Tower Bridge on the Thames

One of the two scheduled walks for our trip (the other is the Jack the Ripper Tour, which I missed), the Shakespeare Walk began in London proper and continued in Bankside. It was a great tour: we crossed the London Bridge, saw the George Inn, several alleys mentioned by Shakespeare and Dickens, the site of Chaucer’s Tabard Inn, St. Saviour’s Church (wherein rests Edmund Shakespeare, Wil’s brother who died of the plague), Drake’s Golden Hinde, the Anchor Pub where Dr. Johnson used to hang, the site of the original Globe theatre, and a beautiful sunset over London. The tour guide and some of us faculty had a pint after the tour.

Check out my Bankside gallery for images of everything I mention above.

The whole cast was exceptional, but Christopher Seiler‘s Sir Toby Blech, Paul Fildago’s Tony Lumpkin and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Jason Vail‘s Young Charles Marlow stood out for me. My only regret is that they didn’t perform Measure for Measure.

Thanks, again, Dr. McNamara. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed. Huzzah! If you have the opportunity to see this troupe, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Ophelia is the beautified victim of a system that is flawed, yet still holds sway. I’m reminded of those women that oppose abortion rights — battling to grant others the control of their bodies. Or Mary Cheney, a full supporter of a father that tells her she does not deserve the same rights as normal people by supporting the Bush administration. Or the millions of women that go under the knife to change their bodies for a culture’s conception of the beautiful, the desirable. Women caught between the displeased father, the obdurate brother, and the demanding husband, the Wife of Bath, Edna Pontellier, Emma Bovary, Medea, Ephigenia, Penelope, Sister Carrie, Daisy Miller, Daisy Buchanan, Brett Ashley, Lavania, Lucrece, Daphne, Io, Dido, Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin, Emily Dickinson, Silvia Plath — fact or fiction does not matter in seeing the devastation wrought on women. When will it end?

I’m thinking of these Ophelias today, for some reason.

Near the play’s climax, while the emperor Saturninus and his new wife Tamora feast on Chiron and Demetrius pies, Titus poses this rhetorical question to the emperor: “Was it well done of rash Virginius– / To slay his daughter with his own right hand / Because she was enforced, stained, deflowered?” (5.3.36-38). To which the emperor replies, probably from rote, as if, like an Our Father, he has known the answer his whole life: “It was, Andronicus” (5.3.37). This dramatic irony is lost on Saturninus, as Lavinia approaches Titus, like the knowing lamb to the slaughter. Titus prolongs the inevitable by asking the emperor why the daughter must die, to which a ready-made answer is thoughtlessly provided: “Because the girl should not survive her shame, / And by her presence still renew his sorrows” (5.3.41-42). As if Titus was awaiting the sanction of the emperor, father kills daughter in front of his guests.

This action brings immediate shock from Saturninus: “What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?” (5.3.48). The irony should not be lost on viewers, but is, I would argue, by the very fact of the spectacle of a father killing his only daughter on stage, or in the case of Julie Taymor’s 1999 film, on the screen. Greek tragedies made a point of not presenting the tragedy’s brutality on stage so that the audience is not distracted by the literal horror of the act, and they can think about the implications of their pity and terror. Elizabethan theatre, however, showed as much gore as possible, reveling in the creative sophistication of the theatre and perhaps losing some of the consideration of the events to the spectacle. We are more akin to the Elizabethans than the Athenians, methinks, especially with film. It might be argued that the very fact of the genre itself suggests entertainment, rather than promotes contemplation. So Titus snapping Lavinia’s neck does not allow us to contemplate what might be the central lesson of Titus Andronicus and perhaps the subject of Titus’ own anagnoresis.

Like Rome itself, Titus does everything deliberately, wearing his intentions on his sleeve. His devotion to Rome is unquestionable, and his duty upholds its laws and traditions absolutely, without flinching, like a proud Roman general. This selfless sense of duty is the Roman virtue of pietas first exemplified by the founder of the empire, Virgil’s Aeneas. Titus exemplifies pietas in his commitment to the ideals of Rome, and its this very devotion to the state that is his hamartia, or tragic flaw. The Romans do not dissemble, but arrogantly and deliberately say what they mean, and do what they say.

