I’m still working on the other platform that was very kindly set up by our benefactor, so if you’re interested, please email me at vermontaigne-at-gmail-dot-com. We are beginning with 1599, which is the most accessible of the texts. If you want to get an idea of the subject matter, that’s a good place to start–minimal investment on a book you should probably read anyway, if you’re interested in Shakespeare.
When we read, we see the words on the page with gaps between them as discrete entities relating to one another. But as we engage our vocal organs– and we do this even when we do not read aloud, through subvocalization–we convert that visual information into sound patterns. We hear ourselves as we process the text into language. And in the hands of a clever practitioner, a sort of sub-register (or super-register) of undertones (or overtones, if you prefer) is generated. The sounds do not respect the gaps between the words in the text, with the effect that the vocalization creates ambiguities by picking up or dropping sounds before and aft. The text becomes haunted by the senses that are momently created as a result. So, for example, Hamlet can compare his murdered father to King Claudius (in a text about haunting, ambiguity and censorship) as “Hyperion to a satyr,” and the sexual subtext “assate her” is enunciated in the processing of the sounds. In fact, as we shall see, the entire vocal apparatus, skillfully manipulated by the writer whose words we are engaging, can in effect stand in for the body as a whole. The embodied text, bringing attention to the activity of our vocal organs as we process what we read, generates a sensation of concreteness–the sensation that Keats referred to as “load[ing] every rift with ore.” The trick, as Shakespeare realized, was to align these alternate meanings with the evident textual one in a way that would create a richness of possibility, rather than mere confusion.
And this brings up the question of how exactly Shakespeare intended his work. Certainly, it was first intended as playtext for performance by the acting company in which he was a sharer. But Shakespeare also wrote sonnets and other poems that apparently were meant for more private consumption. Could he have meant for his plays, in a time when plays were considered a second-class literary mode, also to have been read, considering that they weren’t published as a collection until 1623? I think so, and in this class I will discuss why.
In my initial proposal, at Protein Wisdom, I mentioned that this class would have ultimately to do with Shakespeare’s “metapoetics,” the way in which he inscribed into his writings his own theory of language. And this theory of language is laid out schematically in Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, where he systematically compares and contrasts the spare instrumentality of Roman diction with the rich pleasureableness of Egyptian language. In other words, he theorizes through demonstration. Othello links these developments, already connected with epic via The Aneid, to its generic opposite, romance. This is the principle axis of classical genre theory in which this course is developed. Without wallowing in it, we’ll consider briefly various renaissance takes on whether Aristotle’s poetical typology is meant to be prescriptive or descriptive, and what the difference is for artistic licence.
All of this sounds very arcane, I imagine. But there’s not a one of the non-troll commentators at Protein Wisdom whom I don’t think of as smart enough to derive a fundamental education in Shakespeare, poetics, and linguistic theory from the course that I’m offering.
I’d like to offer this course on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 8 to 10 PM Eastern time, but I’m willing to move that if West-coasters find it interferes too much with their schedule. Apart from the obvious 4 hours of online instruction and conversation per week, I will also be doing a considerable amount of prep work. So, I’m thinking that if we have 10 people in the class that would amount to $50 per person per week. There’s a sliding scale, if we have more than that, so do recruit people whom you think might be interested.
The texts are Michael Riffaterre’s Fictional Truth (buy it used), Shapiro’s 1599, Garrett Stewart’s Reading Voices, and David Quint’s Epic and Empire as background reading to the Arden editions of Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, before turning to Othello and Hamlet. When I speak of the theoretics of ‘hallucidation,’ I speak of the way that we can make sense of the ghostly senses that the text offers up to us as we produce its sound-sense. And this will involve us in a discussion of what Jeff speaks of often: the author’s intent and how far we are authorized to go beyond what is evident without distorting what might be considered the plain meaning.
Cost for the course depends on the number of people who enroll. I can promise that you’ll learn more than you would in just about any other Shakespeare course. Whether it’s worth the time and commitment on your part is a decision that you’ll have to make for yourself.
I am hoping that Jeff is working on a course on language and intentionalism, so if you’d prefer that, you may wish to keep your powder dry.
Please go buy the Shapiro book and begin with that before doing anything. Our discussion of that work will let you know whether the course is for you.
what date are you starting?
I want to do both classes. I don’t mind soggy powder.
you might consider doing this with podcasts. it might be easier to get more customers. and also a blog area for discussion. good luck.
