LIMR Apuntes 2018 PDF

FINAL Notes in class. PPTs. Reading guides. If necessary, the rest of the bibliography. Martes 20.3 Programa 2017-2018 Renaissance 16th -17th century - Shakespeare Early Modern Age Unidad 1 Shakespeare –playwright and poet –in verse - actor –entrepreneur –Modern English Different layers. Wrote for very different people. Hamlet: dramatic poetry Sonnets: lyrical poetry The Globe Theatre. South bank of the Thames. DUNCAN-JONES → sonnets DON PATERSON → reading Shakespeare’s sonnets (more humorous) MONTEZANTI: sólo vos sos vos Unidad 2 Puritans → believed theatres to be places of sedition (attempt to take power and depose the “rightful” power) and corruption → put an end to the use of plays to evangelize → promoted access to Bible. Unmediated relation between God and people. The Second Shepherds’ play: religious and popular. Used to evangelize Everyman: morality. Characters are not individualized but TYPES. Moral instruction, doctrine. –Use of humour to engage?? Unidad 3 S XV & XVI Medieval ballads. Written by the people Unidad 4 CHAUCER. The Canterbury Tales. Poem. “The well of English literature” Middle English (we’ll read a Modern English version) – a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Beckett. Pilgrims come from different social classes – The General Prologue. The Knight’s Tale. The Miller’s Tale. – The Pardoner’s Tale. The Wife of Bath’s Tale. The Parson’s Tale. Chaucer’s Retraction. Decameron (Bocaccio). Antecedent but same social class. BBC’s version. Passolini’s version. Unidad 5 Conquista normanda. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – language from the north-west. ALLITERATION!!! – We’ll read a translation which tries to keep alliterative features. – not influenced by the Normand-French. – Romance. Tries to moralize. Stands apart from the Roman tradition imported from France. Unidad 6 Old English / Anglo-Saxon. Language used in the kingdom of Wessex. Germania. The age of the warriors. Beowulf – heroic poetry. Epic poetry. – hero embodies the values of the community Anglo-saxon elegies: Deor. The Wanderer. The Seafarer. The Ruin. Jueves 22.3 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) Born and died in Stratford upon Avon. Born during Elizabethan era: Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) “The Golden Age” Died during the Jacobean era: King James VI of Scotland/James I of England (1603-1625) English poet, playwright and actor. English Rennaissance. Early Modern Age. Wrote his plays in verse. Modern English. – Chandos portrait. Wearing an earring. BRYSON, Bill. “earring tells us that he was bohemian, more fashionably racy than the average person”. Adventurous exposition. Fairly discreet or not hugely wealthy. – First folio 1623 = Droeshout portrait included in the collection of his works published posthumously. – Statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (city) upon Avon (river) SONNETS Lyrical poetry. First formally published in 1609 in London, but they were circulating privately before that date. – Palladis Tamia (Minister Francis Meres) 1598 - first author to mention Shakespeare as a writer of sonnets – The Passionate Pilgrim (William Jaggard) 1599 - a collection of 20 poems, five are said to be Shakespearian??? It wasn’t very common to have the actual name of the author as the title. Authorship = INDIVIDUALIZATION of the poet, which was not done before. The title was usually the name of one of the characters/personae of the sonnets. Identity: A poet and a playwright (Drabble, 1995: 899-902) – Published in London – T. T. Thomas Thorpe (publisher). – 1609 version known today as the Quarto. What is a sonnet? (Drabble: 930; Kinney 190; Paterson: 485): – a unit of meaning regulated by harsh norms that constraint the number of units in each verse and also how the meanings are displayed and organised. – patterns of rhyme and meaning – embody complex emotional states in formally accomplished language (Schoenfeldt: 6) – Theme (Kinney: 191) Tradition and sources (addressee = woman) Petrarch; Dante Alighieri (both Italian) Wyatt; Surrey (both English) → Shakespeare deviates from tradition Renaissance Sonneteering Astrophel and Stella (1591) Sir Philip Sidney Amoretti (1595) Edmund Spenser Lyrical I =/= author. Not Shakespeare himself, but a personae he created. There is some overlapping. The ploys of the paratext “To the onlie begetter … Mr W. H.” Sonnets dedicated to Mr W. H. Who was he? A patron probably, man of wealth. “Our ever living poet” = Shakespeare “T.T” Thomas Thorpe, patron? !!! The plague caused the theatres to be shut down. SH must have felt the need to target a different audience. The cruxes of the title page and dedication – Layout unusual among sonnet sequences - presence of author’s name on its running title (Burrow:97) – Dedication signed by its printer, not authorial one (suggests author may have been out of town because of the plague) The relevance of the paratext – The title page, the dedication and the mise en page cannot be wished away. (Burrow: 101) – Paratextual features that are part of how the book invites its readers to respond to it; they give us clues to understand the sonnets themselves. – It embeds the sequence in some well-established beliefs about the kinds of relations that poetry might court with life in the period. – Although there is no direct relation between the paratext and the content of the sonnets, it’s expected that the content is some kind of praise for the patron/addressee??? – no direct relation between the patron and the personae the sonnets are addressed to What did being a poet in the period 1590-1610 entail? – circumscribed autonomy – Poet worked with and within traditions made for them – need to adapt to attract the benison (good will) of patrons. If someone was to make a living out of writing they needed patrons. – Shakespeare had a theatre and property. Composing sonnets and autobiography – “a man may write of Love, and not be in love; as well as of husbandry, and not go to the plough” (Giles Fletcher, 1593). Husbandry: the activity of growing plants or raising animals for food. – The fictional/ real status of the I and you’s: the poem’s persona and the poem’s author. Mediation. Persona and author are not divorced. There are tensions. – Composing sonnets was a literary exercise and a sign of learning and gentility, not necessarily an expression of true feeling. However, to write about certain feelings you need to experience them beforehand. What expectations does the design of Thorpe’s publication play to? – A context of suggested anonymity (Burrow: 102) – The sonnet as a form which was located at the intersection between private papers and printed records (Burrow: 98) Bibliographical curiosities? – No. The undercurrent of unease about publication resonates within the poems. – How? The volume both publishes the youth’s beauty, and jealously reserves his identity in a way that perpetuates the undercurrent of unease about publication. Ambiguities, tensions and innovation – The male poet played on the positional pun of being a suitor. The voice of the sonnets is addressing a man. Is it W. H.? – The resort to the tropes of the Petrarchan convention, a whole vocabulary of service and devotion, every trope of self-abasement and courteous request of the courtly love tradition lent itself to his petition. (Kinney: 100) When? – When were the poems written? 1598 Francis Mere refers to them 1599 The Passionate Pilgrim – When were they printed? 1609 Quarto by Thorpe. – What circumstances? Plague (Matz: 13). Shakespeare made his money after ticket sales. If the theatre was closed due to the plague, he needed a new source of income, hence the sonnets. A random assortment of poems or a sequence? (Burrow: 110) Shake-speare’s Sonnets and its appeal Transcendent or time-bound? (Matz: 18) Universal or diverse? (Matz: 203) → The sonnets have outlived Shakespeare. Shake-speare’s Sonnets – The call to identify with the experience of love registered in them – Or, to appreciate their literary quality In the Sonnets he constructs subject- positions and rhetorical methods to accommodate multiple perspectives- love- sexual desire, etc. The foundation for the dramatic work The poems are not offshoots of the dramatic works but foundational (5) Bridging gaps in time, place and situation MATZ, SCHOENFELDT, PATERSON, BURROW, MONTEZANTI. THE SONNET: SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON ITS FORM The sonnet: “a bunch of vaguely agreed rules to which some poems subscribe” (Paterson: 485) The tradition Poets have been writing sonnets for about 750 years, and in English for about 450 (488). Italy: -Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Vita Nuova -Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) Canzoniere – They established an early tradition for its subject matter: love – Yet, romantic love is the initial step in a spiritual development that results in the capacity for divine love and transcendence. Italian sonnet exported into Europe – 16th and 17th centuries took the English court by storm. – Main representatives in England: Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Edmund Spenser (1552-1599). Exhaustion – By the 1590’s the sonnet was no longer an excitingly modern form of lyric expression but a time-honoured institution. – Even if the Elizabethans began to steer the sonnet away from the Petrarchan model, no-one took it further away from its Italian roots than Shakespeare (Paterson: 492) → Shakespeare’s sonnets, though formally conventional, are in most other ways unusual. Originality. The English/ Elizabethan or Shakespearian sonnet The structure: units of 14 pentameter lines rhyming according to the English or Surreyan form of the sonnet: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG 14 lines divided into three stanzas of 4 lines and a couplet of 2. Shakespeare composes his language around the iambic pentameter metre. Each verse is an iambic pentameter line. What is metre? An idealised pattern of weak and strong stresses that the poet had in their mind when they composed the poem. Paterson suggests that if we read the sonnet obeying all the regulations we run the risk of sounding mechanical. Content – Development or exposition/ proposition of an argument – Turn (Italian sonnets ‘volta’) between 8 and 9: counterproposition/point of narrative dénouement or twist in the plot – Closing couplet: should summarise the argument of the poem in an epigrammatic way, or abstract a moral from the poem. The best sonnets do nothing of the sort (490). – The development of this argument is ‘sugared’ (Paterson: 402) by presenting it in the form of an extended metaphor or ‘conceit’. – Dr Johnson: ‘a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances, in things apparently unlike’. – We have to see the structure of the sonnet ( the structure of argument and rhetorical shape- not, say, the simple rules of the sonnet) not as static but as a dynamic and an emergent phenomenon (xxi). SONNET 1 – addresses a young man. How do we know? Tender heir, tender churl. – however, the description is more akin to a woman. Many lexical choices suggest delicacy and femininity. – urging him to have an heir: the best examples of human being should reproduce themselves, but the addressee is narcissistic and wastes his beauty. – fair: beauty and virtue – niggarding: being mean The sonnet sets out a eugenic proposition: the most excellent examples of natural beings are under an obligation to reproduce themselves. But the addressee, to whom this rule applies, is narcissistically dedicated to self-love, allowing his beauty to go to waste by hoarding it up. 1. From fairest creatures we desire increase, Everybody wants beautiful things to reproduce. – Beauty and virtue. 