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Hamlet, Uriah, and Shakespeare's Transformation of the Death Letter

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How old is the death letter motif in Hamlet, where did it come from, and is there anything special about the way Shakespeare uses it? In Hamlet, Shakespeare retains the motif of the death letter from the Danish source. Claudius sends a letter with Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet on their journey to England [4.3.67-77], but they don’t know that it orders Hamlet’s death. People in Shakespeare’s time knew this death letter motif by way of the biblical story of David’s affair with Bathsheba (circa 10c. BCE). King David sends Bathsheba’s husband Uriah to the battlefront with a letter that he is to be placed at the front of battle, and others should pull back. He is killed [1]. A later Greek version of the motif comes from the 8th century BCE myth of Bellerophon [2]. The reluctance of kings to violate rules of hospitality plays a key role in delaying fatal plans and helping Bellerophon prevail in the end. For anyone who is sad to hear of Uriah’s fate, a faithful soldier deceived b...
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Hamlet's Denmark as prison, John 14:2, and Dante

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When Hamlet says, “Denmark’s a prison…in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons,” there is a bitter, sarcastic echo of John 14:2, “In my father’s house there are many dwelling places” – but all four major reference works on Shakespeare and the Bible since 1905 ignore it [1] HAMLET What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither? GUILDENSTERN Prison, my lord? HAMLET Denmark’s a prison. ROSENCRANTZ Then is the world one. HAMLET A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst. (2.2.58-66) Compare: In my Father’s house are many dwelling places: [...] - John 14:2 [2] Instead of God sending people to their dwelling as in John 14, Fortune sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hence to Denmark as prison, in Hamlet's statement.  Why do these reference works miss or ignore this allusion? Probably for its bitter twist to sarcasm. Especially by Act 5, scene 2, Hamlet’s biblical ...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Contested Succession in Hamlet, Reformation, & Christian Scripture

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Hamlet is in part about a contested succession, a hot topic in Elizabethan England. The first line in Hamlet, “Who’s there?” sounds like “who’s th’ heir?” [1]. Hamlet believes Claudius is a murderous usurper, an illegitimate successor to his father. Contested succession applies not only to politics, but also to religion in Shakespeare’s time and Christianity in general, and to scientific authority as well. At least some people in Shakespeare’s time would have noticed that the story of Jesus is one of contested succession in which Jesus is heaven’s prince [2]. After the Roman occupation in 63 BCE, Jewish authorities were corrupted in Rome’s favor [3]. Some of these used the letter of the law to condemn the preacher and miracle-worker, Jesus, who like John the Baptist had attracted the attention and concern of Roman authorities. The gospels claim that Jesus associated with revolutionaries (zealots), and that he was crucified with a sign that mocked him as “King of the Jews.” [4] After ...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Links to Lepers in Hamlet

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LINKS TO LEPERS IN HAMLET: References to tales of famous lepers, confusion about them, and those who cared for them: 1. The ghost says the poison made his skin lazar-like (1.5), like that of the beggar Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31 [1];  - Claudius poured “the leperous distillment" in the “porches" of the ghost's ear (1.5): In some art, the beggar Lazarus is left untended on the porches of the rich man’s house.  - Ophelia’s “the owl was a baker’s daughter” (4.5) references a folktale retelling of the Luke 16 gospel tale;  - Horatio’s “angels sing thee to thy rest” (5.2) references the Requiem Mass lines based on the Lazarus story. 2. The saint-namesake of the sentinel Francisco (1.1) is Francis of Assisi, who cared for lepers, and famously kissed one [2]. (Katherine of Aragon’s confessor was a Franciscan, John Forest, burned at the stake for opposing Henry’s divorce.)   3. In medieval and Elizabethan times, leprosy and venereal disease were confused, and leprosy thou...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Delay in four Hamlet biblical echoes

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At least four biblical echoes in Hamlet besides the fall of Adam and Eve involve delay, and Elizabethans would have known each story[1]: 1. After King David’s affair with Bathsheba and arranging for the death of her husband, the prophet Nathan could have simply confronted David with his sins, but delayed to use a story to catch the king’s conscience (2 Sam 12:1-7). [2] - This is echoed in Hamlet’s use of the play to catch the conscience of the king [2.2.634]. ~~ 2. David spared King Saul when he had two chances to kill him, which delayed David’s ascension to the throne [3]. - These David-Saul tales are echoed (with a dark twist) in Hamlet’s choice not to kill Claudius at prayer [3.3.80-100]. ~~ 3. Jonah fled west to Tarshish when he was called to prophesy to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-3), delaying his prophecy. After a storm and being thrown overboard, Jonah is swallowed by a fish God sends to take him back east to do his task [4]. - Jonah’s westward voyage and east-bound transfer from ship ...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Historical reasons for Shakespeare to write a cautious Hamlet who delays