Indeed, one of the very reasons why Tamora is so disliked is her ability to dissemble. Like Shakespeare’s best Machiavells, Tamora acts on her advice to the newly crowned Saturninus: “Dissemble all your griefs and discontents” until you can “find a day to massacre them all” (1.1.444 and 451). In fact, I would argue that Titus is only able to get the upper hand by learning the act of deception from the Goth Queen. After the pain of losing the favor of the crown, the slaying of Mutius by his own hand, the raping and maiming of Lavinia, and the execution of Quintus and Martius, Titus seems to have lost his mind; even Marcus comments: “Alas, poor man! Grief has so wrought on him / He takes false shadows for true substances” (3.2.79-80). Even 3.2 seems to suggest to the audience that that this once great general has indeed fallen so low that his mind is incapable of coping. However, once Titus achieves a direction for his revenge, he is able to act again, but this time as Tamora would, and not a Roman general.

After Lavinia is able to disclose the crimes of Chiron and Demetrius, Titus begins to arise from his nadir. Even young Lucius says he’ll deliver a message “with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire” (4.1.120). Yet, Titus is finished with being the Roman general, and now acts like a guerilla: “No, boy, not so. I’ll teach thee another course” (4.1.121). In a “wilderness of tigers,” one must be equally ferocious to survive (3.1.54). Titus’ mind is still sharp, but he distracts Saturninus and the goths (and perhaps the audience) with more ranting in 4.3. Yet, this unusual scene has its purpose: Titus is able to lure Tamora and her sons into his web, and he feels as bad about draining their blood as a spider would a fly’s.

Titus’ killing of Lavinia should promote questions, but only ends up shocking. It seems to be Titus’ final break with the laws and traditions of Rome, a reversal of the Titus at the beginning of the play who unquestionably supported the state. Lavinia as sacrificial lamb seems an egregious symbol, and I’m still not sure that Titus can be forgiven for this, but like Medea seems to reason, it has to be done to end the tyranny of oppressive ideologies. Indeed, one could also argue that Titus, in killing Tamora, allows Lucius to kill Saturninus and take the throne of Rome: a victory for the Andronici. Therefore, Titus’ blasphemy maintains the orthodoxy. What kind of king will Lucius make? Amnesty for Aaron? Nope. It seems that Lucius may just pick up where Saturninus left off, which posits the most disturbing question: can Rome be reformed?

I like Taymor’s end: the young Lucius takes Aaron and Tamora’s baby out of the coliseum and presumably away from it stifling traditions. Perhaps the lesson is that a corrupt system does not allow for internal change. No matter how much Titus tried to get the upper hand, he, in the end, is still a Roman. In order not to be a Roman, perhaps one must leave Rome. Shakespeare’s play leaves this ending open as well. We never do find out what happens to Aaron’s baby. It seems realistically, that its brains would be bashed out on the wall in front of its father. I guess there’s only too much spectacle Romans, Elizabethans, or we can take in one sitting.

What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies not plenty;
Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

—WS, from Twelfth Night

This mysteriousness and its riddles, says Mack, seems to be built into Hamlet and suggests “man in his bafflement, moving in darkness on a rampart between two worlds, unable to reject, or quite accept, the one that, when he faces it, ‘to-shakes’ his disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul — comforting himself with hints and guesses.”

A second aspect of Hamlet’s world, according to Mack, is “the problematic nature and the relation of reality to appearance. He breaks this motif up into two categories: “apparition” and “seems.” The first, and most important, apparition is the ghost of Hamlet’s father. The ghost is real and is the beginning of Hamlet’s quest for realities. Its information pierces the appearance of Claudius’ court to show the realities of murder, incest, adultery, and a place where everyone is not what they seem, including Hamlet. The second apparition is the play within a play which Hamlet uses to test the ghost’s claims further, which confirms their reality. This leads to the scene of Claudius at prayer. He has the appearance of prayer but, in reality, he remains unrepentant and it would have been the perfect moment for Hamlet to strike. His reality was hidden, however, like almost everything else in the play, “behind an arras.”

