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John Russell Brown. "Multiplicity of Meaning in the Last Moments of Hamlet." Connotations 2.1 (1992): 16-33. <http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak4/fr43/connotations> [The link above will take you to the main page for Connotations. To get to Brown's article, Click on Volume 2 (1992), scroll down, find the link to Brown's article, then click on that.] Thesis: In his introductory remarks, Brown says something very wise about the appeal of Shakespearean tragedy: Perhaps the probing of a mystery as the hero confronts affliction and death -- with a last rush towards understanding and judgment -- accounts for the success of all these tragedies which have endured into our own days. We are interested in the hero's inner consciousness at least as keenly as we await the fulfilling of barbarous revenge, or the overthrow of a monarchical government grown tyrannical, or the disappointment or satisfaction of love and lust. (18-19).In short, what really counts is not this theme or that, but Hamlet's struggle with death, destruction, and himself. Brown pursues this idea through an examination of Hamlet's wordplay and comes to the conclusion that in the end we value Hamlet because he remains true to his punning, ambiguous self. Brown says Hamlet's very last words ("The rest is silence") "could be a joke, a profound searching of the unknown, a resignation to the fate of a sparrow, the voice of bitter despair, or a matter of fact" (33), but in any case Hamlet's words have more than one meaning, and that is the secret to his character and his appeal. This is how Brown puts it: "In so far as Hamlet commands our attention while the tragedy unfolds and is completed, we prefer his ambiguous, spirited, free affirmation that the 'rest is silence' to the . . . sentimental consolation of Horatio, or to the political homage of Fortinbras . . . ." (33). One Objection: Brown has a longish section in which he speculates on the possibility that Shakespeare, at certain moments of certain plays, used his characters to express his own philosophical viewpoints. The whole section is not particularly convincing and adds nothing to Brown's main point. A Note About Connotations and its publication of responses to Brown's article: This journal, which is published both on paper and (partially) online, describes itself as "A Journal for Critical Debate." What this means is that the journal invites a well-know scholar to write an article and other well-knowns to respond to it. In the present case, Maurice Charney and Dieter Mehl both wrote responses to Brown's essay, and Brown wrote a response to the responses. (The links to these "response" articles can be found on the same page as the link to Brown's article.) On the whole, I would say that the critical debate isn't worth much. Charney does some minor sniping, and Mehl argues that Hamlet's last words are really "O, O, O, O, O," but it's clear that both Charney and Mehl respect Brown. Neither one seems to have much heart for the task of challenging his ideas. As for Brown's response to the responses, it's presented as a clarification of the original article, but the original really doesn't require clarification. Bottom Line: Generally very persuasive. |