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INSTEAD OF ASKING WHY HAMLET DELAYS, let's ask: Why does Shakespeare write Hamlet that way?  Besides the execution of two wives of Henry VIII, and of many Catholics accused of treason, including Shakespeare’s relative Edward Arden in 1583 [1], what figurative ghosts may have made a cautious Shakespeare write a cautious Hamlet?  1. In February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in England for conspiring against Queen Elizabeth I, her cousin. She was found guilty and beheaded. 2. In 1594, Ferdinando Stanley, patron of the Lord Strange's Men (in which Shakespeare and many of his fellow players were active) and possible heir to Elizabeth’s throne, was poisoned after faithfully reporting a plot against Elizabeth I that may have been intended to entrap him [2].  3. In February, 1601, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, attempted a rebellion against the English government, a year and a half before Shakespeare's Hamlet first appeared in the stationer's registry (July 1602), an...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Hamlet delays to help Shakespeare write his play

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The main reason for Hamlet's delay: So that Shakespeare could write his play. Joking, of course. But absolutely serious. We can say we're impatient because we love quick and bloody revenge plots. ACTION FIGURE HAMLET! But if that's what we want, we're at the wrong play. Instead, we might choose not to be impatient because at least sometimes, we might prefer for princes to be careful to discern the truth about whether ghosts are honest, and whether kings are guilty, and whether princes who contemplate revenge are bound for heaven or “th’ other place”, as Hamlet calls it [4.3.38-9]. We might find that we like Hamlet humbly scolding himself for his own delay, and laugh at all the critics who take his impatient self-scolding too seriously, or too literally - as if Hamlet should act more quickly. Such critics may not notice how necessary it is for the play, to have Hamlet delay while Shakespeare explicates his character and that of others, and develops his plot. THE STORY:...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Hamlet-Othello and Bambi-Rambo comparisons

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IN HAMLET'S PLACE, WWOD? (What would Othello do?) At some point [1], to help understand (or make fun of?) Hamlet’s apparent indecision, someone thought this question was important, or clever. If Othello were the Prince of Denmark, he would elope with Ophelia, kill her, kill his uncle, kill Fortinbras, and commit suicide. Done. A Kenneth Branagh film version might only take 3.8 hours, tops.  Such comparisons may or may not be helpful, but they add levity to the classroom and ensure that all students might get at least one answer right on the quiz.  What would avenge a father’s death more quickly: Superman or a nuclear bomb?  Woah!  Bambi and Rambo: Both names end in a vowel, announcing their similarity in spite of their contrast.  Bring those dear MIA members of the herd home. With grenades and lots of ammo. Get ‘er done. Boom.  Shakespeare would love these comparisons. How do we know? Because of the intentional fallacy, by that comic duo, Wimsatt and Beard...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Hamlet's Indecision and Shakespeare's Mousetrap for Impatience

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Shakespeare catches the conscience of audiences impatient for action: 1. Speaking to the ghost, Hamlet says he’ll act with wings swift as... lightning? Nope. As “meditation or thoughts of love” [1.5.36]. In other words, NOT SWIFT. He's not planning swiftness but caution. 2. After the players arrive, Hamlet scolds himself for cowardice: "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! [...] A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, [...] I am pigeon-livered" [2]. Whether or not we condone revenge, we may admire Hamlet scolding himself for apparent cowardice.  3. Hamlet ends this speech saying he needs to be more certain of the ghost’s honesty and Claudius’ guilt, so he’ll put on a play to catch the conscience of the king [3]. This may inspire a public confession from Claudius. If not, then what should Hamlet do?  4. Next act: To be or not? Should Hamlet patiently tolerate the scandal of his father's murder and his mother's hasty remarriage - "suffer / The slings and arrows o...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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What does it mean that Hamlet defies augury?

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In the final scene, why does Hamlet tell Horatio, “We defy augury” [1]?  Hamlet refers to scripture often in this part of the scene - “The readiness is all” [2], “the fall of a sparrow” [3]. But augury? What might that have meant to Elizabethan audiences?  Generally, augury is related to the belief in omens and signs, as mentioned by Horatio in the first scene of the play when he speaks of omens in Roman graveyards and in the heavens,  “the like precurse of feared events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on”. [4]  Augury in the story of the founding of Rome involved Romulus and Remus observing birds to determine fate or the will of the gods: The two had survived their great uncle’s attempt to drown them (and are adopted by a she-wolf, perhaps as Laertes is figuratively adopted and manipulated by Claudius?); they argued about where to locate the city. They decided to use augury to settle the dispute, but still argued about the ou...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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Jeremy McCarter on Hamlet, excerpts, NYTimes 19 July 2025

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Jeremy McCarter [1] has a good New York Times opinion piece, “Listen to ‘Hamlet.’ Feel Better” Access requires subscription [2]. Favorite bits: ~~~ “It is we who are Hamlet,” wrote the essayist and critic William Hazlitt. [....] His circumstances may not match yours [...] but, after the traumas of the past few years, Hamlet’s sorrow is likely to feel familiar, as is his sense of powerlessness. Amid political unrest, military deployments in the streets, an unfolding climate crisis and the unforeseeable, possibly apocalyptic disruptions of A.I., who among us hasn’t felt, as Hamlet does, that “the time is out of joint”? [....] According to the textbooks, a tragedy is a story in which a hero tumbles from a lofty height. But when we first meet Hamlet, he’s already in the dumps: grief-stricken by the sudden death of his father and appalled by everything that has followed. [....] In scene after scene that follows, new discoveries violate his sense of reality, bombarding him with what he cal...
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Location: Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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