But not behind an arras is the second appearance of the ghost in Gertrude’s closet. Gertrude is, however, unable to see the ghost which makes it difficult to grasp just how much she is involved in Claudius’ plot when “the reality is before [her] very eyes [she] cannot detect its presence.”

The second aspect of the problem of reality, Mack states, is the word “seems.” “The ambiguities of ëseem’ coil and uncoil throughout this play, and over against them is set the idea of ëseeing’.” Yet there remains an uncertainty in seeing like Hamlet’s own uncertainty in the ghost’s appearance and his mother’s ststement: “Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.”

Other important terms that Mack instances are “assume,” “put on,” and “shape.” “Assume” is three things in Hamlet’s world. The first is what we are not: “The de’il hath power T’ assume a pleasing shape.” Next is what we are: “If it assume my noble father’s person, I’ll speak to it.” And lastly what we are not yet, but may become, as Hamlet tells his mother: “Assume a virtue, if you have it not.” The “shape” of something is how we are used to perceiving it, or, more importantly, a disguise as used in the king and Laertes’ plot against Hamlet’s life. “Put on” is very ambiguous. Mack says: “Hamlet has put an antic disposition on, that the king knows. But what does ëput on’ mean? A mask, or a frock or livery–our “habit”? The king is left guessing, and so are we.”

There are two patterns of imagery, says Mack, the first is based on clothes and the second on painting. “The apparel oft proclaims the man,” Polonius says to Laertes; oft, but not always. The best illustration of this is Hamlet’s own “nighted color.” “Tis not alone my inky cloak, good Mother, . . . That can denote me truly. These indeed seem.” Hamlet’s visage is one of melancholy that might bring both appearance and reality together. Later we see Hamlet’s costume in disarray through Ophelia, which may not be what it seems. And upon Hamlet’s return from shipboard there may be a third aspect of the man in his simple traveler’s garb.

“A second pattern of imagery,” states Mack, “springs from terms of painting: the paints, the colorings, the varnishes that may either conceal, or, as in the painter’s art, reveal.” Art conceals for Claudius in his “painted word,” while Ophelia’s beauty is more complex. Is she the perfection that her beauty suggests, or is she “beautied” like the harlot’s cheek? But art may produce the truth as it did in the play within a play.

The pattern of imagery is evolved in three words: “show,” “act,” and “play.” “The ideas of seeming, assuming, and putting on; the images of clothing, painting, mirroring” encompass all of the main characters in the play, Mack tells us, and they are all “drawn into the range of implications flung around the play by ëshow’.” “Act” is the actions performed by the characters that does not always show their inner intent. “Play” is something that every character does, and every major episode in the tragedy is a play.

The themes of mystery and appearance/reality pervade the play as does the motif of “mortality,” explains Mack. He says, “the powerful sense of mortality in Hamlet is conveyed to us, I think, in three ways. First, there is the play’s emphasis on human weakness, the instability of human purpose, the subjection of humanity to fortune–all that we might call the aspect of failure in man.” The chief way this theme is shown in through a profound consciousness of loss. The ghost expresses this in his lament for the loss of his “[most] seeming-virtuous queen,” and in Ophelia after Hamlet’s repudiation of his love for her.

“Hamlet’s problem, in its crudest form,” suggests Mack, “is simply the problem of the avenger.” But this problem becomes impounded by the other aspects of Hamlet’s world. Hamlet must not only deal with his father’s revenge but also with the mysteriousness, misleading appearances, and loss that are part of his world.

Not only must Hamlet come to terms with his unintelligible world, he must also act in it and deal with the inevitable guilt of his actions. During the course of his “acts” he kills a man (the wrong man), has driven Ophelia mad, and has sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their graves. Although he never meant to taint himself with these acts, it became inevitable with the ghost’s challenge to act.

The third stage of Hamlet’s problem is that he must act in a mysterious world within human limits; “with shabby equipment always deteriorating.” Mack says, “[Hamlet] vacillates between undisciplined squads of emotion and thinking too precisely on the event. He learns to his cost how easily action can be lost in ëacting’.”

