And it is really important, in this case, that this contradiction isn’t “stated” at any point in the treatise but is developing “naturally” as Dover Wilson is describing the character on the way through his tragedy. Because then it isn’t a plain contradiction but a reading process which leaves us with this contradictory conclusion, in the end. Which becomes still complicated by the equally sound observation that Shakespeare needed to re-establish Hamlet’s “character” towards the end of the play, so as to have the audience on his side when it comes to the tragic “showdown”. Then we have to understand that “decision and determination do not make ‘character’, though the world thinks so(!!!). There is also nobility and generosity, honour and integrity of soul, and in this sphere Hamlet shines ‘like a star I’th’darkest night’ against the base iniquity of his opponents.” So, if you just “skip” the reading process in between, this leaves us with a fairly strong contradiction as to the CHARACTER of Hamlet, made even stronger by the fact that it isn’t a contradiction which occurred through “weakness” of reading, or argument, but as the outcome of the “strongest” and soundest, and most comprehensive reading process I have witnessed so far.

But, if we look closely, what Dover Wilson does in the beginning, although he then gradually takes it back, is taking a “leap of faith”, stating without presenting any evidence that Hamlet isn’t “meant” to be a weak character. And it is even exactly what I did, and what I felt about this character, but it can of course only come from having thought about him and anticipated him a great deal more than both of us were probably aware of. Unlike me, who didn’t know at all where my conviction came from, Dover Wilson indirectly presents a good reason by implying that, without this assumption, the tragedy wouldn’t really “work”. And this might have been my reason as well - and Shakespeare’s own reason, if Dover Wilson is right. In any case I found that I couldn’t START reading with nothing, or with this contradiction in mind, and had to make a decision about Hamlet beforehand and remove the FULL contradiction of Hamlet being both a hero and a weak character for even BEING TEMPTED to read “him”. And from this there would automatically develop a process of FINDING CORROBORATION for what I had decided about him. And this is I think what “happens in Hamlet” when somebody seriously undertakes to “tackle” this play and this character. And what Shakespeare wanted to make happen, even for himself!, finding, at the same time, the most interesting, convincing, and entertaining version of a story that had already been told. He was certainly intrigued by the “mystery” and was looking for it, looking for the most interesting and comprehensive version of it, probably finding “on the way” something he didn’t intend to find. And I think it was what made me look as well, and not give up, even when I found it way too difficult for me. Still finding it too difficult, although I am now almost “through” with it. And, of this whole process, the solution is always the “flattest” and least exciting part, and the way I got there almost all the fun. As probably quite often, I am jealous of the actor who can leave this part to the audience.

And I am almost tempted to do this. But this wouldn’t be very considerate regarding my potential readership. And I think that Dover Wilson has “cracked” it anyway, although he stopped – reasonably! - a few paces earlier on the path on which (I think) I terminated my personal reading-process. In fact I don’t really know that because I am still not through with his book – which is dangerous, I know … But, in any case, the most important thing of what he does is what he doesn’t do: trying to REMOVE the contradiction. In this way the play is kept “afloat”, and we never lose interest in what he is telling about Hamlet’s story. And he observes that, at one point, Hamlet gets “stuck” because he somehow cannot do what he knows he is supposed to do: kill Claudius. And that this is the point where he is failing, and that Shakespeare doesn’t really give a reason why he doesn’t make any serious attempts to do it. And, what was more difficult for me to deal with, is that Hamlet obviously sees it like this himself. He perceives himself as a potential failure and is struggling with the fact that he isn’t man enough to do his duty. And this Shakespeare makes so obvious that there is no way of “dodging” it: He sees himself as somebody who is weak.

