Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

CHRISTMAS IN HAMLET’S DENMARK In Hamlet (1.1), Marcellus says, “Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.” This is the longest positive quote in Shakespeare’s plays that is explicitly about Christmas. 1. Is this a foreshadowing? At some point in the play when the ghost (or spirit) no longer appears (“stirs abroad”), will this mark a rebirth or Christ-like change? Note: The ghost does not appear after Hamlet’s sea voyage, and Hamlet changes. 2. Also note that the name Marcellus alludes to two similarly named, pre-Christian historical figures mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid. Does Shakespeare take a character who alludes to people who would have been considered pagans in his own time, an...

Wonderful article: “The Difficulty is the Point” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/24/the-difficulty-is-the-point-teaching-spoon-fed-students-how-to-really-read?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Wonderful article. Not only on bridging the gap between teachers who love literature and students who often don't, but also on the business of universities, and on the sense of entitlement (and depression?) that comes from being pampered. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Links to a description of my book project: On LinkedIn : https://lnkd.in/eJGBtqV On this blog : https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html [Originally posted around the week of 12/23/17 on LinkedIn ]

"WHOEVER FIGHTS MONSTERS should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche may at least in part have been thinking of Hamlet after he accidentally kills Ophelia's dad, or of the central problem of the play: Can Hamlet kill Claudius without becoming a murderous usurper like Claudius? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Links to a description of my book project: On LinkedIn : https://lnkd.in/eJGBtqV On this blog : https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html [Originally posted around the week of 12/19/17 on LinkedIn ]

IS GERTRUDE (in part) LIKE CATHERINE OF VALOIS? If the play Hamlet seeks assessment & closure for the House of Tudor, Claudius is like Henry VIII who married a brother's widow, but Gertrude is perhaps like Catherine of Valois, whose warlike king-husband died, & she joined with "a mildew'd ear": Owen of Tudor! A lowly descendant of a Welsh rebel! Shakespeare had portrayed Catherine of Valois in Henry V, and everyone knew that after the death of her husband, Henry V, her marriage to Owen Tudor was something of a scandal, as he was not of royal blood. But their joint lineage would lead to Henry VIII. Did Catholics especially, in 1600, think something was rotten in England in part because Catherine of Valois did not remain celibate after the death of Henry V, so she joined with Owen of Tudor, and from her intemperance, more things became rotten and out of joint? A recent film version of Henry V adapted for TV stars Tom Hiddleston as Henry V...

ALL MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT PURGATORY I LEARNED FROM SHAKESPEARE'S HAMLET (with a little help from S. Greenblatt): Part I Hamlet toys with purgatory: English church adherents could think the ghost is a demon in disguise; secret Catholics, that he’s from purgatory. But note that Hamlet uses his last breaths to heal wounds that he and his father had created in life: —He offers an apology to Laertes, which Laertes rejects at first, but they later reconcile before dying. —Hamlet uses his dying breaths to give the throne to Fortinbras,* son of the man his father killed, healing a wound his father had created (and helping what remains of Dad, among the living, out of “purgatory”; some call this re-imagining metaphysics as phenomenology). (*In one sense, of course, Young Fortinbras is James, whose parent, Mary QoS, had been executed by Elizabeth, just as Old Hamlet killed Old Fortinbras.) This sort of change of heart and reconciliation works far better than causing many wou...

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Laertes conspires with Claudius to kill Hamlet. Bernard of Clairvaux conspired with church officials to condemn Peter Abelard’s ideas on the Trinity, ideas that, in a century, might not have been quite as controversial from the pen of a Thomas Aquinas. For a time, Abelard was excommunicated and silenced. Bernard later reconciled with Peter Abelard just before Abelard’s death, as Laertes reconciles with Hamlet before they die. The reconciliation of Bernard with Abelard became as important in the biography of Bernard (or more?) as Bernard's defense of the transcendent mystery of the Trinity against Abelard’s ideas. This may be yet another reason why a Hamlet sentinel is named “Bernardo.” The reconciliation of Laertes and Hamlet has no parallel in Saxo Grammaticus or François de Belleforest, usually cited as sources of the Hamlet story. Shakespeare's father was a boy during the dissolution of English monasteries associated with Bernard and Franc...

Saints exemplify bible truths. If Hamlet sentinels Francisco & Bernardo are named after saints, what bible themes (also in Hamlet) did the saints embody? Bernard of Clairvaux helped avoid schism (Jn 21:17); Henry VIII, like Claudius, married a brother’s widow; this led to schism. Bernard defended the mystery of the Trinity against Abelard (Is 55:8-9); Hamlet warns against plucking the heart of his mystery (3.2). Francis of Assisi renounced his father (Lk 14:26) and found a heavenly father, as did Jesus as a boy, lost and found in the temple (Lk 2:41-52); Bernard also found heavenly parentage in a vision or dream in which he drinks milk from the breast of a heavenly Virgin Mary, a scene repeatedly depicted in art; Hamlet mentions no ghost after his sea voyage (5.1), having shifted from focus on his earthly father to Providence and the memory of Yorick. Francis called himself God's fool (1 Corinthians 4:10, "fool for Christ's sake"); Hamlet's beloved fo...