“In the last act of the play,” says Mack, “Hamlet accepts his world and we discover a different man.” He is now wearing a different dress, not one associated with an antic disposition, and he has a change of mood with a recognition that divinity shapes our ends. He seems to have accepted the boundaries of human action and judgment and not longer wishes to take the responsibility of the whole world’s condition upon his “limited and finite self.”

The best evidence of Hamlet’s new frame of mind is the graveyard scene. First, we see that Hamlet now understands and accepts the conditions of being a human. Secondly, and more important, it is Hamlet’s embracement of the mystery of life itself. In the graveyard “all come together in an emblem of the world.” Death uncovers all appearances and asks itself “what is real?”: “Is this the fine of his fines and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt?” And lastly, there is a uncovering of human limitation; the fact all of men’s big ambitions and petty amusements all end up as dust.

In conclusion Mack says, “After the graveyard and what it indicates has come to pass in him, we know that Hamlet is ready for the final contest of mighty opposites. . .and in which, if [he] wins at all, it costs not less than everything.”

In comparing and contrasting Maynard Mack’s essay with our class discussion on Hamlet there are definite similarities. Mack started with the mysterious mood of the play. His interpretation is similar to our own in the sense that the confusion and insecurity are results of this interrogative atmosphere. However, this sense of mystery (and not only mystery but sickness and poison), as we said, is restricted more to the scenes that take place outside of the castle. In the night air where the guards have seen the ghost of the dead king (there is also apprehension about Fortinbras’ intentions) there can be only guesses and speculation as to the universe and its secrets.

Inside the castle there appears to be logic, security, and rationality. This leads to Mack’s second aspect of appearance/reality. Mack’s arguments are convincing and well supported and they parallel many things we said in class. Claudius seems to be a capable king who attained the throne through an unfortunate circumstance; in reality he is a murderer, a deceiver, and a coward. He killed Hamlet’s father for his crown and his wife, he successfully deceived the whole court for awhile, and always sent people to do his “dirty” work. The “prayer” scene is an excellent example of these points and relates how outward appearances can mask actual feelings or intent. While the king seems to be repentant he is actually unwilling to give up his kingship or Gertrude. His guise of prayer tricks Hamlet into not acting when it would have been the most opportune time.

We mentioned Hamlet’s “nighted color” and the idea of “seems” briefly. Hamlet’s black garb and stage position (which Mack did not mention) in 1.2 succeed at the very outset of the play to show us Hamlet’s mourning and self-ostricism from Claudius’ court. Hamlet’s clothes in disarray was mentioned in class, but Mack points out that the meaning of this is more ambiguous. This was after Hamlet’s confrontation with the ghost and we get a sense of him that “seems” to be losing his mind. Appearance no longer is what is real as we can see be Ophelia’s hysteria, Polonius’ wrong guesses and and even the king and Gertrude’s confusion. His clothes were never mentioned,in class, on his return from the sea in Act 5. We mentioned how he has a change of attitude but it wasn’t associated with his garb. Mack’s point is valid; however, it still leaves the confusing nature of Act 5 unexplained: Hamlet’s “hopes” for the kingship, the deaths’ of Rozencrantz and Guildenstern without shriving time by Hamlet’s order, Horatio’s trivial questions, and the introduction of Ostric.

Finally, Hamlet’s larger awareness centers around something he said to Horatio in Act 1.5: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” We see many signs of Hamlet’s change all through Act 5: “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends/Rough-hew them how we will-” where free-will is limited; “Why, even in that was heaven ordinant,” Hamlet said to Horatio in response to his trivial question of how the ordinant was sealed, showing that even divine providence works in the mundane:

Not a whit, we defy augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ëtis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man be aught he leaves knows, what is ët to leave betimes? Let be.

Hamlet is now ready to take his place in the scheme of things.

When Hamlet has been poisoned Horatio wants to take his own life for his friendship of Hamlet, and not wanting to live a dishonorable life thereafter. This is his final realization that his philosophy can not hold up under the extreme pressures of the world.

Horatio sums up all of these motifs in his speech at the end of the play, we see the mystery, appearance/reality, mortality, and divine providence:

So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on th’ inventors’ heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

And Horatio’s last sentence provides a warning, perhaps to the “real” world:

But let this same be presently performed,
Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen.