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,
and baptize him figuratively by putting this Christmas reference on his lips like an acclamation of faith?
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Some bonus questions:

1. Does Shakespeare put this Christmas reference in the play because he is a literal-minded, bible-believing Christian,
or as a playwright and entertainer, does he interpret biblical stories and phrases more figuratively, and then use them to appeal to a bible-reading audience,
valuing more the morals to the stories than literal belief?

2. If Marcellus foreshadows the ghost's disappearance
and Hamlet's new-found faith in Providence,
doesn't the play also contradict the acclamation by Marcellus,
because Marcellus seems to assume evil things lose their power
in the presence of the celebration of the savior,
but the more Hamlet becomes like the savior,
the closer he moved toward danger and death?
(Or does Hamlet help dispell evil precisely because he becomes more
Christ-like and dies, echoing the sacrifice of Jesus?)


3. Recall that Shakespeare "stages" resurrections in a number of plays:
the resurrection of a jilted love from a faked death (Much Ado)
the failed resurrection (and mutual suicide) of a faked death (Romeo & Juliet);
and later in his career, a statue comes to life (Winter's Tale)
and in another play, a wife presumed dead and lost at sea comes back to life on shore, Jonah-style, later to find her husband (Pericles).
A rebirth after a sea-voyage follows traditional baptism-death-by-water symbolism.
Do these, and the rebirth of faith in providence after the sea-voyage in Hamlet, Illustrate Shakespeare's *figurative* understanding of biblical plots, more than literal belief?
Or did he do things in his plays this way because he was prohibited by law to portray religious matters too closely?



#Shakespeare #Hamlet #Literature #Bible #Religion #Renaissance #EarlyModern #theatre #Drama #literarycriticism

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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
on LinkedIn]