G. Thompson
The next several classes each take an aspect of kairos and look at questions raised. Tonight's focus is on ethics.
Is exigence discovered or created? Are we archers or weavers?
Bitzer and Vatz: There may be a prior question about exigency. Before we talk about ethics, do we even have the capability of influencing events? So much of what Bitzer says is out of our control, a matter of the rhetorical situation. However, Vatz argues that this is itself out of proportion, that the rhetor (or more generally, agent) has some capability for making a situation rhetorical.
These are matters which we can put to situations in Hamlet.
Plato: "Chance [tyche] and occasion [kairos] cooperate with God in the control of all human affairs" (54) For Plato, "the time of kairos is seen as an ontological element in the basic structure of things . . . the occasion itself is not of human devising." (54)
If so, what role is there for ethics?
How does Bitzer fit into this discussion? [From last week-- Kairos in the rhetorical dimension is about suitability to context--even the best dirty joke is out of place at a funeral. Bitzer focuses here so much upon context that he seems to argue that the context calls forth the speech or writing. "The Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Churchill's Address on Dunkirk, John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address--each is a clear instance of rhetoric and each indicates the presence of a situation." (300)
"Rhetorical discourse . . . does obtain its character-as-rhetorical from the situation which generates it." (302) Further discussion on 302, highlighted passage. "Rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action." (302)
Key term exigence or exigency--something can happen. It's "an imperfection marked by urgency"--something needs to be done. Cf. below--the Ghost appears to Hamlet and charges him with revenge. That creates the exigence for Hamlet to act, but when will he have the opportunity? Exigence "specifies the audience to be addressed and the change to be effected" (305).
The situation can be said to create the rhetorical utterance, says Bitzer, in the sense that a question can be said to create the answer (303); it counts as rhetoric only because of the situation or context--spoken in a void, it's not rhetorical, because it doesn't (potentially at least) alter reality. Not all rhetorical situations result in rhetoric (304).]
What rhetorical situations is Hamlet in, and how does he respond? 1.2, first appearance. He can't say anything of substance. 1.4 and 1.5--the ghost, then Horatio and Marcellus. Reported behavior toward Ophelia, 2.1. Conversations with Polonius, 2.2; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, 2.2, 3.3; Ophelia, 3.1, 3.2; with Gertrude, 3.4.
List of constraints upon the situation--what limits the possibilities? For Hamlet, he's searching for the right moment to kill Claudius.
"If it makes sense to say that situation invites a 'fitting' response, then situation must somehow prescribe the response that fits." (307) Context delimits the terms of kairos. The implication here is that we have to be in harmony with the moment, the context, etc., in order to act.
Bitzer notes that fictional representations of situations are fictional, "not grounded in history," representations of rhetoric rather than rhetoric.
"Situations grow and come to maturity; they evolve to just the time when a rhetorical discourse would be most fitting." (309) In Bitzer's formulation, you cannot force kairos, you have to wait for the time when the moment is right. (Diana Ross: "You can't hurry love, no, you just have to wait . . .") So is that Hamlet's problem, that he never finds the right moment?
Exigence would not be present in a perfect world. But in our world, "the world really invites change--change conceived and effected by human agents who quite properly address a mediating audience. The practical justification of rhetoric is analogous to that of scientific inquiry: the world presents objects to be known, puzzles to be resolved, complexities to be understood. . . . similarly, the world presents imperfections to be modified by means of discourse." (310)
Vatz--the opening to Bitzer's essay doesn't describe the rhetorical situation, but how the rhetor feels about it; the exigence to speak is in his/her head, not in the situation (461).
The nature of meaning: Bitzer's perspective is that meaning is out there--a realist philosophy. Meaning is in the chair or cow or rebellion objectively, and comes from the thing, not from our perception of the thing.
Three components before discourse, "exigence, audience, and constraints"--Vatz takes on the first of these. "Any exigence is an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, and obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing that is other than it should be" (Bitzer). The "ethical imperative exists separate from its interpreters." (462) Really?
Is there a straw man hereabouts?
We learn about events from those who communicate their meaning to us. What the context is, depends on how it is interpreted. "One never runs out of context." "'The critical question . . . is what accounts for the choice by political spectators and participants of what to organize into a meaningful structure and what to ignore.'" (Murray Edelman, Politics as Symbolic Action.)
