Stay, Illusion!

One of 2013's Christmas presents, courtesy of my brother, was a new book on Hamlet, entitled Stay Illusion!  The Hamlet Doctrine by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster.  It is a book written by self-described "outsiders to Shakespearean criticism" who use other outsider interpretations of Hamlet as the means to discuss the play.  As a fellow outsider to the field, it seemed only natural to dig in (with the secondary goal of having something to share with those who might find this post).

Different critics each are given a portion of the discussion in this work.  Carl Schmitt leads off, and his theory that Hamlet is a mask for James I of England is an interesting idea.  Other interpreters include Walter Benjamin, Hegel, Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche and even Herman Melville and James Joyce.  Melville, one of the book's "secret heroes," appears as the author of the book Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, in which Hamlet figures.  Joyce's contribution to the discussion is Ulysses, a "rumination on Hamlet from beginning to end...."

This is a sometimes heavy but rather enlightening and different look at Hamlet.  I will admit that there were portions that required multiple readings even to begin to grasp.  The book is steeped in psychoanalysis, an area with which I am not exceedingly familiar.  I was taken particularly with discussions of Freud's work, "Mourning and Melancholia."  Its content resonated far beyond the scope of Hamlet.  One of Hamlet's oft-described problems, his emotional state, could have been a by-product of his self-consciousness, which "gives us extraordinary insight into ourselves" but leads to numerous problematic offshoots, including melancholy.

Love and nothingness play roles in the discussion as well.  The play begins with a literal nothing--a ghost-- and ends with silence.  Love and its abnegation figure repeatedly.  Love can breed doubt.  As Freud is quoted, "A man who doubts his own love may, or rather must, doubt every lesser thing."  Is this why Hamlet begins to doubt the sincerity of the ghost?  And his own ability to act?

One of my previous posts (12/3/13) was about Mueller's work Hamletmachine.  It makes an appearance late in Stay Illusion!  While the book recounts portions of Mueller's play, it does not make it any less confusing.  Perhaps some future clarification will present itself.

The authors' conclusion could easily be a summary of this entire blog venture.  (Replace the word "book" with the word "blog" in reading the quote.)  I reproduce it here not to take it for my own, but to share words that I found particularly relevant.  Hopefully they may fit some visitors to this blog.

"We are but inauthentic amateurs, like some of those we have undertaken to work with in this book....  [This] is essentially a book about nothing, for the love of nothing, for the nothing of love, for the love of Hamlet."