1. Lang lit lecture series
Section II: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

2. Overview of Stoppard’s life and work
July 3, 1937 – born in Zlinn, Czechoslovakia (born Tomas Straussler)
March 15, 1939 – Straussler family reassigned to Singapore (same day Germans invaded Czechoslovakia)
Parents were non-practicing secular Jews – in peril when Nazis came to control their region of Moravia
Tomas, mother, and brother relocated to India
After father’s death, mother (Martha) met and married a British major named Kenneth Stoppard
February 1946 – Stoppard family moves to England

3. Overview of Stoppard’s life and work
1st job was a journalist for Western Daily Press in Bristol, England
Ideas about journalism included romantic fantasy about adventurous life of a wartime journalist
1948 – Stoppard sees Peter O’Toole in production of Hamlet
Production of Hamlet had profound effect on Stoppard, so his interest in theatre greatly increased

4. Overview of Stoppard’s life and work
London Theatre in the 1950s:
International hub of theatre activity
Plays that would later be categorized as belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd (Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Gadot) were being performed and talked about
1960 – Stoppard struck with desire to become writer, so quit his job at the newspaper. Wrote first play A Walk on Water, which was produced for TV

5. Overview of Stoppard’s life and work
Kenneth Ewing – Stoppard’s long-term agent
1963 – sees production of Hamlet
Thinks there’s potential in a play about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
1964 – Stoppard receives Ford Foundation Grant to live in Berlin and continue to write
Produced one-act version called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear
Work offers a preview of Stoppard’s concern with identity as performative and unstable

6. Overview of Stoppard’s life and work
1967 – Stoppard sends reworked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theatre where it is rejected
Stoppard sends play to Oxford Playhouse
Play is reviewed as an “erudite comedy, punning, far- fetched, leaping from depth to dizziness…”
Review caught attention of Kenneth Tynan – literary manager for National Theatre in London
1967 – Tynan produces play at National Theatre
1st National Theatre production to be transferred to NYC

7. Stoppard’s work Primary links between Stoppard’s works:
Constant attention to identity and performance
Concern with philosophical dialogue that touches on identity and a person’s place in the world
Manic and antic imagination
Especially in Travesties, the meta-theatrical (breaking the 4th wall – directly addressing audience)

8. Origin of R&G Are Dead
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern not central players in Hamlet.
Old school-friends of Hamlet who are summoned by King Claudius and Queen Gertrude to figure out what is causing Hamlet to behave strangely.

9. Origin of R&G Are Dead
The play relocates Ros and Guil from the sidelines of Hamlet to the center stage
Since much of what concerns Stoppard is the role of the theatre and performance in human life, the Player in Hamlet has a major voice in R&G Are Dead

10. Origin of R&G Are Dead
Ros and Guil have more distinctive personalities whenever they’re alone on stage with the Player
Guil = Existentialist (“why are we here?”)
Ros = clueless (reacts without reflection, scattered)
Ros and Guil are trapped in the action of Shakesepare’s script
There are verbatim renditions of what happens in Hamlet in R&G Are Dead

11. Origin of R&G Are Dead Ros and Guil are paired inexorably together
Indistinguishable from each other, which is part of the crisis for the characters
Later in the play, they can hardly maintain separate identities

12. Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism
Literary forebears
Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism

13. realism
How do Ros and Gul go from being decidedly minor characters in Shakespeare to center stage in the 1960s play by Stoppard?
Rise of Realism – allows for narrative attention to be lavished on modest people
Realism allows for common people to become central protagonists of great works.
As 20th century proceeds, these common heroes develop into antiheroes

14. Modernism
Modernism: protagonist is irreconcilably alienated from his/her social world
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – speaker has “seen the moments of greatness flicker” and comes to grips with the fact that his youthful ambitions will never be realized.

15. Realism vs. Modernism
The realist desires to hold a mirror up to nature and reflect it as is.
The Modernist is dissatisfied with this picture of the world because it leaves out much of what lies beneath the surface.
Freud: subconscious, unconscious, and psychic structures of a human’s identity (id, ego, superego)
Superego influences identity – acts as internal judge of actions and enforces civilizing qualities that repress humans’ baser instincts
Modernist literature has elements like dreams, jokes, and slips of tongue to express inaccessible forces working in a character’s inner world

16. Modernism The modernist challenges narrative traditions
Breaks up chronology within a text
Often uses devices like stream-of-consciousness in narrations, fragments, experiences of epiphany
Inner experience is not symmetrically arranged – allows writers to explore interior consciousness
Revelations come not in chronological progression but in pieces

17. Modernism
Friedrich Nietzsche – overarching complaint was inherent submissiveness of humanity in the current state of Christianity
Wanted humans to seize the will to power and realize the creation of self as the ubermensch or superman
Superman responds to crisis in civilization – creates and defines new values for society rather than retreating to the “values of the herd”