Obviously that principle of selection is an ethical matter. Selected elements have salience or presence; translation of information into meaning is "an act of creativity." (463)
"Meaning is not discovered in situations, but created by rhetors." (463) The analogy is not archery but weaving.
Language is value-laden (cf. Bakhtin).
"If you view meaning as intrinsic to situations, rhetorical study becomes parasitic to philosophy, political science, and" other disciplines; "If, on the other hand, you viuew meaning as a consequence of rhetorical creation, your paramount concern will be how and by whom symbols create the reality to which people react" (464).
Bitzer's example of rhetorical situations are all created as such (e.g., Cuban Missile Crisis).
We'll look at this conflict again next week after reading Scott Consigny's take on it.
Kjeldsen--much of this has been covered (definition of kairos, archer vs. weaver, importance of propriety). He divides kairos into weaker and stronger components, the first about shaping discourse to audience and context, the second on "the very foundations of what determines and characterizes rhetorical discourse," "what rhetoric does in the world." (250)
Because kairos is so much of the moment, it defies being a techne (art or science, something to be approached methodically). (250)
Stronger concept--"the indeterminacy and situatedness of communication" and "the uniqueness and unpredictability of situations." (250)
Discussion of Bitzer in connection with "a contemporary rhetorical techne." (251)
Contemporary reconceptualizations of kairos: "Rhetorical genres are conventionalized kairotic moments." The moment directs the rhetor to talk (Bitzer). Ref. to Miller--we'll read her later.
Kairos and ethics
Tapper: "In the ethical domain kairos appears as justice or the proper measure according to merit or what is 'due' to an individual in an order of equality." (56)
If we consider the definition of kairos to involve right timing and right proportion, what do we mean by right? Is it simply a matter of success? Or are there ethical questions involved?
Take the situation of a car salesman. Kairos in this case might mean finding the right moment to press ahead for a sale, to duck back to pretend to talk with the manager about how low the price can go, or to make use of other sales devices. But ethics is not a consideration for a successful car salesman--she only needs to make that sale, not to worry about whether the customer can afford that new car or whether they really need to pay extra for the leather seats and undercoating. Self-interest would lead to loading on the extras.
Or take a new member of Congress. Kairos is certainly a consideration in the passing of laws--timing and proportion matter a good deal in the rhetorical situations involved. But the context includes not only what happens on the floor, in committee meetings, and in offices--there's also constituent support and campaign money to think about. In many cases support or opposition will get you money to run again, or a difficult challenger to run against.
Kairos in some circumstances can look like opportunism: in combative circumstances, a debater might look for the weak point in an opponent's argument, and intervene at the right moment and in the right amount to persuade auditors of her/his position, irrespective of whether the position is ethical and the means of persuasion truthful. Similarly, the critical thinking used to analyze kairos can potentially take place without regard to whether the result is or is not ethical. Rhetoric and critical thinking in this way of considering are amoral tools, available for demagogues and scoundrels as much as good actors.
Is kairos a matter of those actions which will allow you to be persuasive and to attain your goals? Or does it require considerations of what is right--of justice?
In the context of debate, kairos might seem to be amoral, a matter not only of opportunity but of opportunism. However, the Sophists [Gorgias at least] took care to ground the concept of kairos in concerns about justice. The ethical argument relies on an insistence that kairos has long been based upon justice, in awareness of how one's personal advantage must be sought in conjunction with how it affects others. [Untersteiner notes in his account of Gorgias' Funeral Oration the connection to justice, enacted at the moment of self-sacrifice: "the act of cognition capable of being transformed into action cannot come from a rigorously logical law but from the persuasive force of logos which is released in the instant of the decision [kairos] which has as its object . . . 'the right thing at the right moment'." (177)] Phillip Sipiora and William H. Race both speak to ways in which kairos links justice and aesthetics; the sense is that kairotic action is not only right ethically, but satisfying aesthetically.
Benedikt, notes on kairos and ethics
It's an easy assumption to say that chronos is "objective" and "ontological," while kairos is "qualitative and experiential" (226--from Smith). In this way of thinking about it, kairos is a grouping of "discontinuous and unprecedented occasions . . . Kairic time . . . marks opportunities that might not recur, moments of decision . . . kairos is interpretive, situational and, thus, 'subjective.'" (226)
"concern for kairos begins with an effort to recognize opportunity, making one sensitive to the critical character of moments that require decision." (227) Where is the resistance to making such an effort? This can be related to Bitzer: how do speakers recognize the rhetorical situation and respond to it? In the classroom, how do you note a "teachable moment"?
"Being on time ethically speaking"--contrast Trump's first statements after Hurricane Harvey, in which he bragged about the size of the turnout to hear him speak and said vague words of praise about the effort. This surpassed George W.'s "Heckuva job, Brownie" after Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricanes and other weather events are becoming more intense because of global warming--warmer sea water at the surface leads to strengthening wind conditions. But the EPA head, Scott Pruitt, says that now is not the time to talk about climate change--that would be "insensitive." Really? Seems like the perfect kairotic moment to me.
Empathy: Insistence that kairos must be based upon a desire for justice, in awareness of how one's personal advantage should be sought only in conjunction with how it affects others. A classic example is the well-known tragedy of the commons. The paradigm case is a grazing area used by a number of livestock owners: each one taken individually can gain an advantage (fatter sheep) by overgrazing the pasture; however, if everyone follows this pattern, the land will suffer. Individual benefit pursued without attention to the common good results in mutual disadvantage or even destruction. Thomas Hobbes' solution to this situation involves a leviathan or tyrant who is given (or seizes) control so as to keep the anarchic self-assertion in check. However, the common good can be addressed democratically through negotiation, empathy, and critical thinking about mutual interest. The parable about common grazing area can be updated to apply to overfishing of the ocean, overpopulation, concentration of wealth in the class structure, and many other areas of contemporary life. One problem we face is the lack of an evident crisis in this scenario--for example, with the problem of global warming. Collectively, everyone on earth will prospectively suffer from increasing greenhouse gases and a rise in temperature, either directly from heat in desert areas, loss of habitat near the ocean, and diminished agricultural land, or indirectly from more intense hurricanes and other storms, along with other factors. But because climate changes very slowly, it is difficult to credit predictions of disaster, and in the meantime it is simply easier and more convenient to continue individual behavior which contributes to global warming. And it is more gratifying to pay attention to what affects us individually in the short term and consider the common threat to survival as someone else's problem.
Kairos holds principally at times of crisis, which originally applied in three areas--medical (will the patient recover?), civic (what is the appropriate political response?), and juridical (is punishment or acquittal appropriate?). Life or death may be up to the gods--or chance--but in the other two contexts ethical action is paramount. As with many other contemporary issues, we can find anticipation in ancient Greece. Prior to the application of kairos to Christian concepts of the transcendental becoming immanent--which have reinforced and intensified for believers the implications of kairos, based on the term's importance in the New Testament--kairos was connected to the Greek motif of moderation and the linkage of the ethical and the aesthetic. Untersteiner makes this case in The Sophists. "The philosophers of [the Pythagorean school] saw in [kairos] one of the laws of the universe, which were thus valid in general as well as in particular. . . . This function of [kairos]has its roots in the Pythagorean doctrine of the opposites, which, bound together by harmony, give life to the universe" (Untersteiner 110-11). Kairos becomes the key term for Gorgias, in the sense of the right action at the right moment, and is universalized by the Pythagoreans as the basis for becoming reconciled to "the conflict between order and chaos the rhythm of which traverses the essence of the universe" (Untersteiner 176).
There was in the ancient world no principle such as l'art pour l'art, in which the beautiful is separated from the pursuit of truth; rather, kairos spoke to a fundamental unity between the aesthetic and the moral. "The moral consciousness cannot accept situations repugnant to its own inner concept that demands an ordered world. The contrast between this and the actual world is one of the most characteristic aspects of that which we call 'tragic,' and this occurs when 'into the ethically ordered world in which we believe we live there bursts the terrifying and shattering element of chaos. Metaphysical faith in a meaning of the universe, in the goodness and rationality of the God who rules, begins to waver.' [quotation is from J. Koerner, Tragik und Tragödie, "Preussische Jahrbuch" 225 1931, I p. 63] The tragic therefore is a metaphysical category, based on the conflict between order and chaos the rhythm of which traverses the essence of the universe." [Ref. as well to P. Friedlaender, Die Griechische Tragödie und das Tragische, 'Die Antike', I, 1925, p. 5] Michael Carter addresses this idea of the sophists as well: "For the Pythagoreans, kairos represents an 'overall sense of rightness--a critical point in time and space . . . the conflict and resolution of form and matter that initiated the creation of the universe and all that is therein'" (Carter 102).
