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PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
  Monday, 21 May 2007
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This post is in conntinuation of:

Willedever wrote:
We need to talk about what happens in the play, because it's so often done wrong, and for some things, it's always done wrong.



Only just caught up with this thread and am horrified at the idea of "Shakespearian correctness"!

I will start a so named thread in the Bits and Bobs part for people to kick the idea around.

AKF

. . . which I posted on the Hamlet Forum.

To nail my colours to the flag: The idea of a correct way to perform Shakespeare, or even of a correct interpretation is abhorrent to me.

I think it shows a serious lack of understanding not only of the theatre, but also of Shakespeare's original texts (or what we have of them).

(Something to chew on there!)

AKF
16 years ago
·
#1862

... For me, the very fact that the texts of Shakspeare's plays are intended for performance and consequently are incomplete automatically nullifies any definitive statements.


Actually, that is not a fact. A published play is closet drama, by definition. All of the playtexts we have are closet drama, since they are only the published form, and not the playhouse materials.
16 years ago
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#1863

It seems to me that Shakespeare wrote plays because that was the easiest way for him to use his talent to make money, and make it quickly. I doubt that he really understood or believed, at least early in his career, that his works would find great favor through the years, let alone centuries. ...


I can't agree with that, simply because of Venus and Adonis. He gained his first fame with a published poem, not a stage performance of a play. He couldn't have missed the significance of that.


... If he had written with future generations in mind, and with a strong desire to have his representation of reality understood, surely he would have made a much greater effort to ensure that his plays were accurately printed and published, ...


In the case of Hamlet Q2, he apparently did make such an effort for accuracy. It would take such effort to get things like "a heave, a kissing hill" (which is correct wording) in the text.

However, half the plays are found only in the Folio, where he could not have participated.
16 years ago
·
#1864
And will somebody please edit the title of this thread, to spell "scourge" correctly? It looks bad.
16 years ago
·
#1865

It's interesting that the first real attempt (that we know of) to codify and publish the plays occurred well after Shakespeare's death. If he had been interested in establishing himself as an author, is it unreasonable to assume that he would have made a greater effort during his lifetime - especially in his retirement when he had the time and money? Perhaps he did, but I think we can we agree there is no evidence of that.


A major difficulty would have been simply that the playhouse materials were the property of the playing company, not his personal property.


Certainly his thoughts and words are within our ken, but the distance between our lives and his is great and I believe that much of our understanding, our interpretations, and metaphorical insights are badly tainted by our modernism. ...


Certainly true. For example, there is absolutely no chance he wrote in 1600 in order to support 20th century Freudian psychology. Freudians would like to think so, but it's impossible. Ditto 21st century "gender studies." Moderns will attempt to leech off Shakespeare, because the writings are famous, the same way certain religious figures will try to use the Bible to support their own political or social agenda. Famous writings always get used in that selfish way, by people who come along later.
16 years ago
·
#1866

...
It's always interesting to speculate about the forms in which Shakespeare's unpublished plays existed between the time of his death (or perhaps, the time of the Globe fire in 1613) and the First Folio of 1623. It is logical to me that he specificaly left his works in the care of his company ...


There's no speculation in concluding that his stage scripts were playhouse materials of the playing company.
16 years ago
·
#1867

... the point I was attempting to make is that if WS had truly been motivated to ensure his legacy as much more than a playwright, isn't it likely that he would have pushed to have the FF published earlier rather than later. ...


It was not an established idea, at the time the Bard retired, to publish collections of plays. Ben Jonson set the precedent with the publication of his own plays in 1616. Marston's plays weren't collected and published until 1633, and Beaumont and Fletcher's plays weren't collected and published in folio until 1647.
16 years ago
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#1868

You'd proabably be interested in reading Jonathan Bate's Case for the Folio...


Unfortunately, Bate has some problems with his argument, including factual errors in what he wrote about Hamlet.

For one example: "seale slaughter." Bate calls it "manifestly a printing error," but it is not a printing error. Bate is wrong.

"Seale" is an abbreviation, on the same basic pattern of changing "over" to "ore." Basically, the 'v' is dropped, and the spelling consequently adjusted. It's a "drop-the-v" abbreviation, the same as appears in Q2 for devil=deale, and evil=eale.

Shakespeare used that special spelling, "seale slaughter," to connect to the "seal" idea in the play, as when Hamlet seals his forged order to England, ordering the deaths of R & G.

There is, in fact, a "seal slaughter" in the play, so to speak. Hamlet's "seal" on the forged order results in the "slaughter" of R & G. It's a "slaughter" through the use of a "seal."

Further, Horatio mentions the agreement between King Hamlet and Fortinbras being "sealed." That "seal" results in the "slaughter" of Fortinbras by King Hamlet. Again, it's a "slaughter" following from the use of a "seal."

In the immediate context, Hamlet is pondering self-slaughter, but doing so through the metaphor of putting a "seal" on a killing. The idea of "sealing" a death is an old figure of speech, from the practice of using an official seal on an order for somebody to be killed.

So there are at least three "seal slaughter" connections in the play. Thus, the special spelling, to abbreviate the sound of "sealve" as the printed word "seale."

(English pronunciation has changed since Elizabethan times, through what's called the Great Vowel Shift, thus the sound is the primary thing to consider, which is why I emphasize that. "Sealve" is not schoolbook spelling, it's the sound of what's being abbreviated. Sound can never be disregarded when considering something in Shakespeare.)

Anyway, Bate missed it, and called "seale slaughter" a printing error. Sigh. It's no such thing. It's a special spelling to make a connection of ideas in the play.

One must have sympathy for Bate, since his task was essentially impossible. I suspect he's probably done about as good a job as one man could do, in trying to handle all the plays at once. Of course he was leading a team, not trying to do it all himself, but still, good heavens, what a job.
16 years ago
·
#1869
And will somebody please edit the title of this thread, to spell "scourge" correctly? It looks bad.


nowe, wot pwoblem does peple ave reedin wot I writes?

Gdnss, skesper ddn't even ave is naame splt wright!

Pedens be ware!

Buti his inn the y ov the beholden.
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