Claudius Manipulates Gift-Dynamics & Resists Grace: (Part 12) Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property). For more notes on the series and an index of previous posts in this series, see the end of this post.
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What do we find if we view Claudius through Lewis Hyde’s lens of gift exchange dynamics? Hyde shows how people receive gifts, and when awakened to the gift’s potential, they may respond in gratitude and labor to become like the gift or the giver. This is a transformative process that may yield dynamic characters who evolve through their interactions rather than remaining static and unchanged, or in terms Christians may have used in Shakespeare's time, remaining proud, stubborn, and hard-hearted. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Claudius never seems to be involved in a truly positive or transformative gift exchange, and in fact, is not shown fully accepting any moment of grace. He uses people and flatters them (Polonius & Laertes), he tries to draw them into his web to his advantage (as he does Laertes), sometimes only to be rejected (as with Hamlet). Even when those around him or his conscience offer him what could be viewed as gifts or grace, he rejects the gifts and stays committed to his plans and maintaining his power.
[L-R, three images of Claudius in film: Alan Bates, dir. by Franco Zeffirelli (1990); Sir Patrick Stewart, dir. by Gregory Doran (2009); Derek Jacobi, dir. by Kenneth Branagh (1996)]
CLAUDIUS AS INCESTUOUS
In Shakespeare’s time, to be involved what the bible viewed as an incestuous marriage was considered wrong, scandalous, and a kind of trigger of strong religious and political feeling. This was in part due to the fact that Henry VIII had sought an annulment from his first wife, which eventually became a cause of the English Reformation. She had been the widow of Henry’s older, sickly brother Arthur, but Henry and Catherine of Aragon had been given a special dispensation by Rome to marry, in part because Catherine had said the first marriage was never consummated (never had sex). They were not able to produce a male heir that thrived more than a short time; meanwhile, Henry was having an affair with Anne Boleyn. Henry claimed Catherine’s marriage to Arthur had in fact been consummated, and that God was punishing him with no thriving male heir, so he believed he had a right to an annulment in order to repent of the sin of an incestuous marriage (and to enable him to wed Anne, his second wife).
By Lewis Hyde's logic of gift-dynamics, an incestuous marriage demonstrates a circle of gift-exchange that is too small, too closed to the stranger and the unknown, and in theological terms, therefore too closed to transcendence. I mentioned in last week's post that, inasmuch as Hamlet is of royal blood and Ophelia was not, their relationship resembled that of Cinderella tales, the opposite of an incestuous marriage, where the prince or princess meets and marries a commoner. The Bible was popular reading in Elizabethan times, available in the mother-tongue for the first time only since the English Reformation and the lifetime of Shakespeare’s parents; in both the Hebrew scriptures (“Old Testament”) and the Christian Scriptures (“New Testament”), welcoming the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:19, Leviticus 19:34) was considered a virtue that connected people to the divine, as sometimes strangers turned out to be angels in disguise (Hebrews 13:2).
Claudius is a character who has secretly killed his brother by poison and married his brother’s widow, so in Shakespeare's time, he would have been considered sinful and evil. The play has the ghost claim that Claudius poured poison in his ear (1.5), but Claudius has also poisoned the ear of the body politic with a lie about a snake biting the king as he napped in his garden. The Bible’s Genesis tale says that God took a rib from Adam while he slept and fashioned Eve for him as a helpmate, but Claudius took his brother’s life while he slept, and he took his helpmate and wife from him as well. Claudius is an anti-Creator, a liar and thief more than a servant-king; he does not nurture or engage in mutual gift exchange that might represent healthy social and spiritual dynamics for Denmark.
There are only two main gift-relationships we see Claudius as engaged in other than offering himself as a new (and unwanted) father-figure to Hamlet; neither one seems particularly healthy or liberating. One is his relationship with Polonius and Laertes, and the other is his relationship with Gertrude.
CLAUDIUS AS HEROD ANTIPAS
In act one, scene two, we see Claudius taking the occasion of Laertes’ desired return to France as an opportunity to grandstand regarding his affection and debts of gratitude to his advisor Polonius, claiming that because of this gratitude toward the father, he must repay the son:
CLAUDIUS:
...what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
I have mentioned before this aspect of Claudius using Laertes to display his generosity in replaying Polonius, in a previous blog post on Laertes in this scene, and have also mentioned how Claudius here resembles King Herod Antipas, offering Salome anything, up to half of his kingdom, in gratitude for how she danced pleasingly for him and his guests. With coaching from her mother, she asks for the head of John the Baptist, who had condemned their incestuous marriage.
If Claudius is like Herod Antipas, who married his brother's wife and whose marriage was condemned by John the Baptist, then Hamlet is a John the Baptist figure, which in part explains why the player queen in "The Mousetrap" is named "Baptista."
Laertes doesn’t ask for the head of Hamlet (a kind of John the Baptist figure, condemning an incestuous marriage) in this scene, but he will ask for it later in Act Four.
Claudius is generous with Laertes, perhaps only for show, but in contrast, he is the opposite of generous with Hamlet, who wishes to return to his studies in Wittenberg (1.2):
CLAUDIUS: For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
If gratitude and generosity motivate Claudius to allow Laertes to return to France, we are right to wonder why the contrast here with the way in which Claudius treats Hamlet. One might argue that Gertrude, having lost a husband and recently married his brother, may wish to have the company of her son by that marriage. But it seems Claudius is probably motivated by suspicion and a desire to keep an eye on Hamlet. If he, Claudius, was willing to kill his brother to get the throne, he would be foolish not to suspect that a prince might one day have similar ambitions and take the throne back.
PRIDE BLINDS CLAUDIUS & POLONIUS TO THE THREAT FROM FORTINBRAS
In 2.2, it seems to me that Claudius and Polonius make a grave mistake that too many critics overlook. Their pride tempts them to believe that their diplomacy with Norway has been effective and the threat of Fortinbras has been neutralized, when in fact the uncle of Fortinbras may have underwritten his nephew’s military adventures and made of him an even greater threat, supposedly gaining permission to cross Denmark on the way to war with Poland, but in the process, posing a grave but unrecognized threat:
CLAUDIUS
[Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[Giving a paper]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
CLAUDIUS
It likes us well;
And at our more consider'd time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
In fact, the business is not well-ended, and Fortinbras poses at least as much a threat to Denmark as the madness of Prince Hamlet. Some scholars note that Claudius hopes “at our more consider'd time well read, / Answer, and think upon this business,” but that Hamlet’s immature fussing over his father’s death and insistence upon revenge distract Claudius, so of course, to them, Hamlet is to blame, and Claudius should have been allowed to remain on the throne. Given the crimes of Claudius (murdering a brother and king, and an illegal [biblically incestuous] marriage that no citizen would have been allowed), I have as much problem with blaming Hamlet as I would blaming those who discovered the Watergate burglars for the resignation of Nixon.
A HEAVY BURTHEN
In 3.1, Claudius first displays the guilt he feels for having killed his brother: Polonius has just given Ophelia a prayer book to read (which, as I've noted in a past blog post, would make her appear like the Virgin Mary, reading a Book of Psalms at the Annunciation, an illustration that often appeared in prayer books of the time). Polonius comments on the false image this presents of Ophelia, who is to be used as bait, and then Claudius has an aside in which he speaks of his guilty conscience:
POLONIUS
...We are oft to blame in this,--
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
KING CLAUDIUS
[Aside] O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!
This is a kind of moment of grace, a gift, whereby Claudius is able to admit his guilt. He notes the contrast between his ugly deed and his public display of being a good and responsible king. But unfortunately, he doesn’t respond in gratitude for the grace or inspiration to be honest with himself and to repent of his wrongdoing, so the moment passes.
(We might also note that Elizabeth I had died by the time the second quarto and first folio of the play had been published, so comments from Hamlet and Claudius about female faces "beautied with plastering art" might imply criticism of Elizabeth who survived smallpox, but who later painted her face thick with makeup that contained lead to conceal the scars, and which some believe may have contributed to her death. For an interesting discussion of Elizabeth's makeup and its effects, see Rebecca Onion's December 1918 article in Slate.[1])
CLAUDIUS AT PRAYER
Hamlet presents his play, “The Mousetrap,” by which he hopes to catch the conscience of the king (as the prophet Nathan caught the conscience of King David with a tale about a shepherd boy who owned but one sheep). As the play progresses, Claudius asks for more light, signaling the end of the entertainment and also revealing his troubled conscience. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to tell Hamlet that his mother is displeased with him and wishes to see him, but on the way, Hamlet finds Claudius at prayer.
