I need to venture a second point, consisting of a few points. Exceptional, and I mean, exceptional read of that line, “the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily,” because at the end of it, your appreciation is evident, and infectious. Your reaction answers the question as to whether answers are important. As you say, it raises philosophical questions. I’m happy with that. I’ve seen questions go unanswered long enough to find happiness in the suspension of knowledge, the irresolution of opposing viewpoints, the Keatsian ‘Negative Capability.’ It’s one thing to say that this is the happiest of happy places, for being the only place, and so accommodation with it is the only form of happiness in the only place we have, But it’s another to see it. And that’s what you did, you showed it. It was really just in that pause. Let us shake paws on that. The play in the play in the play was enough in the original Hamlet. It’s always made my head spin. Now to wrap it again twice in Stoppard is almost insanity. I’ve been afraid of that bit for almost being too good, or maybe too complicated, it always make me go Ur…Hamlet. Also, there are some interesting dimensions to the fate versus free will argument being discussed by the philosopher Daniel Dennett in debates with Robert Sapolsky. We’ve gone at this issue so long from the same place and found the same dead ends. The questions may be more interesting than the answers, and I don’t know that these questions are answered in that debate, but the questions are certainly enhanced.
That's definitely one of the things I love about Stoppard and his approach to postmodernism--that he's happy to raise complex and fascinating questions without giving answers to them. Not everyone can do that well, but he's exceptional at it. I did recently make a video about free will vs. determinism (ua-cam.com/video/EI5ePjMSxq0/v-deo.html). I don't know how interesting it is necessarily, but the debate is certainly multi-faceted.
Did I miss where there were better analyses of Ros & Guil Be Daid on UA-cam? I went out looking for some perspective on the coin gag. Here it was, close enough to the beginning that I didn’t cut out, as I have so many many times, despairing of it appearing at all. It’s the entrée, or why is it where we begin? And yet there are so many discussions that suspend inquiry at the more banal rudiments of fate and free will, and thus skip past rather than poke around. There are small vectors pointing to slightly different waypoints along the line of postmodern crit. I woke up, in the way a Zen student wakes up when whacked by the master by a stick, koanus interruptus, when I thought I heard you say that Hamlet was a dick. I tapped back. Hamilton is a dick. Did I really hear that? Hamlet is a dick. I think he said Hamlet is a dick I said, and being that my father’s family is from Elsinore, cannon shots fired. But no ale drunk, as I was driving. Holy shit, Hamlet is a dick. Why did our frivolous factoti have to die? They could’ve been apprehended. It wasn’t their choice that Hamlet be assassinated. Dramaturgically not necessary. Also, yeah, we knew he was a dick already, because Ophelia and all, so this is gratuitous, bonus, double-fisted dick. This surely elementary to academic professionals, but I hadn’t thought of it. It lends different meaning than with Ophelia. I’ve always loved the play, and planned to make it core to my writing for what I thought was the wresting of the centrality of narrative from center to fringe, the illogic being what you get when you’re far off in the solar system from the life-giving raise of the vengeful sun. But then given Hamlet’s flimsy grasp on consistency of motive and not so reliable adherence to general morals, what logic can we say obtains at the heart of the sun? Might as well write the narrative of the arras through which Hamlet stabs Polonius. Maybe never leave Yorick. The center is wherever you like. I’ve loved Stoppard for what I thought was that insight, but after viewing your take, I’m inspired to consider anything. Also thanks, I think I’m going to be laughing the rest of the day at the note-perfect, candid, just between you and me way you said that.
Thank you, I think. There's a lot here, and your prose style is very interesting. I'm not sure to what extent it's a common intellectual insight that Hamlet is a dick. There are certainly others who feel this way (along with critiques of other "heroes" of plays), but there is also a common perception that the "hero" of a play is basically a good person and their actions are justified. So, audience/readers/some intellectuals either try to justify their negative actions or ignore altogether that these actions are negative. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern "deserve" to de because they spied on Hamlet for Claudius. Is this a capital crime? Is it unjustified for Claudius to be suspicious of Hamlet, if we look at things from his perspective? The answer to both questions must be no. But if Hamlet is to be the "hero" whom we want to win, then it's much harder to see him as a cold blooded assassin of his close friends for no good reason. Talk about your moral sun.