2. That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, By means of the heir beauty will live on. – embodiment of beauty and nature for a woman 3. But as the riper should by time decease, The original beauty will die (as everything else) – the one who’s growing old 4. His tender heir might bear his memory; But the offspring will remind us of that beautiful person 5. But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Like Narcissus, feeding with their own values, beauty. Vain. Pledged and diminished to self-reflexive scope. 6. Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Egotistical, not taking into account the rest of the world 7. Making a famine where abundance lies, As a result, they create a famine, because they don’t give to the world all the assets that God has given to them. 8. Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. You are your worst enemy. Polarization of the young man’s being 9. Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament You are one of the beauties of the world 10. And only herald to the gaudy spring, And show great promise to becoming important, vibrant w colour 11. Within thine own bud buriest thy content, Bud: rose before it blooms. Content: happiness, but also because there’s an urge for reproduction, it also means seed, masturbation. 12. And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding. The young man is greedy, mean. 13. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, Poor world, that cannot enjoy your beauty. Depriving the world 14. To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee. Because you keep everything for yourself. What is owed to the world. SONNET 2 When the young man has lost his beauty because of old age, he will be able to spare himself the shame, guard against reproach, by pointing at his offspring in whom his beauty is renewed. This is a traditional argument for procreation, though one more commonly used in poems in which a male speaker attempts to seduce a female addressee. 1 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow Besiege, deep trenches. Getting old. Forty winters: passage of time, harsh and withering 2 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, 3 Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Proud livery: wearing youthfulness as a uniform. Splendid clothes, impermanent 4 Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held. Tatter’d weed: old, worn. Being young → becoming old 5 Then being asked where all thy beauty lies— Beauty fades. Treasure: miserly hoarding beauty (c.f. Sonnet 1, burying) Deep-sunken eyes: no longer bright (c.f. Sonnet 1) 6 Where all the treasure of thy lusty days— Gluttony. Shame: aging is disgraceful. 7 To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes 8 Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. 9 How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use If the addressee were to have children, he would not be ashamed of 10 If thou couldst answer "This fair child of mine aging because his beauty would be well preserved. 11 Shall sum my count and make my old excuse", 12 Proving his beauty by succession thine. 13 This were to be new made when thou art old, In old age, renewal of his bloodline and beauty through offspring. 14 And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold. Martes 27.3 (Clase Rocío Caporale) Conceit (Dr Johnson) “a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike” SONNET 18 Suggests ART = means of TRANSCENDENCE Proposition of argument: beauty is ephemeral and fades with the passing of time Volta: addressee’s beauty will be preserved in poetry Despite the claim in Sonnet 17 that the poetic affirmation of the youth’s beauty and virtue will not be believed in future ages without the confirming evidence of progeny, the poet now proceeds to affirm these excellences in terms which refer more explicitly to poetry than to progeny. 1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Summer’s day in England: a cold, cloudy country 2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Temperate: moderate 3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, May → spring. Death of the young (buds) 4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Lease: legal term. Summer is short in England. Temporariness. 5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, Eye of heaven: the Sun 6 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; His: both the Sun and the young male 7 And every fair from fair sometime declines, Everything that is beautiful ceases to be so. Sun setting. 8 By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; Untrimmed: nature’s course cannot be stopped nor made neat. 9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade, The young man is better than the summer, because he lasts forever and is forever beautiful Possession and debt to nature 10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; 11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, Death cannot touch the young man 12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: Eternal lines: verse 13 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, As long as the sonnet is read, the young man shall not die. Through 14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. art he will transcend, he will be eternal. The sonnet gives life to the addressee, keeps him alive. 1. Who is the addressee? A young male. 2. Can you describe the arguments/plot of the first two quatrains? The addressee is better than all good things, e.g. a summer day. 3. Identify the volta and explain it: ephemeral (summer) vs eternal (young man) 4. Explain the final couplet. Beauty preserved in and through the sonnet. 5. What is the reference for this in: “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”? This is the sonnet itself. As long as the sonnet is read, the beauty of the young man will not die. 6. What is the biggest difference regarding the previous sonnet? From sonnets 1-17 the lyrical I will try to convince the young man to have offspring (in order to live forever). From 18 onwards art is the way to transcend. Sonnet 17 expresses that sonnets will not be enough to prove the young man’s beauty. 7. Are there any extended metaphors/conceits? Eye of heaven: the Sun. Summer’s lease: a contract. SUMMER YOUNG MAN Lovely, temperate. More lovely, more temperate. Windy. Less windy (less changeable). Short-lived. Long-lasting. Subjected to the forces of nature: Sun shines bright; Not subjected to the forces of nature/passing of time. vanishes (overcast), untrimmed. BUT Eternal summer shall not fade. Why? ‘My verse’. Art. eternal lines. How does this quote relate to sonnet 18? “Much of the rest of the sequence asks whether poetry can provide a form of permanent beauty which would function as a substitute for biological reproduction” (Burrow, 2002: 115) SONNET 19 Contending with time, the poet gives him permission to erode and destroy everything in nature except his young friend; however, as he claims in the couplet, even when destroyed by time his love will live young in art. 1 Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, Time as a devourer. It even blunts the claws of a ferocious animal. 2 And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Time ‘makes’ Earth eat its own children 3 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, Time is strong to take out a beast’s teeth 4 And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood; Time can kill an immortal phoenix 5 Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, The succession of seasons, speedy 6 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, Time, do as you please in/to the world and its people Gives Time permission to erode everything in its way. 7 To the wide world and all her fading sweets; 8 But I forbid thee one more heinous crime: Time is forbidden by the lyrical I from committing one crime (more terrible than everything mentioned before): 9 O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Volta: asks Time not to taint the young man’s beauty. ‘Do not wrinkle my love’s beautiful face’ 10 Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen! Time’s unwelcome lines vs the poet’s eternal lines 11 Him in thy course untainted do allow 12 For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. 13 Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong Even if Time does its worst, the poet’s art makes the young man eternal. Transcendence and preserving the young man’s beauty. Love: both him whom I love and the love I feel. 14 My love shall in my verse ever live young. 1. Who is the addressee? Does the lyrical I demonstrate any familiarity with the addressee? Can you identify any figure of speech? The addressee is TIME (personified?). Familiarity is shown in line 13 “old Time!”. Figure of speech: any expressive use of language in which words are used in other than their literal sense, in order to suggest a picture or image, or for other special reasons → personification of Time as a devourer. 2. Describe the arguments of the first two quatrains. Lines 1-7: what Time does or is allowed to do 3. Identify the volta and explain it. The lyrical I forbids Time from acting upon his love. 4. Explain the final couplet. No matter what Time does to his love (lover, friend), the young man will live forever in these lines. 5. Are there any extended metaphors or conceits? Time as a devourer, carver, fearless. Pen of Time (destroys) vs Pen of the Poet (preserves). The Sonnet Tradition – “They [Shakespeare’s Sonnets] do not flow downstream from a pure classical origin: they take topoi, often from classical, but sometimes also from Petrarchan works, and muse on them.” (Burrow, 2002: 112) – Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) Transcendence was related to divine love, the love of God. – Shakespeare broke with tradition and brought a new turning point → TRANSCENDENCE THROUGH LITERATURE, not through God. Sonnet 18 read by David Gilmore Sonnet 19 read by Sir John Gielgud SONNET 20 “You look more beautiful than a woman, but you are superior to a woman both in constancy and allure; Nature fell in love with you, giving you male genitals which equip you to give pleasure to women, but your primary devotion must still be to me.” 1 A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted Compares young man with a woman. More beautiful, superior in constancy and allure (attractive quality). 