Uh-uh. I can get through more stuff by writing it, then use chat for online discussions. People can submit their work for peer review, if they like. I might add some wav files to demonstrate the slipperiness of pronunciation at the time, but it’s just more compelling to read. Thanks, though, router.
sorry i thought you would be lecturing like those recordings they offer in NYRofB for “greatest lecturers on tape to expand your mind” sortof thing. still good luck.
apologies for the unsolicited advice but have you considered the home schooler market?
Thanks, router, no, it hadn’t occurred to me, but I will think about it. Good thought.
If I don’t email you til tomorrow it’s cause I’m still working on that stupid report that is stupid.
NatGeo channel is running the dumbest “scientific mystery” show ever — “why did a dead whale explode in the middle of a Taiwan street?”
Uh, because it was putrefying?
I’m intrigued. I’m likely to pay my way and then contribute little in the chat for fear of outing myself as not as smart as I think I am.
I’m likely to pay my way and then contribute little in the chat for fear of outing myself as not as smart as I think I am
I resemble that remark …
Ha, Carin! I doubt you’ll stay quiet for long.
Uh, because it was putrefying?
They should ask the ghost of William the Conqueror about that.
Billy the Bastard put on a lot of weight in his later years, it seems, plus the corpse had putrefied and bloated before they got around to sticking him in the casket.
He just wouldn’t fit, so they tried the old “jump on the overstuffed suitcase to close it” trick. The results were –unfortunate– for everyone in the church and within a considerable distance downwind.
As it turns out, they found this dead whale, hauled it out of the ocean by its tail, and put it on a flat bed trailer. Unfortunately, the trailer was too small, so they had to wait twelve hours for a larger one to show up.
While they were waiting, the whale’s corpse gave one last blast from its blowhole — a mix of blood and water.
Then they drove it around the fricking city. Why didn’t they just plant a couple of pounds of dynamite underneath it and save the truck driver the effort?
I did find the picture of the moped covered in whale intestines and the video of the dump truck full of same unloading to be mildly amusing, in a darkly humorous way.
So that was William the Bastard, eh? I remember hearing that story, but didn’t remember who it was.
Rob @ 14:
The Oregon Department of Transportation tried that, and it wasn’t pretty. Huge chunks of very dead whale rained from the sky 1/4 mile away from the blast zone — it was awful.
The infamous tale of an exploding whale
Dan, want to take the class, but with the big project this year, can’t do it.
I’ll send you a little subsidy, though.
Mike
Thanks, Mike, but you are free to take part as you will. If there’s anything I can do to support your endeavor, let me know.
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself
And where we are our learning likewise is
That would be Shakespeare on distance learning.
ok I ordered the book. It’s used and coming from Texas.
Me too. Mine is from Missouri.
I hadn’t read the comments before emailing you Dan. I see that it will be possible to do even if the chat isn’t something I could do most of the time. Good.
Good luck on the new venture, Dan!! Congrats to all who are involved. Knowledge is always is a good thing.
Never stop learning. Never stop loving. Never stop living.
(Yeah. It’s really bad grammar, but I like the cadence…and the alliteration, of course.)
Dan, I think you are having an effect on Amazon. I went to get the Riffaterre and they said “Customers who bought this also bought”;
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (P.S.)by James Shapiro
Reading Voices: Literature and the Phonotext by
Garrett Stewart
Epic and Empire by David Quint
I have ordered my book.
I warn you, Dan, that I have recently attained a sound colonial education in the basics of the competitive academic industry known as Lit. theory. I will also confess that nothing pleases me more than standing erect, clearing my throat, and enunciating Simone de Beauvoir at the top of my lungs.
Books en route.
But when the course gets underway, can we please minimize the thor-standing-erect thing? Because that’s not something I care to pay for.
Actually, it doesn’t matter whether I’m paying or not.
No wants.
I will order the texts.
Please give a considerate warning before the class begins, Dan. I have a few irons in the fire with the new legislation, and the USCG Aux.
The poetry angle, and the reading aspect, I think, are not far off.
“Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs in the receiving earth”
“Muse, speak to me now of that resourceful man
who wandered far and wide after ravaging
the sacred citadel of Troy.”
“O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!”
The tale may be a play for actors, but it is written to be recounted to an audience. It is an epic poem turned into a script rather than the other way round.
You have my e-mail Dan, just let me (and the others) when things are going to launch, in time to acquire the texts.