@@TheatreofPhil Oh I meant it as praise, not only for the idea, but because I’m still laughing a few days later. As extension to R&GAD,, imagine a scenario in which a city of 2.5 million are essentially in the position of Rosenkrants & Guildenstern. They’re not the center. They cater to the center, without them there would be no support for the center, but the story is never about them. This city exists. It’s where I sit now. It’s Las Vegas. and this is why I contend there is a centrality to the absolute lack of centrality in my hometown, and the key to this, the key to the city, in a sense, is this play by Tom Stoppard. Surely there are other analogous entry points, including “Gravity’s Rainbow,” “No Country” and others. But this play plays out the consequences with an absurdity that I’ve always found attractive. But after listening to your summary and reading your reply, I think I’m heading back to Milton. The hero as anti-hero is a form of displaced centrality, is it not? This starts with Satan in PL, and I bet you have an episode on that. I just had the idea, so I haven’t yet looked. Thank you for the comment on my prose. Now come on people, subscribe to this channel.
The way you're framing things in terms of centered and de-centered is really interesting. Part of what you're getting towards is what Jeremy Rosen calls "minor character elaboration," which is based on a big observation by feminists and postcolonialists about how certain characters tend to be silenced or downplayed (women, people of color, colonized people, servants, etc.) in the traditional European canon. Minor character elaboration is a form of adaptation in which classic stories are re-written from the perspectives of peripheral characters. Another strand is a kind of Marxist-inflects critique of Modernity, with its hierarchies around economic activity and tendency to reduce most people to part of the "crowd" or a class, depending on your preferred vocabulary. Las Vegas does seem like an interesting example. Perhaps college towns would be another. A place which exists so that those who live there permanently can largely support the needs of those who come temporarily (whether that be for a bachelor(ette) party, or a semester).
@@TheatreofPhil to paraphrase System of a Down, ‘the servility of my city.’ These are great formalizations, thank you. Also “Howard’s End.” Edit: Town/gown is interesting. I’d never thought of it. It’s indulging in my own rabbit hole to do anything more than make quick thanks and maybe quick note: it’s fascinating for being the same but opposite. Individuals passing through a locale where they’ll engage reason vs individuals passing through a locale where they’ll engage the pseudo-stochastic, where they’ll escape reason.
I need to venture a second point, consisting of a few points. Exceptional, and I mean, exceptional read of that line, “the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily,” because at the end of it, your appreciation is evident, and infectious. Your reaction answers the question as to whether answers are important. As you say, it raises philosophical questions. I’m happy with that. I’ve seen questions go unanswered long enough to find happiness in the suspension of knowledge, the irresolution of opposing viewpoints, the Keatsian ‘Negative Capability.’ It’s one thing to say that this is the happiest of happy places, for being the only place, and so accommodation with it is the only form of happiness in the only place we have, But it’s another to see it. And that’s what you did, you showed it. It was really just in that pause. Let us shake paws on that.
The play in the play in the play was enough in the original Hamlet. It’s always made my head spin. Now to wrap it again twice in Stoppard is almost insanity. I’ve been afraid of that bit for almost being too good, or maybe too complicated, it always make me go Ur…Hamlet.
Also, there are some interesting dimensions to the fate versus free will argument being discussed by the philosopher Daniel Dennett in debates with Robert Sapolsky. We’ve gone at this issue so long from the same place and found the same dead ends. The questions may be more interesting than the answers, and I don’t know that these questions are answered in that debate, but the questions are certainly enhanced.
That's definitely one of the things I love about Stoppard and his approach to postmodernism--that he's happy to raise complex and fascinating questions without giving answers to them. Not everyone can do that well, but he's exceptional at it.
I did recently make a video about free will vs. determinism (ua-cam.com/video/EI5ePjMSxq0/v-deo.html). I don't know how interesting it is necessarily, but the debate is certainly multi-faceted.
Did I miss where there were better analyses of Ros & Guil Be Daid on UA-cam? I went out looking for some perspective on the coin gag. Here it was, close enough to the beginning that I didn’t cut out, as I have so many many times, despairing of it appearing at all. It’s the entrée, or why is it where we begin? And yet there are so many discussions that suspend inquiry at the more banal rudiments of fate and free will, and thus skip past rather than poke around. There are small vectors pointing to slightly different waypoints along the line of postmodern crit.