2 Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; Not fickle and indecisive as a woman. 3 A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted 4 With shifting change as is false women’s fashion; 5 An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Young man is a model and admired by both men and women. Not untrustworthy. Making everything seem gold. 6 Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; Controls by exemplifying and transforming by love and amazement. 7 A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, 8 Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth. 9 And for a woman wert thou first created, 10 Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting, 11 And by addition me of thee defeated Deprived lyrical I of the young man by adding male genitalia 12 By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. No value, reference to female genitalia 13 But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure, Nature chose/equiped him with a penis 14 Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure. Poet’s disavowal of sexual interest Addressee: young man. Double nature: woman’s gentleness and charm; man’s genitalia. The youth attracts both men and women because of his beauty. The poet is interested in discovering the nature of their relationship. He doesn’t entertain the possibility of their love being consumated. SONNET 115 This sonnet plays with the paradoxes of a love claimed as absolute, yet still increasing and therefore altering. 1 Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Poet recognises he was wrong to claim his love was at its peak. He did not understand it could be even stronger. 2 Even those that said I could not love you dearer; 3 Yet then my judgment knew no reason why Image of love’s ardency, burning at what appeared to be maximum intensity 4 My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. 5 But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents Examples of time’s tyranny and ability to change everything Unforeseen events 6 Creep in ’twixt vows and change decrees of kings, Darken and toughen sth which seemed unchanging 7 Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents, Cause resolute intentions to be diverted 8 Divert strong minds to th’ course of alt’ring things— 9 Alas, why, fearing of time’s tyranny, Fear of time made the poet’s claim reasonable 10 Might I not then say “Now I love you best,” 11 When I was certain o’er incertainty, Certain of feelings, uncertain of the rest Identifying the present with complete happiness 12 Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? 13 Love is a babe. Then might I not say so, Continues to grow. Recognises that he was naive and lacked insight about his love’s ability to grow in the future 14 To give full growth to that which still doth grow. Time → unpredictability. Addressor admits that having said his love for the youth was as great as it could ever be was wrong: he can love him even more Love grows as the addressor gets to know the youth more SONNET 116 Building on the preceding sonnet’s attempt to define love’s constancy in a world of change, the speaker now sets up an ideal of true love as unaltered and unalterable, which he claims is embodied in himself – or in his sonnet. 1 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Poet first describes what love is not: something changing or changeable. If love can be altered, then it is not (true) love. 2 Admit impediments. Love is not love 3 Which alters when it alteration finds 4 Or bends with the remover to remove. 5 O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark A permanent beacon. Love is unalterable and unaltered and guides. 6 That looks on tempests and is never shaken; Guiding star 7 It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Value beyond human measurement. 8 Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. 9 Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Even if Time affects appearance and beauty grows old, love is not mocked or diminished by time. 10 Within his bending sickle’s compass come; 11 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 12 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 13 If this be error, and upon me proved, Poet stakes his own poetry as his wager that love is all he has described it to be. Swaggering! Proud and confident, it is clear that he has written (after all, this is sonnet #116!) and thus this proves 14 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. the quality of his love. What is love? First quatrain: perfect and unchanging. Second quatrain: metaphor. Love is a guiding star. Third quatrain: love is not susceptible to time. Beauty fades but not love. Couplet: love is what he says, otherwise he must never have written a word or any man can ever have been in love. SONNET 129 This poem contrasts the moral and physical effects of lust in action with the anticipated pleasure that compels men to pursue it 1 Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame Sexual action is wasteful and shameful. Acting upon lust squanders energy and compromises morality. Physical and moral degradation. 2 Is lust in action; and, till action, lust 3 Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame, 4 Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; 5 Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight; Lust enjoyed temporarily but despised immediately after. Wanted fiercely but hated after finding gratification. Actions beyond reasonable are carried out. 6 Past reason hunted, and no sooner had, 7 Past reason hated as a swallowed bait 8 On purpose laid to make the taker mad. 9 Mad in pursuit and in possession so; We become mad when pursuing it and during the act. Extremes: a bliss meanwhile; but a woe right after. 10 Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; 11 A bliss in proof and proved a very woe; 12 Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. 13 All this the world well knows, yet none knows well Everyone knows about this, but nobody knows how to curb the lust that drives men to a pit of misery. 14 To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. Sexual desire → existing in longing, fulfillment and memory Shame Carnal language, ferocity of the language Vulnerability, weakness Antithesis: excited impatience of lust contrasted with the revulsion that follows gratification. SONNET 130 The speaker boasts defiantly of his mistress’s dark colouring and lack of the conventional attributes of female beauty. Following immediately on his analysis of the driving force of male lust, this may suggest that the traditional forms of beauty celebrated in love poetry are unnecessary to provoke desire: all that is necessary is that the object of desire is female and available. 1 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; My– distinguishes himself from majority of love poets. Sun = bright Coral is of a soft pink 2 Coral is far more red than her lips' red; Standard for whiteness, fair skin marker of social class. Dun: dull- greyish-brown; lit. dark, dusky. 3 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; Black and not pretty hair. Mechas. 4 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 5 I have seen roses damasked, red and white, She does not fit the social expectations of beauty about which someone may write a poem. Her cheeks are dull 6 But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 7 And in some perfumes is there more delight Not necessarily unpleasant associations but linked with sweat, blood and bad breath. 8 Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. 9 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know He loves to hear her, but knows her voice is not ‘musical’ 10 That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 11 I grant I never saw a goddess go; His mistress stomps, does not have a smooth, soft pace. Perhaps robust? 12 My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. 13 And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare She is a rare (unique) woman. He is not going to lie about how she looks, but he finds her special and desirable all the same. 14 As any she belied with false compare. This sonnet plays an elaborate joke on the conventions of love poetry, common to Shakespeare’s day. In many ways his sonnets subvert and reverse the conventions of the Petrarchan love sequence: the idealising love poems are not written to a perfect woman but to an imperfect man, and the love poems to the dark lady are anything but idealising. The poet issues an explicit challenge to all those other poets by whom mistresses have been hitherto ‘belied with false compare’/misrepresented by ridiculous comparisons. SONNET 142 The speaker elaborates a chiastic conceit of his own sexual sin and the woman’s sexual virtue, or scornful treatment of him. 1 Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Speaker sins in loving, but she is virtuous by scorning him 2 Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving. 3 O, but with mine compare thou thine own state, 4 And thou shalt find it merits not reproving. She’s not fit to reprove him, because their behaviours are much alike. 5 Or if it do, not from those lips of thine, 6 That have profaned their scarlet ornaments Promiscuity as a form of sacrilege, the woman has dishonoured the holy redness of her lips by kissing too freely 7 And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine, kisses= false assurance of commitment 8 Robbed others’ beds’ revenues of their rents. Both deprived lawful partners of their sexual due, bestowing favours elsewhere 9 Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those She looks at others the way he looks at her 10 Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee; 11 Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows, Do unto others… 12 Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. 13 If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, 14 By self-example mayst thou be denied. Love as sin and virtue Sum of addressor’s passion Addressee: a woman She flirts with other men and that makes him love and admire her more Martes 3.4 DUNCAN-JONES Reading Guide Duncan-Jones, Katherine (2007), “Introduction”, Shakespeare's Sonnets, London: Arden Shakespeare, pp. 1- 105. 1. Is Shakespeare’s Sonnets the product of youth or of a mature writer? King’s servant (p13) busy period of his career. Process: started at an earlier period but published later in his life. Attributed to the folly of youth, perhaps because of the controversy. The sonnet sequence started way before its publication in 1609. There is evidence of earlier publications. External evidence suggests, at least, four probable phases of composition (b & c are highly conjectural). a) ? - 1598. Allusion in Palladis Tamia. Some sonnets appear in The Passionate Pilgrim. b) 1599-1600. A stationer’s register on 3rd January 1600 c) 1603-1604. Severe plague outbreak and consequent loss of income from the theatre d) August 1608 - May 1609. An even more severe and prolonged plague outbreak again deprived Shakespeare of income. 