". 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!
I went back to look at Cavell's essay to make sure I hadn't misunderstood it in light of your very helpful response. Here's what I discovered.
Cavell's jumping-off point is that earlier scholar that Wilson was aiming to refute: W. W. Greg, who is the one who argued that Claudius did not commit murder by pouring poison in Hamlet Sr.'s ear. Cavell's comment is that "no one, to my knowledge, has satisfactorily answered Greg's claim" -- but he's aware of Wilson's efforts, and dismisses them, along with other possible solutions thusly: "These claims seem to me essentially weaker than Greg's. All they prove is that this repetitive dumb-show is stageable, performable, while maintaining the assumption that the Ghost is honest. But the very fact that the class compete with one another, that they are equally acceptable routes to the same consistency, seems to me to emphasize the arbitrariness of each of them. And how could they not be arbitrary, given what they are designed to accomplish -- the negative task of excusing, or explaining away, one of the most extraordinary theatrical strokes in our drama, the repetitive dumb-show in Hamlet."
Cavell needs the problem of the dumb-show to remain "unsolved" because he wants to talk about the dumb-show as "the play's figure for itself" and therefore in a crucial sense a work of Hamlet's imagination. All of which is very interesting and generates cool stuff like this: "Hamlet's extreme sense of theater I take as his ceaseless perception of theater, say show, as an inescapable or metaphysical mark of the human condition, together with his endless sense of debarment from accepting the human condition as his (which is terribly human of hi); as if his every breath and gesture disjoin and join him, from and with mankind. His bar -- his lack of "advancement" into the world -- is expressed in one's sense (my sense) of him as the Ghost of the play that bears his and his father's name, a sense that his refusal of participation in the world is his haunting of the world. (As if he is a figure in a play.)"
But I can't for the life of me understand why he needs to hang all this Freud-influenced and existentially-influenced stuff on the notion that there's some mystery in Claudius's non-reaction to the dumb-show. The solution that Claudius wasn't paying attention to the dumb-show is a perfectly fine one for the theater -- more to the point, a production has to come up with a theatrical solution because audiences simply aren't going to put this complicated conspiracy theory together. Cavell always wants to find warrant for skepticism in Shakespeare, a way of reading the play that is about the tragic character's refusal to know what he knows (hence the title of the book). But skepticism is warranted here regardless of veracity; the Ghost may be telling the truth about the ear-poisoning and may still be lying about being Hamlet's father. Hamlet's trying to catch the wrong conscience, and he knows it.
Thanks for looking back into this. I'm glad you find my comment helpful. I should go read Cavell's essay myself—I have that book of his, along with many others, and have read some of it; not sure why I never got around to that one. I personally found Wilson's arguments quite persuasive (and in a rich context, given the rest of the book). Which, as you say, doesn't invalidate what Cavell's trying to do! Perhaps the best way to think of it is that Wilson is giving pshat, while Cavell is giving drosh. Thanks again for coming back around to this. (I can't speak for your whole audience, but I am always up for more Cavell and/or Hamlet blogging.)
". 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!
I went back to look at Cavell's essay to make sure I hadn't misunderstood it in light of your very helpful response. Here's what I discovered.
Cavell's jumping-off point is that earlier scholar that Wilson was aiming to refute: W. W. Greg, who is the one who argued that Claudius did not commit murder by pouring poison in Hamlet Sr.'s ear. Cavell's comment is that "no one, to my knowledge, has satisfactorily answered Greg's claim" -- but he's aware of Wilson's efforts, and dismisses them, along with other possible solutions thusly: "These claims seem to me essentially weaker than Greg's. All they prove is that this repetitive dumb-show is stageable, performable, while maintaining the assumption that the Ghost is honest. But the very fact that the class compete with one another, that they are equally acceptable routes to the same consistency, seems to me to emphasize the arbitrariness of each of them. And how could they not be arbitrary, given what they are designed to accomplish -- the negative task of excusing, or explaining away, one of the most extraordinary theatrical strokes in our drama, the repetitive dumb-show in Hamlet."
Cavell needs the problem of the dumb-show to remain "unsolved" because he wants to talk about the dumb-show as "the play's figure for itself" and therefore in a crucial sense a work of Hamlet's imagination. All of which is very interesting and generates cool stuff like this: "Hamlet's extreme sense of theater I take as his ceaseless perception of theater, say show, as an inescapable or metaphysical mark of the human condition, together with his endless sense of debarment from accepting the human condition as his (which is terribly human of hi); as if his every breath and gesture disjoin and join him, from and with mankind. His bar -- his lack of "advancement" into the world -- is expressed in one's sense (my sense) of him as the Ghost of the play that bears his and his father's name, a sense that his refusal of participation in the world is his haunting of the world. (As if he is a figure in a play.)"
But I can't for the life of me understand why he needs to hang all this Freud-influenced and existentially-influenced stuff on the notion that there's some mystery in Claudius's non-reaction to the dumb-show. The solution that Claudius wasn't paying attention to the dumb-show is a perfectly fine one for the theater -- more to the point, a production has to come up with a theatrical solution because audiences simply aren't going to put this complicated conspiracy theory together. Cavell always wants to find warrant for skepticism in Shakespeare, a way of reading the play that is about the tragic character's refusal to know what he knows (hence the title of the book). But skepticism is warranted here regardless of veracity; the Ghost may be telling the truth about the ear-poisoning and may still be lying about being Hamlet's father. Hamlet's trying to catch the wrong conscience, and he knows it.
Thanks for looking back into this. I'm glad you find my comment helpful. I should go read Cavell's essay myself—I have that book of his, along with many others, and have read some of it; not sure why I never got around to that one. I personally found Wilson's arguments quite persuasive (and in a rich context, given the rest of the book). Which, as you say, doesn't invalidate what Cavell's trying to do! Perhaps the best way to think of it is that Wilson is giving pshat, while Cavell is giving drosh. Thanks again for coming back around to this. (I can't speak for your whole audience, but I am always up for more Cavell and/or Hamlet blogging.)