Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

['Ophelia', Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, 1851-2] Gertrude describes an accident by which a branch breaks: Ophelia falls into the water and then doesn't struggle to survive. The gravediggers talk of suicides and proper burial, noting that an exception was probably made for Ophelia due to her connections. This inspires some to research suicidal women, stories of which Shakespeare may have known. This may take things too literally. In a way, this is about people with powerful connections receiving special treatment. If you asked people in 1603 England what was the most famous example of a person with powerful connections having exceptions made by religious authorities, they probably would have said Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine: They received special permission to marry in spite of Katherine having been the widow of Henry’s brother Arthur. Later, Henry split from Rome to obtain his desired annulment from her. Kings and beggars may all be equal in the eyes o...

Here's an interesting 2014 National Catholic Reporter article regarding Shakespeare's "Catholic sympathies." It quotes prominent Oxford Shakespeare scholars as well as Catholic scholars Claire Asquith and Peter Milward. Unfortunately, they leave the question as one contested by two opposing camps, just two options, rather than considering other options or respecting the mystery: Perhaps we cannot pluck the heart of the mystery of his religious allegiances (and should not). As Diarmaid Macculoch notes, it's "natural Catholics should claim this great cultural icon for themselves." So Catholic bias can get in the way. On the other hand, England wanted to claim Shakespeare as a faithful member of the English church, as it was very important to their sense of national identity after rejecting Rome's religious authority. Wishful thinking and ideological/religious assumptions won't make Shakespeare English church, nor will it make him a secret C...

My daughter and I attended the Minneapolis, MN Guthrie Theater production of #Shakespeare's As You Like It this past Tuesday. There were many strong performances & interesting choices regarding casting, costumes. The goddess Hymen, who officiates at the marriage ceremony at the end, was dressed like Beyoncé, a cute and witty touch. Female actors were cast for Jaques & Touchstone. This made me think: Why not a usurping duchess & her sister? (This would lose the theme of masculinities—toxic masculine usurper & banished brother who is less toxic— which is still very relevant....) Controlling dads? moms? Helicopter parents? It could work. Some aspects of the production seemed fractured, including the musical styles, accents, costumes: Shepherds had southern drawls, people in the Forest of Arden wore cowboy hats. I was surprised that, in the age of Trump and his having attained the presidency without winning the popular vote, there was no nod toward the usurper ...

I recently learned that The Rocky Mountain Medieval & Renaissance Association April 2019 conference accepted my paper proposal, imagining how the late Hans Georg Gadamer might rethink Shakespeare and the Bible. The Stanford 
Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes Gadamer as
 “the decisive figure in the 
development of twentieth-century hermeneutics” and “undoubtedly… one of the 
most important thinkers 
of the twentieth century.” As a college student 40 years ago, I attended a dinner where Gadamer spoke. My professors had me sitting right next to him at the meal. I asked him his impression of the U.S. on his trip, and he said Americans were “very proud.” Pride is not always a good thing: it can impede understanding. Gadamer stresses that scholarly writing about literature and the arts should not strive to follow scientific or empirical methods because the arts will always transcend what can be accounted for by the rigors of science. Yet many early efforts to catalog biblical all...

"Welcome the Stranger, for you were once strangers" is a theme repeated in the Bible, and is related to the theme of what Jesus calls the second most important commandment ("like the first), to love neighbors as we love ourselves (the first being to love God). Later Jesus says that what we do to "the least of these" we do unto him. People in Shakespeare's time would have been thoroughly familiar with these passages, especially adults who had heard them in church over and over throughout their lives. #Shakespeare embodied this theme in his contributions to a play about Sir Thomas More, never performed in his lifetime, which includes a speech More gave to a crowd to try to prevent mob violence against immigrants. At the link below , you can watch a video of Ian McKellen delivering the speech. https://qz.com/786163/the-banned-400-year-old-shakespearean-speech-being-used-for-refugee-rights-today/?fbclid=IwAR33VADBeO-eY0WVbRZVzGJswBpwpPWLgv1OBW3XalULLDfyl1e1...

Winter is for the birds. (This is a very poor paraphrase of John Langdon's recent "Ghost of Shakespeare" post about winter, birds, transcendence, death, new years, and more. Always worth reading.) http://ghostofshakespeare.com/2019/02/09/fowls-of-the-air/

Here's a good Folger Shakespeare Library interview with David Scott Kastan (author of "A Will to Believe: Shakespeare and Religion") from 2016. It covers a lot of territory, and there's a transcript below it at the link if you'd rather read than listen. One small point of disagreement: Kastan notes the line in Merchant of Venice, with Lorenzo gazing at the stars, which are to him, “patens of bright gold.” He says that this converts everything to commerce. But in fact, a paten of gold was the gold plate that an altar boy held under chins of communicants to catch the Eucharist in case the host fell from the lips. [Note the following quote from Alexander Leggatt, also on the Folger website: "The stars are 'patens of bright gold' (5.1.67)—that is, plates used in the Eucharist which are also rich material objects. The play’s materialism touches even the spiritual realm..." See Alexander Leggatt, "A Modern Perspective: The Merchant of Venice,...

Painting, 1610 Artemisia Gentileschi What if we're missing something important in our understanding of the nunnery/eavesdropping scene (3.1), with Ophelia and Hamlet spied on by Polonius and Claudius? —What if it has more to do with Elizabethan politics and propaganda than with Freud? —What if Elizabethans may have understood the scene very differently because of current events of the Elizabethan age, but which has been lost over time? —What if the missing clue is that the scene offers a radical variation on the tale in Daniel 13, about the virtuous Suzannah, whom two judges tried to coerce into having sex with them? Frank Ardolino (author of Apocalypse & Armada ) says the eavesdropping scene in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy echoes the biblical tale of Suzannah & corrupt judges (Daniel 13), a tale often used to defend Elizabeth I from her critics: Her defenders compared the Virgin Queen Elizabeth to the virtuous Suzannah, and compared her critics to the corrupt jud...