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Apr. 10th, 2009 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have finished reading Hamlet for class.
It's so frustrating. A good performance takes even these so familiar words and breathes life into them, until they're happening right there in front of you. By the end of DT's Hamlet even though I had bits memorised the play faded into the background and the emotion of the final scene totally grabbed me. It was brilliant.
And now I read it, and it's words on a page, and I can't keep hold of the other feeling at all.
Ink and paper, gone all flat.
Frustrating.
They're very good words, but the meaning feels so easy when it's already acted and spoken and you can't skip back up a line and wonder what that bit meant and get hung up on the tricky bits. I feel like I'm stumbling around in the text just a little like I usually did a hockey field. Sure in theory I know how it works, and yet tangles keep happening.
On the plus side, I have found the parts I need to know for class, for the assignment, and for comparison with the renaissance stuff we've been studying up on. Lots of good quotes, lots of bits I can stick to Ovid or whatever, lots of stuff about spirits and heaven and hell and how all that worked that I can use to compare with Faustus in the assignment.
... I'd like to think up some good theme that would let me use lots of pictures of swords and jewelry for the assignment, but half the marks go on it so I think I need to stick with themes that I know will work. Or possibly do two projects and see how they come out.
Having just read Dr Faustus the part where Hamlet has every reason to believe the ghost is in fact a devil sent to mess him up stands out quite sharply. If you believe the ghost completely then all Hamlet's tough choices look a bit like dithering and flapping about. You have to doubt it, doubt his senses or his 'father' or his reading of the situation, before it all looks difficult enough to wait for. Or at least you have to have some undramatic reservations about the whole stabbing your uncle thing.
I still love Hamlet but I'm really very looking forward to DT's version on DVD. The play fades; it's integral to my understanding Hamlet's emotional state that transient experiences fade. But having noticed that, I'd rather like it back now.
It's so frustrating. A good performance takes even these so familiar words and breathes life into them, until they're happening right there in front of you. By the end of DT's Hamlet even though I had bits memorised the play faded into the background and the emotion of the final scene totally grabbed me. It was brilliant.
And now I read it, and it's words on a page, and I can't keep hold of the other feeling at all.
Ink and paper, gone all flat.
Frustrating.
They're very good words, but the meaning feels so easy when it's already acted and spoken and you can't skip back up a line and wonder what that bit meant and get hung up on the tricky bits. I feel like I'm stumbling around in the text just a little like I usually did a hockey field. Sure in theory I know how it works, and yet tangles keep happening.
On the plus side, I have found the parts I need to know for class, for the assignment, and for comparison with the renaissance stuff we've been studying up on. Lots of good quotes, lots of bits I can stick to Ovid or whatever, lots of stuff about spirits and heaven and hell and how all that worked that I can use to compare with Faustus in the assignment.
... I'd like to think up some good theme that would let me use lots of pictures of swords and jewelry for the assignment, but half the marks go on it so I think I need to stick with themes that I know will work. Or possibly do two projects and see how they come out.
Having just read Dr Faustus the part where Hamlet has every reason to believe the ghost is in fact a devil sent to mess him up stands out quite sharply. If you believe the ghost completely then all Hamlet's tough choices look a bit like dithering and flapping about. You have to doubt it, doubt his senses or his 'father' or his reading of the situation, before it all looks difficult enough to wait for. Or at least you have to have some undramatic reservations about the whole stabbing your uncle thing.
I still love Hamlet but I'm really very looking forward to DT's version on DVD. The play fades; it's integral to my understanding Hamlet's emotional state that transient experiences fade. But having noticed that, I'd rather like it back now.