Hamlet & the Ghost of St. Anselm of Canterbury: Substitutionary Atonement, Investiture, & Incestuous Marriage
Stephen Booth has said that Hamlet “frustrates and fulfills [audience] expectations simultaneously" [1]. It asks many questions, and leaves many unanswered. As Valaria Wagner has noted, from the start the play includes many displacements and substitutions. [2]
This proliferation of displacements and substitutions in the play made me think of St. Anselm of Canterbury: I came across him recently in my research simply by wondering about the history of substitutionary atonement (when researching, sometimes one question leads to another...).
[Image from Wikipedia Commons]
Anselm was a famous English bishop who developed the idea of substitutionary atonement, and who, it so happens, was also known for opposing not only incestuous marriage, but also for opposing lay investiture (or in other words, kings and lords appointing priests and bishops to bestow favors and control the church, instead of the church choosing priests and bishops most suited for the job in their eyes.
Why might incestuous marriage and lay investiture have anything to do with Hamlet?
Incestuous Marriage:
Henry VIII, father of Elizabeth I, had married his brother Arthur’s widow, claiming at first that they had never consummated the marriage, but claiming later that he wanted a divorce because he believed they had, and that it was therefore an incestuous marriage.
Claudius, as we know, also married his brother’s widow.
Lay Investiture:
And regarding lay investiture, Henry famously broke from England and made himself the head of the English church to obtain his annulment, a move that put the king in a position to approve the appointment of bishops and undid any progress Anselm and others had made opposing lay investiture. The church wanted to maintain a separation between monarchs or political powers, on the one hand, and church on the other, in part because prophets and religious leaders were usually best when independent of political power, and most corrupt when they were directly appointed by political leaders, as was the case when the Roman Empire occupied the holy land and appointed their own high priests. Sometimes it's best when prophets and religious leaders can speak critically of the sins of political leaders, and at best, they wanted that independence. (At worst, of course, England and other countries claimed Rome was itself becoming too powerful, and it was viewed as meddling in the affairs of other nations, a view that is also justified.)
One might wonder: Was incestuous marriage really so much of a problem in centuries past, for Anselm (1033-1109) to have been known for publicly opposing it?
Yes. It turns out that princes, lords, and monarchs often wanted to keep power and control in the family, so they sometimes entered into incestuous marriages, and the church (through figures like Anselm, an archbishop) often felt they had to oppose it, not only because it violated scripture, but also because kings might do better and be more open to transcendence, to new blood and new ideas. The fable of Cinderella illustrates a kind of hope that is the opposite of incestuous marriage: that kings and princes should be open to marrying anyone, even (gasp!) a commoner.
NONE OF THIS is to imply or assume that Shakespeare was directly familiar with the history and/or writings of Anselm of Canterbury, but rather, simply to point out the theme of substitutionary atonement and the coincidences related to Anselm, incest, and investiture. Yet it's also important to note that Shakespeare and his culture did not learn about substitutionary atonement in a vacuum: They learned it from biblical and English religious sources, and that second group, English sources, often learned it from and/or was influenced by the writings and reputation of St. Anselm. Even if the English Reformation had smashed every painting and statue of Anselm in fits of iconoclasm, they could not erase Anselm's theological work and the influence it had on English theological thought.
Substitutionary Atonement:
The idea of substitutionary atonement is that humanity since Adam & Eve has been plagued by selfishness and sin, and there is no way they can repair this relationship and repay the debt that this harsh view of divine justice would require. By this thinking, Humanity would burn in hell if there was any true divine justice. (One does not have to agree with this theology; I do not; but that’s the thinking involved here….)
As a gift to humanity, God himself becomes human and is killed by humans, becoming a victim of human pride and sin. The death of Jesus substitutes for humanity so that all humanity doesn’t have to die for their sin, or for Adam and Eve’s “original sin.”
In this way, some would say (by this kind of -outdated?- Christian thinking) that creation before Jesus was sinful, rotten like Denmark, and “out of joint”: When God made creation, the Genesis account claims he made everything and saw that it was good. Yet humanity had lost its way. The sacrifice of Jesus supposedly sets things right again, puts them back in place so they are no longer out of joint, getting humanity back on track.
