EMPA SEMINAR -
Jennifer Hamilton
Cosmic Ecology: rethinking the storm in King Lear
500 word response
Jennifer Hamilton seems to still be teasing out the way she will be framing her PhD object, the storm in King Lear. During the seminar she referred to various theories that she was using to look at the storm as an event rather than a thing. The first theory to be mentioned was speech act theory that she is using to explore the events leading up to the storm in Lear. She described Cordelia’s reply to her father “Nothing my Lord” as an illocutionary act[1]. The intent or illocutionary force[2] behind those words was that that led to the rearrangement of Lear’s kingdom and thus consequently the turmoil, the storm that followed his decision.
Another theory used by Hamilton is performance theory, using it to analyse and write about how the storm is staged and how to understand its theatrical meaning. She briefly mentioned various productions of King Lear and how each director had had his or her own interpretation of how the storm should be represented, going into finer detail of Bell Shakespeare’s production where the actor playing Lear was made to walk as if he was in the middle of a ferocious storm.
Dramatic ecology was the next theory to be mentioned which is the theory of embedding the natural and cultural together. However she spoke of how sometimes this can lead to “green” readings of texts which she wanted to avoid such as the “green” reading that the storm was mother nature taking revenge on western society. To try and avoid this she said she found Felix Guattari’s work 3 Ecologies extremely helpful. In this work Guattari states that now more than ever nature cannot be separated from culture that we had to start thinking transversally. Hamilton has then applied this concept to her work thinking about how the storm (nature) and the people (culture) in the play are inextricably linked, that they exist transversally; each is present and affects each other’s worlds.
A theory that may be taken up in the future by Hamilton is the actor network theory. This assumption is made due to her excitement when Stephen Meucke suggested this theory as a way of looking at the storm as an ‘actor’ in its own right, as something whose ‘competence is deduced from its performance’.[3] This way of looking at the storm perhaps will bring the storm out of the pages of Shakespeare’s text and bring life to it, looking at every performance as a development of its existence; how has the storm performed through the ages impacting on the lives of the characters? Perhaps as well she could engage in the writing way suggested by Meucke. Instead of interpreting the world she could write as if she and the world are co-becoming[4], which seems to fit in quite well with the dramatic ecology theory encouraging to think transversally. However approaching the storm as an ‘actant’ may make it a thing rather than event. It did seem, however, that she had not yet completely clarified her understanding of the difference between a thing and an event. Perhaps she should read Latour’s ‘Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern’ to help her come to some concrete decisions on their differences.
Perhaps she should... very clear and informed discussion of the relevant ideas - HD
ReplyDelete