Seminar 9:
Between Restricted and General Economies: Hamlet and Jonson's Bartholomew Fair
Martin Prochazka (Charles University in Prague)
TOPIC DESCRIPTION
The comparative reading of the two plays will focus on their mimetic aspects and wide economic and political implications. These will be discussed in the framework of two general economic paradigms “restricted/restrictive economy” and “general economy” defined by the versatile French thinker Georges Bataille in his Accursed Share (La part maudite, 1949, vol. 1: Consumption) and reflected on in Jacques Derrida’s essay “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve” (1969). The major issues include:
- the status of mimesis in Hamlet and Bartholomew Fair (Hamlet’s speech to the actors and the Mousetrap compared to the Induction and the puppet play in 5.3-5.5)
- carnival, spectacle and law: grotesque body, court masque and “festive marketplace”
- the figure of the ghost in Hamlet and Bartholomew Fair: spectre vs. puppet, authority vs. irony
- from economy to ecology: restricted and general economy in Bartholomew Fair and Hamlet
The integrating theme of our discussions will be the transformations of basic social, anthropological and economic concepts (and values), such as sovereignty, freedom, labour and life in the early modern Europe and their relation to their present (late capitalist) understanding.
SCHEDULE
Session 1
Mimesis, marketplace and beyond: restricted and general economy in theatre, society and nature. Theatre and representation of sovereignty in Hamlet. Puritan attacks on the theatre, their religious and legal background (Philip Stubbs, The Anatomy of Abuses, 1583; William Prynne, Histriomastix: The Player’s Scourge or the Actor’s Tragedy, 1632).
Reading: Hamlet, 2.2; Bartholomew Fair, Induction; Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share (19-26); Jacques Derrida, “From Restricted to General Economy” (270-77); Spectres of Marx (1-11).
Session 2
Carnival and Marketplace, Spectacle and Law.
Reading: Hamlet (5.1. – the Graveyard Scene); BartholomewFair (1.1-5.2.); Paul A. Cantor, “The Law Versus the Marketplace;” Jonathan Haynes, “Festivity and the Dramatic Economy of Jonson’s Bartholomew’s Fair;” Mikhail M. Bakhtin, “Introduction” to Rabelais and His World; Michael Bristol, Carnival and Theatre, chapters 2-3 and 12; Leah S. Marcus, “Pastimes and the Purging of Theater.”
Discussion of short paper topics 1-3.
Session 3
From Irony to Laughter: the Puppet, the Ghost and the Ecology of Death and Life
Reading:
Hamlet 1.1.-5., 2.2. (concluding monologue “O what rogue…”), 5.1. Bartholomew Fair 5.3.-5.6.; Michael Bristol, Carnival and Theatre (chapter 11), Martin Prochazka, “From ‘Affirmative Culture’”; Randall Martin, “Hamlet, Evolution and Ecology”
Discussion of short paper topics 4-7.
LITERATURE
Primary:
William Shakespeare, Hamlet (any recent critical edition).
Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614) http://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692bartholmew.htm
William Prynne, Histriomastix: The Player’s Scourge or the Actor’s Tragedy, The Prologue
http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/Prynne.htm
Philip Stubbs, The Anatomy of Abuses, Part I, Chapter XI: On Stage-playes and Enterluds, pp. 140-150
Secondary:
Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helène Iswolsky (Bloomington and London: The University of Indiana Press, 1984), Introduction (1-51) chapters 2 (145-96), 5 (303-68) (moodle – Intro, other chapters: see Google Books)
Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, trans. Robert Hurley, vol. 1 Consumption (New York: Zone Books, 1991), 19-26 (moodle)
Michael Bristol, Carnival and Theatre: Plebeian Culture and the Structure of Authority in Renaissance England (New York and London: Methuen, 1985) chapters 2-3 (27-53) 11-12 (176-217) (moodle).
Paul A. Cantor, “The Law Versus the Marketplace: Spontaneous Order in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair,” in Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Sponatneous order in Culture, ed. Paul Cantor and Stephen Cox (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009), 167-224. (moodle)
Jacques Derrida, “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve,” in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 251-277 (moodle)
Jacques Derrida, Spectres of Marx, trans. Peggy Kamuf (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), chapter 1 (moodle).
Jonathan Haynes, “Festivity and the Dramatic Economy of Jonson’s Bartholomew’s Fair,” ELH 51.4 (1984): 645-668 see Jstor
Leah S. Marcus, “Pastimes and the Purging of Theater,” in The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton Marvell (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 24-63. see Google Books
Randall Martin, “Hamlet, Evolution and Ecology,” in Renaissance Shakespeare: Shakespeare Renaissances (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming) (moodle)
Martin Prochazka, “From ‘Affirmative Culture’ to the ‘Condition Of Justice’:
a Reading of a Czech Post-Communist Hamlet, in in Arbeit am Gedächtnis, ed. Michael Frank and Gabriele Rippl (München: Wilhelm Fink, 2007), 409-422 (moodle).
ASSESSMENT
The first seminar grade expresses the activity in the seminar discussion. It can range from 0 to 10, the pass limit is 5. The second seminar grade assesses the quality of paper proposals (300 words minimum), the share of the student in the preparation of the final presentation, its contents and standard. It can range from 0 to 15, the pass limit is 8. The final essay grade is expressed in points from 0 to 30, the pass limit is 15. Deadline for the submission of the essay: 15 July 2013. Length of the essay: 3000-4000 words. The maximum number of points acquired for the 2 seminars and an essay is 80 (25+25+30).
For the participation in a workshop 5 points are acquired (10 points for two workshops). For the the submission of an internship application 5 points are acquired and 10 points fort the shortlisting for the internship.