If this wasn’t so I could just have gone on with what I obviously WANTED to do: pretend that he doesn’t find an occasion, and that the task is too difficult – because he obviously has no help and no support in the court, and is abandoned by everybody. But this is not at all what Hamlet “is about”, and it isn’t even a useful suggestion for reading “him”, because weakening the contradiction is not the way to make Hamlet emerge as a person “of flesh and blood”. It is, on the contrary, by strengthening it and figuring out exactly how it works – and, again, I could never have done this without Dover Wilson. Because he brings it out very clearly that Hamlet’s weakness of character doesn’t present itself as a problem BEFORE he has established Claudius’ guilt and the reliability of the ghost by “taking” Claudius “out”, presenting him with his own story in the “Gonzago” play. After that Hamlet has a reason to struggle with himself about not being able to finish what he has started. But the only proof of this WE ACTUALLY SEE – the one occasion of killing Claudius – is when he finds him at prayer. After that “bad luck” interferes with his plans in a way that makes it in fact very difficult, if not impossible, to follow through with his design. And this scene might hold the explanation for how exactly the contradiction “is meant” to work. I think we already “had” it, the last time I was talking with Claudia about Hamlet and she said that Hamlet probably doesn’t really WANT to kill Claudius. And I believe this might in fact be the key because I could never shed the suspicion that the reason he gives in his monologue for not killing Claudius just then is not his REAL reason.

It is important that, at this point, I have left the firm ground of scholarly reading and have moved on into the realm of conjecture. Which is, of course, necessary, but the “scholarly” way of doing it – beautifully exemplified by Dover Wilson – is not to do it BEFORE it becomes necessary, being conscious of doing it, and always sticking to CONSISTENCY where the text is concerned. I don’t think that Hamlet wanting Claudius to go to hell is not the real reason because it is, in a contemporary view, a weak reason. I think that, for Hamlet, it is a sound reason, and that he is glad to have found it because he REALLY doesn’t want to do what he knows is expected of him, and what he expects of himself. Which would be, in this moment, the equivalent of what Laertes later suggests: killing his enemy in a church. Or even generally: to pursue the bloody path of revenge, which might restore his honour and “buy” him the kingship, but at what price? I think deep inside he knows what the price will be, if he joins the fray, as he opens his innermost self only to his confidant, Horatio, telling him indirectly what he really wants from his life. Which, at the point it has brought him to, is very little: peace of mind, and INDEPENDENCE of soul. But in fact it is something very big: the freedom to steer his fate himself, following that which is within him that “passes show”, and which he knows will always steer him the right way. Which is “where” Shakespeare wants him to appear in the end (as Dover Wilson states, emphasizing his “nobility” and “integrity of soul”). I think Hamlet knows that, as he knows about the state of his “inner self” in the beginning of the play, but cannot perceive it consciously because there are no other criteria for him to judge himself and his actions than those his own “time” provides. But his REAL struggle is always to get there, to somehow find a way of doing THE RIGHT THING. I think that by PLAYING THIS, Hamlet would make much more sense on a stage, but this would of course have to be put to the test. And I think it has partly been “tested”, as I said, the way Benedict Cumberbatch played him, because he believed in his character as a human being, NOT as a failure, and held fast to this all the way through, never “giving him away” but, at the same time, making the contradictions, the ridiculousness and strangeness, really strong.

So it appeared in fact as the birth of a NEW KIND of human being which must have been a difficult and bloody one at the time. And with good reason, because there is an “insubstantial” gain on one side, opposed to a very substantial loss. And the question from “Macbeth”: if one can be “a man” as well as a human being, is not obliterated in our own time though the context has changed. It is something I have observed from the beginning that, though having gained the crown in an unlawful and criminal way, Claudius fulfills the expectations of whoever elected him, holding the spikes of the “massy wheel” with a firm hand, steering his country through trouble in a responsible way. Whereas Hamlets “gamble”, in the end, apart from multiple killings, leads to the loss of everything. I think we always tend to take Shakespeare’s historical and political statements less seriously than the “human issues” in his plays, and I always felt that “we” are partly wrong doing this. And now I know why. Of course the historical situation of “Hamlet” is not to be taken seriously as a HISTORICAL statement about the REAL background of the story. (Even though it would be so much more convenient, Bohemia still doesn’t have a coast-line!) But I am sure that Shakespeare wanted to tell us SOMETHING by making it clear that, in the end, Norway gains what they always wanted to have, and what Claudius was able to preserve so far by successful diplomacy. Even though it is, as usual, not a statement but a suggestion to draw our own conclusions. Which might be for us to see that “humanity” and trying to live your own life, ALWAYS comes at a price. And this price might even be one way of measuring its worth. Which might in fact be the deepest truth contained in tragedy, and the secret why we are usually not just “crushed” by it but find in it something we WANTED to find. Even where “our” deepest need for “having heroes” might lie: in being able to take ourselves, and our brittle and ridiculous lives, seriously. Finding a way to BELIEVE IN US, and even, maybe, to IMPROVE ourselves in that way?

