Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Final Analysis, Recognition
Collin Salisbury
English 432-Shakespeare
Final Analysis
Dr. Sexson
25, April 2006
Darkness into Light
The recognition, for me, in Titus Andronicus comes when Titus falls to his knees on the stone road, and, in essence, acknowledges his powerlessness to save his sons, he says, “Therefore I may tell my sorrows to the stones, Who, though they cannot answer my distress, Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, For they will not intercept my tale. When I do weep, they humbly at my feet [,] Receive my tears and seem to weep with me, And were they but attired in grave weeds, Rome could afford no tribunes like these. A stone is as soft as wax, tribune more hard than stones; A stone is silent and offendeth not, And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death” (III.36) The reason I begin with Titus is that this play marks the beginning of Shakespeare’s career, and the dialogue is reminiscent of so many plays to come. In this moment, Titus is undergoing a transformation; it is both a physical transformation and a psychological one. He is down on the ground, on his chest, speaking to the stones, manifesting in them his own sadness and misanthropy. What William Shakespeare has helped me find—is Me.
Titus is regarded as one of Shakespeare’s juvenile plays, possibly not written exclusively by him, and probably, entirely written for box office appeal, as Harold Bloom puts it, “The Elizabethan audience was at least as bloodthirsty as the groundlings who throng our cinemas and gawk at our television sets, so the play was wildly popular, and it did well for Shakespeare” (Bloom 78). Bloom is his usual cynical self, but I find, just in those Titus lines above, connections and recognitions of my own in later plays, like—As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and King Lear. Tragic recognitions come in the form of realizing and accepting internal flaws, while Comedic recognitions come from revealing what lies under external masks. My conflated determination of both these types of recognitions lies in the only space I exclusively have reign over—my own imagination. It’s about how I make sense of the words on the page and what they conjure in my mental pictorial landscape.
When I read a play, when I visualize the characters, when I furnish the playwright’s world with my imagination, I try to remind myself to use Constantin Stanislavski’s “Magic If” process. Stanislavski was a Russian actor and director around the turn of the century, and revolutionized how actors imagine the characters they are to play, he said, “the actor must first of all believe everything that takes place onstage, and most of all, he must believe what he himself is doing. And one can only believe in the truth” (Wilson 121). The gift of the “magic if” can be applied to the audience as well. Samuel Taylor Coleridge talked about “poetic faith”, that is to say, “the willing suspension of disbelief.” Like Stanislavski’s “magic if”, Coleridge alluded to what I have come to see as being present in the moment, which is not my concept, but rather a facet of the “Method Acting” style. All these little details help me shape the worlds that Shakespeare has created in his plays, basically, worlds of human honesty and emotion.
In As You Like It, the exiled Duke Senior speaks to his “co-mates” about what he sees in nature, “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything” (II.1). These lines conjure my childhood. There is so much potential that springs out of ‘adversity’. I’m also reminded of Titus’s lines when he crumbled to the road and spoke to the stones. There are times when I find myself present, aware of the sacred aspects of life, whether it comes by way of joy, or pain, it is overwhelming and magical. Shakespeare, “Thank you!” Sometimes recognition comes through resignation, as it did for Hamlet and Edgar from King Lear.
Hamlet’s resignation dialogue with Horatio resonates with both newly found purpose and maturity, that Hamlet had spent so much time trying to capture, he says, “There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be” (V.2). Hamlet has finally found, or found again, his promise to his father and his promise in life. He has removed all the facades that preoccupied him and is finally present in the moment. The truth of the matter is that “readiness is all.” Life careens and carves moments out of nothing, out of single breaths, and the only thing that matters is preparation. And if life gets too heavy, gets too ‘real’, too burdensome, well, as Edgar says, “The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter” (King Lear IV.1).
Edgar will soon witness even worse turns of the wheel, but in those lines, hope lingers. It is the hopeful conjuring of tomorrow that gets us out of the tragic presence of the moment, this, the gift of Shakespeare’s words. This—is recognition, laughter through tears. The words that will stick with me, I hope, forever, are these above and oddly, Feste’s final song in Twelfth Night.
The Lord of Misrule, the festival fool, the lifeblood of mischievousness is Feste, and Shakespeare gives him the last word, and most importantly, it’s in song. Duke Orsino says at the open of the play, “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it” (I.1). For some, the “worst returns to laughter”, and for some it ‘returns to music’. And if we are present in life, present in the moment, well, both laughter and music return to each other. For me, Shakespeare sums it up in Feste’s closing song in Twelfth Night:
“When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas, to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering I could never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With tosspots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.” (V.1)
It’s as if Shakespeare is saying in that final line, we’ll strive to imagine for you, we’ll strive to conjure for you, everyday. For me, it’s a Declaration of Imagination.
English 432-Shakespeare
Final Analysis
Dr. Sexson
25, April 2006
Darkness into Light
The recognition, for me, in Titus Andronicus comes when Titus falls to his knees on the stone road, and, in essence, acknowledges his powerlessness to save his sons, he says, “Therefore I may tell my sorrows to the stones, Who, though they cannot answer my distress, Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, For they will not intercept my tale. When I do weep, they humbly at my feet [,] Receive my tears and seem to weep with me, And were they but attired in grave weeds, Rome could afford no tribunes like these. A stone is as soft as wax, tribune more hard than stones; A stone is silent and offendeth not, And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death” (III.36) The reason I begin with Titus is that this play marks the beginning of Shakespeare’s career, and the dialogue is reminiscent of so many plays to come. In this moment, Titus is undergoing a transformation; it is both a physical transformation and a psychological one. He is down on the ground, on his chest, speaking to the stones, manifesting in them his own sadness and misanthropy. What William Shakespeare has helped me find—is Me.
Titus is regarded as one of Shakespeare’s juvenile plays, possibly not written exclusively by him, and probably, entirely written for box office appeal, as Harold Bloom puts it, “The Elizabethan audience was at least as bloodthirsty as the groundlings who throng our cinemas and gawk at our television sets, so the play was wildly popular, and it did well for Shakespeare” (Bloom 78). Bloom is his usual cynical self, but I find, just in those Titus lines above, connections and recognitions of my own in later plays, like—As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and King Lear. Tragic recognitions come in the form of realizing and accepting internal flaws, while Comedic recognitions come from revealing what lies under external masks. My conflated determination of both these types of recognitions lies in the only space I exclusively have reign over—my own imagination. It’s about how I make sense of the words on the page and what they conjure in my mental pictorial landscape.
When I read a play, when I visualize the characters, when I furnish the playwright’s world with my imagination, I try to remind myself to use Constantin Stanislavski’s “Magic If” process. Stanislavski was a Russian actor and director around the turn of the century, and revolutionized how actors imagine the characters they are to play, he said, “the actor must first of all believe everything that takes place onstage, and most of all, he must believe what he himself is doing. And one can only believe in the truth” (Wilson 121). The gift of the “magic if” can be applied to the audience as well. Samuel Taylor Coleridge talked about “poetic faith”, that is to say, “the willing suspension of disbelief.” Like Stanislavski’s “magic if”, Coleridge alluded to what I have come to see as being present in the moment, which is not my concept, but rather a facet of the “Method Acting” style. All these little details help me shape the worlds that Shakespeare has created in his plays, basically, worlds of human honesty and emotion.
In As You Like It, the exiled Duke Senior speaks to his “co-mates” about what he sees in nature, “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything” (II.1). These lines conjure my childhood. There is so much potential that springs out of ‘adversity’. I’m also reminded of Titus’s lines when he crumbled to the road and spoke to the stones. There are times when I find myself present, aware of the sacred aspects of life, whether it comes by way of joy, or pain, it is overwhelming and magical. Shakespeare, “Thank you!” Sometimes recognition comes through resignation, as it did for Hamlet and Edgar from King Lear.
Hamlet’s resignation dialogue with Horatio resonates with both newly found purpose and maturity, that Hamlet had spent so much time trying to capture, he says, “There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be” (V.2). Hamlet has finally found, or found again, his promise to his father and his promise in life. He has removed all the facades that preoccupied him and is finally present in the moment. The truth of the matter is that “readiness is all.” Life careens and carves moments out of nothing, out of single breaths, and the only thing that matters is preparation. And if life gets too heavy, gets too ‘real’, too burdensome, well, as Edgar says, “The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter” (King Lear IV.1).
