Shakespeare Fans discussion

Can I start this topic? Because I'd love to hear the answers. My vote (vote early, vote often: we can change our minds):

I have drunk, and seen the spider.

--- The Winter's Tale, 2.1.45

It's a half-line, true.

If you allow the context (otherwise the line makes no sense), one of my many favorites is Lear's

Never, never, never, never, never.

Everyman wrote: "If you allow the context (otherwise the line makes no sense), one of my many favorites is Lear's

Never, never, never, never, never."

Great choice. Mine needs context too.

all the worlds a stage.

To me this is the sum of Shakespeares worldview and philosophy, which I hold, is gnostic "as above, so below". When I think of the Globe theatres name it brings tears to my eyes...as does the monologue.

Love's not Time's Fool.

(But perhaps it is.)

Men at some time are masters of their fates

I believe in free-will.

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea change

Into something rich and strange.

(from The Tempest)

Tracy wrote: "Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
(from The Tempest)"

I have a painting on those verses on my bedroom wall: very green underwater and he's plucking out pearls from his eye sockets. Lines that capture your imagination.

Theres i nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. (Hamlet)

but what do you think it means, SP?

For sheer bravura I'd have to pick Macbeth:

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
making the green one red.

Those big fat Latinate words followed by all those little Anglo-Saxon ones . . . magnificent!

Oh, why must we choose?????

Can we just make believe we didn't choose already, and choose again and again?

Martin wrote: "but what do you think it means, SP?"

I think it is pretty self-evident. It is all in how you look at things that determines whether they are good or bad. The nature of something changes with the perception, the experiential overlay of the one looking at a thing or situation and interpreting it.

Actually, I don't think it means that the nature of a thing changes with our perception of it, but that the pleasure we get from an experience depends on our opinions.

Martin is correct. The context is important. Hamlet tells R & G that Denmark is a prison, and when they say they don't "think" so, he agrees that therefore it isn't a prison FOR THEM, and then speaks the line in question. So he's saying that an individual's thoughts define the context of his world and the experiences derived from it.

Listra wrote: "Men at some time are masters of their fates
I believe in free-will."

I'm just going to back this up, if you don't mind, Listra, with a line we discovered in the Rape of Lucrece group read:
For me, I am the mistress of my fate

S. P. wrote: "Theres i nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. (Hamlet)"

I think this line is interesting, because if you pay attention to Hamlet's comments throughout the play, he tends to echo back "Words" to characters in the play that he doesn't trust, in mockery, and I think this is the case here. This implies Hamlet is a relativist in mortality--but I don't think he's confessing true feeling here but mockery.
Philosophical counterpoints he makes later in the play, to a character he does trust(Horatio) is: "There is divine providence in the fall of a sparrow" and "there is a divinity that shapes our ends rough-hew them how we will."

True, much of what Hamlet says is filled with irony, but we must also remember that his faith in "providence" and "divinity" seems to be part of a late epiphany and therefore reflects a deeper and richer point of view than his earlier earlier statements in the play.

Bryn wrote: "Listra wrote: "Men at some time are masters of their fates
I believe in free-will."

I'm just going to back this up, if you don't mind, Listra, with a line we discovered in the Rape of Lucrece grou..."

Wow, interesting. :D

Bill wrote: "Can we just make believe we didn't choose already, and choose again and again?"

Of course. For me, the "best" line changes daily, sometimes even hourly.

Martin wrote: "Actually, I don't think it means that the nature of a thing changes with our perception of it, but that the pleasure we get from an experience depends on our opinions."

The nature of an apple may not change with our perception of it, but the line says "either good or bad," and that, I think, is totally an aspect of perception. Is eating live maggots good or bad? Some African tribes consider them a delicacy, I would vomit if faced with the prospect of eating one. Is capital punishment good or bad? It depends entirely on how one thinks about it. Is forcing one's wife to to wear a burqua good or bad? How about electing a Democrat or a Republican to the Presidency?

