Talk:Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

message: I hate to be nitpicky, but the title is with an "&". I'm looking at my copy of the play right now, and every page where the title is used is with an "&". I don't think naming conventions on Wikipedia (if that's the problem) apply when it's actually in the title. PS: The movie title however, is indeed with an "and", but this article concerns the play.
-Yossarian
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I have no opinion on which is the correct way of rendering the title - I do, however, request that any future attempts to rename the article be executed using the "Move this page" function provided (see Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page), and not by manually copying the text of the article as at least one person recently did.
--Paul A 08:43, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Just as a historical footnote: I think the reason the article was originally at "and" rather than "&" is because in older versions of the software it wasn't possible to have ampersands in article titles. --Camembert 01:53, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a version of the play (faber and faber 2000) that uses "and", not an ampersand, and I've never seen it written with an ampersand except on Wikipedia.
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You know the game of questions they play, scored in the tennis system? Is this a real game? I used to play it with friends in school, but we got the idea from the movie. We called it "Questions". I could not find an entry in Wikipedia. --Chinawhitecotton 08:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't know what the first origins of the game, which is indeed called "Questions", were, but I know it's commonly played by improvisational actors (like the games on the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?), so it probably predates the play. Improv groups play it for fun, to practice thinking on their feet, and sometimes for an audience. Some actually do keep score like in the play and movie (but even then it's mostly just for fun). Using the tennis scoring system was most likely Stoppard's idea, though. --Sommers 02:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 2004-6

message: This article claims that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead displays existentialism. If anything, I think this play would be the very opposite of existentialism. According to Dictionary.com, existentialism is, "A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts." In this play, Ros and Guil accept no responsibility for thier actions and see no point in making any choices, as they see thier fate as predetermined. They do not think of the consequences (of their actions) as a factor of thier existence. A play cannot be both deterministic and existentialist. (Anon, 69.105.80.9)
: I agree. Leibniz 20:03, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Still, the play is strongly associated with existentialism: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22rosencrantz+and+guildenstern%22+existentialism Robin Johnson 15:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding was that it is associated with absurdism, which is related to, but distinct from, existentialism.  This is discussed in the link in the article to the lecture by the Canadian professor.  A google search is pretty silly to demonstrate something like that.  Find actual quotes that call the play existentialist. john k 17:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the play is probably better described as "existential" rather than "existentialist" - it is concerned with existence and with the debate between free will and determinism - very much so - but is not promoting one view over another, i.e. it doesn't take an existentialist view.  That said, my personal observation of the play is that it is simply about the futility of life. R&G wake up, not know where they are, and spend most of the play trying to figure out what they are meant to be doing, having had an incomplete instruction ("glean what afflicts him") from the King.  This is perhaps a metaphor for the incomplete and unsatisfactory explanations for existence that all humans get from religion, philosophy, politics or science.  In any case, they pursue this instruction faithfully, trying to please both Hamlet and the King, and end up dead.  As a great philosopher once said, "It's just life." Indeed, the first reference (to the Independent article) says "existential tragicomedy", hence I have made that change. Dotdotdotcomma (talk) 13:45, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Existentialism? I think not 

message: Wouldn't be wikipedia without an irrelevant video game reference at the bottom of the page.
: Get rid of it!--Genobeeno 19:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done --Yossarian 30px| 07:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrelevant video game reference - bye! 

message: I learned from my english teacher, whom I trust, that the term for literature which includes wholesale text from its parent literature is called--without POV--a "contamination."  It also had another italian term, something like "contaminatio."  Unfortunately I can't find it in any dictionary.  Can anyone verify this term?  Citizen Premier 22:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "contamination" 

message: The article is essentially unreferenced. The play itself is a perfectly good citation for the plot but really the claims about themes ought to come from somewhere other than Wikipedians' own views. - Jmabel | Talk 22:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced 

message: Just a quick thought, the Dark Horse Comics series Tag and Blink are Dead play obvius homage to this story, as the series focuses on two random background characters in the original Star Wars trilogy. As a side note, that series might take its name from the Blink tag in HTML code which, according to that article, is figuratively dead... - Kevingarcia 06:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tag & Blink are Dead 

message: has anyone created a userbox for fans of the play? Myrockstar 02:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  User box 

message: Should the page include the rules for the game? The page says it's "nearly impossible to follow logically" but that's just not true, it's easy to follow.76.201.154.220 (talk) 04:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rules of "Questions" 

message: This article has been renamed from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as the result of a move request.
 - move as per WP:MOS. Keith D (talk) 21:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd have to agree. Wrad (talk) 23:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: I can't get the play's cover to shrink to a more normal size; the infobox just isn't accepting my changes. Can someone else help?—ScouterSig 00:23, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  cover picture size 

message: Unless I missed it, the article fails to mention the missed discoveries of physical principles, at least in the cinema version. One of the characters will play with a series of clay jugs hung from the ceiling and discover that bouncing the end jug into the next one causes the jug at the opposite end to bounce (just as in the "executive toy" consisting of silver-colored ball bearings suspended by nylon threads). But when he demonstrates this intriguing device to the other, he draws the end jug back too far and it merely breaks, spilling its contents.
Other examples include almost discovering the ancient Greek principle of steam power (the Hero or Heronas archetype of steam blowing against a homemade pinwheel), a scientific experiment in which a ball falls far more quickly than a feather, almost discovering one or more of the laws of gravity when one character is accidentally hit on the head by a falling apple (erroneously supposed to have happened to Newton when a child), and almost having a Eureka moment in the bath when one character notices that a toy boat moves up when he displaces water in the tub (instead of having the Eureka moment, he is distracted by the naked backside of a woman, who turns out to be a man).
Don't all these interesting, comical moments deserve mention in the article? David (talk) 21:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the physics section (before seeing this comment by David) because it doesn't appear in the play itself. It could be added to the film's article, though. Olaf Davis (talk) 18:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I would hope Stoppard approved, seeing as he wrote and directed the film version himself. 75.82.40.177 (talk) 05:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Physics 

message: just wondering, but it seems that the Sources section might have some title error involved. it's unclear whether the original writer was saying that this play has the earlier play R&G (without the 'are dead' in the title) as a source as well- which is possible (though i'm not sure, i've never read or seen that play)- or if they simply didn't bother to write out the full title. i fixed the first of two such instances because it was obviously an error, but this sentence i can't tell if it's an error or intentional:
"The title is taken directly from a passage by an ambassador in the final scene of Hamlet that is quoted in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern."
anyone have any insights on this?
-eristikophiles  —Preceding undated comment added 01:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources section; titles 

message: in the summary of act 1 it states that heads is flipped 97 times later it says 92 can someone clarify which is correctCameronpb (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked back at the article archive for 2006/7 and it was recorded as 92. So I changed it back to that. (To do that look under "View History" then "Revision history search"). I presume it was some undetected vandalism. What for, I can't imagine. Did it make someone's day? I certainly hope so.  Spanglej (talk) 21:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  number of coin flips 

message: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have much different personalities in RAGAD then in Hamlet.--Johnny 42 (talk) 15:13, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Has anyone noticed this? 

message: Is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead a comedy?  Or is it something else?  (It's funny, but I don't know if that is enough to make it a comedy.) RJFJR (talk) 14:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead describes it as an "existentialist tragicomedy". I'd go with that. Its lifeblood is wit and word play and it seems to me to want to entertain the audience and make them laugh at various points.  Are you asking with reference to the article? Span (talk) 02:41, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Why are editors determing the genre? That should be sourced, or else it's just original research. Dougweller (talk) 08:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comedy? 

