The Masks of Hamlet

I received Marvin Rosenberg’s “The Masks of Hamlet” several months ago. Quite a major purchase. Yet, I have not been able to fit it into my reading life. So, yeah, I am going to book-blog it, mine it for quotes. It is over 900 pages of Hamlet, but we will take it slow. Hamlet, after all, is often considered to be the greatest dramatic character ever conjured by the literary imagination, and I rather enjoy the work myself. Rosenberg, in his preface, cites a Montaigne quote and touches upon why Hamlet is celebrated so.
_ _ _

He who examines himself closely will seldom find himself twice in the same state. I give to my soul now one face, now another.... All the contradictions are to be found in me, according as the wind turns, and changes. Bashful, insolent; chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; clumsy, gentle; witty, dull; peevish, sweet-tempered; lying, truthful; knowing, ignorant; and liberal and avaricious and prodigal - all this I see in myself in some degree, according as I veer about; and whoever will study himself very attentively will find this discordance and unsteadiness.

-- Montaigne


On Shakespeare’s way to exploring this in “Hamlet”, he set himself a Herculean task: cram as much as possible of the clashing multiplicity of human personality - imaginative, sensual, spiritual, social - into a single dramatic character. One who can love and hate, mourn and rejoice, befriend and destroy, have faith and doubt and cheer and heart-ache, seek meaning in this life and the next, hope and be hopeless, laugh and weep, meditate and do, philosophize and politicize, seem mad and sane, tell truth and lies, speak soaring poetry and salty prose and sing jingles, play and fight, contrive and fall prey to contrivance, worship one parent and scorn another, cherish and kill - a troubled mortal, and an actor acting one.

-- Marvin Rosenberg, “The Masks of Hamlet”

The Masks of Hamlet

I received Marvin Rosenberg’s “The Masks of Hamlet” several months ago. Quite a major purchase. Yet, I have not been able to fit it into my reading life. So, yeah, I am going to book-blog it, mine it for quotes. It is over 900 pages of Hamlet, but we will take it slow. Hamlet, after all, is often considered to be the greatest dramatic character ever conjured by the literary imagination, and I rather enjoy the work myself. Rosenberg, in his preface, cites a Montaigne quote and touches upon why Hamlet is celebrated so.
_ _ _

He who examines himself closely will seldom find himself twice in the same state. I give to my soul now one face, now another.... All the contradictions are to be found in me, according as the wind turns, and changes. Bashful, insolent; chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; clumsy, gentle; witty, dull; peevish, sweet-tempered; lying, truthful; knowing, ignorant; and liberal and avaricious and prodigal - all this I see in myself in some degree, according as I veer about; and whoever will study himself very attentively will find this discordance and unsteadiness.

-- Montaigne


On Shakespeare’s way to exploring this in “Hamlet”, he set himself a Herculean task: cram as much as possible of the clashing multiplicity of human personality - imaginative, sensual, spiritual, social - into a single dramatic character. One who can love and hate, mourn and rejoice, befriend and destroy, have faith and doubt and cheer and heart-ache, seek meaning in this life and the next, hope and be hopeless, laugh and weep, meditate and do, philosophize and politicize, seem mad and sane, tell truth and lies, speak soaring poetry and salty prose and sing jingles, play and fight, contrive and fall prey to contrivance, worship one parent and scorn another, cherish and kill - a troubled mortal, and an actor acting one.

-- Marvin Rosenberg, “The Masks of Hamlet”

Lindsay Lohan in the Flesh

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Lindsay Lohan in the Flesh

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Plath: Dinner at the Country Club

An all-the-way romantic, our Miss Plath. Not very surprising, I guess. It’s presumably why I am this interested in her thoughts and feelings. However, romanticism may be good for art, as well as one’s amusement, but this world beats up on romantics, like romantics are natural victims, prisoners to our enchantments and dreams, masochists to whip-wielding reality.

_ _ _

4.
- Tonight was awful. It was the combination of everything. Of the play “Goodbye My Fancy,” of wanting in a juvenile way, to be, like the heroine, a reporter in the trenches, to be loved by a man who admired me, who understood me as much as I understood myself. And then there was Jack, who tried so hard to be nice, who was hurt when I said all he wanted was to make out. There was the dinner at the country club, the affluence of money everywhere. And then there was the record... the one so good for dancing. I forgot that it was the one until Louie Armstrong began to sing in a voice husky with regret, “I’ve flown around the world in a plane, settled revolutions in Spain, the North Pole I have charted... still I can’t get started with you.” Jack said: “Ever heard it before?” So I smiled, “Oh, yes.” It was Bob. That settled things for me --- a crazy record, and it was our long talks, his listening and understanding. And I knew I loved him.

-- Sylvia Plath Journals 1950-1953

Plath: Dinner at the Country Club

An all-the-way romantic, our Miss Plath. Not very surprising, I guess. It’s presumably why I am this interested in her thoughts and feelings. However, romanticism may be good for art, as well as one’s amusement, but this world beats up on romantics, like romantics are natural victims, prisoners to our enchantments and dreams, masochists to whip-wielding reality.

_ _ _

4.
- Tonight was awful. It was the combination of everything. Of the play “Goodbye My Fancy,” of wanting in a juvenile way, to be, like the heroine, a reporter in the trenches, to be loved by a man who admired me, who understood me as much as I understood myself. And then there was Jack, who tried so hard to be nice, who was hurt when I said all he wanted was to make out. There was the dinner at the country club, the affluence of money everywhere. And then there was the record... the one so good for dancing. I forgot that it was the one until Louie Armstrong began to sing in a voice husky with regret, “I’ve flown around the world in a plane, settled revolutions in Spain, the North Pole I have charted... still I can’t get started with you.” Jack said: “Ever heard it before?” So I smiled, “Oh, yes.” It was Bob. That settled things for me --- a crazy record, and it was our long talks, his listening and understanding. And I knew I loved him.

-- Sylvia Plath Journals 1950-1953