Connection between ethical and aesthetic:
Some sophists, however, suppress this connection between the aesthetic and the ethical in pursuit of persuasion so as to gain their ends through deception. Isocrates can sound amoral in his advocacy for use of any means, even deception, as the basis of persuasion: "eloquence aims at the art of persuasion and at that of pursuing one's own advantage: for the purpose of persuasion, any means is good; one must count on the stupidity and base instincts of the crowd and say the things which they like to hear." (Untersteiner 199) Such an opportunistic view is not that of other sophists such as Gorgias: "'ironically but with truth' the sophist portrays rhetoric in all its power, which can be exhibited both for good and evil: the orator should make good use of this art, which is what it is because reality is what it is. It cannot be claimed that the epistemological essence of rhetoric is opposed to that of the universe." (Untersteiner 199)
Thus for some at least, kairos attains an ethical value beyond simple opportunity or finding the right tactic to win a debate. Rather, it can be connected at best to performance integrated into the world, as Coessens argues. "Kairos should not be considered as some sort of 'opportunistic' decision, in the sense of egocentric, inequitable, profitable action. At the contrary, in considering the concept of kairos not only as an integral part of the rhetorician's particular act, but also broader, as part of the position of the rhetorician towards art, audience, and the world." (277)
Untersteiner on Gorgias: "Gorgianic rhetoric stressed the pure subjectivity, spontaneity, and creativity of kairos that invites one to 'seize the time.' For Gorgias, kairos names moments of 'willful imposition of choice on conflicting opportunities.'" (228) We are at a decision point between direction A and direction B; they are equally probable; so kairos means that we put our weight behind one or another outcome. Perceiving the opportunity and acting on it are matters of creativity.
"This commitment [to seeing all events split into opposing viewpoints] resulted in Gorgias's denial of rational explanations of experience . . . since every decision is an imposition of one of the opposing viewpoints or alternatives upon an otherwise irreducible antithesis. All interpretive judgment, therefore, is fundamentally irrational, a matter of seizing the kairos." (228)
Sounds Nietzschean--impose your will upon reality. I'm readier than this to kick the stone: there were not millions of illegal voters pulling the lever for Hillary Clinton.
Argument for "kairic spontaneity and radical openness to chance" as an avenue to creativity.
"For Gorgias, kairos never becomes a principle or a doctrine for organizing human history." (229) How can you have foreknowledge of chance?
I would question this: those involved in improvisational arts don't know all the elements they will have to use to improvise, but they can game out potential situations and responses. There can be a readiness to adapt in the moment.
Which of the opposing poles do we incline toward--"tradition, memories, and the historical record"? or "the spontaneity of the moment" (229)? These may be false alternatives, but we can talk about tendencies rather than extremes.
About the idea that everything can be approached from two opposite perspectives, and that we have to suppress awareness of the value of the one in order to assert the value of the other . . . “Poulakos, based on his analysis of two of Gorgias' speeches, portrays the role of kairos as both 'a prompting toward speaking and a criterion of the value of a speech,' that is, it is the conflicting elements within a situation that create the impetus for a rhetorical act and it is the appropriateness to the situation that determines the value of the speech. Poulakos, thus, suggests a double role for kairos: first, the need for oratory to "take into account and be guided by the temporality of the situation in which it occurs,” and second, the impetus for discourse, the tension in the situation that stimulates the rhetor to speak (39-41 )” (104)
“Action, therefore, is inevitably nonrational because it must be taken despite the knowledge of opposing positions. Sophistic rhetoric, according to Untersteiner, must be understood in these terms: "'I know the irreconcilable conflicts and yet I act"' (161).”(Carter 105)
I think this gives us some clues about the situation of Hamlet. He knows the ghost's command to revenge his murder (while leaving Gertrude alone). But he cannot be sure about several things--was it really his father's ghost? Claudius doesn't act guilty--he wants to have conviction of his guilt. And then there is the matter of surveillance and plotting against Hamlet himself--he needs to throw that off. If it were a straightforward matter of revenge, as in Laertes' case, there's no need for philosophizing (unless you believe that revenge is itself wrong).
