Thinking about Hamlet, James I, Moses, & Elections with Julia Reinhard Lupton
I am realizing that, more often, I should highlight some of the books I've enjoyed and benefitted from regarding Hamlet studies.
One of these recently is called Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life, by Julia Reinhard Lupton, and more specifically, her chapter called "The Hamlet Elections." Lupton begins the chapter explaining how she is borrowing some ideas from Carl Schmitt, including ideas about similarities between Hamlet the prince and James the king. She also explores a variety of meanings and implications of the word "election" in the play, and discusses Hamlet's first meeting with the ghost as a dark retelling of Moses going up on the mountain to receive the law from God (Hamlet says he will erase all else from the tables of his memory and remember only what the Ghost has told him).
Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law - 1659, by Rembrandt, via Google Cultural Institute
I have mentioned in the past on this blog the possibility that Hamlet seems to point to James as the prince from the north, like Fortinbras who takes over the kingdom after there are no heirs. Others have proposed many other historical figures who may have inspired the play's portrayal of the prince: that Prince Hamlet is modeled after Philip Sidney, or the Earl of Essex, etc. In another previous blog post, I have outlined my sense that Prince Hamlet may seem in some ways to be an idealized Elizabeth I, who dies before James comes to the throne. But here are some key ideas on Hamlet as James from Lupton, from Schmitt:
James:
Lupton borrows from Carl Schmitt parallels not between Fortinbras and James, but between Hamlet and King James I:
- In Hamlet, the father of the prince is killed by the man who later marries the prince's mother.
- The father of James was killed in a bombing rumored to have been arranged by the man who later married James' mother, Mary Queen of Scots.
So in this scenario,
the murdered King Hamlet is James' father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley;
Gertrude is Mary Queen of Scots;
and Claudius is James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.
It has been said (by more people besides Harold Bloom and Kenneth Branagh) that Prince Hamlet is each of us; but not all of us have stepfathers who killed our father before marrying our mother, so there is something interesting and compelling about the possibility that Shakespeare was alluding to James in more ways than merely Fortinbras as the prince from the north who takes over the throne. It would make sense for Shakespeare to have used the play, at the end of Elizabeth's life and the start of the reign of James, to welcome James, so fashioning the play to be compelling and appealing to James, and in that way appealing to the citizens and playgoers concerned about the succession, would make sense.
Perhaps the only problematic thing with this approach is that if James is Hamlet and has to die, and James is also Fortinbras, this creates a bit of cognitive dissonance: Does James-as-Hamlet have to die, like some kind of Christian dying-to-self, so that a new James, Fortinbras, can become king? Or does Shakespeare offer Hamlet's character arc as a model for James, with Fortinbras as the primary stand-in for James? What was Shakespeare thinking, if in fact he wrote the play with James in mind in these ways?
Moses:
It could be that Lupton and I offer good examples of confirmation bias: Lupton is Jewish, and finds in Hamlet's first meeting with the ghost a dark echo of Moses receiving the law from God on Mt. Sinai, whereas I was raised Catholic, and find in that same meeting a dark echo of the Transfiguration. Both Lupton's comparison and mine make sense, and both confirm something about our own religious backgrounds. A Muslim might find a dark echo of Mohammed's meeting with the angel who tells him, "Write!" In that sense, it's called confirmation bias when people seek out information and insights that confirm their own assumptions.
(And I would add: When Moses came down from the mountain the first time with the tablets, the people were sinning, and in disgust, Moses smashed the tablets. If Hamlet is like Moses receiving a new law from the purgatorial ghost of his father, then does Hamlet smash the tablets in any way, in disgust at the lies, sins, and general rottenness of Denmark? In his Jonah-like sea-voyage, does he find a better law in his conversion to a merciful Providence, to replace his father's command to revenge?)
Election:
In her exploration of the many uses of the word "election" in the play, Lupton's reflections include
- Horatio as the one prince Hamlet has elected to be his good friend,
- the sense in which kings are the "elect" of God, and
- election as referring not to the divine right of kings, but to a more democratic process of a people choosing a leader.
Hamlet does not choose the successor to the throne at the end of the play when he says he believes the election will "light on" Fortinbras; rather, he gives Fortinbras his dying voice, but affirms the process of an election that will take into account the will of the people, Lupton says.
This insight nicely side-steps scholarly positions that either claim Claudius was king, usurper or not; or that Claudius as usurper was never the true king, and that Hamlet was actually the rightful king. Lupton's position on election stresses that it is not a binary, not an either-or between Claudius or Hamlet as true king, but something else entirely. Lupton convinced me of her position on election.
But in an individual sense, Christian baptism and general Christian theology claim that all Christians share in what is called the Threefold Office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king. This may sound like hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo, but in the general Christin understanding of the time,
- to be priest, it means to be willing to make sacrifices for love of others, as Jesus did;
- to be prophet is not to tell the future but to condemn sin and speak truth to power;
- and to be king or queen is, first, to not be a slave to one's passions, but to learn to direct them well. In the Aristotelian sense, not being a slave to one's passions means acquiring virtues instead of vices; only by achieving a kind of maturity in dealing with our own passions can we later become effective leaders of others. (I have two previous blog posts on Hamlet as priest, prophet and king, the first of them here, and the second of them here.)
This doesn't mean Prince Hamlet gets to sit on the throne of Denmark and call himself its king (although some view his statement in the graveyard, that he is Hamlet the Dane, as a proclamation of his kingship). But it does mean the spiritual priesthood, prophesying, and kingship to which the prince is called is equally as important, and perhaps a prerequisite to the best fulfillment of any greater responsibilities.