What can one think of that is either ALWAYS good or ALWAYS bad? I doubt there are very many, if any, such things as absolutes. It is the circumstances, how we think about them, that make them good or bad. Goodness or badness is not inherent in any situation, but is imposed by human thought.

That, for me, is what Shakespeare means by the line.

Goodness is everything life affirming. Everything that supports life is good and things that are conducive to procreation are good. The purpose of life is to survive and nurture life and ones own survival?

Death is not good. Death affirming is bad.

This is not human thought but the construction of life in the universe. It is the force behind survival of the fittest and natural selection which functions mostly under the surface of human consciousness, we are not aware of the urges for survival and economics which rule our choices.

What we mostly call good or bad is our egos sense of taste rather than natures forms of good or bad?

“Free will is an illusion. Free will is just a miscast problem in my opinion and that is what I try to do in the book is not just assert that but to tell the story about how the brain is built what we know comes from the factory and the brain how its organized in terms of all these modules to ultimately paint a picture that our brain works in an automatic way just like a wristwatch. And we have this belief that we’re acting as if we’re in charge and I say that it is an illusion.



 The mechanism is a special module that we discovered in the left brain, your left brain my left brain, it’s called “‘the interpreter’.  And what it does is it looks at our own behaviour, our own thinking, our own feelings, and it builds a theory, a narrative about, "Why am I feeling? Why did I just do that? Why am I having this hypothesis?" And it’s a storytelling mechanism of all our actions of all our feelings and it begins to become your idea of yourself. What you believe you to be.  So this big strong thing we have, ‘the interpreter’ no wonder we think, ‘well that must be me moving my arm’ ‘I must be in charge’. So we build up this convenient theory to explain a vastly complex but automatic machine that is the human brain.”


I saw this on Charlie Rose...quote from Michael gazzaniga cognitive neurologist a d author of "who is in charge?"

Candy, what's this determinism stuff about ... I don't get it.

Martin wrote: "Candy, what's this determinism stuff about ... I don't get it."

And I am dead against it. Sorry. In whatever guise - evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, I've had brushes with these - dead against determinism and do not believe.

Are we off-subject yet? Time to quote a Shakespeare line methinks.

Candy wrote: "Goodness is everything life affirming. Everything that supports life is good and things that are conducive to procreation are good. The purpose of life is to survive and nurture life and ones own survival?..."

Matter of fact - musing further on your posts, Candy - I think differently here. Because, for me, nothing is more ethical than self-sacrifice, which I believe to be possible. And I find dangerous to say 'things conducive to procreation are good' - you know where that's led us in the past: to saying things that don't lead to procreation are bad. Whereas animals happily engage in non-procreative activities and I'd take that and talk about the joy of living, instead.

Oh I am not written in stone about any of the above ponderings...I wanted to explore how we determine good and bad in different exams.

And I thought since someone had quoted a line regarding "men at sometime are masters of their fate I believe in free will...I would pst a quote I heard from a contemporary source (brain dude Gazzaniga)

I mean no obsession with determinism...and only enjoy sometimes to bandy will comparing ideas, thoughts, current notions along side classic Shakespeare!

No harm meant...just found gazzanigas perspective fascinating...

No sweat Candy. And it's a huge intellectual tide, in science - that for a few years I thought must be irrefutable and was terribly depressed, so I'm a survivor and have the hatred of this tide of thought that survivors do. It calls to be discussed.

The recent things I have read about Bryn regarding free will have been pretty intense that we "feel"like we have free will but it's a " user illusion "

It may be true, it may not be but I think it will be more difficult to believe than evolution...and it will be "pshaw'ed" ...and maybe it should be.

I think illusion is just as valid a form of reality as anything ha ha!

Candy wrote: "The recent things I have read about Bryn regarding free will have been pretty intense that we "feel"like we have free will but it's a " user illusion...I think illusion is just as valid a form of reality as anything ha ha! "

Murky waters, that do your head in. I go along with 'fiction/imagination is as valid as (factual) truth, so there' sort of idea.