"Crucial to the understanding of kairos, however, is its ethical dimension. Gorgias and other sophists were not the skeptics and opportunists that the Platonic tradition has painted them. Kairos, because of its ethical connotations in Greek culture, was ideal for a rhetoric grounded in a relativistic epistemology; it showed how the sophists attempted to come to judgment in as ethical a way as possible within the limitations of a relativistic universe. It was not simply saying what the audience wanted to hear, as the connotations of sophistry suggest, but it was facing squarely the tragic notion that all logos is "deception” and acting on the basis of what at the crucial time seemed to be the truest logos.”(Carter 105-106)
So should Hamlet act on the basis of what is most probably true? When the act is murder, that's a tall order.
Ethical attention to kairos depends not only upon subjective judgment, but also on reality which is independent of interpretation (227). See Smith on winemaking.
"The most significant change I can make to the moment often occurs, simply, by increasing or decreasing how much of the situation I am aware of." (230) Or: "a sense of kairos depends on a sufficient degree of self-knowledge to be able to assess the situational context in the first place." (230)
In a relativistic world, there is some truth to opposite sides of (practically?) any proposition; yet in the kairotic moment one must choose. There is therefore, according to Gorgias, an element of deception involved in any persuasion, no matter how ethical the end. Persuasion necessarily involves an element of irony, then, because the speaker is withholding some aspects which might work against his cause.
"As Gorgias explained, one cannot evaluate the kairic fit of an action to a particular moment without considering the response of others." (231) Thus the need for empathy.
"Failure to grasp how the objective qualities of a moment shape interpretive judgment can lead to ethically bad results." (233)
Not all of the discussion about the Sophists is directly applicable to kairos, but we should go where it takes us and see.
The connection between kairos and ethical action, in Gorgias' philosophy, is based on the principle that nothing is unmixed--everything contains two opposite qualities. (Zero degrees Celsius will be considered cold in one context, hot in another.) "In order 'to make the same thing, according to circumstances, appear either beautiful or ugly, just or unjust;' this was explicitly said in that Pythagorean teaching which explained the rhetorical method of creating either meaning by a use of the theory of opposites, which justifies καιροζ." It is for this reason that arguments can be constructed which take opposite stances on any question. Dissoi logoi is based in recognition that reality is messy, and Gorgias' view kairos requires a tragic recognition of this complexity. "The Pythagorean conception by which 'all things are composed of opposite qualities' and 'a link, άρμονία, . . . reduces these opposites to a unity, giving life to the universe,' must have led within this philosophical system to an instruction conscious of the difficulties implicit in it" (Untersteiner 119-20)
Example:
Aristotle criticizes Sophists such as Protagoras because their practices turn the weaker case into the stronger one. Assuming the ability to succeed in such practices--e.g., "if the glove don't fit, you must acquit"--is it morally discreditable? More generally this is a question about the ethics of rhetorical sophistry. Kairos in the sense of awareness of context and developed skill at timely intervention might equip someone to perform such persuasion, independently of what is just in any given case.
Protagoras' statement that "man is the measure of all things" is considered to be a statement of subjectivism: truth is judged on the basis of the experience or belief of the individual making the judgment. So if the day feels cool to me but warm to another person, it is cool to me and warm to her. Or in terms of ethics, it may be generally wrong to steal a loaf of bread, but in some context (disaster, or the threat of starvation), it would be acceptable. Socrates (in the dialogue) argumentatively extends this principle of subjectivity to all beliefs, not just weather or bread-stealing, so that there is no objective truth or ethical principles on any matter. An alternative position is that truth is socially determined: marriage to one's cousin is considered incest and forbidden in some societies, permitted in others (e.g., Jane Austen's England). Or--regicide is a great wrong, except when the king is your uncle who has murdered your father, and your father's ghost has charged you with revenging his death.
Is social morality a product of custom or of nature? Are our norms of behavior "mere products of human customs, conventions or beliefs," or do they derive from "reality"? Callicles in Gorgias comes off like an Ayn Rand reader--the ruthless, strong individual is justified in taking whatever he likes, because in nature the stronger animal does so; laws and conventions are social inventions to contravene nature. If we had a magic ring which made us invisible, would we "all seek our own interest without restraint"?
The Sophists--section on religion doesn't pertain to us.
Comments on Gorgias (under "Other Sophists")
He teaches "a technique of persuasion, which is in itself value-free, but is capable of being employed for whatever purposes, good or bad, are adopted" // to martial arts.
Pair this quote with the invisible ring idea above: if one becomes skilled in persuasion, then do we need ethics still more?
