I'm really enjoying these. You're cutting through like my favorite critics. It makes sense

how meaningful, cogent your lectures are for me Prof. Cantor, having spent so much time over these last 30 years wandering about that Mansion of Shakespeare's plays presented by the BBC.

My impression is that when Hamlet says "get thee to a nunnery" he is trying to push away and protect Ophelia from the repercussions of his plotting at court (and possibly avoiding her being used against him, or being hampered by concern for her). He cannot simply ask her to go (they are overheard; she may refuse). He is acting 'mad' at this point, I gather. Professor Cantor's view on a persistent strain of despondent Christianity in Hamlet seems contradicted by his wide and various friendships (with palace guards, players, fellow students and so on, and not least with Ophelia): he seems well-adjusted and well-liked before seeing his father's ghost during his period of grieving. This event changes him, perhaps strengthens his belief in life after death, and brings home the unpleasant responsibilities of his position for the first time. I agree that the play is concerned with the problem of other minds (or a difficulty in peering into other people's souls), but I would interpret Shakespeare's deep interest here is in miscommunication: how often custom (like courtly language) or social difference or deceitful intent (and on and on) get in the way of clear and accurate communication and meeting of minds. There is also, I think, more than a simple contrast between Christian piety and pagan heroic virtue. Paris represents a more hedonistic, flamboyant worldview; and Wittenberg something of the more rational, philosophic, sober worldview. Both of these were represented since ancient times too. I suppose for teaching purposes some simplification helps guide the discussion. Aside from that, I think this lecture is full of profound and entertaining insights, and I'll have to revisit Hamlet.

A strange play Hamlet is: Much of the important action is invisible or occurs offstage. The pirates are crucial. They represent the followers of Hamlet, the faction that would see him as King, the opposites of characters like Osric, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz. And, ofc they are the catalyst who complete the transformation of Hamlet into action hero. Also, apparently only those friendly to Hamlet can see the ghost of his father, who defeated Old Norway, and died at his brother's hand.

The point about Denmark and Norway, in which Hamlet talks about Fortinbras becoming the next king of Denmark, could have had subtle messages to the early audiences of the play. Those would have had nothing to do with the actual political realities that existed, at the time, concerning Denmark and Norway, as the latter had been under the former's rule for over two hundred years: Danish nobility, in that period, ousting most Norwegian nobility, as land holders. They might, however, have had to do with how those countries are presented in the play, as two neighboring and often warring nations. England and Scotland fit that description perfectly. The early 16th century had seen Anglo-Scottish wars and border raids, on both sides, were still endemic. When Hamlet was first performed Elizabeth 1st was on her last legs and it was illegal to talk about the succession. There were other claimants to it, but James VI of Scotland, had, as the great grandson of Henry VIII's oldest sister, the strongest one. Therefore Hamlet's support of Fortinbras could have been Shakespeare, or whoever wrote the plays, giving a hidden hint in support of James becoming James 1st of England. The lectures are about Shakespeare and politics and the political reality, when "Hamlet," was first staged was one could not be too open in what he or she said about sensitive political situations. Just a thought.

15:30 Whoah!!!! I never caught that before. Hamlet says "your" not "our" or "my". Sir, in thy Hamlet lecture be all my lit failings remembered. Get me to English Lit 101 for why would I be considered a Hamlet fan.

@26:00 Dear Prof. Cantor, I have recommended your videos to my Roman history professor and his students. very well done, friendly, warm, good speaker

how prophetic!

While Hamlet’s indifferent to Denmark, he doesn’t like Denmark, yet he desires to be king and in power.

A more complete formulation, as has been well-known for many decades, is that Shakespeare's tragic heroes fail because they're in the wrong plays. Switch Hamlet and Othello, switch Hamlet and Romeo, switch Lear and MacBeth, etc. So, it's not just that Hamlet is in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's part of Shakespeare's tragic formula.

@MaartenVHelden

3 жыл бұрын

What would switching those character accomplish? From a playwrights and an audience perspective: there would not be a Hamlet without the character of Hamlet, which is accentuated by all the other characters, with which he is constantly comparing himself. So to me it seems futile to imagine switching the characters from the plays. But maybe I am lacking imagination. However it seems more fruitful to look at the classical model of a hero. They too are all out of place and untimely. We don't have to look outside the plays to see that this is also the case for Hamlet, within the play. He wants to be in Wittenberg, but he is stuck in Denmark. Hij wants to be the king, but is just the prince. He is completely out of time and place all the time.