Whoa. Moving on...Existentialism, anyone? To be felt only in the gut , as J-P Sartre tells us. I think determinism is my least favorite philosophy. I believe in survival of the fittest, free will, and some odd sacred sense that holds all the glue together--somewhat in the Romantic/Buddhist vein.

I have a few favorites:
"Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."- A Midsummer Night's Dream
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them."- Hamlet

Hamlet: "Buzz,buzz."

S. P. wrote: "Martin wrote: "but what do you think it means, SP?"

I think it is pretty self-evident. It is all in how you look at things that determines whether they are good or bad. The nature of something c..."

Hello S.P. You are right, to be sure. In the same play, of course, Hamlet says (I'll paraphrase) `I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself the master of infinite space/but that I have bad dreams.' Yes, thinking makes it so. And yet! This same believer in the power of thought observes that the "native hue of resolution" is "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." He never walks a perfectly straight line, does he? Well met! Jon

Bill wrote: "For sheer bravura I'd have to pick Macbeth:

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
making the green one red.

Those big fat Latinate words followed by all those little Anglo-Saxon ones . . . magnific..."
The use of "incarnadine" alone makes me happy. We must bring that word back! Jon

So many lines! But one that I treasure is:

"Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, to comfort thee, though thou art banished." Friar Lawrence to Romeo.

There is much about milk in Macbeth, of course, including "milk of human kindness," which Macbeth possessed in excess, and which his wife wanted.

Jon wrote: "S. P. wrote: "Martin wrote: "but what do you think it means, SP?"

I think it is pretty self-evident. It is all in how you look at things that determines whether they are good or bad. The nature..."

Right on, Jon! You are giving me new ideas about the multitudinous facets of Hamlet's mind--one question , bottom line--is it all chaos or was there truly a method in his madness?

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Something else is going on in this phrase...and its part of the challenge to figuring out if Hamlet has method within his chaotic madness of behaviour.

I am of the camp that Hamlet is not mad or crazy. I actually believe he is totally on the right side of the issues at hand (his uncles treason and betrayal of the crown/leadeship). His emotions to the knowledge of what has happened is an appropriate emotional reaction.

I think the challenge comes down to how does one react to injustice? Is violent or psychoogical revenge "worth it" "moral" or "practical".

In the statement of "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so"...is a philosophical challenge to morality, to religion, to th human place within nature all at once.

The concept of nothing either good or bad rejects a particular christian worldview of kindness and morality and this itself is rather shocking. then it also suggests that even human action is contained within natures laws and the physics of the universe. (which is a notion of behaviour that got John Nash a nobele prize...centuries later no? and what is the root of the game show Survivor?...that incorporating human behaviour and pattern as an economic and survival tool is actually at play in human decisions...which brings us back to "free will"...and the snake eating its own tail no?)

I think Hamlets repulsion to injustice, his frustration and sense of honour are completely appropriate...I think his hiring the actors to portray the injustice is brilliant...(because i believe imagination is healing0 I think its when he crosses the line after those decisions to keep on punishing everyone around him until there is collapse is the tragedy.

I suspect there is a case to be made about the dangers and power of art and imagination...is seeing the injustice acted out a cathartic experience or does it fuel the anger and revenge impulse?

And this question is one we are still dealing with about video games and violence, about movies and tv shows and violent or sexual content...does porn make us more predatory? Does it damage our sense of sexual drive? Does violence in games and movies fuel the underlying anger all of us feel living in a violent world?

I don't know if the play hamlet answers this but it does explore how far is healthy sense of reacting to injustice? If it is TRUE that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so (a very Buddhist line of thinking) then Hamlet shouldn't have engaged the injustice so much and to such extremes...his uncle doing "bad" was a matter of perception in the game of power and survival no?