Some compare the death of Jesus to that of a sacrificial lamb. Others compare him to a scapegoat, a slightly different analogy. (Rene Girard has interesting insights about scapegoats and applies these ideas in part to the story of the demoniac whose demon is “Legion,” who is healed by Jesus. [4])
Displacements and substitutions in Hamlet abound:
Of the many displacements and substitutions in the play, here are but a few of the more obvious:
Coming on duty in a change of guard, the sentinel Bernardo speaks out of turn, asking Francisco, the sentinel ending his shift, “Who’s there?”; Francisco immediately corrects him: “Nay, answer ME: Stand and unfold yourself!” The sentinel on guard (with his questioning role) has been prematurely displaced.
We soon hear about a ghost who might be visiting because, while in life, he had once killed another king, and now the son of that king is about to attack, substituting for his father, trying to gain back what the father lost.
Yet instead of that plot thread being followed, the plot is soon displaced and unfolds instead by following Prince Hamlet, the grieving prince of Denmark.
We learn that King Hamlet died at the hands of his brother Claudius: The victim has been displaced and the murderer now substitutes as husband and father.
The Ghost claims he is his Hamlet’s father and wants Hamlet to substitute for him in seeking revenge.
Claudius sends emissaries to Norway to stop Fortinbras from attacking Denmark, and Norway seems to comply, claiming it has arrested and scolded young Fortinbras, and instead, funded an attack on Poland instead as a substitute target; but this story may itself be a bluff, a distraction, a lie, a substitute for truth, and in fact, Norway may be getting ready to attack Denmark.
Polonius dies instead of Claudius, a kind of dark parody of substitutionary atonement, but Claudius doesn’t quite appreciate the accidental sacrifice of his chief counsel.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern die instead of Hamlet because Hamlet discovered the sealed letter from Claudius ordering England to kill him, and he changes the letter (though he is soon saved by pirates, and the deaths of R&G represent an unnecessary substitution).
Gertrude dies instead of Hamlet when she drinks from the poisoned cup intended for Hamlet. In this way, Gertrude, dying first, becomes Hamlet's substitute, taking the hit for her son.
Suicide & Purposes Mistook that Fall on the Inventor's Heads
Laertes and Claudius think they will kill Hamlet, but in fact, their “purposes mistook” fall “on the inventors’ heads: The lesson seems to be that people with evil or vengeful intentions won’t get away with it in the end without having to pay some price for their misdeeds.
In that way, revenge and violence are, in the final analysis, similar to suicide: When you hurt others, you are hurting yourself. When you fail to treat others as you’d like to be treated, fail to love your neighbor as yourself (the second most important commandment named by Jesus in the gospels), then the consequences eventually fall on your own head.
In this way, Ophelia’s death, if suicide (a disputed point) foreshadows the way in which her brother’s quest for revenge will end up taking Laertes’ own life as well. Ophelia's death may seem in a sense to have the advantage in that it causes less collateral damage than Laertes: When Ophelia drowns, she is the only one killed, but when Laertes dies, in the process he has also killed Hamlet, and failed to stop the queen from drinking what he knows is poison. Suicide takes a terrible toll on families and communities, but not the kind of toll taken by gunmen or bombers who enter a black church, synagogue or mosque and commit mass murders, sometimes in a spirit of revenge.
There are other substitutions: Fortinbras was going to attack Denmark, but attacks Poland instead. Instead of Claudius defeating and killing Fortinbras, Hamlet dies and gives his voice or vote in the election to Fortinbras as the next king.
There are many ways to read the play, and considering Hamlet as a Christ-figure is only one of them. But instead of Denmark having to suffer more under a murderous, usurping, incestuous, and dishonest king, the poisoned Hamlet kills Claudius before dying, and in this way, might be seen as making substitutionary atonement for Denmark’s suffering, paving the way for a fresh start by a King Fortinbras who receives the throne in part by the gift of Hamlet’s dying voice and by election, instead of a king who received his throne by scheming and murder.
Hamlet certainly makes many errors on the way to that ending. He is harsh to Ophelia, he kills Polonius by mistake, he assumes falsely that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are in league with Claudius regarding the death letter, to name just a few. But in the end, after a kind of conversion from bloody thoughts while at sea, spared by a merciful providence, it seems he kills Claudius not merely for revenge, but to keep Claudius from “further evil.”
[1] Stephen Booth, “On the Value of Hamlet,” from Reinterpretations of Elizabethan Drama, ed. Norman Rabkin (1969), Columbia U. Press.
