The Play's the Thing

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How many of us dozed off in the middle of high school English class whenever we had to read Shakespeare, or Milton, or especially, Dante?

 

Not me.

 

I knew that the Adam West Batman accessed the Batcave through Shakespeare.

This week I'm focused on a particular line from the play Hamlet, where the protagonist Prince plots to avenge his Father's death at the hands of  Claudius, the terrible uncle who then married Hamlet's mother -- after killing Hamlet's dad! 

 

Jerry Springer must have studied classical literature, ha ha. Interestingly, Hamlet's father's name is also Hamlet, but in the play, whenever he speaks he is called "Ghost."

 

Here's the full quote in context: 

"Out of my weakness and melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds more relative than this. The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King [referring to Claudius]."

What the heck is he talking about?

"Ain't it just like a friend of mine ..."

I'm going to assume you have a passing knowledge of the plot, since it is at its essence a story of revenge sought by a character whose mind is conflicted, indecisive, and therefore, paralyzed. He asks for all of us, the legendary question, whether "to be or not to be?" 

 

As he goes about proving his uncle's guilt, Hamlet arranges to perform a drama before the king's court. The play is written in a way that portrays the actual killing of his father, and Hamlet believes that in examining the king's reaction, he will prove his case. 

 

Hamlet's father was poisoned while sleeping in his garden. Likewise, the play was written to portray just that event. It (the play) is high art, to me, in that it presents an artist's reality, and serves no purpose other than to obtain knowledge from its audience. 

Unsponsored art is inherently subversive.

Sponsorship, OTOH, requires the artist to encode his message, because I believe, the ultimate aim of the artist is less the object, less the painting, the sculpture, the movie, or the novel, he/she creates.

What is being overtly created is a REACTION. For the artist, what happens on stage is secondary to how the audience reacts. Such is the "theatre" of war, but more about the Ukaranian money-laundering, drug-running, and child trafficking, anti-Nazi clean-up operation later.

This is oversimplification. Hamlet's use of a stage play as subterfuge for detective work is a topic covered by shelves and shelves of volumes of scholarly studies regarding Shakespeare's work, and the deeply humanistic questions posed by the characters and events in not only Hamlet, but WS's entire body of work. The play has been studied and interpreted over an over again, yet it remains rich with material profitable for reproof, study, conjecture, and revelation about our human condition. What a piece of work.

If you caught the reference, then you truly belong here, because some things are just True and they stay True. So I will keep stirring the swill here at Boomers Anonymous -- in English. 

 

Let me paraphrase:

 

This goodly frame, the earth, is more than some sterile promontory, and this most excellent canopy, the air, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire will appear to you -- and be more than just a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.

 

Enjoy the show.

Welcome back

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 © 2022 by Roy Santonil