Robert Weimann, "Mimesis in Hamlet" (1985)
Shakespeare's plays were written for a theater which cannot satisfactorily be defined in reference to either a purely literary or an exclusively neoclassical tradition of mimesis. Even when deeply indebted to the humanist poetics of inscribed language, these plays remained close to a culture of voices, a civilization of oral signs (276)
Shakespeare's theater appears to sustain a multiplicity of social and cultural functions in the light of which principles of homogeneity, “closure,” and authority in representation are constantly undermined and subverted. (276)
whenever “madness in discourse” is allowed to surface, there results an unprecedented interrogation and, in one case, splitting of authority which tends to subvert all logocentric standards” (277)
on the Elizabethan stage madness not only constitutes an object of representation but also forms a (nonclassical) mode of representing, as associated with the element of clowning, punning, and “impertinency,” the tradition of topsy-turveydom and the “mad” nonsensical Vice. (278)
basis in the Shakespearean text itself on which to redefine “ mimesis” (279)
In Hamlet, more than anywhere else in Shakespeare, the question of mimesis if central. The play contains the most sustained theoretical statement on the subject that we have in Shakespeare's whole oeuvre; what is more, the links as well as the gaps between mimetic theory and mimetic practice are used in dramaturgy as well as thematically to such an effect that mimesis emerges in both its discursive and nondiscursive dimensions. (279)
What Hamlet's advice emphasizes, then, is voice and performance rather than any purely literary, let alone textual, consideration. (280)
Its theme is neither exclusively that of Renaissance rhetoric or neoclassical poetics nor that of Elizabethan theatrical practice, but one in which the demands of the former are viewed in relation to, or in collision with, the latter. (280)
Hamlet, in this sense, can be seen to rehearse one basic contradiction in the history of the Elizabethan theater: the precariously achieved synthesis, maturing in Kyd and Marlowe, between humanist learning and native spectacle (including histrionic practice) is significantly used and, as it were, interrogated within the play itself. (281)
Although the players' scenes have more often than not been treated as merely marginal or topical in their interest, they in their own way provide a dramatized version of the problematic relationship between language and action, and they adumbrate some deeply disturbing incongruity between what represents and what is represented. [...] The resulting irresolutions (and the tragic quality of the resolutions) must ultimately be connected with that thematized conflict between discursive and nondiscursive activities which culminates in the hero's dilemma between the verbal promptings of his conscience and the violent acts of revenge. (281)
mimesis of mimesis in the play within the play; same with using actor as model of action in 2.2
figure of Hamlet: what the “character” throughout reveals is some profound crisis in representativity. (282) shown/meant, feigning, seeming
The multiplicity in the forms of mimesis used in his “characterization” is stronger than any consistency in the social and psychological attributes of the “character” himself. (282)
tension between humanist precepts and the rest of what he says and does
an extended dimension of antic role-playing which os only partially consonant with the privileged representativity (and neoclassical verismilitude) of his own mimetic theory and authorship. (283)
antic disposition arouses rather than allays suspicion, despite psychological motivation
What, especially in the court scenes, the “antic disposition” involves is another mode of release from representativity. Such release is at the center of a nonrepresentational dramaturgy as manifested in the achieved strategy of dissociating Hamlet from the courtly world of dramatic illusion and aristocratic decorum, the strategy of distancing this privileged world through proverb, pun, aside, “impertinency,” and, most important, the use of the play metaphor. (284)
a distance (as well as its spatial correlative on the platform stage) from the affairs of privilege and courtly decorum (285)
The element of subversion involved in it [aside in 1.2] is obvious; it has its analogies in an oral and prerational culture of topsy-turveying misrule, and is worlds removed from any deconstructable discourse in the forms of textualized logocentricity. Hamlet's nonrepresentational stance in “dialogue” is rooted in preliterary convention of the theater, as handed down in the tradition of the post-ritual Vice. Ultimately, it is within this tradition that Hamlet as actor-character revitalizes, on the dramatized plane of stylized art, the legacy of the Vice actor as director and master of ceremonies theatrical. (285)
temperance not present in Laertes graveside scramble or closet scene; own dumb-show is inexplicable to Ophelia
integrates different modes of mimesis – balance between theatrical illusion and reality that informs play metaphor (use of words: act, perform, play the part); connects the world of the audience with the world of the play in a far more subtle level than purely nonrepresentational extra-dramatic address would allow.
