Notes- "The Performative Utterance in William Shakespeare's Hamlet"

The Performative Utterance in Hamlet

-          Hamlet knows what must be done yet he can’t bring himself to do it

-          We are exposed to Hamlet’s great influence with words but notice that he prolongs his revenge as he tries to convince himself to act

-          Performative language ‘acts’, through locutionary force (mutual intelligibility); illocutionary force (what is being said); and perlocutionary force (consequences of what was said)

-          Language can create reality if used correctly

-          Bloom argues revelation comes to characters from self-overhearing; is it revelation or creation?

-          Paper will discuss whether Hamlet realizes that his speech can actually create change

-          Reason for self-overhearing= presenting inner self to audience

-          Can only utilize what was written in the text to explore what was truly meant

-          Meeting between Hamlet and ghost= two oaths; demonstrate the effect of the illocutionary force on the perlocutionary force

-          The oaths (illocutionary) drive action and result in perlocutinary effect (success or failure)

-          Thought à language à action

-          Problem lies in the fact that Hamlet only swears to remember the foul crime, not to revenge it

-          Therefore the oaths contain no power and performative utterances are not as driving as they would’ve been

-          Playacting is said to only contain locutionary force but not illocutionary (b/c it lacks context)

-          Hamlet knows that he is unable to enact revenge therefore turns to words, creates a self-loathing

-           Hamlet feels the necessity to accompany words with a display of emotions; mechanism of performativity

-          Connection is established between language and emotion

-          Belief of presence of emotion leads to belief in authenticity (important)

-          Problem of play= misrepresentation of intentions; mimesis

-          Central mimetic act= when Hamlet plays mad to hide his intention of revenge

-          To overreact is to risk authenticity, to lose the visage of sincerity

-          Hamlet must make his madness appear natural, as he advises his players to do

-          In order to pretend you must actually do; therefore in playacting the locutionary value between when pretending and not pretending is identical

-          Only difference between two statements is the motivation behind the speaking

-          Constative value of utterance + manifestations of emotions = effective performative utterance

-          Hamlets utterances have illocutionary force of appearing mad

-          Polonius believes this because he represents the formal idea of self (pre-modern)

-          Through his madness he can explore his own identity; his previous identities being unreal

-          “all of us create ‘utterly different yet self-consistent’ visages of ourselves every day”

-          Lacking necessary thoughts/feelings causes performative utterance to fail

-          Hamlet knows he cannot determine fate, brings peace

-          Evolution Hamlet undertakes is only one of closure and acceptance

-          “man who uses that performative power in the unending task of the realization of the self” ; not to perform actions

-          Just as he is dying he realizes this