2. How does D-J account for what some critics regard as “the compromising or `disgraceful´ elements”of the sonnets? Before – brilliant but embarrassing folly. Now – homoeroticism is confronted positively and newly contextualised within the homosocial world of James I. Context of publication accounts for homoeroticism/homosociality relating to the new world of James I (kiss p67, “gave him a little cuff”). “The compromising or disgraceful elements” of the sonnets refers to the homoerotic content. D-J analyses the sonnets by taking into account the context in which they were published, the Jacobean era. In James I’s reign, his public displays of affection for other men were not unusual. (Relation with the Earl of Pembroke p67). 3. Was Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence a throwback to the more `golden´ and Petrarchan style of the 1590s? Not a throwback. Satirical. Rejects and debunks tradition. P30: Radical refashioning of genre – sportiveness, satirical, epigrammatic. Sonnets had reached a point of exhaustion. The great Elizabethan vogue for sonneteering had spent its force by the end of the 1590s, but James’s accession in 1603 stimulated a second wave. From the viewpoint of Jacobean readers the sonnets could be received as art of this small but vigorous movement to provide the new court culture with its own refashioned sonnet sequences and lyric collections. Shakespeare sought to appropriate and redefine the genre, rejecting the stale conceits of mistress-worship, and to create a sonnet sequence so different from all its predecessors that the form could never be the same again. 4. Was Quarto unauthorised? P35 deployment of theme: immortalization through verse. Shakespeare needed money. Lee claims the manuscript was stolen by Thorpe & that it was a folly of a man’s youth – Victorian critics to exonerate/cleanse him. Labouchere amendment. Fear. 2 witnesses. ??? The traditional 20th century view has been that Q was published in some practical manner????. This belief lies, probably, in fears by the British scholars who worked on them during the 1885 amendment which criminalised homosexual acts, and Oscar Wilde’s encarcelation in 1895. But there’s more evidence that suggests that the sonnets’ publication was authorized by Shakespeare himself. 5. How did the different editors deal with the sonnet sequence? Different editors “play” with the sonnets: changing spelling, for example. Some did not include A Lover’s Complaint. Others included it in the wrong position. P42 rearranging. Benson – 1640 attempt to make addressee a woman, tried to erase evidence of homoeroticism (he-she, sweet boy-sweet love). Edmond Malone –1780 acknowledges 1609 Q + male addressee, doubts about Complaint. Bernard Lintott – attempt to heterosexualize, changed titles Kerrigan – 1986 includes Complaint, restored to original position 6. Who prompted the identity of the dark lady as one of the major questions in the sonnets? Victorian and Edwardian critics. Gerald Massey, Thomas Tyler. The search for the dark lady appears to have been driven by two motives: – Post romantic determination to conventionalise and familiarise the sonnets, to attach the poems to that very same courtly love tradition that Shakespeare was explicitly rejecting and debunking. – Power of suggestio falsi (something untrue). The foregrounding of the dark lady, placing her under the spotlight, implies that the predominant thrust of the sonnets is heterosexual. 7. What implications for the identification of `Mr. W.H.´ does the contextualization suggested for Shakespeare’s Sonnets have? William Herbert – Third Earl of Pembroke. Refused to marry; sonnets 1-17 may be addressed to him. Pro- marriage sonnets. From the dedication (real world) to assuming that Mr W. H. is the addressee. ??? Speculation. That Thorpe’s dedicatee is the same man as the addressee of 1-126 has often been doubted. Yet most first-time readers will naturally conflate the two. There is also the aspect of patronage that should never be overlooked. If the dedicatee is the addressee of the sonnets we are combining a person of the real world with the literary world. The dedication belongs in the real world. 8. Who is the rival poet? It is assumed that the rival poet could be another protegeé of Shakespeare’s patron and friend Pembroke. Various poets might have been viewed by Shakespeare as offering a threat or competition to him in the pursuit of Pembroke’s favour. Perhaps it is a composite figure and the mini-sequence 76-86 should be seen as exploring the theme of the speaker-poet’s sense of being threatened by other poets through a fictionally amalgamated writer, drawing on several individuals, rather than embodying any single thread of allusion 9. How have 20th century critics approached the sonnets? Reluctance to acknowledge homoeroticism and connection between Shakespeare’s life and the sonnets. P81- 82-83. With new studies in gender and a new vision on homosexuality and homoeroticism, the view on the sonnets has changed. We have to take into account the context in which we are reading the sonnets. HAMLET – a tragedy in five acts – written about 1599-1601 – published in a quarto edition in 1603 from an unauthorised text, with reference to an earlier play. The First Folio version was taken from a second quarto of 1604 that was based on Shakespeare’s own papers with some annotations by the bookkeeper. – mid-point of Shakespeare’s writing career – Early Modern period. Transition from the Medieval world (theocentric) to a world where MAN takes on (anthropocentric). Medieval to Renaissance. SOURCES - Rewriting/recreating (not creating anew) 1. Ur-Hamblet. Lost previous text, not extant (assumption, no evidence). A text that has disappeared and could have been written by Thomas Kyd/Shakespeare 2. Saxo Grammaticus (1514). Draws some elements but according to Jenkins there is no direct indebtedness 3. Belleforest → Histoires Tragiques (end of 16th c.) main source 4. The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd. Revenge play which followed Italian/Roman models Shakespeare drew from all these sources but went beyond to create a classic in which we have – a hero who cannot act. He reflects, meditates and broods, looks into himself. Has the capacity for introspection, to step out of himself and look at himself and the workings of his mind. – action which is expected but does not take place – action which takes place within the mind – a hero who has to avenge his father’s death BUT cannot act. The world of the play: DENMARK → Elsinore’s Castle. Middle Ages → around 1300-1499. Shakespeare includes elements from his own time and place; anachronisms. When Hamlet was first put on stage they had just moved to the new Globe. They had to stop performing Julius Caesar because of the similarities with the political context. Characters: Hamlet, prince of Denmark Claudius, king of Denmark, H’s uncle The Ghost of the late king, Old Hamlet Gertrude, the Queen, H’s mother, now Claudius’ wife Polonius, councillor of state Laertes, Polonius’ son Ophelia, P’s daughter Horatio, true friend and confidant of Hamlet Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, courtiers, former schoolfellows of Hamlet Fortinbras, prince of Norway Voltemand & Cornelius, Danish councillors, ambassadors to Norway Marcellus, Bernardo & Francisco, members of the king’s guard Analyisis ACT I Scene I The play starts with a threat: foreign invasion from Norway, but the threat is actually internal. The apparition of the ghost foretells the internal problems. Horatio is sceptical about the ghost. He needs to see to believe. Sick at heart – foreboding, a hunch Thing, dreaded sight – they have seen it twice The ghost in armour, ready for battle. 1st usurper. The king as a warrior. Conversion of the sceptic after the first apparition. Bodes some strange eruption – mal augurio, omen. Something violent and unnatural. Marcellus asks why they keep watch. Invasion by Fortinbras the young, who wants to regain lands won from his father. Lines 130-180 Jueves 5.4 ACT I Scene i (contd) Fortinbras: what kind of Prince is he? Military leader, contraposed to Hamlet (parallelism), young, courageous, determined. ‘Unimproved mettle’ → strength of spirit. Hot – ready to act. His courage has not been tested yet. He has gathered a group of mercenaries. Hamlet: – has returned from Wittenberg (Germany). Shakespeare’s world: Martin Luther’s University; connection with Dr Faustus’ (Christopher Marlowe’s play) – procrastinator but with the ability to look into himself Ghost: – ‘this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him’ – silent, mute, it does not speak to the guards nor Horatio – roams, wanders the palace without talking The appearance of the ghost in full armour suggests that he has unfinished business. We assume that the threat is the invasion, but it actually comes from within. Religion: Catholicism. When you die, if you have sins that were not confessed you remain in Purgatory. ACT I Scene ii. Contrast between Laertes and Hamlet. Hamlet’s soliloquy. Appearance vs reality. Claudius’ speech: the death of old Hamlet is recent but Claudius has already married his widow. Elected as king. – Double speech → Janus. Two faced god. – 5) nature: lust, desire Oxymorons: these doublings predict/represent the tension that is unfolding. – wisest sorrows: you cannot be wise, sorrow will overcome you. The contiguity brings out the impossibility – defeated joy – an auspicious and a dropping eye – mirth in funeral – dirge in marriage – delight - dole Claudius likes to play with words, speaks in riddles Laertes: analogy with Hamlet. He acts, Hamlet doesn’t. Has come to pay his tribute at the king’s coronation, and now asks for permission to go back to France. Line 65. A little more than kin, and less than kind. Next of kin, nephew and son, adding up “titles”. But not natural. Line 67. Too much in the sun. pun son/sun. Feels he has been wronged. In the sun → not in the dark. He doesn’t know how his father died yet, but his mother’s marriage doesn’t agree with him. Something fishy about Claudius. Hamlet dressed in black, he is in mourning. The presence of Hamlet in mourning disrupts the “harmony” of the kingdom. Seem vs is. Hamlet is not putting up an appearance. He is really in mourning. The reality of his sorrow: but I have that within which passeth show. The King and Queen try to make him stop, arguing that it is not the behaviour of a sane person. It shows a will most incorrect. What Hamlet lacks. “The first corse” Abel, killed by Cain because of jealousy. Proleptic info, foreshadowing what will happen. The King is reluctant to let Hamlet go back to university. (Wittenberg, where Luther nailed his thesis. ) Cultural background: period of transition from Elizabeth I to James I. Shakespeare includes a ghost, which belongs to the CATHOLIC tradition (the old faith), despite belonging to a PROTESTANT time. Protestants do not believe in ghosts. HAMLET’S SOLILOQUY The first of many. Introspection. A long, usually serious speech that a character in a play makes to an audience and that reveals the character’s thoughts. A resource for the audience to see the character’s mind and know more than the rest of the characters. – an outburst of feelings, everything that had been pinned up during the conversation between Claudius and Gertrude. Anger, sorrow, disgust, revolt. Disappointment, frustration. O that this too too sallied flesh would melt. Reveals pent up emotion through its exclamations, questions and expressions of pain 132-135 cannot take pleasure from the world. Unweeded garden, corrupt and vile, reproduces itself. Hyperion (greek god of the sun) to a satyr (old Hamlet, loving and caring, vs Claudius) 144 - appetite of love towards K.H.??? Frailty personified, weakness. Queen = Niobe, embodiment of sorrow. Beast who lacks reason. He has to obey while in mourning and anger. His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. God’s laws against suicide. Hamlet has considered suicide, but religion “forbids” it. The queen married Claudius the day after old Hamlet’s funeral. It is not nor it cannot come to good. Omen. Appearance and reality 75 Why seems it so particular with thee? Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not ‘seems’. – Dramatic function of H’s soliloquy. Hamlet is more introspective in nature. He’s disgusted by what is going on in Elsinore but he’s unable to act or speak. But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue. Like his father’s ghost. Perhaps they will speak to each other. Above and beyond the world he lives in, more connected to the world to come (Rennaissance) ??? Hamlet confronts Horatio about the real reasons for his coming to Denmark. Not old Hamlet’s funeral, but Gertrude and Claudius’ wedding. Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral bak’d meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. The wedding took place shortly after the funeral, they used the same food. Thrift mean & economic. Methinks I see my father. Foreshadowing an encounter. Horatio has seen old Hamlet’s ghost, that’s why he asks where he has seen it. We know that the ghost is roaming the castle, but Hamlet doesn’t yet. Horatio narrates the apparition. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. Very pale. Sickness. Hamlet’s short soliloquy: tension is building up. Premonition. My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well; I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come! Till then, sit still, my soul! Foul deeds will rise. ACT I Scene iii. Polonius’ advice to Laertes and Ophelia. 5 the trifling of his favour 33 Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister And keep you in the rear of your affection Laertes advises Ophelia, but according to her, Laertes does not do what he advises. 39 The canker galls the infants of the spring Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d. Images of infection. Ulcer /ˈʌl.sə/, pester. If something is foul it will spread through to the good parts. Rot and spread, spoiling everything. Contagious blastments, best safety lies in fear. Polonius is long winded, talkative, a bore. He advises his son and daughter. Polonius’ advice to Laertes Husbandry – running of your own economy. To thine own self be true. Give every man thy ear but few thy voice (not followed by Pollonius himself!) Polonius’ advice to Ophelia Whatever she does reflects on his father. Polonius worries about his reputation. She belongs to him. Hamlet has made advances on Ophelia. Polonius tells her what to do. Caution. Perilous. Green. Unsifted (has not gone through any experience) 125 with a large tether may he walk than may he give you Images from economics/finance. The truer H’s vows seem to be, the more deceitful they are. ACT I Scene iv. Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are waiting for the ghost to appear. The Danish are seen as drunkards, a weakness. No matter how noble one might be, one vice prevails over all virtues, cankering. Carrying … scandal. That one weakness will stain anything good. The ghost appears. Hamlet questions the ghost. Thou comest in such a questionable shape… Royal Dane. Imagery which contradicts the natural course of events. The ghost beckons Hamlet to follow him. Horatio is worried the ghost will drive Hamlet mad and make him kill himself. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! ACT I Scene v Hamlet & the ghost Old Hamlet’s ghost: – how he died - murdered, Claudius poisoned him. The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown – Gertrude is innocent: Claudius’ vice will affect Gertrude’s virtue. The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen But virtue … prey on garbage – roams the castle because he did not have the chance to confess his sins Doomed for a certain term to walk the night / and for the day confined to fast in fires / till the foul crimes done in my days of nature / are burnt and purged away → PURGATORY Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched – request: Revenge!!! Hamlet must avenge his father Bear it not / let not the royal bed… Remember me Hamlet promises to erase everything from his memory except his father’s command. Unmixed with baser matter. That one may smile and smile, and be a villain. He will do as his uncle, put on a smile and hide his intentions. Hamlet warns his companions that he will pretend to be mad. Put an antic disposition on. Asks not to be betrayed. Swear. -Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. “The time is out of joint. –O cursed spite, That ever was I born to set it right!” ACT II Scene i – Polonius commands Reynaldo, his servant, to go to Paris and spy on Laertes (also to find any Danes living there to question them as to Laertes’ whereabouts and reputation). Polonius’ character revealed. By indirections find directions out. As they will do in Act III scene i. – Ophelia enters. Hamlet has scared her. He has come into her presence in a bizarre and strange appearance. Disheveled, untidy. Polonius believes that Hamlet’s madness is due to Ophelia’s rejection. → fish reference. Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth. Carp = talk & fish. Manoeuvring with the truth to find out what Laertes is up to. Hamlet will turn this procedure against him later. ACT II Scene ii King and Queen summoned Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Polonius informs King and Queen what he found out about Hamlet’s madness, but he creates suspense by letting the ambassadors, Voltemand and Cornellius, speak first. The ambassadors explain that Fortinbras was planning to invade Denmark but was stopped by his uncle and is now asking for permission to pass through Denmark to invade Polish territory. 15-18 a roundabout way to find out what’s wrong with Hamlet. Once opened –the ulcer– remedy can be applied to it. Gertrude believes that Hamlet’s madness is due to old Hamlet’s death and her prompt marriage to Claudius. More matter with less art(fulness) → go to the point, Polonius! He’s witty with words but speaks a lot and in riddles. Polonius reads from something Hamlet wrote to Ophelia confessing his love. P wants to prove that he is right about Hamlet’s madness. Scheme: he and the king will hide while Ophelia talks to Hamlet. Hamlet speaks in riddles, suggesting that he is mad, though his speech also contains hidden meanings which Polonius picks up on. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter and Hamlet reveals that he knows they were sent to spy on him. They announce that the ‘tragedians of the city’ are arriving to cheer Hamlet up. The travelling players arrive and Hamlet asks them to perform a moving speech from ‘Hecuba and Priam’. He then asks them to perform 'The Murder of Gonzago' for the king and his guests the following evening. Before they leave he gets their permission for him to write a 12 line speech that he wants to be included in the play. Alone, he praises the actor who delivered the speech for connecting to his true emotions when performing and criticises himself for being unable to express his inner feelings. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. Martes 17.4 ACT II Scene ii (contd) Lines to pay attention to: 4-7 King’s words explaining to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern why he had summoned them 17-18 King says it’s their duty to find out and remedy Hamlet’s condition. Image of the ulcer, something that has to be opened. 85 This business well ended. King’s arrangement with Fortinbras to give him safe passage to Poland. 95 Queen. About Hamlet’s madness. 163 Polonius. The scheme he is planning to disclose Hamlet’s true reasons for his madness. I’ll loose/lose my daughter. Pun, behaving in an immoral way, using Ophelia as bait. 171 Polonius and Hamlet. He acts as a madman. Calls Polonius a fishmonger (relation to line 63), one whose daughter has loose morals. Honest, also a sexual relation/connotation. Mocks Polonius, insults Ophelia, advises P let her not walk in the sun (son) as a warning that she may conceive. 205 Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. What Hamlet says makes sense, it’s not just random. 243 Hamlet, R&G. Following Claudius’ orders to question H. Denmark’s a prison, melancholy, can’t leave, can’t express himself. He knows their intentions already 278 anything but to the purpose. H knows R&G are not telling the truth about their intentions. H knows they’ve been sent. 519-520 o 498??? Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. Players have arrived at the castle. The murder of Gonzago. 554-556 Hamlet’s soliloquy. What would he (the actor) do / had he the motive and the ? for passion / that I have? Hamlet gives one of the players a speech he had heard before. He wonders what would happen and laments being unable to act. 600-601 The play’s the thing / wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. If Claudius reacts to the scene, Hamlet will know if the ghost was good or bad. Catch. Fishing metaphor. Act III Scene i – ppt Tudda Orgeira The King and Polonius spy on Hamlet and Ophelia together. In his famous soliloquy, Hamlet ponders on suicide and the terrors of life after death. He comes across Ophelia, and while they are talking, he guesses he is being watched. The King realises that Hamlet is not mad, nor in love with Ophelia; something else troubles him. He decides that the best way to relieve Hamlet’s trouble is to send him away to England. Part 1 The King interrogates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about Hamlet’s behaviour, but their account of their encounter with Hamlet is quite misleading, since they do not want to admit that the prince has discovered their true intentions. Polonius states that Hamlet is interested in the players, and that he wishes eagerly that they see the play. Part 2 The Queen tells Ophelia that she hopes Ophelia and Hamlet can mend their relationship. The King and Polonius get ready to spy on Hamlet; as part of the plan, Polonius instructs Ophelia to pretend that she is reading a prayer- book. Polonius highlights the fact that, through good actions (in this case, reading a prayer-book) we can cover up our wickedness and second intentions (i.e. spying on Hamlet). What Polonius says really resonates with the King, for he has also been covering up what he has done with ‘artful language’. Part 3: Hamlet’s soliloquy A soliloquy is a resource for the audience to see the characters’ mind and know more than the rest of the characters. Hamlet reflects on suicide and what may come after death. Although the matter is of relevance to his situation (because he is the one contemplating taking his own life), he presents it as a philosophical question to be debated. The language he uses is distant and impersonal (he rarely says ‘I’ or ‘me’), perhaps revealing his fear of meditating on his own suicide. “While it is generally assumed that Hamlet’s question is whether or not to commit suicide, it can be argued that this soliloquy is instead (or is primarily) a posing of a philosophical question appropriate for a student from Wittenberg, followed by a scholarly analysis of that question.” (Mowat, B. & P. Werstine, p. 291) [...] Hamlet’s discourse is in effect set within a classical worldview [...], a view in which God and heaven and hell and sin do not have a place [...]