Hamlet and the Snowman: Reflections on Vision and Meaning in Life and Literature PDF
Preview Hamlet and the Snowman: Reflections on Vision and Meaning in Life and Literature
Hamlet and the Snowman American University Studies Series IV English Language and Literature Vol. 192 PETER LANG New York • Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:127) Boston (cid:127) Bern Frankfurt am Main (cid:127) Berlin (cid:127) Brussels (cid:127) Vienna (cid:127) Oxford Benjamin Newman Hamlet and the Snowman Reflections on Vision and Meaning in Life and Literature PETER LANG New York (cid:127) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:127) Boston (cid:127) Bern Frankfurt am Main (cid:127) Berlin (cid:127) Brussels (cid:127) Vienna (cid:127) Oxford LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Newman, Benjamin. Hamlet and the snowman: reflections on vision and meaning in life and literature / Benjamin Newman. p. cm. — (American university studies. IV, English language and literature; v. 192) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Literature—History and criticism—Theory, etc. 2. Meaning (Philosophy) in literature. 3. Meaning (Philosophy). I. Title. II. American university studies. Series IV, English language and literature; v. 192. PN49.N518 809’.93384—dc21 99-045332 ISBN 0-8204-4854-0 ISSN 0741-0700 DIE DEUTSCHE BIBLIOTHEK-CIP-EINHEITSAUFNAHME Newman, Benjamin: Hamlet and the snowman: reflections on vision and meaning in life and literature / Benjamin Newman. −New York; Washington, D.C./Baltimore; Boston; Bern; Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; Canterbury: Lang. (American university studies: Ser. 4, English language and literature; Vol. 192) ISBN 0-8204-4854-0 Excerpts from the book Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, copyright 1963 by Samuel Beckett; renewed 1988 Samuel Beckett. Used with the permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. and Faber and Faber Ltd. Excerpts from the book Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, copyright 1954 by Samuel Beckett; renewed 1982 by Samuel Beckett. Used with the permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. and Faber and Faber Ltd. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources. © 2000 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. Printed in the United States of America Contents Prologue 1 I. About Questions and Strangeness 3 II. The Snowman and His Friend 7 III. Hamlet on Seemings and Truth 13 IV. A Meeting Between Friends 29 V. Bartleby’s World 35 VI. Some Questions for Melville 59 VII. Reality and Realization 65 VIII. The Two Worlds of Falstaff 71 IX. Forebodings and Silences 77 X. Some Notes from Underground 85 XI. Withinness and Aboutness 95 XII. Beckett’s Figures of Existence 105 VI Contents XIII. Say Something; Listen 117 XIV. Cycles and Sameness 123 Epilogue 131 Prologue The years go on and on, round and round they go, one by one the seasons come and go. Each year, each turn, brings with it a finality of one kind or another, and then, in the course of time, a special moment will come to some human soul when life itself emerges as the finality, a thing to be- hold, something that is the last of everything. Standing then as if upon nothing in some vastness looking on, one thinks and wonders, is that what it is, the whole of it, established, examined, and final. It is then that literature, like some sub- servient conspirator eager to join in, comes running, carry- ing its bundle of delights and all its sundry seemings, call- ing out its confirmation. Yes, is its cry, I have seen it too, I know it well, and here is my vision of all that it is. And mean- ing, where is it to be found? It is the feelings that accom- pany vision and move us to ask, can it be, is it truly so, and now. . . . Existence does not seem to want to be spoken or written about too openly and freely, and literature, its bosom com- 2 Prologue panion, does its best to hide right along with it behind a vast inventory of metaphor and story. In the end, what is the hiding but a loneliness amid silences. The need to know, to know and then to know more and more, to say, to listen, can life be life without it. And that is why I wrote this book, to talk things over as it were, and pass along reflections and wonderings that have come to me with the years about the truth and the meaning of what lies behind literature’s en- trancements, and dormant or insulated in the hearts and minds of all the living. I About Questions and Strangeness Life begins with a question. Where am I? The newborn, cry- ing it, senses the strangeness. What is all this? Life ends with questions. Oh God, where am I going, where will I be, how fast or slow will time then go, or will there be no time? And in-between, after the beginning and before the end. Who am I, who are we with body and head, and arms and legs outstretched, where am I to go, what am I to do? Are there no answers that satisfy? If there is something that can be said, come, tell us, you who can, whoever and wherever you are; what is this place we walk upon? The strangeness of it all! What are our questions but feelings of the strangeness of living and of our lives—that I do not know, the fear of what is there or is to come, a need for something not here, per- haps there, over there, an absence and a wanting. I turn away to thoughts of this or that, of anything, persons known, an empty glass, a painting that intrigues, I think of an event gone by or to come, pages read, even a single word upon a 4 About Questions and Strangeness page, it is no use. I have tried to think the thought alone and cannot. It is so with everyone. Feelings are always there, strong, deep, lying in wait for idea or initiating it, invading thought and its words which, thus swollen, carry them for- ever. There it is, like an ocean over all the land, the feelings that we are, the feelings in our lives, inseparable from our thoughts, the questions we ask, the answers we struggle for, the hopes that are grasped. And finally, all becomes melded together, a composite, a vision of life that is a summary of what we find it to be, our life but also sensed as the life that is mankind’s. What is such a vision, its make-up, its form? What else can it be when one speaks of human existence but I went here, I went there, those are the people I encountered, and this is what happened to me and how I felt; and enfolding all of it into its very essence, I will now impart to you my perception of what it all seems to mean. The nucleus of that vision comes to us early, takes on a number of refinements as we go on, and is always with us. Those of the masters are preserved in the literature they have left for us. That essence, is there a different one for each of us, so different perhaps that we can never come close to another’s, or is there a common core to all that corresponds in turn to a common impact imposed upon us by existence itself. No one as yet has come to me wishing to tell me what their life means for them, and how it probably compares with that of others; no one except the masters. And so it is to them that we must now turn if we are to have the courage to speak on what others have maintained so solid a silence.
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