The world hasn’t changed after all: „spotlight“ on the Oscars

So, now the Oscars are “over” again for this year, and the world is again as it was before. And of course I knew that and am ashamed of having been so excited about them! And I really have been, as I seriously considered to stay up and at least hear the updates on the radio. What a waste of time and sleep that would have been! Not just because I always forget that the Oscars here are so “late” that I would be up again about an hour anyway before they come to “best actor” and “best film”, but because I had a premonition of what would happen – at least if they did what they usually do, which, in both cases, they have done.

Well, for Leonardo DiCaprio it was to be expected anyway, and didn’t come too soon.
And I just hope that he is as happy about it as he certainly pretended to be. But I doubt it, though I don’t know how many nominations there have been. And it doesn’t happen often that an actor gets it whom I have admired in four films: “Gilbert Grape”, “The Man in the Iron Mask” (from 1998! where I actually discovered that he probably already was a significant actor), “The Departed” and “Revolutionary Road”. There an Oscar certainly would have been in order because he nailed this character as certainly nobody else could have done, though he did a bit much “for safety” as he usually does. But best actor and best actress are usually never given for the same film, and, in this case, notwithstanding how many she already had?, Kate Winslet should have got it. I don’t think there was a nomination because of this film anyway. Instead she got it for a stupid film like “Der Vorleser” – one of these films where I know it MUST HAVE BEEN stupid without having seen it. I haven’t seen “The Revenant” either, and I didn’t plan to. I planned to see “Spotlight” though, but now I certainly won’t.  I had a premonition these last few days that it would be “Spotlight” when I thought about it. No great surprise there either. And why see a film where I know in advance that I will come out “crushed” and already know why? Bloody waste of time. Or, although slightly better, see a film like “The Revenant” where I’d probably feel the same way and won’t even know why. When a film can make me laugh, which doesn’t happen too often but has happened two times very “thoroughly” just in the last month, I certainly know why! - Well, the less said on that subject the better. Why can’t I just give up hope that - in just one tiny and insignificant spot - the world might be changed for less stupid?

Strange, but I don’t. I just wrote in my diary yesterday that maybe intelligent series like “House of Cards” and “Sherlock” which a lot of people see might actually make “a difference”. Maybe they have already been the “reason” for amazingly intelligent box office productions like “The Big Short” or “Hail Ceasar!” to have come into being. Because there must be tons of intellect “out there” just waiting to be used to make “big” money - if there was a real opportunity of making this kind of money through telling stories in a different and intelligent way. On the other hand, this would spark a chain reaction by waking tons of unused intellectual potential “slumbering” “in” the audience. I even thought their success might already be an indication that people are actually getting “more intelligent” – which appears to be a scientifically proven fact. Yes, I was surprised to hear that as well (!) – especially when I consider that children hardly learn to read at school anymore, let alone write properly, in the first place. But from what I see concerning my nephews and nieces lately I am still not too pessimistic. Take my seventeen year old niece Lisa – who certainly loved “50 Shades of Grey” which just got a “razzie” and probably deserved it. (Which I again can tell without having seen the film! Though I am obviously not quite as old yet as these snobbish critics, who have forgotten, if they ever knew, what a young female audience wants. Just because most of the more “grown up” or “male” products of stupidity don’t just go unchecked but quite often get you a nomination or an Oscar!) But, apart from “50 Shades of Grey” she also loved “The Hobbit “ AND is a great fan of “Sherlock”, both of which you can certainly do or be for the “wrong” reason. One of them in this case being Benedict Cumberbatch, and I don’t mean AS AN ACTOR, of course! But it wasn’t JUST Benedict Cumberbatch because she liked Martin Freeman very much as well. And to appreciate “Sherlock” there has to be a substantial store of intelligence somewhere, even if it is usually well hidden. (By the way, I should be one to talk! Though I am still pretending that it has been “the other way round”! Well, IT WAS!!!)

So, enough of snobbishness for one day now! Because something much more important than the Oscars happened just this weekend. I took up Dover Wilson again, and the first thing I noticed was that I had “cracked” “Hamlet”. Which means I was able to answer MY question about “Hamlet” – a question which I hadn’t known how to ASK in the first place. And of course I was enormously pleased about that. Less pleased though, just now, that there will have to be YET ANOTHER chapter on “Hamlet” – THE LAST ONE, THIS TIME! And I was so much looking forward to finally see my first chapter about “The Hobbit” appear on my blog – which in the meantime I have polished to a degree that it shines like the great jewel in the film ... Well, as I am the only person who is excited about it, it doesn’t matter anyway. Although maybe still a tiny bit more than the Oscars …

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!

