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Esrarengiz Bir Oyun: Kafatasları Konuşmaya Başladığında Shakespeare'in Hamlet Oyununa Dair Yapı-sökümcü Bir Okuma

Year 2024, Volume: 23 Issue: 2, 554 - 570, 26.04.2024
https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.1333805

Abstract

Orta Çağ ve Rönesans saraylarının şen şakrak ve renkli üyeleri olarak karşımıza çıkan soytarılar, çeşitli eğlence faaliyetlerine ilaveten krallıkların yönetiminde dolaylı ve ön planda olmayacak şekilde söz sahibiydiler. Kalabalıkları eğlendirirken sergiledikleri gösterişli kıyafetleri ve dikkat çeken neşeli tavırlarına rağmen kraliyet yönetimine olan katkıları ikincil ve zekice olmak zorundaydı. Aslında keskin zekalı ve gayet dikkatli birer gözlemci olarak karşımıza çıkan bu insanlar başkaları tarafından dile getirilemeyenleri duyurmak maksadıyla mizahlarını bir vasıta olarak kullanmaktaydılar. Uzlaşmaz tabiatlarıyla özdeşleşen nevi şahıslarına münhasır yöntemlerle, saray soytarıları kraliyet baskısı karşısında zaman zaman susturulan yahut göz ardı edilen gerçeğin ve hak olanın savunucuları olarak karşımıza çıkma eğilimindeydiler. Saray geleneklerine ve kraliyet görgü kurallarına gayet aşina bir dönem insanı ve aynı zamanda oldukça yetenekli bir oyun yazarı olan Shakespeare, oyunlarında soytarı karakterine bu doğrultuda son derece incelikli bir rol ayırmıştır. Mevzubahis rol, bir soytarının neşeli sözleriyle maskelenen zekice ve eleştirel şakalarla kendini gösterir. Tüm bunlara rağmen, Shakespeare, merhum soytarısı Yorick'i, eleştirisini bir kafatasından ibaret ölmüş bedeni aracılığıyla iletmek zorunda olduğu alışılagelmişin dışında, gayet vahim bir koşulda okuyucunun karşısına çıkarır. Derridacı bir eğilimle anlamın merkezsizleştirilmesi yönteminden yola çıkarak, bu makale eleştirel bakış açısı eksikliğinin yıkıcı bir dar görüşlülüğe yol açabileceğini göstermek üzere Hamlet oyununu bir soytarının eksikliği üzerinden yapısökümcü okumayla ele almaktadır.

References

  • Abrams, M. H. (1999). A glossary of literary terms. Heinle & Heinle.
  • Currie, M. (2013). The invention of deconstruction. Macmillan.
  • Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and difference. Chicago University Press.
  • Derrida, J. (2009) [1978]. Restitutions of the truth in pointing, in Preziosi, D. (Eds.) The art of art history: A critical anthology. New York: Oxford University Press: 301-315.
  • Doran, J. (1858). The history of court fools. Cornell University Press.
  • Howells, C. (1999). Derrida: Deconstruction from phenomenology to ethics. Polity Press.
  • Janik, V.K. (Eds.). (1998). Fools and jesters in literature, art, and history. Greenwood Publishing.
  • Onions, C.T. (1911). A Shakespeare glossary. Clarendon Press.
  • Palahniuk, C. (2003). Fight club. Vintage.
  • Peaslee, R.M. & Weiner, R.G. (2015). The joker: A serious study of the clown prince of crime, University Press of Mississippi.
  • Royle, N. (2004). Jacques Derrida. Routledge.
  • Sallis, J. (1988). Deconstruction and philosophy: The texts of Jacques Derrida. University of Chicago Press.
  • Scott, J. (1982). The upper classes: Property and privilege in Britain, The Eastern Press.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1599–1600/1919). As you like it. Stevenson, O.J. (Eds.). Generic.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1601/1901). The twelfth night. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (Eds.). Carl Hentschel Ltd.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1603/1914). Hamlet. Lowes, J.L. (Eds.). Henry Holt and Company.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1606/2013). The tragedy of King Lear, Halio, J.L.(Eds.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Southworth, J. (1998). Fools and jesters at the English court. Sutton Publication Ltd.
  • Tekalp, S. & Işık, E. (2012). William Shakespeare’in As You Like It ve Twelfth Night eserlerinde soytarıların birleştirici rolü. Batman Üniversitesi Yaşam Bilimleri Dergisi, 1(1), 1161- 1171. Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/buyasambid/issue/29824/320963
  • Towsen, J. H. (1976). Clowns. Hawthorn Books.
  • Warde, F. (1913). The fools of Shakespeare: an interpretation of their wit, wisdom and personalities. Mc Bride, Nast & Company.