. This is a very different worldview from the one Hamlet revealed when he cried out his wish that God “had not fired / His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter” (1.2.135-136).” (Mowat, B. & P. Werstine, p. 291) It is interesting to note that even though his father’s ghost is roaming the castle, Hamlet describes Death as ‘an undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns’ Sickness as a dominating image throughout the play. “[...] we discover that the idea of an ulcer or tumour, as descriptive of the unwholesome condition of Denmark morally, is, on the whole, the dominating one. [...] [Hamlet] describes the action of conscience in the unforgettable picture of the healthy, ruddy countenance turning pale with sickness.” (Spurgeon, C. p. 316-317) Part 4 Hamlet comes across Ophelia. They have a casual conversation. He forgets his apparent ‘madness’ due to the solemnity of his previous thoughts. However, as soon as he realises he is being spied on, he returns to his ‘lunacy’. Ophelia intends to give him back his presents, but he mocks her. Then, in a short soliloquy, she mourns the noble mind that has now lapsed into madness. Ophelia’s soliloquy: Prose vs Verse “[W]henever Hamlet is feigning madness he talks in prose, as if even here the poise and control of blank verse, reflecting those same qualities in the mind, are temporarily abandoned, and the emotional release, even though only pretence, is effected naturally in prose.” (Lott, B. p. xxxiii) – Talking in verse requires effort and poise anc control that Hamlet pretends he doesn’t have. Part 5 The King has come to the conclusion that Hamlet’s madness is not a result of his love for Ophelia, and suspects that there is “something in his soul” which is affecting his behaviour. Claudius fears that the situation will soon turn to worse and predicts danger. The King decides to send Hamlet to England to demand the tribute they are owed, hoping that a change of air and scenery will restore his mental health. Polonius disagrees with the King and believes that Hamlet’s madness is indeed a result of unrequited love. He suggests that, before sending Hamlet away, the King should let the Queen speak to him to try and convince him to express his grief Final rhyming couplet. Once again, the King’s intention to keep Hamlet under constant surveillance is given verbal expression in the King’s final line in the scene. It shall be so / Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go. ACT III Scene ii (ppt Bellesi Alvez) Hamlet gives the three Players an instruction about the play he composed, and discusses acting in general. (ll. 1-45) Hamlet dismisses the King’s agents, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, just when he summons Horatio, his confidant, effecting a contrast. (ll. 46-74) Hamlet asks Horatio to observe Claudius while he’s watching the play. (ll. 75-91) Hamlet implies indecent meanings towards Ophelia, makes bitter remarks about Gertrude and mocks Polonius for acting in university. (ll. 97-133) A dumb-show importing the argument of the play, and then The Mousetrap (l. 233): a King, a Queen, and a Poisoner with some Three or Four. Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and other Lords attendant watch. (ll. 150-224) First sign of uneasiness in the King. (ll. 227-8) When the Poisoner pours the poison in the sleeper’s ears Claudius rises, asks for light and leaves the room, as does everybody else, except for Hamlet and Horatio, who feel their theory is proven. (ll. 259-288) Jueves 19.4 ACT III Scene iii (ppt Libertini Lois, Mele) The King knows that his secret is no longer one. He fears Hamlet’s revenge. He wants to send Hamlet away to England -with his former school fellows Polonius’ plan He will hide in Gertrude's closet to hear her conversation with Hamlet. He will later inform the King what he has learned. He has to listen to the conversation, because he thinks less of women. Polonius knows that mothers are pious to their children. The King’s soliloquy He confesses to himself. Guilt and grief. He seems repentant BUT He is not prepared to give up what he gained with the murder. Does he seek pardon, terrestrial and celestial? He could buy it with gold. He asks for heavenly guidance, to give him the strength to repent and pray, to be reborn, but that’s impossible. Hamlet enters as the King kneels (execution position!!!). Hamlet draws his sword ready to kill the murdered of his father BUT He realises Claudius would go straight to heaven. Was he really going to heaven? My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go. ACT III Scene iv (ppt Libertini Lois, Mele) The Queen is waiting for Hamlet. Polonius is to stay hidden while mother and son talk The Queen takes Claudius' side. Hamlet confronts his mother. She is scared by Hamlet’s words –throws daggers at her (for real?) – and cries for help Hamlet acts without thinking for the first time: kills Polonius. Gertrude believes that killing Polonius is a horrible act. But Hamlet turns the tables against her: Almost as bad, good mother, /As kill a king and marry his brother Hamlet compares the two brothers Old Hamlet likened to Hyperion, Jove, Mars. This was your husband. Look you now what follows. Hamlet accuses Gertrude of lustfulness Old Hamlet’s ghost Hamlet is getting agitated while he is reproaching Gertrude. His father's ghost appears, only Hamlet can see it. Has it appeared so that Hamlet kills his own mother? No! He wants Hamlet to be kind to her and to remember who the real enemy is. The ghost is Gertrude’s protector As Gertrude cannot see the ghost she believes Hamlet is indeed crazy Hamlet asks his mother to confess her sins and to stop sleeping with Claudius Oedipal relationship? Why does Hamlet asks his mother to stop sleeping with the King? Hamlet is more concerned with the marriage of his mother than the death of his father: Hamlet does not mention or express any concern over how his father died until he sees the ghost. Hamlet believes that with his father's death all his competition is gone and his mother should be his. (Hamlet makes numerous sexual allusions throughout the scene) Hamlet fears a secret plan from Claudius. Hamlet asks his mother if she knows about his forced exile. He knows he cannot trust Guildenstern and Rosencrantz Gertrude The ghost believes she is innocent. She claims the same. Is she? After everything Hamlet said she offers no argument or gives no reassurance. Not about Claudius, herself, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; not even to Hamlet, her only son. Jueves 3.5 ACT IV Scenes i-v (ppt Neonelli Sirimarco) Scene i Gertrude tells Claudius about Hamlet’s madness and she intends to help Hamlet Gertrude’s protectiveness? KING What Gertrude? How does Hamlet? QUEEN Mad as the sea and wind when both contend ( IV. i. 7) – She also confesses that Hamlet has killed Polonius Gertrude's words work to Claudius’ advantage. They must ship Hamlet to England. Hamlet is a danger to Claudius so the murder serves him as an excuse. KING His liberty is full of threats to all, to you yourself, to us, to everyone. (IV. i. 15-16) Scene ii – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ask Hamlet to tell them where the body of Polonious is. Hamlet treats – Rosencrantz as a “sponge”. Urban dictionary: “Someone who frequently benefits from the generosity of others but never returns the favour.” HAMLET That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge - what replication should be made by the son of a king? (line 10) Hamlet tries to confuse Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: HAMLET The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing - GUILDEN. A thing, my lord? HAMLET Of nothing, bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after! (line 24) Hamlet makes reference to legal doctrine. Meaning: the king in his own person can make and enforce laws, but the laws and obedience one owes do not disappear if the king dies. The “king” ,in essence, is a thing, a concept that outlives any physical manifestation. Scene iii Claudius cannot jail Hamlet because he is loved by the people, for the way he looks. The only solution is England KING Yet must not we put the strong law on him: He’s loved of the distracted multitude, who like not in the their judgement but their eyes ( IV. iii. 3-6) Hamlet’s wordplay in relation to Polonius’ body: images of corruption Hamlet has called the king a worm. He makes reference to the Diet of Worms ( a political meeting) KING Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius? HAMLET At supper. KING At supper? Where? HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end. (IV. iii.19-24) → we all end in the same place and eaten by maggots Reference to heaven Hamlet mocks the king by telling him that he should find Polonius in heaven KING Where is Polonius? HAMLET In heaven: send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th ’other place yourself ( IV.iii.31-32) Claudius’ soliloquy England has a duty → Hamlet has to die KING The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England ( IV. iii. 66) Scene iv – Fortinbras sends his captain to ask for permission to go through their lands and invade some Polish lands. – When Hamlet is told their intentions, he feels that this will be a meaningless war: HAMLET. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate the question of this straw! This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir. (Line 25) Hamlet’s Soliloquy Hamlet feels guilty that he hasn’t carried out his revenge. He compares himself to a beast because he only eats and sleeps: HAMLET. How all occasions do inform against me And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. (Line 33) Hamlet makes a promise to himself to start taking action on his revenge: HAMLET. [...] O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (Line 66) Scene v Ophelia’s madness: mad with grief. Dependence on men. QUEEN What would she have? GENT She speaks much of her father, says she hears There’s tricks i’th’ world, and, hems, and beats her heart, Spurns enviously at straws, speaks thing in doubts That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing. (IV.v. 3-7) Ophelia’s insanity caused by her dependence on men Reference to sexuality after her father’s death → her sexual feelings appear. There is some particular reference to ladies. OPHELIA Good night, ladies, good night. Sweet ladies, good night. (IV. v. 70) Claudius is worried because of Ophelia’s condition and has a sort of premonition: KING O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions [...] (Line 76) The King is afraid of Laertes. He knows he is back from France and he does not want Laertes to hear what people gossip: KING Her brother is in secret come from France, Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his ear [...] (Line 86) When Laertes enters blaming the King for his father’s death, the Queen tells him that Claudius is not the murderer (Line 128). Contrast between Laertes and Hamlet: Laertes is determined to revenge his father, no matter the consequences. LAERTES [...] To this point I stand, That both the worlds I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I’ll be revenged Most throughly for my father. (Line 133) When the King is convincing Laertes to calm down and become allies with him to avenge his father’s death, Ophelia enters and Laertes discovers that she is mad because of their father. (Line 159) Ambiguity of “nonny” in Ophelia’s speech: OPHELIA They bore him barefaced on the bier, Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny, And in his grave rained many a tear - Fare you well, my dove! (Line 164) Urban Dictionary: -Nonny: Short for non-boyfriend. A boy who, with a girl, fulfills all the lame boyfriend duties, yet receives no benefits. (irony: Hamlet?) -Nonny: An affectionate term for a friend or family member (Polonious) In her madness, Ophelia asks Laertes to refrain his desire for revenge: OPHELIA You must sing ‘Adown adown’, and you ‘Call him adown-a’. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter. (Line 172) She uses two refrains from ballads ironically, meaning “refrain from this revenge (wheel).” Then she starts giving them all flowers and she gives the Queen a daisy, because she has no more violets. Irony: daisy means unhappy love, violet means faithfulness. This scene ends with the King promising to help Laertes and kill Hamlet (Line 216). – Laertes falls to Claudius’ plotting and schemes – Hamlet is on his way to England bearing letters (with orders, from the King?) ACT IV Scenes vi-vii (ppt Palmitano Borán) Scene vi Horatio´s servant tells him that there are sailors waiting to give Horatio a letter from Hamlet. The sailors refer to Hamlet as the ‘ambassador that was bound for England.’ This means that Hamlet has concealed his true identity. What did the letter say? Hamlet asks Horatio to lead the sailors to the King because they have letters for Claudius as well. Hamlet says that they had been navigating for two days when a pirate ship chased them. Hamlet managed to board their ship, but once the pirate ship got clear of them, Hamlet became their prisoner. Hamlet refers to the pirates as ‘thieves of mercy’, meaning that they showed mercy in calculated exchange for services to be rendered: delivering the letters from Hamlet. Hamlet tells Horatio to meet him because he has ‘words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter.’ This means that even though Hamlet´s words are of a weight to strike one dumb, they are still far from matching the enormity of the case. The sailors would lead Horatio to Hamlet. Scene vii Conversation between the King, Laertes; and later, the Queen. Laertes asks the King why Hamlet was not put on public trial for the murder of Polonius. The King says that he had two reasons: First, he couldn't do it because the Queen ‘lives almost by his looks, and for myself…she is so conjunctive to my life and soul that, as the star moves not but in his sphere , I could not but by her.’ Secondly, because the ordinary people love Hamlet. Then, a messenger delivers two letters: one for the King,and the other for the Queen. Hamlet's letter to the King Hamlet is back in Denmark and he asks Claudius to meet so he can explain the reasons for his sudden return. Uses a style of royal address that in Hamlet’s words seems sarcastic. The King and Laertes plan to set a trap to Hamlet and kill him. Laertes had been praised by a gentleman of Normandy in the ‘art and exercise of defence’: fencing. A skill that Hamlet envies. The King would set up a match between Laertes and Hamlet. Laertes would choose ‘a sword unbated’. He would anoint it also with an unction he had bought. ‘I´ll touch my point with this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, it may be death.’ The King comes up with a second plan just in case: if Hamlet needs to drink during the match, the King would have prepared a poisoned chalice for him. Finally, the Queen enters and tells Laertes that Ophelia has drowned. ACT V Scene i (ppt Palmitano Borán) In the churchyard On scene we encounter two gravediggers discussing a burial about to happen: A Christian burial for a lady’s suspicious death. They conclude that she is to receive special dispensations for being from a wealthy family. If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial. They begin to make jokes as they continue to dig the grave. Hamlet and Horatio enter and hear the gravediggers make jokes with the corpses while digging graves. They discuss his obvious lack of sensitivity towards the dead and arrive at the conclusion that only those who can afford not to work may afford to be sensitive. The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. As Hamlet and Horatio keep on observing the gravediggers at work they start to ponder about the different skulls they see, about how they have to have been of literate people. They ask the grave digger whose grave he is digging as they have seen legal documents there, and he answers that the grave he is digging is his. Hamlet and the gravedigger start to argue about whose grave it is, playing with the meaning of lie: Gravedigger: You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine. Hamlet: 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest Though not a man of letters the gravedigger plays Hamlet while talking about the grave. Hamlet: What man dost thou dig it for? Gravedigger: For no man, sir. Hamlet: What woman, then? Gravedigger: For none, neither. Hamlet: Who is to be buried in't? Gravedigger: One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead. Hamlet and the gravedigger discuss Denmark’s recent history and he tells him about how young Hamlet was sent to England to be cured of his insanity. Hamlet, Horatio and the gravedigger talk about ancient history, i.e. Alexander’s fate. Laertes, Claudius, Gertrude and other Mourners arrive for Ophelia’s burial. Ophelia’s burial Laertes and Gertrude try to get the Priest to give Ophelia all the Christian rites, but he refuses because he feels it would be disrespectful for all those already buried there. After the goodbyes Laertes throws himself into the grave and asks the priest to bury him with Ophelia Hamlet throws himself also to the grave. Hamlet and Laertes argue about their love for Ophelia within the grave but they are able to be separated. Hamlet leaves with Horatio. On stage remain Gertrude, Claudius and Laertes. Claudius, to Laertes: Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech; We'll put the matter to the present push. Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. This grave shall have a living monument: An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then, in patience our proceeding be. They leave. Linguistic analysis: metaphor HAMLET :How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, by the card, with precision; according to some the reference is to the mariners' chart; according to others to the card on which the points of the compass were marked; according to others again to the card and calendar of etiquette, or book of manners, of which, says Staunton, several were published in Shakespeare's time. – Old Hamlet’s jester is mentioned - Yorik’s skull is found – Hamlet takes the skull in this scene, NOT in the “to be or not to be” soliloquy. – life and death – passage on Earth. After Ophelia’s burial – Claudius promises Laertes to help him kill Hamlet – Hamlet & Laertes “play” – fence - the art or sport of fencing – Laertes has poisoned his blade – Claudius has prepared a poisoned chalice in case Laertes fails to touch Hamlet with his foil – Hamlet is winning so Claudius offers the beverage - Gertrude drinks it instead. – Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned tip. – Laertes and Hamlet exchange rapiers → Hamlet wounds Laertes – Gertrude dies – Hamlet kills Claudius – Laertes & Hamlet die – Horatio remains. Hamlet asks him to tell his story and to tell the people that he supports Fortinbras as king of Denmark. Also asks him not to kill himself. –Fortinbras: “such a sight as this, Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.” There is no winner in this battle. No sense, reason nor values. – Takes us back to Hamlet’s speech. A Pyrrhic victory - oxymoron, too many deaths (a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.) – Remember that Hamlet is straddling between two worlds. –There are many contradictions in the play. ACT V Scene ii Hamlet reveals that he found the sealed letter Claudius had written ordering his death in England. He tells Horatio he used his father's seal to write another letter ordering the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and swapped them. A servant invites Hamlet to make amends with Laertes by fighting him in a duel. The court then comes together to watch the fight. Hamlet starts by apologising to Laertes and saying ‘Give me your pardon, sir: I’ve done you wrong’. The men then choose their weapons and Laertes takes the sword with a poisoned tip. After they have started, Claudius drinks to Hamlet’s health before dropping a poisoned pearl into the cup and offering it to Hamlet. Hamlet doesn’t drink it but during the fight Gertrude drinks the wine from the poisoned cup. Claudius tries to stop her saying ‘Gertrude, do not drink’ but it’s too late and Gertrude slowly dies. The fight continues and both men end up swapping swords. They are both wounded with the deadly poison. Laertes falls first and warns Hamlet ‘thou art slain’ and that ‘the king, the king’s to blame’. In a fit of rage, Hamlet forces Claudius to drink the poisoned wine and ‘Follow my mother’. Before Laertes dies, he and Hamlet forgive each other. Hamlet then asks Horatio to tell his story to others and predicts that Fortinbras will become King of Denmark. He utters his final breath, saying ‘The rest is silence. O, o, o, o!’