Appendix to the appendix about „Hamlet“: perpetual “reload”?

The week before last “Hamlet” got “reloaded” unintentionally, as usually happens by going to the cinema. I saw “The Big Short” which is an amazing film, outstanding, even taking into account all the amazing U.S. film productions I have seen just in the last year (like “Boyhood”, “Carol”, and “Steve Jobs”). But this film – I just sat there, literally with my mouth open and couldn’t believe it. And I thought: There must be hope for this world if people actually can make such an outstandingly intelligent and intrinsically funny film about this kind of issue. Even though nobody laughed except myself, which was kind of embarrassing. So I have no proof that anybody else understood the film which was rather difficult to “follow” of course. Without the German subtitles I wouldn’t have understood ANYTHING, but I am rather used to that. I am so glad I went to see it even though there is Brad Pitt in it. But that wasn’t a problem anyway because I didn’t recognize him.

What is even more amazing than the film itself is probably that it made the short-list for the Oscars. I am usually not interested in the Oscars at all, but in this case I checked immediately. And who knows – of course I don’t believe that it will make it. But I promise: If either “The Big Short” gets the Oscar for “best film” or Michael Fassbender gets “best actor” for “Steve Jobs” I will celebrate. And if both of this happens – which would be more of luck than EVEN I have had in the last few years – I will certainly get drunk, even if I have to do it on my own! Because nobody will understand my NEED to celebrate in this case, and I even know that it is stupid. Because the Oscar wouldn’t make me “more right” now than I was right about being pissed off about Susan Sarandon getting the Oscar for “Dead Man Walking” whereas Sean Penn got nothing, and his’ was probably the most remarkable feat of acting I had seen until then. (Well, in the long run: he has two of them now, I think, and he got “best actor” in Cannes for this one, which I remember having been enormously pleased with.) But this was probably when I stopped caring about the Oscars. Now I might even take it up again - but especially continue to watch U.S. films again, as I have already started to do in the last few years.

But about “Hamlet” … The “reload” happened when I left the cinema and suddenly that thought struck me: I am beginning to understand now! (And I think this might as well happen AGAIN more than a few times.) This time it was about Hamlet’s madness, an issue I have always dodged – like a couple of other important issues in the play – until I saw David Tennant’s Hamlet. Which made me think: I don’t think he really “got it” but there must be a REAL reason for Hamlet to “become mad”. That is, another reason than the requirements of plot or even Hamlet’s own reason of strategy. Because, just as a strategy, faking madness isn’t really a good idea. Mostly because, under normal circumstances, it must be incredibly difficult to “keep up” all the time. So there must be a real reason for him. Maybe that he HAS TO do it to make it easier for him to “survive” under these circumstances. I even think it must be for him kind of a “natural reaction” to what his world has become, and, consequently, not really difficult to “fake”. Something that he WANTS to do because it allows him to finally speak the truth in a world that is fundamentally deceitful.  But how much truth there is, and how much strategy, is of course difficult to decide. I think this was how I CHOSE to understand it when I saw Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet.

But to understand THIS you really must have an idea of what the world has become for him. The RSC used this broken mirror – which I understood as an incredibly powerful visual metaphor for the kind of “prison” Denmark has become for Hamlet. But as a visual metaphor it doesn’t SAY what it means, and “we” have to fill in the content ourselves. Which is difficult, exactly BECAUSE we think we know “Hamlet” so well – to a point that we got used to what happens to the main character.  And we need to use something like this distorting or magnifying glass to understand what he is going through. And, I think, in a fictional text, we are required not just to understand it but to FEEL it. Which was for me finally achieved by recognizing “The Big Short” as an “emotional” metaphor for what Shakespeare aimed at in “Hamlet”. And this is a state of reality that is at the same time kind of unreal, unbelievable, and genuinely threatening. I think this is why Shakespeare chose to “unsettle” the audience by trying to make them realize that they don’t understand anything, just when they think they do.

