Thinking Activity: Cultural studies Unit 3

                  Cultural studies in Practice

♧ Hamlet and To his Coy Mistress 

It is worth study of Power relationship in the Cultural studies.  Because one of the important point is about Power in Cultural studies.  So, two marginalised characters of Shakespeare's Hamlet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern let us seeing Power in its Cultural context. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the Hamlet's fellow students from Wittenberg. Shortly after the play within the play Claudius is talking privately with they both. In response to Claudius's plan to send Hamlet to England, Rosencrantz deliveres a speech that if read out of context is both an excellent set of metaphors.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are among the Jellyfish of Shakespeare's characters.  The two are distinctly plot driven : empty of personality, sycophantic in a sniveling way, eager to curry favor with power even if it means spying on their erstwhile friend. 

Murray J. Levith gives meaning of their names :

" Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are from the Dutch - German literally, ' Garland of Roses ' and ' Golden star.' Although of Religious origin , both names together sound singsong and odd to English ears. Their jingling gives them a lightness, and blurs the individuality of the characters they label. "

Hamlet may well see himself as righting the moral order, not as a murderer and much has been said on that matter. They both are Pawns for Claudius first and for Hamlet second. So, they are pawns or sponges or monkey food. For such is power in the world of kings and princes. The power that has brought them here. Their fate, however is to displease mightily the prince, who will undermine them and " hoist them with their own petard." 

With historical actions such as these we can understand why Shakespeare's work incorporates power struggles. Claudius was aware of power, clearly when he observed of Hamlet's apparent madness that, " Madness in great ones must not unwanted go."

In Tom Stoppard's version " Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" they are even more obviously two ineffectual pawns, seeking constantly to know who thay are, why they are here, where they are going. Whether they are at all may be the ultimate questions of this modern play. In Stoppard's version, he has given the contemporary audience a play that examines existential questions in the context of a whole world that may have no meaning at all. If Shakespeare marginalised the powerless in his version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Stoppard had marginalized us all in an era when in the eyes of some - all of us are caught up in forces beyond our control.  We allude to the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the little people who have been caught up in the corporate downsizing and mergers in recent decades. 

                            To his Coy Mistress 

Andrew Marvell's " To His Coy Mistress " tells the reader a good deal about the speaker of the poem. We know that the speaker is knowledgeable about poems and conversations of classic Greek and Roman literature about other conventions of love poetry such as the courtly love conversations of medieval Europe about Biblical passages.  

The first stanza of the poem Jules Brody shows, " its insistent, exaggerated literariness."

In the second stanza Brody sees not only the conventional carpe diem theme from Horace but echoes from Ovid. 

The speaker of the poem is a highly educated person, one who is well read, one whose natural flow of associated images moves lightly over details and allusions that reflects who he is. He thinks in term of precious stones, of exotic and distance places of a milieu where eating, drinking and making merry seems to be an achievable way of life. 

 But What he does not show ?

👉 He clearly does not think of poverty.  Nor does the speaker think of disease as a daily reality that he might face. Disease was real in the middle of the seventeenth century.  Perhaps the speaker and his lady knew it after all. 

☆ Contemporary government system  :-

Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, there are many people who are using by some higher positions people. We can find out cast systems of class systems in our today's society. 1. High Class, 2. Middle class, 3. Lower class people. Higher positions people always try to increase their wealth rather than helping other people. So result is that poor people never raises their voice against them. Like Claudius uses both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for Hamlet.