[2] See Essay by Valaria Wagner, “Losing the Name of Action,” in the “Psychoanalysis & Language” section of New Essays on Hamlet, ed. Mark Burnett Thornton - pages 139-140
[3] For some basic information on Anselm of Canterbury, see this Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury
[4] For a good sample of the scapegoat as understood by Rene Girard, see the following Wikipedia article section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac#Rene_Girard's_Scapegoat_Theory
This proliferation of displacements and substitutions in the play made me think of St. Anselm of Canterbury: I came across him recently in my research simply by wondering about the history of substitutionary atonement (when researching, sometimes one question leads to another...).
[Image from Wikipedia Commons]
Anselm was a famous English bishop who developed the idea of substitutionary atonement, and who, it so happens, was also known for opposing not only incestuous marriage, but also for opposing lay investiture (or in other words, kings and lords appointing priests and bishops to bestow favors and control the church, instead of the church choosing priests and bishops most suited for the job in their eyes.
Why might incestuous marriage and lay investiture have anything to do with Hamlet?
Incestuous Marriage:
Henry VIII, father of Elizabeth I, had married his brother Arthur’s widow, claiming at first that they had never consummated the marriage, but claiming later that he wanted a divorce because he believed they had, and that it was therefore an incestuous marriage.
Claudius, as we know, also married his brother’s widow.
Lay Investiture:
And regarding lay investiture, Henry famously broke from England and made himself the head of the English church to obtain his annulment, a move that put the king in a position to approve the appointment of bishops and undid any progress Anselm and others had made opposing lay investiture. The church wanted to maintain a separation between monarchs or political powers, on the one hand, and church on the other, in part because prophets and religious leaders were usually best when independent of political power, and most corrupt when they were directly appointed by political leaders, as was the case when the Roman Empire occupied the holy land and appointed their own high priests. Sometimes it's best when prophets and religious leaders can speak critically of the sins of political leaders, and at best, they wanted that independence. (At worst, of course, England and other countries claimed Rome was itself becoming too powerful, and it was viewed as meddling in the affairs of other nations, a view that is also justified.)
One might wonder: Was incestuous marriage really so much of a problem in centuries past, for Anselm (1033-1109) to have been known for publicly opposing it?
Yes. It turns out that princes, lords, and monarchs often wanted to keep power and control in the family, so they sometimes entered into incestuous marriages, and the church (through figures like Anselm, an archbishop) often felt they had to oppose it, not only because it violated scripture, but also because kings might do better and be more open to transcendence, to new blood and new ideas. The fable of Cinderella illustrates a kind of hope that is the opposite of incestuous marriage: that kings and princes should be open to marrying anyone, even (gasp!) a commoner.
NONE OF THIS is to imply or assume that Shakespeare was directly familiar with the history and/or writings of Anselm of Canterbury, but rather, simply to point out the theme of substitutionary atonement and the coincidences related to Anselm, incest, and investiture. Yet it's also important to note that Shakespeare and his culture did not learn about substitutionary atonement in a vacuum: They learned it from biblical and English religious sources, and that second group, English sources, often learned it from and/or was influenced by the writings and reputation of St. Anselm. Even if the English Reformation had smashed every painting and statue of Anselm in fits of iconoclasm, they could not erase Anselm's theological work and the influence it had on English theological thought.
Substitutionary Atonement:
The idea of substitutionary atonement is that humanity since Adam & Eve has been plagued by selfishness and sin, and there is no way they can repair this relationship and repay the debt that this harsh view of divine justice would require. By this thinking, Humanity would burn in hell if there was any true divine justice. (One does not have to agree with this theology; I do not; but that’s the thinking involved here….)
As a gift to humanity, God himself becomes human and is killed by humans, becoming a victim of human pride and sin. The death of Jesus substitutes for humanity so that all humanity doesn’t have to die for their sin, or for Adam and Eve’s “original sin.”
In this way, some would say (by this kind of -outdated?- Christian thinking) that creation before Jesus was sinful, rotten like Denmark, and “out of joint”: When God made creation, the Genesis account claims he made everything and saw that it was good. Yet humanity had lost its way. The sacrifice of Jesus supposedly sets things right again, puts them back in place so they are no longer out of joint, getting humanity back on track.
Some compare the death of Jesus to that of a sacrificial lamb. Others compare him to a scapegoat, a slightly different analogy. (Rene Girard has interesting insights about scapegoats and applies these ideas in part to the story of the demoniac whose demon is “Legion,” who is healed by Jesus. [4])
Displacements and substitutions in Hamlet abound:
Of the many displacements and substitutions in the play, here are but a few of the more obvious:
Coming on duty in a change of guard, the sentinel Bernardo speaks out of turn, asking Francisco, the sentinel ending his shift, “Who’s there?”; Francisco immediately corrects him: “Nay, answer ME: Stand and unfold yourself!” The sentinel on guard (with his questioning role) has been prematurely displaced.
