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follypersisttesting out some posting of cohost short-essay posts
of those many lines sticking in the craw of the mind, ever ready to spring forth, i'd like to unpack one from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead.
"the trouble is — each of them are plausible, without being instinctive."
R&G are Dead is a mash-up of shakespeare's original Hamlet and beckett's Godot, combining the tour de force of metatheatre and existentialism of the danish prince's tragedy with the buddy comedy and existentialism of the two beggars suspended on their stage. Nearly every line from Hamlet has made its way into our popular speech, and the english translation of the first act of Waiting for Godot* is incredibly quotable; if Gertrude Stein made a rose red for the first time in a hundred years, Godot's "Better to strike the iron before it freezes" is the first time the metal was hot in our imperial** history. It is no surprise then that the work Stoppard writes, alchemically derived from these pithy forebears, is itself excessively quotable, especially for lesbians***.
Queen Gertrude (hamlet's mother) and King Claudius (hamlet's uncle) speak lines strictly from the original play itself, where Claudius addresses the deuteragonists as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. To this point, they haven't needed names per se — they've just been selves, clearly two, similar and opposite, complementary. Gertrude addresses them in turn as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. What follows is a little silly and plenty tragic, where they recognize that there are only two naming possibilities — R or G— for each of them, if you trust a monarch. Unfortunately, "the trouble is, each of them are plausible, without being instinctive."
You don't want to commit to a name unless it is right, right? Unless you know it will turn out to have always already been the right one. You feel as though your name should be instinctive, and all others should be implausible. After all, it's not just a word, right? It is just a word, but words that are names are not merely nouns, they're verbs. They are a means of addressing, labeling, specifying the extant you; a name is an action you provide to others. It's a difficult place to be!
And so this phrase floats in the mind; you are confronted with what to eat for dinner and say "well, the trouble is —". You feel a little pithy; you feel as though you have honestly expressed a problem. For lunch, perhaps, you can make the choice, even if it's merely plausible. But while you're there, expressing the definitive uncertainty...
This, I think, is the gender of it all. The problem is, the common ones provided to us all have the benefit of being plausible, without the benefit of being instinctive.
"the trouble is — each of them are plausible, without being instinctive."
R&G are Dead is a mash-up of shakespeare's original Hamlet and beckett's Godot, combining the tour de force of metatheatre and existentialism of the danish prince's tragedy with the buddy comedy and existentialism of the two beggars suspended on their stage. Nearly every line from Hamlet has made its way into our popular speech, and the english translation of the first act of Waiting for Godot* is incredibly quotable; if Gertrude Stein made a rose red for the first time in a hundred years, Godot's "Better to strike the iron before it freezes" is the first time the metal was hot in our imperial** history. It is no surprise then that the work Stoppard writes, alchemically derived from these pithy forebears, is itself excessively quotable, especially for lesbians***.
Queen Gertrude (hamlet's mother) and King Claudius (hamlet's uncle) speak lines strictly from the original play itself, where Claudius addresses the deuteragonists as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. To this point, they haven't needed names per se — they've just been selves, clearly two, similar and opposite, complementary. Gertrude addresses them in turn as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. What follows is a little silly and plenty tragic, where they recognize that there are only two naming possibilities — R or G— for each of them, if you trust a monarch. Unfortunately, "the trouble is, each of them are plausible, without being instinctive."
You don't want to commit to a name unless it is right, right? Unless you know it will turn out to have always already been the right one. You feel as though your name should be instinctive, and all others should be implausible. After all, it's not just a word, right? It is just a word, but words that are names are not merely nouns, they're verbs. They are a means of addressing, labeling, specifying the extant you; a name is an action you provide to others. It's a difficult place to be!
And so this phrase floats in the mind; you are confronted with what to eat for dinner and say "well, the trouble is —". You feel a little pithy; you feel as though you have honestly expressed a problem. For lunch, perhaps, you can make the choice, even if it's merely plausible. But while you're there, expressing the definitive uncertainty...
This, I think, is the gender of it all. The problem is, the common ones provided to us all have the benefit of being plausible, without the benefit of being instinctive.
Hello!
Date: 2024-09-29 01:27 am (UTC)