Saturday, May 13, 2017

Hamlet's Double Movement



[Hamlet] is brilliantly constructed moment by moment to convey a sense at once of a hopeless stasis, of endless talk and nothing decisive happening, and of a machine hurtling helplessly towards a conclusion at once longed for and fought against.
     This doubleness is felt by every viewer and reader, but it is very difficult to hold on to. For if we try to understand the play, to fathom its deepest springs, we lose the sense of its unfolding in time, while if we focus on its relentless forward motion we feel ourselves being carried not towards understanding but away from it. And all the while this double movement precisely mirrors Hamlet's own experience. (Gabriel Josipovici, Hamlet: Fold on Fold, Yale Univ. Press, 2016, p. 8)

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