An Enigmatic Play: When Skulls Speak Loudly A Deconstructive Reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Year 2024, Volume: 23 Issue: 2, 554 - 570, 26.04.2024
https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.1333805

Abstract

Being vivacious and colourful members of the medieval and Renaissance courts, jesters served for a variety of recreational purposes in addition to having the oblique subaltern voices in the administration of the kingdoms. Despite their ostentatious clothing and jaunty manners, which they manifested while delivering jokes and tricks, their contribution to the royal administration had to be indirect and clever. Indeed, these men of great observation and acute cunning used their humour in order to voice what cannot be expressed by the others. In their peculiar kind of way that was also associated with their divergent nature, jesters were inclined to act as the advocates of truth which had to be suppressed or ignored at times in face of royal hegemony. As a rather skilled playwright, who was also familiar with the conventions of the court manners, Shakespeare spared an exceptionally subtle role for the character of the jester in his plays. This role reveals itself through witty jokes of criticism masked by the jolly words of a fool. Nevertheless, Shakespeare ascribes a markedly grim condition for his late jester Yorick who has to deliver his criticism through his deceased body, a skull per se. Deriving mobility from the Derridean sense of decentralizing the meaning, the article employs a deconstructionist reading of Hamlet through the absence of a jester to exhibit how the lack of a critical perspective may yield catastrophic dim-sightedness.

References

  • Abrams, M. H. (1999). A glossary of literary terms. Heinle & Heinle.
  • Currie, M. (2013). The invention of deconstruction. Macmillan.
  • Derrida, J. (1978). Writing and difference. Chicago University Press.
  • Derrida, J. (2009) [1978]. Restitutions of the truth in pointing, in Preziosi, D. (Eds.) The art of art history: A critical anthology. New York: Oxford University Press: 301-315.
  • Doran, J. (1858). The history of court fools. Cornell University Press.
  • Howells, C. (1999). Derrida: Deconstruction from phenomenology to ethics. Polity Press.
  • Janik, V.K. (Eds.). (1998). Fools and jesters in literature, art, and history. Greenwood Publishing.
  • Onions, C.T. (1911). A Shakespeare glossary. Clarendon Press.
  • Palahniuk, C. (2003). Fight club. Vintage.
  • Peaslee, R.M. & Weiner, R.G. (2015). The joker: A serious study of the clown prince of crime, University Press of Mississippi.
  • Royle, N. (2004). Jacques Derrida. Routledge.
  • Sallis, J. (1988). Deconstruction and philosophy: The texts of Jacques Derrida. University of Chicago Press.
  • Scott, J. (1982). The upper classes: Property and privilege in Britain, The Eastern Press.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1599–1600/1919). As you like it. Stevenson, O.J. (Eds.). Generic.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1601/1901). The twelfth night. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (Eds.). Carl Hentschel Ltd.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1603/1914). Hamlet. Lowes, J.L. (Eds.). Henry Holt and Company.
  • Shakespeare, W. (1606/2013). The tragedy of King Lear, Halio, J.L.(Eds.). Cambridge University Press.
  • Southworth, J. (1998). Fools and jesters at the English court. Sutton Publication Ltd.
  • Tekalp, S. & Işık, E. (2012). William Shakespeare’in As You Like It ve Twelfth Night eserlerinde soytarıların birleştirici rolü. Batman Üniversitesi Yaşam Bilimleri Dergisi, 1(1), 1161- 1171. Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/buyasambid/issue/29824/320963
  • Towsen, J. H. (1976). Clowns. Hawthorn Books.
  • Warde, F. (1913). The fools of Shakespeare: an interpretation of their wit, wisdom and personalities. Mc Bride, Nast & Company.
There are 21 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects British and Irish Language, Literature and Culture
Journal Section English Language and Literature
Authors

İsmail Tekşen 0000-0003-4239-0839

Publication Date April 26, 2024
Submission Date July 28, 2023
Acceptance Date February 12, 2024
Published in Issue Year 2024 Volume: 23 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Tekşen, İ. (2024). An Enigmatic Play: When Skulls Speak Loudly A Deconstructive Reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 23(2), 554-570. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.1333805