generic

squashed:

It’s Monday night—which means it’s time for an All Tumblr Shakespeare Throwdown. On any other night, Generic1’s reading of Hamlet would simply have been a bit over-simple. But on Shakespeare Throw Down Monday, it’s dead wrong.

generic1:

What you are about to witness is a brawl between a theater person and a literature person. And Imma win with one dramaturgical hand tied behind my back. These eggheads have been overthinking Our Greatest Work for centuries now. But Shakespeare was one of us.

squashed:

Nothing about the play is clear. That’s half the point. 

generic1:

A cause & effect reading makes the play quite clear. Shakespeare did not delight in ambiguity. Neither did the Elizabethan audience. Four hours of abstruseness doesn’t compete with bearbaiting.

squashed:

Hamlet is neither clearly sane nor particularly decisive. 

generic1:

No, he’s clearly sane. Crazy people don’t win in Shakespeare. Ophelia does not manipulate. Lear does not engineer the downfall of others. And choosing NOT to do a thing when the results would be personally disadvantageous does not make me indecisive; it makes me strategic in my choices. It makes me smart.

squashed:

Stabbing Polonius through a curtain was impulsive, not decisive. 

generic1:

If we’re drawing that distinction then half of Shakepeare’s characters are impulsive, not decisive. Hamlet thought he was stabbing the King. He thought he was doing The Thing The Play’s About. How is that not a decision? It turned out instead to be his girlfriend’s dad. And so we have a whole other set of problems to be dealt with. 

squashed:

Sure, Hamlet acts crazy—but he also saw some crazy things—so he’s got to at least be doubting his own sanity.

generic1:

The first time he sees “the crazy thing” he’s accompanied by others. He has corrobaration. He doesn’t doubt his own eyes, he doubts the veracity of the source. Also: show me the line where Hamlet doubts his own sanity and I will show you the difference between a soliloquy and a monologue. Existential angst is not the same as mental illness. 

squashed:

And there is an inaction problem. Sure, he makes excuses for himself—but who doesn’t? Should he kill his uncle? But what if it just sends his uncle to heaven? 

generic1:

You’re mistaking obstacles for inaction. His charge is not to merely kill, but to exact vengeance. When Michael Corleone kills Sollozzo, they’re one and the same, but not in Elizabethan England. Hamlet cannot complete that action during the prayer. This is what I mean by an expiration of the 400 year-old worldview. He can’t do what the Ghost tells him to do because circumstances are in his way. Getting around those circumstances are the bulk of the drama.

squashed:

Should he kill himself? But what if he goes to hell? Or perhaps there’s an action problem. 

generic1:

When the cast of the West Wing is walking and talking, is there an action problem? Is all palace intrigue boring unless there’s bloodshed 24/7?

squashed:

When Hamlet doesn’t act, things go more or less okay. 

generic1:

The stasis of Hamlet is not “okay”. That’s the point. Time is out of joint. A murderer rules. Incest abounds. A Polish army is marching straight toward them. Ain’t no acceptable equilibrium there. Things are going to hell on a personal, familial and political level.

squashed:

When Hamlet does act, bodies pile up. 

generic1:

Well yeah. It’s not called The Tragedie of Hamet, Prince of Denmarke because everything turns out rosy.

squashed:

In fact, the one truly active and badass thing Hamlet does, switching the notes on Rosencratz and Guildenstern, happens off stage. 

generic1:

And yet, somehow during all this dithering he connived an incredibly successful murderer to telegraph his guilt to the entire Danish court. Somehow that’s not active to you guys.

squashed:

And even then, his friends end up dead. And yes, beating Laertes in the duel was impressive—but Laertes had to get the ball rolling there.

generic1:

I’ll concede that action is initiated by Laertes & Claudius. But the causal chain (for Laertes) starts during the Polonius stabbing (read: Hamlet’s action).

squashed:

Hamlet is perhaps most notable as a character everybody can identify with and nobody could agree on.

generic1:

I don’t identify with Hamlet at all, and I’m Danish.