@jamesduggan7200

3 жыл бұрын

@@MaartenVHelden I'm cautious replying because the idea is not mine. It's from Bradbrook, I believe, or perhaps Bradley [they all run together in my head at this stage in life], but the point is that I adopted the idea without citation. Anyway, a tragic hero fails because of a tragic flaw. Typically, we say Hamlet is indecisive, Lear is rash, Othello is bold, Macbeth ambitious, etc. So imagine Othello charged with avenging the death of his late father, the King. He would act boldly and the play would end in the second act. Shakespeare's heroes have foibles that are intensely personal, to the degree that they propel the action.

@jason8434

10 ай бұрын

I wonder what that would look like for the history plays. In Henry IV, the king wishes his son Hal had been switched at birth with Hotspur. I wonder what Henry IV would look like as Henry V, and vice versa, what his son Hal would look like as his father. That's actually a huge theme of Henry IV, there's the famous scene where Falstaff and Hal rehearse the court scene between king and prince. It's not always clear in Shakespeare who is who.

@jamesduggan7200

10 ай бұрын

@@jason8434 Yes, tho first one must establish what is the main conflict, and second determine how important to the play's success is the character's growth and development. So, specifically for Henry IV and Henry V the conflict at the core is military leadership, and in Henry IV obviously character development is crucial. I don't know Henry V had that built in ability to grow, as he did that growing as Hal in IV parts 1 & 2. As for leadership, I'm not sure

@jason8434

10 ай бұрын

@@jamesduggan7200 I disagree about the core conflict of Henry IV. I don't think it's military leadership, it's the survival of Bolingbroke's regime. It's fundamentally a play about regime change, both in the larger sense of change from medieval feudalism to modern capitalism, but also in the narrower sense that Henry IV has instituted a new regime by deposing and murdering his medieval predecessor, Richard II. The nobles in Henry IV helped legitimate the regime by supporting Bolingbroke to the crown, but their loyalty to the new regime is tenuous at best. They don't want a new regime, they are medieval nobles who want a king that maintains the status quo. Military leadership is embodied in the old medieval hero Hotspur. But it's not Hal's combat with Hotspur that ultimately matters, even though that drama is the climax of Part 1. The play goes on, and what matters is no longer military leadership but military organization. The Henriad moves from the medieval court of Richard II to the "interregnum" London of Henry IV. The collapse of medieval chivalry is personified in Falstaff, a man who was once "Sir John with all Europe" but is now a drinking, whoring old knight who is socially inferior to the Shallows of the world. Falstaff is the complete antithesis of military leadership, he pockets the money given to him for an army and picks up starving stragglers and ex-cons to fight for him. They'll fill a pit as well as better, as Falstaff says. Not military leadership but regime change is the core conflict. Hal has to defend the legitimacy of the regime, not his personal honor as a knight. By the time of Henry V, we are moving into the formation of a centralized nation-state and centralized armies. What matters in the play is numbers and strength, not military leadership. Military exploits are in service to the regime, that's how the play begins, Henry IV wants to organize a crusade to divert the civil war with his nobles and unite around a common enemy. As Falstaff says, honor is a mere scutcheon in a world of gunpowder and cannons and capitalists.

What is this word he uses several times (also in the previous lecture), at 17:17 for instance? It sounds like "thoumos" and could be some kind of classical concept pertaining to heroic virtues, but Google is yielding nothing.

@charlesboyer6623

4 жыл бұрын

He talks about it in his first lectures: From Plato’s Republic’s 3 parts of the soul: reason (logos) controls the two irrational parts: eros, thumos (or thymos: spiritus, ambition, courage, often related to patriotism, cf. Coriolanus); not Plato’s precise terms. Achilles is the great image of thumos (a Homeric word). Cantor says Shakespeare could've read Plato in translation in the 1590s.

😊

Horation is Hamlet's SuperEgo methinks? Sigmund to boot!

I have a feeling that it is missing many points by a mile or so, scholarly details notwithstanding.

Very insightful. But I wonder whether he is here intending to preach Christianity only!

@Tom-rg2ex

3 жыл бұрын

It seemed like a pretty secular examination of Renaissance Christianity to me.

@MaartenVHelden

3 жыл бұрын

@@Tom-rg2ex Also not a very compelling or joyful form of christianity. It's dark and depressing.

@Tom-rg2ex

3 жыл бұрын

@@MaartenVHelden History is dark and depressing. Hamlet is dark and depressing, so why are you learning about it?

@treyrutherford2778

3 жыл бұрын

Interesting take considering Cantor is Jewish.