Edgar will soon witness even worse turns of the wheel, but in those lines, hope lingers. It is the hopeful conjuring of tomorrow that gets us out of the tragic presence of the moment, this, the gift of Shakespeare’s words. This—is recognition, laughter through tears. The words that will stick with me, I hope, forever, are these above and oddly, Feste’s final song in Twelfth Night.
The Lord of Misrule, the festival fool, the lifeblood of mischievousness is Feste, and Shakespeare gives him the last word, and most importantly, it’s in song. Duke Orsino says at the open of the play, “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it” (I.1). For some, the “worst returns to laughter”, and for some it ‘returns to music’. And if we are present in life, present in the moment, well, both laughter and music return to each other. For me, Shakespeare sums it up in Feste’s closing song in Twelfth Night:
“When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas, to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering I could never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With tosspots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.” (V.1)
It’s as if Shakespeare is saying in that final line, we’ll strive to imagine for you, we’ll strive to conjure for you, everyday. For me, it’s a Declaration of Imagination.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Something's Rotten and Procrastinating
Hamlet, like most of the other plays this semester, I've never really studied. And certainly what I haven't studied, I learned that I had. Hamlet is as much a part of our modern lexicon and psychology as any recent character, and most obviously, much much more. It is hard for me to even start to quantify Hamlet's impact on our everyday life, other than to say, infinite. And that is to say that infinite may represent zero and it moves out from there.
Hamlet is obssesed with acting, plays, put-ons and scenes. All these things encapsulate our modern society, always looking for that 15 minutes of fame in front of the camera. Hamlet is a guy who procrastinates...everything. He can't make up his mind because his mind is easily distracted. He gives his father a promise at the beginning of the play and it takes 5 acts for him to come to terms with this promise. Not necessarily "coming to terms with it" as it was "getting around to it". He finally, as he says, "Let[s] be". He finally finds that his life is a futile practice in well, futility.
Hamlet is obssesed with acting, plays, put-ons and scenes. All these things encapsulate our modern society, always looking for that 15 minutes of fame in front of the camera. Hamlet is a guy who procrastinates...everything. He can't make up his mind because his mind is easily distracted. He gives his father a promise at the beginning of the play and it takes 5 acts for him to come to terms with this promise. Not necessarily "coming to terms with it" as it was "getting around to it". He finally, as he says, "Let[s] be". He finally finds that his life is a futile practice in well, futility.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Memory, MEmemoreme, Hamlet
Marjorie Garber gives some more insight into what we discussed in class today. I guess she just solidifies what Dr. Sexson has been saying since I took Biblical/Classical from him--be present in life, life is about seeing, it's about remembering, or like Calasso says in "The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony"-the act of forgetting what we remembered. I think Calasso talks about this. Garber talks about the act of memory in Hamlet, she says, "It is being, not doing, that has made this character the mirror that subsequent writers, philosophers, and critics have held up to human nature. Being--remembering--because the essence of the human animal, and the pain and joy of the human condition, are in this play directly linked to memory."
"Remember me", cries the Ghost.
What I recognize in my memory when I first read this was when I was in elementary school, and after school I would always wonder if my Mom would remember to pick me up. She always did, but I still wondered everyday if she was going to remember. I felt that at I could be easily forgotten in the course of a busy day. There's a lot there for Freud, but as it pertains to Hamlet and his Father, maybe, his Dad was saying--I will always be there to pick you up after school, even if I'm not physically there.
"Remember me", cries the Ghost.
What I recognize in my memory when I first read this was when I was in elementary school, and after school I would always wonder if my Mom would remember to pick me up. She always did, but I still wondered everyday if she was going to remember. I felt that at I could be easily forgotten in the course of a busy day. There's a lot there for Freud, but as it pertains to Hamlet and his Father, maybe, his Dad was saying--I will always be there to pick you up after school, even if I'm not physically there.