I woke up, in the way a Zen student wakes up when whacked by the master by a stick, koanus interruptus, when I thought I heard you say that Hamlet was a dick. I tapped back. Hamilton is a dick. Did I really hear that? Hamlet is a dick. I think he said Hamlet is a dick I said, and being that my father’s family is from Elsinore, cannon shots fired. But no ale drunk, as I was driving.
Holy shit, Hamlet is a dick.
Why did our frivolous factoti have to die? They could’ve been apprehended. It wasn’t their choice that Hamlet be assassinated. Dramaturgically not necessary. Also, yeah, we knew he was a dick already, because Ophelia and all, so this is gratuitous, bonus, double-fisted dick. This surely elementary to academic professionals, but I hadn’t thought of it. It lends different meaning than with Ophelia. I’ve always loved the play, and planned to make it core to my writing for what I thought was the wresting of the centrality of narrative from center to fringe, the illogic being what you get when you’re far off in the solar system from the life-giving raise of the vengeful sun. But then given Hamlet’s flimsy grasp on consistency of motive and not so reliable adherence to general morals, what logic can we say obtains at the heart of the sun? Might as well write the narrative of the arras through which Hamlet stabs Polonius. Maybe never leave Yorick. The center is wherever you like. I’ve loved Stoppard for what I thought was that insight, but after viewing your take, I’m inspired to consider anything.
Also thanks, I think I’m going to be laughing the rest of the day at the note-perfect, candid, just between you and me way you said that.
Thank you, I think. There's a lot here, and your prose style is very interesting.
I'm not sure to what extent it's a common intellectual insight that Hamlet is a dick. There are certainly others who feel this way (along with critiques of other "heroes" of plays), but there is also a common perception that the "hero" of a play is basically a good person and their actions are justified. So, audience/readers/some intellectuals either try to justify their negative actions or ignore altogether that these actions are negative. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern "deserve" to de because they spied on Hamlet for Claudius. Is this a capital crime? Is it unjustified for Claudius to be suspicious of Hamlet, if we look at things from his perspective? The answer to both questions must be no. But if Hamlet is to be the "hero" whom we want to win, then it's much harder to see him as a cold blooded assassin of his close friends for no good reason.
Talk about your moral sun.
@@TheatreofPhil Oh I meant it as praise, not only for the idea, but because I’m still laughing a few days later. As extension to R&GAD,, imagine a scenario in which a city of 2.5 million are essentially in the position of Rosenkrants & Guildenstern. They’re not the center. They cater to the center, without them there would be no support for the center, but the story is never about them. This city exists. It’s where I sit now. It’s Las Vegas. and this is why I contend there is a centrality to the absolute lack of centrality in my hometown, and the key to this, the key to the city, in a sense, is this play by Tom Stoppard. Surely there are other analogous entry points, including “Gravity’s Rainbow,” “No Country” and others. But this play plays out the consequences with an absurdity that I’ve always found attractive.
But after listening to your summary and reading your reply, I think I’m heading back to Milton. The hero as anti-hero is a form of displaced centrality, is it not? This starts with Satan in PL, and I bet you have an episode on that. I just had the idea, so I haven’t yet looked. Thank you for the comment on my prose. Now come on people, subscribe to this channel.
The way you're framing things in terms of centered and de-centered is really interesting. Part of what you're getting towards is what Jeremy Rosen calls "minor character elaboration," which is based on a big observation by feminists and postcolonialists about how certain characters tend to be silenced or downplayed (women, people of color, colonized people, servants, etc.) in the traditional European canon. Minor character elaboration is a form of adaptation in which classic stories are re-written from the perspectives of peripheral characters.
Another strand is a kind of Marxist-inflects critique of Modernity, with its hierarchies around economic activity and tendency to reduce most people to part of the "crowd" or a class, depending on your preferred vocabulary. Las Vegas does seem like an interesting example. Perhaps college towns would be another. A place which exists so that those who live there permanently can largely support the needs of those who come temporarily (whether that be for a bachelor(ette) party, or a semester).
@@TheatreofPhil to paraphrase System of a Down, ‘the servility of my city.’ These are great formalizations, thank you. Also “Howard’s End.”
Edit: Town/gown is interesting. I’d never thought of it. It’s indulging in my own rabbit hole to do anything more than make quick thanks and maybe quick note: it’s fascinating for being the same but opposite. Individuals passing through a locale where they’ll engage reason vs individuals passing through a locale where they’ll engage the pseudo-stochastic, where they’ll escape reason.