One of these recently is called Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life, by Julia Reinhard Lupton, and more specifically, her chapter called "The Hamlet Elections." Lupton begins the chapter explaining how she is borrowing some ideas from Carl Schmitt, including ideas about similarities between Hamlet the prince and James the king. She also explores a variety of meanings and implications of the word "election" in the play, and discusses Hamlet's first meeting with the ghost as a dark retelling of Moses going up on the mountain to receive the law from God (Hamlet says he will erase all else from the tables of his memory and remember only what the Ghost has told him).
Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law - 1659, by Rembrandt, via Google Cultural Institute
I have mentioned in the past on this blog the possibility that Hamlet seems to point to James as the prince from the north, like Fortinbras who takes over the kingdom after there are no heirs. Others have proposed many other historical figures who may have inspired the play's portrayal of the prince: that Prince Hamlet is modeled after Philip Sidney, or the Earl of Essex, etc. In another previous blog post, I have outlined my sense that Prince Hamlet may seem in some ways to be an idealized Elizabeth I, who dies before James comes to the throne. But here are some key ideas on Hamlet as James from Lupton, from Schmitt:
James:
Lupton borrows from Carl Schmitt parallels not between Fortinbras and James, but between Hamlet and King James I:
- In Hamlet, the father of the prince is killed by the man who later marries the prince's mother.
- The father of James was killed in a bombing rumored to have been arranged by the man who later married James' mother, Mary Queen of Scots.
So in this scenario,
the murdered King Hamlet is James' father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley;
Gertrude is Mary Queen of Scots;
and Claudius is James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.
It has been said (by more people besides Harold Bloom and Kenneth Branagh) that Prince Hamlet is each of us; but not all of us have stepfathers who killed our father before marrying our mother, so there is something interesting and compelling about the possibility that Shakespeare was alluding to James in more ways than merely Fortinbras as the prince from the north who takes over the throne. It would make sense for Shakespeare to have used the play, at the end of Elizabeth's life and the start of the reign of James, to welcome James, so fashioning the play to be compelling and appealing to James, and in that way appealing to the citizens and playgoers concerned about the succession, would make sense.
Perhaps the only problematic thing with this approach is that if James is Hamlet and has to die, and James is also Fortinbras, this creates a bit of cognitive dissonance: Does James-as-Hamlet have to die, like some kind of Christian dying-to-self, so that a new James, Fortinbras, can become king? Or does Shakespeare offer Hamlet's character arc as a model for James, with Fortinbras as the primary stand-in for James? What was Shakespeare thinking, if in fact he wrote the play with James in mind in these ways?
Moses:
It could be that Lupton and I offer good examples of confirmation bias: Lupton is Jewish, and finds in Hamlet's first meeting with the ghost a dark echo of Moses receiving the law from God on Mt. Sinai, whereas I was raised Catholic, and find in that same meeting a dark echo of the Transfiguration. Both Lupton's comparison and mine make sense, and both confirm something about our own religious backgrounds. A Muslim might find a dark echo of Mohammed's meeting with the angel who tells him, "Write!" In that sense, it's called confirmation bias when people seek out information and insights that confirm their own assumptions.
(And I would add: When Moses came down from the mountain the first time with the tablets, the people were sinning, and in disgust, Moses smashed the tablets. If Hamlet is like Moses receiving a new law from the purgatorial ghost of his father, then does Hamlet smash the tablets in any way, in disgust at the lies, sins, and general rottenness of Denmark? In his Jonah-like sea-voyage, does he find a better law in his conversion to a merciful Providence, to replace his father's command to revenge?)
Election:
In her exploration of the many uses of the word "election" in the play, Lupton's reflections include
- Horatio as the one prince Hamlet has elected to be his good friend,
- the sense in which kings are the "elect" of God, and
- election as referring not to the divine right of kings, but to a more democratic process of a people choosing a leader.
Hamlet does not choose the successor to the throne at the end of the play when he says he believes the election will "light on" Fortinbras; rather, he gives Fortinbras his dying voice, but affirms the process of an election that will take into account the will of the people, Lupton says.
This insight nicely side-steps scholarly positions that either claim Claudius was king, usurper or not; or that Claudius as usurper was never the true king, and that Hamlet was actually the rightful king. Lupton's position on election stresses that it is not a binary, not an either-or between Claudius or Hamlet as true king, but something else entirely. Lupton convinced me of her position on election.
But in an individual sense, Christian baptism and general Christian theology claim that all Christians share in what is called the Threefold Office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king. This may sound like hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo, but in the general Christin understanding of the time,
- to be priest, it means to be willing to make sacrifices for love of others, as Jesus did;
- to be prophet is not to tell the future but to condemn sin and speak truth to power;
- and to be king or queen is, first, to not be a slave to one's passions, but to learn to direct them well. In the Aristotelian sense, not being a slave to one's passions means acquiring virtues instead of vices; only by achieving a kind of maturity in dealing with our own passions can we later become effective leaders of others. (I have two previous blog posts on Hamlet as priest, prophet and king, the first of them here, and the second of them here.)
This doesn't mean Prince Hamlet gets to sit on the throne of Denmark and call himself its king (although some view his statement in the graveyard, that he is Hamlet the Dane, as a proclamation of his kingship). But it does mean the spiritual priesthood, prophesying, and kingship to which the prince is called is equally as important, and perhaps a prerequisite to the best fulfillment of any greater responsibilities.
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