message: Is that just Mr. Stoppard's poetic muse going crazy in 1966 or so?  Or put it the other way around: is the only way to make sense of Israel 1948-present from a US perspective that way that Binyamin Netanyahu described in a home video made at a supporter's home in about 2002: that it's "absurd" the support Israel gets from the US?  Am I clashing existentialism and absurdism too much?
It's hard to believe that Mr. Stoppard had no purpose or interest at all in the Hamlet plot element itself, such as it is represented in his play.  The article should delve into that.
A quick Googling discloses no obvious discussions of this point on the internet but also that Mr. Stoppard's four grandparents were Jewish.
So again my question: is it irrelevant in the play that they are Jewish (but are they?) and (diplomatic) assassins?
When was it that it was illegal for a Jew to spend the night within the city limits in England?  An introduction, written in the 1940's or so, perhaps by Humphrey House, perhaps for an Oxford U. Press edition, to "Oliver Twist" (you know, with the "hideous" "Jew"--appparently Dickens stopped calling him "the Jew" half way through, after complaints during the serialization, yes, Fagin, who is chief of the pick-pockets), delved into that history a bit but on the other hand apparently found nothing blameworthy in it.  Is that Mr. Stoppard's point?
Christopher Hill mentions in his work on Oliver Cromwell that one of the Dictator's uncompleted jobs was to bring back the expelled Jews to England and send them down to Palestine so as to usher in the Second Coming.  That was a few decades after Shakespeare's death.
First thing last: are they supposed to be Jewish?  Wiki says these were both common Scandinavian names--of nobility, no less--in Shakespeare's time.  A single (so far--read on) current reference to this point has a commenter asking if there is any reason to believe they are Jewish aside from their names.  
Did Stoppard assume they were Jewish in Shakespeare's intention, Swedish and Danish noble families aside?
Is that Stoppard's point?  They are otherwise thoroughly ordinary bourgeois bureaucrats, helping an illegitimate king get rid of the heir apparent while maintaining some degree of plausiable deniability, even to themselves?
Are they supposed to be Jewish:  to Shakespeare?  to Stoppard?
Here is some evidence:
at http://www.enotes.com/literature-101/discuss/anti-semitism-1607, as follows:
So, this question intrigued me so much I had to do some searching. I found a Q&A forum at www.shaksper.net where someone had asked a similar question. Here are some of the answers:
The Jews most likely to be familiar to Shakespeare and his audience were Sephardic, from Spain and Portugal, and have names such as "Lopez."
It's not likely that "Rosencrantz" and "Guildenstern" would have "sounded Jewish" in London around 1600. 
No, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (in Danish: Rosencranz (rosary) and Gyldenstjerne (golden star)) are probably not intended to be Jewish names. They are in fact well known names of two
prominent Danish noble families, whose influence on the council of the realm in Denmark was considerable during both the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance (and, indeed, later). Shakespeare would have known of the names and their Danish connotations through members of these families
coming to England as ambassadors during the reign of Elizabeth.
(end)
That leaves Stoppard.  Did he think they were supposed (by Shakespeare) to be Jewish?  Did he think that playgoers in the 1960's would assume they were Jewish?
Chrisrushlau (talk) 01:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobody mentioned in the article or discussion that these characters have Jewish names and are (aren't they?) hired assassins. 

message: In the section "metatheatre", dating to 2008
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosencrantz_and_Guildenstern_Are_Dead&oldid=207887737
There is the statement 
In Hamlet, metatheatrical elements include the Player’s speech (2.2), Hamlet’s advice to the Players (3.2), and the meta-play “The Mousetrap” (3.3).
Shouldn't this be The death of Gonzago? --SV Resolution(Talk) 15:30, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this is a bad question (though it hasn't been responded to in a while). In Shakespeare's play Prince Hamlet says he is going to add lines to a play called “The Murder of Gonzago”, and then at the performance Hamlet says his adaptation is called “The Mouse-Trap.”   DagTruffle (talk) 00:38, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refs to Mousetrap -- should be Gonzago? 

message: Shouldn't there be a section on the critical reception of the play?  It's my understanding that it was critically acclaimed.96.239.121.160 (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it. Anna (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reception 

message: Could someone look at the synopsis? It reads as though written by a child.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.147.149 (talk) 11:37, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style 

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thread_title:  External links modified