We soon hear about a ghost who might be visiting because, while in life, he had once killed another king, and now the son of that king is about to attack, substituting for his father, trying to gain back what the father lost.
Yet instead of that plot thread being followed, the plot is soon displaced and unfolds instead by following Prince Hamlet, the grieving prince of Denmark.
We learn that King Hamlet died at the hands of his brother Claudius: The victim has been displaced and the murderer now substitutes as husband and father.
The Ghost claims he is his Hamlet’s father and wants Hamlet to substitute for him in seeking revenge.
Claudius sends emissaries to Norway to stop Fortinbras from attacking Denmark, and Norway seems to comply, claiming it has arrested and scolded young Fortinbras, and instead, funded an attack on Poland instead as a substitute target; but this story may itself be a bluff, a distraction, a lie, a substitute for truth, and in fact, Norway may be getting ready to attack Denmark.
Polonius dies instead of Claudius, a kind of dark parody of substitutionary atonement, but Claudius doesn’t quite appreciate the accidental sacrifice of his chief counsel.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern die instead of Hamlet because Hamlet discovered the sealed letter from Claudius ordering England to kill him, and he changes the letter (though he is soon saved by pirates, and the deaths of R&G represent an unnecessary substitution).
Gertrude dies instead of Hamlet when she drinks from the poisoned cup intended for Hamlet. In this way, Gertrude, dying first, becomes Hamlet's substitute, taking the hit for her son.
Suicide & Purposes Mistook that Fall on the Inventor's Heads
Laertes and Claudius think they will kill Hamlet, but in fact, their “purposes mistook” fall “on the inventors’ heads: The lesson seems to be that people with evil or vengeful intentions won’t get away with it in the end without having to pay some price for their misdeeds.
In that way, revenge and violence are, in the final analysis, similar to suicide: When you hurt others, you are hurting yourself. When you fail to treat others as you’d like to be treated, fail to love your neighbor as yourself (the second most important commandment named by Jesus in the gospels), then the consequences eventually fall on your own head.
In this way, Ophelia’s death, if suicide (a disputed point) foreshadows the way in which her brother’s quest for revenge will end up taking Laertes’ own life as well. Ophelia's death may seem in a sense to have the advantage in that it causes less collateral damage than Laertes: When Ophelia drowns, she is the only one killed, but when Laertes dies, in the process he has also killed Hamlet, and failed to stop the queen from drinking what he knows is poison. Suicide takes a terrible toll on families and communities, but not the kind of toll taken by gunmen or bombers who enter a black church, synagogue or mosque and commit mass murders, sometimes in a spirit of revenge.
There are other substitutions: Fortinbras was going to attack Denmark, but attacks Poland instead. Instead of Claudius defeating and killing Fortinbras, Hamlet dies and gives his voice or vote in the election to Fortinbras as the next king.
There are many ways to read the play, and considering Hamlet as a Christ-figure is only one of them. But instead of Denmark having to suffer more under a murderous, usurping, incestuous, and dishonest king, the poisoned Hamlet kills Claudius before dying, and in this way, might be seen as making substitutionary atonement for Denmark’s suffering, paving the way for a fresh start by a King Fortinbras who receives the throne in part by the gift of Hamlet’s dying voice and by election, instead of a king who received his throne by scheming and murder.
Hamlet certainly makes many errors on the way to that ending. He is harsh to Ophelia, he kills Polonius by mistake, he assumes falsely that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are in league with Claudius regarding the death letter, to name just a few. But in the end, after a kind of conversion from bloody thoughts while at sea, spared by a merciful providence, it seems he kills Claudius not merely for revenge, but to keep Claudius from “further evil.”
[1] Stephen Booth, “On the Value of Hamlet,” from Reinterpretations of Elizabethan Drama, ed. Norman Rabkin (1969), Columbia U. Press.
[2] See Essay by Valaria Wagner, “Losing the Name of Action,” in the “Psychoanalysis & Language” section of New Essays on Hamlet, ed. Mark Burnett Thornton - pages 139-140
[3] For some basic information on Anselm of Canterbury, see this Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury
[4] For a good sample of the scapegoat as understood by Rene Girard, see the following Wikipedia article section:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism_of_the_Gerasene_demoniac#Rene_Girard's_Scapegoat_Theory
Comments
Post a Comment