(but I think the uncle was a dick so I am with the pain that hamlet feels but I think he should have stopped at the plays performance and not taken it out on certain people like his mother and Ophelia)

Jon wrote: "So many lines! But one that I treasure is:

"Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, to comfort thee, though thou art banished." Friar Lawrence to Romeo.

There is much about milk in Macbeth, of cours..."

Good point about the milk theme in Macbeth. Another milk-related reference in the play is Lady Macbeth's line when she is crying out to the evil spirits in Act I Scene 5. She asks them to give her the strength to help Macbeth murder the king. "Come to my women's breasts/ And take my milk for gall, you murth'ring ministers."
I love how Shakespeare plays on milk, though it may sound a little strange at first. After all, doesn't milk represent the sustenance of life?

Codee, there is some pretty interesting work out there on breast milk and on bodily functions in Renaissance literature. For one thing, breast milk was considered a type of importance like blood...so the milk in MacBeth would be another form of imagery of blood in the play. It was considered sustenance for sure, but also medicinal and of the same context as blood.

Candy wrote: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Something else is going on in this phrase...and its part of the challenge to figuring out if Hamlet has method within his chaotic madn..."

I agree with much of your post, except the fatal free will stuff! And you have given me many thoughts. One has to do with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which I just finished with my AP class, (and I must admit, even my most brilliant students were a little flummoxed by it--but at the end of the year, worrying about college--their minds are too chaotic for existentialism--
Anyway, what I am thinking about is the first section of the play where the Player and his actors appear. That whole segment is a treatise on the difference between pornography and art , and how the creators and audience interact when exposed to each other (is that A pun? It was unintentional.) I'll go dig up some lines to illustrate.

If you don't know the play it is brilliant--a must read for Hamlet lovers--but it might take a few readings , with time for reflection, to digest its complexity. It can look rather silly and trivial on the surface, but in my mind, is not.

It is Hamlet, backstage, inside-out and upside down. A Comedy instead of a tragedy, and not only that, a comedy that ends in multiple deaths. The minor players become major, and vice-versa, Hence, not only R&G, but the Player becomes central to the story. Here is the passage I referred to earlier:

Player(To R& G): An audience!
Don't move! Perfect! A lucky thing we came along!
R: For us?
Player: Let us hope so...Well met, in fact, and just in time
R: Why's that?
Player: Why we grow rusty and you catch us at the very point of decadence--by this time tomorrow we might have forgotten everything we ever knew.

R&G introduce themselves
Player: A pleasure. We've played to bigger, of course, but quality counts for something. I recognized you at once..
R: And who are we?
Player:...as fellow artists
R: I thought we were gentlemen
Player: For some of us it is performance, for others, patronage, it is two sides ofthe same coin, or shall we say, being as there are so many of us, the same side of two coins. Don't clap so loudly--it's a very old world.
R: What is your line?
Player: Tragedy, sir. Deaths and disclosures, universal and particular, denouements both unexpected and inexorable, transvestite melodrama on all levels including the suggestive. We transport you into a world of intrigue and illusion...clowns if you like, murderers--we can do you ghosts and battles, on the skirmish level, heroes, villians, tormented lovers, --set pieces in the poetic vein; we can do you rapiers or rape or both, by all means, faithless wives and ravished virgins--flagrante delicto at a price, but that comes under realism for which there are special terms. Getting warm, am I?
R: Well, I don't know..
Player: It costs little to watch, and little more if you happen to get caught up in the action, if that's your taste and times being what they are.
R: What are they?
Player: Indifferent.
R: Bad?
Player: Wicked. Now what precisely is your pleasure?


Discuss.

Codee wrote: "Jon wrote: "So many lines! But one that I treasure is:

"Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, to comfort thee, though thou art banished." Friar Lawrence to Romeo.

There is much about milk in Macbe..."

