". This makes no logical sense—if the King’s conscience was going to be caught, why not during the dumbshow? Hence, Cavell concludes, the murder must have been committed in some other way, and the Ghost must be lying about being Hamlet’s father."
There is a lengthy discussion of this point in the 1935 classic of Shakespeare criticism, WHAT HAPPENS IN HAMLET? by J. Dove Wilson. (I think you'd love the book, by the by.) The book was prompted by the same concern that Cavell has: the King's non-reaction in the dumb-show. Wilson is rebutting another renowned Shakespeare scholar who is arguing that Hamlet simply hallucinated the ghost lock, stock and barrel. Wilson dissents from this (in the process taking a fabulous detour through Elizabethan beliefs about ghosts, how they were political (because religious differences drove them) and how Shakespeare played to everyone), and then ends up with a different explanation for Cavell's conundrum: that the King wasn't paying attention during the dumbshow. (So why put it in? To clarify things for the audience, as Wilson explains in detail.) He makes a real good textual argument for this, even though mostly this would be shown in the acting, of course. For instance, he cites the King's question "Have you heard the argument? is there no offence in't?" as proving that the King was not paying attention during the dumbshow, of which Ophelia had earlier said that it "imports the argument of the play" — the repetition of the word 'argument' seeking to make sure no one misses the point.
Anyway, you might find the book interesting. Actually I'm surprised that Cavell (who I took a class with at Harvard and whose work I admire immensely, although I don't think I've read his essay on Hamlet specifically) didn't read it (or didn't remember it). It really solves his problem!
". This makes no logical sense—if the King’s conscience was going to be caught, why not during the dumbshow? Hence, Cavell concludes, the murder must have been committed in some other way, and the Ghost must be lying about being Hamlet’s father."
There is a lengthy discussion of this point in the 1935 classic of Shakespeare criticism, WHAT HAPPENS IN HAMLET? by J. Dove Wilson. (I think you'd love the book, by the by.) The book was prompted by the same concern that Cavell has: the King's non-reaction in the dumb-show. Wilson is rebutting another renowned Shakespeare scholar who is arguing that Hamlet simply hallucinated the ghost lock, stock and barrel. Wilson dissents from this (in the process taking a fabulous detour through Elizabethan beliefs about ghosts, how they were political (because religious differences drove them) and how Shakespeare played to everyone), and then ends up with a different explanation for Cavell's conundrum: that the King wasn't paying attention during the dumbshow. (So why put it in? To clarify things for the audience, as Wilson explains in detail.) He makes a real good textual argument for this, even though mostly this would be shown in the acting, of course. For instance, he cites the King's question "Have you heard the argument? is there no offence in't?" as proving that the King was not paying attention during the dumbshow, of which Ophelia had earlier said that it "imports the argument of the play" — the repetition of the word 'argument' seeking to make sure no one misses the point.
Anyway, you might find the book interesting. Actually I'm surprised that Cavell (who I took a class with at Harvard and whose work I admire immensely, although I don't think I've read his essay on Hamlet specifically) didn't read it (or didn't remember it). It really solves his problem!