Date post: | 12-Jan-2016 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | philomena-fowler |
View: | 247 times |
Download: | 0 times |
PUNS AND METATHEATRE
In Hamlet
PUNSWhat is a pun?
a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings,
by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-
sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical
effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use
of homophonic,, metonymic, or metaphorical language.
Henri Bergson defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in
which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are
confronted with only one series of words". Puns may be
regarded as idiomatic constructions, given that their usage
and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and
its culture. For example, camping is intense (in tents).
PUNS IN HAMLET
Why does Hamlet use puns?
What effect do the puns have on the play and
meaning of his words or his intentions?
Read the article on Puns and annotate – star five
important sentences in understanding the role of
puns in Hamlet.
TURN TO ACT 5 SC1
I need volunteer actors:• Gravedigger• Helper• Hamlet • Horatio
Note the puns and humor used in this section and the effect.
Note how Hamlet talk about death in this section and the
tone.
After, we will watch the Brahnagh version of this scene.
METATHEATRE
What is it?
Play within a play – where the audience becomes cognizant
of the fact that we are watching characters watch a play• Cultivates self reflection on the part of the characters
and audience• Cultivates catharsis (emotional purging)• Cultivates parody (mocking a technique and style)• Cultivates a microcosm of the theatrical situation and
helps us separate reality from illusion (acting)
Role-playing derives from the character not accepting his societal role
and creating his own role to change his destiny.
Stuart Davis suggests that "metatheatricality" should be defined by its
fundamental effect of destabilizing any sense of realism: "
'Metatheatre' is a convenient name for the quality or force in a play
which challenges theatre's claim to be simply realistic — to be nothing
but a mirror in which we view the actions and sufferings of
characters like ourselves, suspending our disbelief in their reality.
Metatheatre begins by sharpening awareness of the unlikeness of life
to dramatic art; it may end by making us aware of life's uncanny
likeness to art or illusion. By calling attention to the strangeness,
artificiality, illusoriness, or arbitrariness — in short, the theatricality --
of the life we live, it marks those frames and boundaries that
conventional dramatic realism would hide."
TURN TO ACT 3 SC 2Hamlet gives advice to the actors on how to act…ironic?
“speak the speech …as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the
tongue…do not saw the air too much with your hand…for in the
very torrent, tempest and…whirlwind of your passion, you must
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness…be
not too tame neither…suit the action to the word…hold…the
mirror up to nature to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own
image… Oh, there be players that I have seen…imitate humanity
so abominably…”
ACT 3 SCENE 2
We will watch the Branagh version of the play within a play
Analysis of Polonius as acting the traitor Brutus (stabbed
soon after this scene, ironically).
Effect of metatheatre in this scene?
Watch how Hamlet acts during the play…is Claudius
demonstrating guilt or just frustration at Hamlet’s obnoxious
nature?
What do we learn about Claudius in his soliloquy in scene 3?