. Fortinbras enters with his army, celebrating the fact they have claimed the land in Poland and ambassadors also arrive from England saying Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been killed. Horatio promises to explain the chaos. Fortinbras is moved by Hamlet’s story and orders a soldier’s burial for the dead prince. The Ghost in Hamlet (Jesica Sanchez) Hamlet in Purgatory – Stephen Greenblatt GHOSTS IN THE XVI CENTURY Marlowe and Ben Jonson, two of the greatest playwrights of the age, show surprisingly little interest in the popular stage figure of the ghost. Of the leading Renaissance English playwrights, it is only Shakespeare who fully participates in the popular vogue for presenting ghosts onstage. THE GHOST IN HAMLET Neither the history of Hamlet by Saxo Grammaticus nor its retelling by Francois de Belleforest makes any mention of a ghost. The Ur- Hamlet featured a pale ghost. The introduction of a ghost changed the whole nature of the play. In the sources the murder is a public event. There is a shift in the plot from an open to a secret murder. ACT I The Ghost has appeared to Barnardo and Marcellus. They contact Horatio to speak to the Ghost. The Ghost does not speak. They decide to tell Hamlet. Hamlet speaks to the Ghost. The Ghost tells Hamlet to avenge his murder. ACT I SCENE V «Adieu, adieu, remember me.» (1.5.91) What does the Ghost mean by «remember»? How should Hamlet remember his father? He has to avenge him. (Praying for someone is also a way of remembering them). PURGATORY We know that Hamlet’s father is in purgatory. “purged away”, “Saint Patrick”, “hic et ubique?” What is purgatory? What image do you have of it? Protestants called it a «fable». Why do you think this is so? Pictures of purgatory (ver notas???) ACT III SCENE IV The Ghost has told Hamlet «howsomever thou pursues this act/taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught.» (1.5.84-86) Why do you think the Ghost does not blame Gertrude? Why can’t Gertrude see the Ghost? THE GAST OF GY??? Poster of A Ghost Story (Casey Affleck & Rooney Mara) PURGATORY AND REVENGE Purgatory is a Catholic belief. Do Christians believe in revenge? Think about Jesus Christ. CONTRADICTIONS Hamlet receives the most vivid confirmation of the nature of the afterlife. But then, he speaks of death as the «undiscovered country from whose bourn/ No traveller returns». (3.1.78-79) The Ghost tells Hamlet not to let «The royal bed of Denmark be/ A couch for luxury and damned incest» (1.5.82-83). But then warns his son not to taint his mind or let his soul contrive anything against his mother. SHAKESPEARE «Shakespeare by putting together “Remember me.” and “Revenge”, is creating a reality which is theatrical and not theological, a reality which belongs in the world of the imagination, though not completely» (Greenblatt p. 254) Martes 8.5 The Ghost in Hamlet (parte 2) Painting. The ghost in full armour. RECAP “Remember me” → breaks the boundary between the living and the dead – Protestant and Catholics – Contradiction → “Remember me”, a Catholic spirit claiming for vengeance SENECAN TRAGEDY – The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote a body of nine closet dramas (i.e., plays intended to be read rather than performed), in blank verse in the 1st century AD. – Rediscovered by Italian humanists in the mid-16th century, they became the models for the revival of tragedy on the Renaissance stage. The two great dramatic traditions of the age—French Neoclassical tragedy and Elizabethan tragedy drew from Seneca. – They dwell on detailed accounts of horrible deeds and contain long reflective soliloquies. Though the gods rarely appear in these plays, ghosts and witches abound. PURGATORY While compatible with a Christian (specifically, a Catholic) call for remembrance, it is utterly incompatible with a Senecan call for revenge. Such a call could come only from the place where Seneca’s ghosts reside: Hell. We do not need to believe that Shakespeare was himself a secret Catholic sympathizer; we need only to recognise how alert he was to the materials that were being made available to him. The contradictions present in Hamlet place it away or in tension with the zone of the real and put it in the zone of the imaginary. By putting together «Remember me» and «revenge», that is the Purgatory doctrine of remembrance for the dead and the Senecan call for revenge, is creating a reality which is theatrical and not theological, a reality which belongs in the world of the imagination, though not completely. (Greenblatt p. 254) CHAUCER 1066 – Battle of Hastings. Old English speakers → serfs/slaves Nobility from Normandy → Norman French. Church and learning → Latin English → Marginal language 14th century - MIDDLE ENGLISH Fully Christian time. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400). Afterlife and Aftermath in English Literature His works: a matter of unique inspiration and genius? Or a site in which cultural conventions and traditions were played out? BOTH. The man and the times. Who? – wine merchant family (wine drank by nobility; commerce with France and Italy) – connections with the court (Edward III) – schooling and reading: schooling, pure conjecture; followed his own lights which led him to libraries; well-read in Latin, French, Italian (influence of his wine-merchant neighbourhood) – a civil servant and some sort of diplomat – A POET: an author (auctor–auctoritas), a translator (mediator); cultural translator – A POET: who monumentally enlarged the capacities of a marginal language Where? – Born and lived in London. Direct centre of commerce and the court. The place where Middle English’s most important dialect was spoken. – served in different noble houses. Travelled on the King’s behalf to France, Navarre and Italy. When? – The Hundred Years’ War 1337-1453. English claim on French soil. Rebirth of national sentiment; becoming aware of own national identity. – Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV – The Black Death – The Great Schism 1378. The Catholic church broke apart; 2 popes: Avignon and Rome. – Petrarch, Boccaccio (d. 1370s) – Tripartite culture: Latin, French and English – Medieval Ordo: three estates; feudal system (NOT classes) – God & those who pray; King & those who fight; Peasants – those who work). God Parson, Nun, Prioress, Monk King Knight & Squire Peasants Yeoman, Peasant Craftsmen → people with money but no social status. + characters who are trying to climb up the social ladder → burguesía – Ascending classes. Medieval ordo was coming to an end in England, starting to change. New classes moving and pushing up. 1381 Peasant’s Revolt – wanted higher wages. Related to the Black Death. Boccaccio’s Decameron (tales told by people staying at an Italian villa; all nobility, escaping from the plague) is a predecessor to TCT (pilgrims on the way to Canterbury, from different walks of life). A non-aristocratic, non-clerical vernacular poet like Chaucer was engaged in a process, not of manipulating a given medium, but of engaging multiple challenges in ways that gradually precipitated an authoritative medium for his own followers and the ones in times to come. Chaucer is “the well of English undefiled/uncorrupted. The beginning of the literary tradition in English. Built the language from which others would later draw. Chaucer lived in a time of transition, but still fully religious. The church in Rome still held sway of the religious world. In the Christian world, no dimension of life could be thought apart from religion. A TOUCHSTONE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE The Canterbury Tales – responsibility for Chaucer’s enduring poetic authority and reputation – paradoxically, nowhere is this elusive poet more elusive and more eager to disavow his own authority. Seemed afraid that what he had written would send him to hell. Or perhaps he was just trying to comply with the traditions of the time. There is bitter criticism against the church in TCT. Chaucer wrote a retraction apologising. An anthology? A compilation? Narrative poem. The story-collection has a frame which validates/legitimates the action of telling the tales. It’s not just a random collection. A Pilgrimage to Canterbury (92km more or less), to the shrine of Thomas Becket. But it’s the excuse; pilgrims had different goals, not really religious. However, this allows Chaucer to ground all the stories on a solid foundation: no matter the themes, they are embedded in religious activity. Back then there was no entertainment separated from religious goals. Prodesse et delectare, deleitar enseñando. PILGRIMAGE From worldly London (the Tabard Inn, Southwark, outskirts of London) to saintly Canterbury (the sede of the English Church, where the shrine of Thomas Becket was) – To cleanse your soul from your sins. Renounce all worldly/earthly pleasures to get to heaven. Spiritual and physical strain to reach a higher place. – Motley crew. The people assembling belong to very different walks of life. The Company At night there came into that hostelry Some nine and twenty in a company Of sundry folk happening then to fall In fellowship, and they were pilgrims all That towards Canterbury meant to ride. Sundry: separate, various, miscellaneous, diverse Traversing space – The physical journey: from London to Canterbury, approx 60 miles – The spiritual journey: a path of ascesis, a manifestation of the sacred Risks The fondness for the terrestrial journey can make us forget the celestial abode How to “make things slip”? A story-telling contest. The yardstick for judgement? “Who gives the fullest measure / of good morality and general pleasure” Our itinerary Into the nuanced textual road that took him from the fiction of a story-telling contest to the canon of English and world literature. Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales: still in flux and on the road. ESTATES: NOT social class, which is a concept from capitalism. There’s no opportunity for estate movement. If you were born a peasant, you would die a peasant. However, new classes were emerging at the time TCT was written, and also estate movement was occurring. Black Death – impact on the lower estate. The Decameron → Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) Subtitled “Prince Gallotto”, also nicknamed “Umana Comedia”. A collection of novellas. The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. The various tales of love range from the erotic to the tragic, also tales of art???, practical jokes and life lessons. All belonged to the same social class/estate. Thomas Becket. Also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London. Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his death (1170). He engaged in conflict with Henry II over the rights and privileges of the Church and was murdered by followers of the King in Canterbury Cathedral. The Prologue Setting: April (beginning of spring time) – Nature undergoing rebirth. Nature prick / heart engages → nature awakens. – Zephyrus - Greek God of the West Wind – the Sun, the Ram – movement of planets – more tem

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