And when I have this general metaphor of something I ACTUALLY FELT as a “sample” of how Hamlet must have been feeling – adding to this that, for him, it was the state of HIS OWN PERSONAL WORLD that is at stake! – I suddenly can PLACE the issues I HAD understood and feel the weight and importance they might have for Hamlet. For example, I couldn’t understand the scandal Hamlet is feeling about his mother marrying his uncle. Dover Wilson enlightened me a bit on this issue, but I cannot see any proof in the play that there must have been unfaithfulness before his father’s death, and he gives none. And marrying the brother after one’s husband’s death was a very common thing, at least in the Middle Ages, certainly not “incest”(!), so I didn’t – and probably don’t – understand (yet?) what is the most important cause for Hamlet’s depression BEFORE he meets his father’s ghost. He obviously hates his uncle though we don’t really know why. But I somehow understood the scandal nobody is talking about, the question that is never raised: Why didn’t Hamlet become king after his father’s death? And I understood then the scope of Gertrude’s betrayal towards her son. Because, without the prospect of marrying the present queen, Claudius wouldn’t have been elected. And I think that was the moment I began to understand that there is DEFINITELY something wrong here – before we learn about the murder.

But there is another parallel still, even more important than the “state of the world”. Because what “The Big Short” analyzes in an absurdly funny – and finally the more enlightening – way is what happens when you start to ACT UPON THE TRUTH. Which is TRAGEDY. Which is people being unable to pay their mortgages, families losing their homes, and, in the end, people dying. And this realization is even more unsettling than I care to think. Of course we know that lying about the actual state of something cannot go on FOREVER. But it can go on for an amazing length of time. And, frankly, what is the state of the U.S. national budget JUST NOW? I don’t know, of course, and I don’t want to know! And I don’t want to know what will probably happen if the truth about it finally “gets out” – which is all the people “in charge” are continually trying to keep under the radar … Now just try, for a moment, to take WHAT HAPPENS IN “HAMLET” seriously, which is what I am trying to do: What if these idiots just hadn’t told Hamlet about the ghost? What would have happened then? Who knows. The only thing we can be rather certain of is that fewer people would have died …

And I have now come one step closer approaching an issue that is probably even the most important to me. It is about the value and USEFULNESS of significant works of fiction. Which means what they can actually BE USED FOR. Even apart from what I have stated already a few times – that you can use them to understand other texts and even the structure of “real life issues” and, in some cases, the nature of your own real life experience. Which is probably not in every case because they literally contain the “truth” about these issues, but because, in a way, you have to repeat or double these structures to analyze and understand them. And because understanding them “theoretically” often isn’t enough. There has to be an emotional content that you can only find in fiction. And, because of that, you create some kind of memory about these things. Which is unlike the kind of memory we acquire through trauma in real life, which is rarely useful and can hurt us permanently. Because, however perversely, we have ENJOYED these moments when we actually “lived” them. Often because of a sense of humour, or an “innate” understanding of structure and beauty, or maybe even because of a sense of freedom: that we are free to choose IF this is about ourselves or not. That we are free to “take on” this depth of feeling which would be kind of inadequate in real life. I am speculating, I DO NOT KNOW why my worst moment in “The Crucible” was actually my best moment watching it. It was only afterwards that I thought: What right has this self-important author to tell me the truth ABOUT MYSELF? Might be that I really understood only afterwards when I had the leisure to think about it. But I wouldn’t have REMEMBERED this moment if I hadn’t felt the truth and importance of it ALREADY THEN.

Anyway, everybody knows that we easily forget knowledge acquired “theoretically”, but by reading fiction, and remembering what we have “lived through” reading it, we acquire layers and layers of memory that can be used over and over again – and, by being used, develop new layers and change on and on, changing us …

(And, of course, by now, having read some more of Dover Wilson in the meantime, I have realized that I have now probably reached the point where I could GET STARTED on “Hamlet”.  This book is great, by the way, driven by an amazing ability to READ what is actually in the text and make sense of it, and, what is of even greater interest to me, of making his method of reading transparent. His argument is so convincing that it took some time for me to find out that I fundamentally disagree with him about Hamlet because of what he states to be the right method of “reading” the play, and the character. Which was an exciting discovery, but, as he is so much better, he’ll “beat” me. At least at the moment I don’t feel that I am up for the challenge. In any case: a book that survived a century because it is so relevant, and I am grateful for the recommendation!)