2.2 soliloquy on actor's performance – drown the stage with tears; beyond own principles of temperance
Speak no more than set down for them – compare with Q1, which has just that
What this player, in corrupting his own text, brings to life is a nonrepresentational version of mimesis in which the actor is not entirely absorbed by his role. (287)
not only does Hamlet transcend norms of self-contained representation but S's plays deeply indebted to traditition of clowning being criticised
the post-ritual convention of Elizabethan actors laughing with their audience. (287)
Even in his mature tragedies, the tradition of post-ritual self-enactment was far from dead: the porter in Macbeth, the fool in King Lear, and of course the clowns in Hamlet witnessed the highly effective uses to which the nonrepresentational mode of mimesis continued to be put. (287)
contradiciton between the representation and ritual functions of mimesis suffused language of lear's madness and hamlet's antic disposition
In notes:
There is throughout Hamlet a complex use of platea and locus conventions, in the sense that the former tend to be associated with the nonrepresentational, the latter with the representational functions of mimesis (290, n.17)
SPT 73-85, 215-24, 130ff
Robert Weimann, "Mimesis in Hamlet" (1985)
Shakespeare's plays were written for a theater which cannot satisfactorily be defined in reference to either a purely literary or an exclusively neoclassical tradition of mimesis. Even when deeply indebted to the humanist poetics of inscribed language, these plays remained close to a culture of voices, a civilization of oral signs (276)
Shakespeare's theater appears to sustain a multiplicity of social and cultural functions in the light of which principles of homogeneity, “closure,” and authority in representation are constantly undermined and subverted. (276)
whenever “madness in discourse” is allowed to surface, there results an unprecedented interrogation and, in one case, splitting of authority which tends to subvert all logocentric standards” (277)
on the Elizabethan stage madness not only constitutes an object of representation but also forms a (nonclassical) mode of representing, as associated with the element of clowning, punning, and “impertinency,” the tradition of topsy-turveydom and the “mad” nonsensical Vice. (278)
basis in the Shakespearean text itself on which to redefine “ mimesis” (279)
In Hamlet, more than anywhere else in Shakespeare, the question of mimesis if central. The play contains the most sustained theoretical statement on the subject that we have in Shakespeare's whole oeuvre; what is more, the links as well as the gaps between mimetic theory and mimetic practice are used in dramaturgy as well as thematically to such an effect that mimesis emerges in both its discursive and nondiscursive dimensions. (279)
What Hamlet's advice emphasizes, then, is voice and performance rather than any purely literary, let alone textual, consideration. (280)
Its theme is neither exclusively that of Renaissance rhetoric or neoclassical poetics nor that of Elizabethan theatrical practice, but one in which the demands of the former are viewed in relation to, or in collision with, the latter. (280)
Hamlet, in this sense, can be seen to rehearse one basic contradiction in the history of the Elizabethan theater: the precariously achieved synthesis, maturing in Kyd and Marlowe, between humanist learning and native spectacle (including histrionic practice) is significantly used and, as it were, interrogated within the play itself. (281)
Although the players' scenes have more often than not been treated as merely marginal or topical in their interest, they in their own way provide a dramatized version of the problematic relationship between language and action, and they adumbrate some deeply disturbing incongruity between what represents and what is represented. [...] The resulting irresolutions (and the tragic quality of the resolutions) must ultimately be connected with that thematized conflict between discursive and nondiscursive activities which culminates in the hero's dilemma between the verbal promptings of his conscience and the violent acts of revenge. (281)
mimesis of mimesis in the play within the play; same with using actor as model of action in 2.2
figure of Hamlet: what the “character” throughout reveals is some profound crisis in representativity. (282) shown/meant, feigning, seeming
The multiplicity in the forms of mimesis used in his “characterization” is stronger than any consistency in the social and psychological attributes of the “character” himself. (282)
tension between humanist precepts and the rest of what he says and does
an extended dimension of antic role-playing which os only partially consonant with the privileged representativity (and neoclassical verismilitude) of his own mimetic theory and authorship. (283)
antic disposition arouses rather than allays suspicion, despite psychological motivation
What, especially in the court scenes, the “antic disposition” involves is another mode of release from representativity. Such release is at the center of a nonrepresentational dramaturgy as manifested in the achieved strategy of dissociating Hamlet from the courtly world of dramatic illusion and aristocratic decorum, the strategy of distancing this privileged world through proverb, pun, aside, “impertinency,” and, most important, the use of the play metaphor. (284)
a distance (as well as its spatial correlative on the platform stage) from the affairs of privilege and courtly decorum (285)
The element of subversion involved in it [aside in 1.2] is obvious; it has its analogies in an oral and prerational culture of topsy-turveying misrule, and is worlds removed from any deconstructable discourse in the forms of textualized logocentricity. Hamlet's nonrepresentational stance in “dialogue” is rooted in preliterary convention of the theater, as handed down in the tradition of the post-ritual Vice. Ultimately, it is within this tradition that Hamlet as actor-character revitalizes, on the dramatized plane of stylized art, the legacy of the Vice actor as director and master of ceremonies theatrical. (285)
temperance not present in Laertes graveside scramble or closet scene; own dumb-show is inexplicable to Ophelia
integrates different modes of mimesis – balance between theatrical illusion and reality that informs play metaphor (use of words: act, perform, play the part); connects the world of the audience with the world of the play in a far more subtle level than purely nonrepresentational extra-dramatic address would allow.
2.2 soliloquy on actor's performance – drown the stage with tears; beyond own principles of temperance
Speak no more than set down for them – compare with Q1, which has just that
What this player, in corrupting his own text, brings to life is a nonrepresentational version of mimesis in which the actor is not entirely absorbed by his role. (287)
not only does Hamlet transcend norms of self-contained representation but S's plays deeply indebted to traditition of clowning being criticised
the post-ritual convention of Elizabethan actors laughing with their audience. (287)
Even in his mature tragedies, the tradition of post-ritual self-enactment was far from dead: the porter in Macbeth, the fool in King Lear, and of course the clowns in Hamlet witnessed the highly effective uses to which the nonrepresentational mode of mimesis continued to be put. (287)
contradiciton between the representation and ritual functions of mimesis suffused language of lear's madness and hamlet's antic disposition
In notes:
There is throughout Hamlet a complex use of platea and locus conventions, in the sense that the former tend to be associated with the nonrepresentational, the latter with the representational functions of mimesis (290, n.17)
SPT 73-85, 215-24, 130ff