Ⅲ.Cultural Studies Practice

A. Two Characters in Hamlet:

Marginalization with a Vengeance

人社系 101 級 9753003 王安琪

Power relationship

• The cultural and new historical emphases on power relationship.

• Veeser credited the new historicists with dealing with “questioning of politics, power, indeed on all matters that affect people’s practical lives”.

• Ex. Jonathan Swift’s Laputa

Jonathan Swift’s Laputa

• 天空之城 Laputa 這一說來源於英國人 Jonathan Swift 在1726 年寫的小說 《格列佛遊記》 （ Gulliver's Travels ）中的內容。小說中提到了一個科技高度發達的國度，其人住在漂浮在天空中的城市里。 他們無時無刻不在想問題，尤其是數學，但是缺少對常識和常理的運用，做起事來既復雜又僵化。

Rosencrantz’s speech

• The singular and peculiar life is bound• With all the strength and armour of the mind • To keep itself from noyance; but much more • That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests • The lives of many. The cease of majesty• Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw

• 每一個庶民都知道如何遠禍全身，一身赴天下重寄的人，尤其應該刻刻不懈地防備危害的襲擊。君主的薨逝不僅是個人的死亡，它像一個漩渦一樣，凡是在它身旁的東西，都要被他捲去同歸於盡；

Rosencrantz’s speech

• What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel, • Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, • To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things • Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,(20) • Each small annexment, petty consequence, • Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone • Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

• 又像一個矗立在最高山峰上的巨輪，它的輪輻上連附著無數的小物件，當巨輪轟然崩裂的時候，那些小物件也跟著它一齊粉碎。國王的一聲嘆氣，總是隨著全國的呻吟。

Read Between the Lines

• In response to Claudius’s plan to send Hamlet to England

• If read out of content, we can realize that it is both an excellent set of metaphors and a summation of the Elizabethan concept of the role and power of kingship.

• The passage is good if one looks at it alone, but it is simply not well known.

The context and the speaker

• The speech is wholly in character.

• Plot-driven:empty of personality

• Sycophantic in a sniveling way

• Eager to curry favor with power

• Even less successfully they try to play on Hamlet’s metaphorical “pipe”.

Hamlet’s “pipe”

• From Act 3, Scene 2• Hamlet: You would play upon me; you wou

ld seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery. …yet you cannot play upon. （ “ stop” 原指笛子的音栓，句中是指他的心竅）

• Hamlet 將自己比喻成笛子，吹弄笛子隱喻 Guildenstern 想窺探 Hamlet 的祕密。

Characters who are marginalized:

Rosencrantz

&

Guildenstern

the meaning of their Name

• According to writing about Rosencratz and Guildenstern of Murray J. Levith.

• Dutch-German • Rosencratz →”garland of rose”• Guildenstern →”golden star”• Their jingling gives them a

lightness, and blurs the individuality of the characters.

Property of Lightness

• Harley Granville-Barker

• Solanio and Salarino from The Merchant of Venice.

• Those other twin brethren in nonentity.

The history of their name

• They would not fit the social level or have the level of influence of those whom Harold Jenkin reports as historical persons bearing these name.

• “Both were common among the most influential Danish families, and are often found together”.

What they do, and what is done to them

• They have been the student at Wittenberg.• They return to Denmark, apparently at the d

irect request of Claudius.• They try to pry from Hamlet some of his in

ner thoughts.• Hamlet foils them.• To “trust them as adders fanged” （像對待

兩條咬人的蛇一樣隨時提防）

Hamlet’s Suspicion of Them

• They must sweep my way,• And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

For 'tis the sport to have the enginer • Hoist with his own petar; And ' shall go hard • But I will delve one yard below their mines(225) • And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet • When in one line two crafts directly meet.

• 他們將要做我的先驅，引導我鑽進什麼圈套裡去。我到要瞧瞧他們的能耐。開砲的要是給砲轟了，也是一件好玩的是；他們會埋地雷，我要比他們埋的更深，把他們轟到月亮去。啊！用詭計對付詭計，不是挺有趣的嗎？

Utmost Trickery

• The content of Substituted letter • “put to sudden death,/Not shriving time allo

wed” （立即處死，不容許有懺悔的時間）• Horatio responds laconically with”So R&G

go to ‘t,” （這樣來說，兩人是去送死的）

Hamlet’s Unmoved Respond

• Why, man, they did make love to this employment! • They are not near my conscience; their defeat • Does by their own insinuation grow. • 'tis dangerous when the baser nature comes • Between the pass and fell incensed points(65) • Of mighty opposites.

• 唉！朋友，他們本來是自己鑽求這件差事的；我在良心上沒有對不起他們的地方，是他們自己的阿諛獻媚斷送了他們的生命。兩個強敵猛烈爭鬥的時候，不自量力的微弱之輩，卻去插身在他們的中間，這樣的事情是最危險不過的。

“baser nature”

• The implication for power

• Mighty opposites: Hamlet vs. Claudius

• The one of “baser nature” do not matter much in this struggle between powerful antagonists.

• Insignificant state.

• Do not merit a pang of conscience.

“Sponge”

• Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouth'd, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have glean'd, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

• (Act 4. Scene 2)

• 嗯，先生，一塊吸收君王的恩寵、利祿和官爵的海綿。可是這樣的官員要到最後才會顯出他們最大的用處來；像猴子吃硬殼果一般，他們的君王先把他們含在嘴裡舔弄好久，然後在一口嚥下去。當他需要被你們所吸收去的東西的時候，他只要把你們一擠，於是，海綿，你又是一塊乾乾的海綿了。

英國的王權鬥爭• England had known the effects

of such power off and on for centuries.

• Elizabeth era• “Power served policy”• Why Shakespeare’s work

incorporates power struggles.• Steven Mullaney “Brothers and

Others, or the Art of Alienation.”

Beheaded

Thomas More Earl of Essex Mary Queen

Viewpoint of Lesser Person

• The mighty struggle between powerful antagonists is the stuff of this play is hardly original.

• But by thinking about the lesser person caught up in the massive opposition, we can gain a further insight into the play, and indeed into Shakespeare’s culture.

Re-seeing of R&G’s existence

• Tom Stoppard’s play —Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead

• Whether they “are” at all may be the ultimate question.

• Existential questions.

“L’etat: cest moi”→“power: it is capital.”

• Shakespeare marginalized R&G.• Stoppard has marginalized us all

in an era when all of us are caught up in forces beyond our control.

• A cultural and historical view that was Shakespeare’s is radically reworked to reflect a cultural and philosophical view of another time—our own.

Sources of Reference

• 莎士比亞作；朱生豪譯：《莎士比亞全集：哈姆雷特（中英對照）》，台北市：世界書局， 1996年。

• Hamlet text： http://www.enotes.com/hamlet-text

• 〈天空之城 Laputa 給我們的啟示〉 http://maxohja.world.edoors.com/CNdaqKhtZECY