"The Performative Utterance in William Shakespeare's Hamlet Notes

Reading Notes

• "For much of the play Hamlet is able to speak but not do" - he finds trouble translating his imaginary thought into action
• J.L. Austen's Theory of Performativity 
• 3 main focus
• Lucutionary force - ability of a language to deliver a message
• the force of mutual intelligibility - the illocutionary force
• perlocutionary force - what is achieved by being said
• Harold Bloom argues that the characters in Shakespeare's work develop through "self-overhearing"
• Shakespeare's characters had to reveal their inner self to the audience
• the scene with the father's ghost and Prince Hamlet is the most important scene to consider the performative utterance of Hamlet
• "if the person who has sworn to do something does that something, that is a perlocutionary effect of his utterance"
• Hamlet swore only to remember his father, and not to exactly revenge his father
• overdoing a performance in a play can undermine the "natural" or "socially accepted notion of your sincere state"
• Polonius has the Aristotelian vision of the '"true self"- his vision is provincial 
• represents the premodern man
• In contrast, Hamlet represents the modern man
• Nietzschean idea of the "created self, broad and formless"
• in this sense Hamlet is able to explore himself rather than trying to explore others
• Hamlet's character development is not towards action, but rather faith