Absolutely, Codee! There's nothing more elemental than mother's love, or the sustenance of mother's milk. That's why it's so shocking when Lady Trouble says she'd sooner tear the suckling babe from her breast and dash its (brains out?) then swear as Mac B has sworn and not follow through. And milk is a superb metaphor for kindness ... to test this hypothesis, try out "The water of human kindness" or "The broth of human kindness." :o) Incidentally, I've written a short story based on Macbeth ... it's due to be published in print soon, but it was performed at a reading for the same publication in March ... in case you're interested, follow this link and scroll down ... http://jstevensonstories.blogspot.com...

Well met, Codee!

Tracy wrote: "Jon wrote: "S. P. wrote: "Martin wrote: "but what do you think it means, SP?"

I think it is pretty self-evident. It is all in how you look at things that determines whether they are good or bad...."

Hey there Tracy! I believe there definitely is "method in [his] madness." Imagine learning that your uncle/stepdad has killed your father; and knowing, further, that he's sleeping with your mom ... who might have been in on it. Now try to hide your feelings around the house! After learning of the murder, Ham says he will put on "an antic disposition" -- an act to camouflage his true feelings. Showing those feelings before the keen eyes of Uncle Dad would be fatal. Not that Hamlet doesn't have plenty of reason to be psychologically disturbed ... but when the wind is southerly, `he knows a hawk from a handsaw.' Man, I'm so glad I happened across goodreads! Talk to you later. Jon

Jon: Agree with you. Dr. Tracy's Diagnosis: not bipolar or manic, but just under: hypomanic. Still within the realm of sanity.

Jon wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Jon wrote: "S. P. wrote: "Martin wrote: "but what do you think it means, SP?"

I think it is pretty self-evident. It is all in how you look at things that determines whether they ar..."

Hamlet is probably one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, right up there with A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth. I especially admire the complexity in Shakespeare's writing of the conflicting sides of Hamlet's character. His desire for vengeance mixes with his longing for peace and rest so thoroughly and believably that it's almost as if Hamlet was a real person, not just a character. I actually recently performed his "To be or not to be" monologue in a competition. Though it is probably one of the most overdone speeches from Shakespeare, like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, I don't think that the nuance of the words is generally appreciated.
(since I'm doing this from memory, I'm not even going to attempt to break it up into the correct lines and punctuation)
"To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep. No more, and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to- 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep. To sleep? Perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death when we have shuffled on this mortal coil must give us pause. That's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors' wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make."


*Jon I promise I'll listen to your story! I've loved what little I've had time to watch, it's just a busy time of year for me. Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you!*

Tracy, I happen to be a bit of a fan of Tom Stoppard. I really loved the movie version many years ago with Gary oldman of rosenkranz guildenstern are dead. it's been a long time since I've had a discussion of stoppards work and your post inspired me to look on YouTube for some clips of the lovely fresh faced oldman and Tim Roth.

And to clarify, I don't have much of an opinion, least of all, fatal, about free will. I have no feeling about free will one way or another...but I am intrigued bythe philoshical and scientific theories that other people like to express about free will. I find it a non issue, heh heh.

Jon, enjoyed looking through your blog thanks for the links. Love the photos of the book shops very much.

Codee wrote: "Jon wrote: "Tracy wrote: "Jon wrote: "S. P. wrote: "Martin wrote: "but what do you think it means, SP?"

I think it is pretty self-evident. It is all in how you look at things that determines whe..."

Your "reading" of Hamlet's most famous soliloquy is most impressive, Codee! I picture you acting it out as your type away ... almost nailing it verbatim. What a challenging speech to tackle! Yes, it is full of nuance -- and I believe an actor must be willing to be one hundred percent vulnerable on stage to do the speech justice. Did you find it particularly challenging? I think it is quite a mountain for an actor to climb. My favorite speech in Hamlet is an earlier one, btw: "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ..." Is this your favorite Shakespearian play? Do you see many performances? I attend a few every year; a great venue is the Marin (County, north of San Franciso) Shakespeare Festival. ... It's gratifying to know that you are watching my performance of "A Man Forbid!" Later, Jon