Prominence of persuasion in the achievement of excellence--this is worth a long conversation.
In contemporary usage, rhetoric is often associated with misrepresentation, spin, and bullshit, in contrast to a plain statement of truth. However, connected with ethical causes, rhetoric is approved as a means of building conviction and moving to action.
“Poulakos, based on his analysis of two of Gorgias' speeches, portrays the role of kairos as both 'a prompting toward speaking and a criterion of the value of a speech,' that is, it is the conflicting elements within a situation that create the impetus for a rhetorical act and it is the appropriateness to the situation that determines the value of the speech. Poulakos, thus, suggests a double role for kairos: first, the need for oratory to "take into account and be guided by the temporality of the situation in which it occurs,” and second, the impetus for discourse, the tension in the situation that stimulates the rhetor to speak (39-41 )”(104)
Discussion topics:
Kjeldsen sees us as now in a "sophistic condition": "In a world of globalization, pluralism, convergence, mediatization, and technological changes, rhetorical situations have become more complex, fragmented, changeable, and incalculable." (253-54)
Example--the cartoon crisis in Denmark in 2005, in which cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed sparked riots and violence well outside of Denmark. Cf. also Charlie Hebdo.
"Utterances, conduct, everything that can be represented through words, sounds, and pictures take on a life of their own in a fragmented, uncontrollable public sphere." (254) What does this mean for kairos? "Increased speed and compression of time in society and communication."
Is there a general answer, or is everything context-specific? That is, is it ever OK just to go for the win, or do we always have to weigh decisions out carefully, or do these have to be decided piecemeal?
Is kairos a skill or a virtue? (230)
Hamlet--
2.1 Polonius to Reynaldo--snoop on Laertes in Paris
Ophelia's description of Hamlet's "mad" behavior.
2.2 Claudius and Gertrude; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They want to make use of Hamlet's friends.
What is the ethical situation for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
Polonius' entrance--he's discovered the cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
"More matter with less art." Here as in Laertes' farewell, Polonius goes on far too long.
What would they have thought, had Polonius given this his blessing? He's trying to ingratiate himself with them still further.
They'll spy upon Hamlet . . .
Polonius and Hamlet (reading a book). Meeting with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet asks why they are there--kairos in terms of timing.
2.2.264 ff.--Hamlet sees nothing good--subjectivity, "nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." Diversion with players.
Polonius enters--again, he goes on too much, showing off his wisdom.
57 First player, speech .
"Look, where he has not turned his color, and has tears in's eyes." Violation of decorum.
2.2.487 Rogue and peasant slave soliloquy--Hamlet says that his actions do not fit the kairos of the moment--he hasn't acted. Also--the player is carried away by his speech, while Hamlet, who has much greater motivation than a fiction, hasn't acted yet.
"The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." He's not just thought of this.
3.1 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern report to the king--
"Niggard of question, but of our demands / Most free in his reply." That's not what we saw.
Hamlet to Ophelia, while Claudius and Polonius are watching.
3.1.90 Ophelia is returning his love letters because he's been untrue or unkind. I don't get this--isn't she the one who has rejected him, on Daddy's orders?
3.1.130 "Where's your father?" Ophelia lies.
3.1.162 Claudius has seen enough--it's not love. "All but one--shall live."
3.2 Hamlet's instructions to the players are all about kairos in the delivery of their parts. "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature."
Timing of the play--watch Claudius to see his reaction.
Hamlet's remarks to Ophelia are inappropriate there and then--
Interruption of the play to say what's going on.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern--mom wants to talk to you. Hamlet's business with the recorder.
3.3 Bellerophonic letters to accompany Hamlet to England. Polonius is going to spy on him and Gertrude.
Claudius' soliloquy--kairos here in the inappropriateness of asking for forgiveness while holding onto the profits of your sin.
Hamlet--could kill him now, but the timing is off--he would go to heaven, whereas Hamlet's father was killed with all his sins on his head. Hamlet wants to find a better time to kill Claudius
3.4 Hamlet to Gertrude.
Each accuses the other of inappropriate behavior--lack of respect to Claudius, participation in Hamlet's murder. Hamlet kills Polonius--here, an overreaction, bad timing, an akairotic moment.
Context--the two portraits. "Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountttain leave to feed, / and batten on this moor?"
The ghost appears.
Was Polonius "a foolish prating knave"?