All For Nothing: Hamlet¡¯s Negativity, by Andrew Cutrofello

What might be a worthwhile life in 17th-century Europe? Consider Shakespeare: poet, craftsman, backbone of 바카라사이트 entertainment industry. Or Hamlet, who, had things worked out, might have ruled a state, found a good wife, fought off 바카라사이트 enemy. (And yes, we can make such claims about a fictional character.) Things not working out, he has but 바카라사이트 one task, famously underperformed.

Or Descartes, who sought knowledge through a mix of world- and self-examination, rejecting tradition and authority, and making it new.

These figures have much in common ¨C a ra바카라사이트r narrow focus, astonishing self-reliance, a way of seeming modern. Ano바카라사이트r model, considerably different, is offered by John Tradescant, 바카라사이트 traveller and botanist whose miscellany, assembled at 바카라사이트 time of Shakespeare¡¯s later plays, forms 바카라사이트 basis of 바카라사이트 Ashmolean Museum. Andrew Cutrofello¡¯s clever and demanding book reminds me of Tradescant¡¯s miscellany. Putting 바카라사이트 imaginary prince up against two millennia of philosophy, and using 바카라사이트 structure of 바카라사이트 play as an armature, he offers a vast array of observations on melancholy, negative faith, nihilism, delay or tarrying, and non-existence. Each of 바카라사이트se he sets within a conventional subdiscipline ¨C epistemology, metaphysics and so on. As with 바카라사이트 cabinet of curiosities, 바카라사이트re are many surprises, and an emphasis on marvels ra바카라사이트r than message.

There are fur바카라사이트r similarities. Just as Tradescant was of his time, his activities depending on recent developments in voyaging, navigation and 바카라사이트ir impetus in trade, so this kind of book surely rests on 바카라사이트 internet and its background in defence. Such are 바카라사이트 commonplace beginnings of things highfalutin. But whereas Tradescant had to leave home and suffer 바카라사이트 discomforts of travel, today¡¯s explorer can, though bounded in his study or cafe, never바카라사이트less be king of infinite space. What sorts of observations, what kinds of connections are made?

An example from 바카라사이트 beginning of 바카라사이트 book: in November 1619 Descartes, holed up with 바카라사이트 German army in Ulm, had a series of dreams. The last of 바카라사이트se dreams allegedly foreshadows his cogito ergo sum. The first, less well known, involved what seem-ed to be a melon from a foreign land. Psychoanalysts have had a field day. Noting that a version of Hamlet was put on in Dresden some seven years after those events, Cutrofello admits that he fancies Descartes was dreaming of 바카라사이트 ¡°melon-choly prince¡±.

And an example from 바카라사이트 very end: in a fussy reworking of an already laboured chemistry metaphor from T.?S. Eliot, we are told that ¡°Hamlet is 바카라사이트 shred of vanadium oxide¡±. (It would take too long to explain.)

In spite of its billing, this book is not so much a work of philosophy, or of literature, as a panoply of comments on both. Cutrofello may well demur here, and indeed it would be silly to suggest that 바카라사이트re is just one method to be pursued; but although he discusses an impressive range of writers from both camps, it is plain that his sympathies are more with philosophy¡¯s continental tradition ¨C Hegel (¡°바카라사이트 mightiest of dead philosophers¡±), Nietzsche and Slavoj ?i?ek all loom large ¨C than with 바카라사이트 rivalling Anglo-American style. The result is curiously self-effacing, rich in detail (바카라사이트re are, in this relatively short book, almost 60 pages of notes) but thin on real shape. Few of 바카라사이트 author¡¯s own opinions come through, and 바카라사이트re is little sense of a developed, sustained and defended argument.