The scene in which we see Claudius at prayer is 3.3; just before Polonius leaves, he explains that Hamlet is going to speak to his mother, but that mothers are not to be trusted because nature makes them inclined to be partial, so a spy (like Polonius) eavesdropping is supposedly necessary, at least in Polonius' mind:
POLONIUS
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech, of vantage.
Neither Polonius nor Claudius trust Gertrude because she loves her son and may naturally be inclined to be partial, so in this, we see that Claudius’ other gift-relationship, that with his wife, is not one that liberates him to new possibilities of self-transcendence, but only worries him with a need for more suspicion.
For centuries, scholars and critics have noted that Claudius has the longest soliloquy in the play belonging to any character other than the prince himself, and in that soliloquy, he displays that he not only knows that he sinned, but eventually displays that he knows what he must do to be forgiven, yet is unwilling to do it:
CLAUDIUS: O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
[Retires and kneels]
Claudius knows that, as long as he has not confessed his sin of murdering his brother, and given up the wife and throne he gained by it, he cannot be forgiven. He views his soul as trapped by his conscience, like an animal in a trap that becomes more entangled by struggling to be free. He knows that he can put on a show for his subjects, and that as king, he has a “gilded hand,” money and power to do a great many things and appear to be on the side of justice, yet such things don’t fool heaven (“but ‘tis not so above; / There is no shuffling.”)
For these reasons, scholars note Claudius as demonstrating what Christian catechism of the time said was required of the sinner, except only that he lacks the will to repent of his sin.
Hamlet watches him pray and considers killing him, but decides not to because of the chance that, in killing him at prayer, Hamlet would perhaps send him right to heaven, so it would be better to kill him when Claudius is doing something more sinful. And all of this is ironic because Claudius knows he is not forgiven:
CLAUDIUS [Rising]
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [Exit]
And so in this way, Claudius continues to reject opportunities to acknowledge gifts—the gift of a pricked conscience from viewing the play, the gift of a moment of grace where he moves close to repentance—but because he refuses these gifts, he is never transformed by them in a positive way to become more like the gifts or the givers, as Lewis Hyde would say.
Also, I have posted before regarding this scene how Claudius seems to echo the biblical “agony in the garden” of Jesus did before his death; but unlike Jesus, who concluded, “not my will, but yours be done,” Claudius goes against conscience and chooses self-preservation over repentance. Hamlet, for his part in this scene, seems to echo the tale of David sparing the life of Saul from the Hebrew scriptures, but unlike David, Hamlet merely wishes to wait for a more opportune time when in killing Claudius, he will condemn him to hell, playing god. In these ways, both Claudius and Hamlet are failing to live up to the biblical tales they echo. This shows them both as being (at least temporarily) closed-off to gift exchange, grace, and transcendence.
MY VIRTUE OR MY PLAGUE… I COULD NOT BUT BY HER
By Act 4, scene 7, Claudius has already sent orders with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, unknown to them, that Hamlet is to be killed by England when he arrives there after his sea voyage. But that plan fails when Hamlet, attempting to be brave in fighting off pirates along the way, boards a pirate ship to fight but is spared and brought back to Denmark, like a Jonah figure brought back by the fish that swallowed him, to complete his prophetic destiny (and which I've blogged about in the past).
News of Hamlet's return reaches Claudius while he is speaking with Laertes, who he has been flattering to win over and to convince Laertes not to blame and kill Claudius for the death of Laertes' father. They devise a plan to kill Hamlet in a duel with Laertes' secretly poisoned sword, or with a poison cup as a back-up plan.
In the same scene, Laertes asks Claudius why he didn’t deal differently with Hamlet if indeed Hamlet had proven to be such a threat to Claudius’ life. Claudius responds in a way that shows how he is closed off to the gifts and potential of Hamlet, viewing him as a threat rather than an asset:
LAERTES: ... tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr'd up.
CLAUDIUS: O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.
Claudius knows that Hamlet is loved, not only by his mother, but also by the public, or at least the “general gender,” who view even Hamlet’s faults as “graces” or virtues. He ends with the image of an arrow that “Would have reverted to my bow again” because of the strong wind of public opinion, an image that foreshadows Hamlet’s apology to Laertes before the duel in 5.2, and also Horatio’s words to Fortinbras at the end of the same scene, “purposes mistook / Fall'n on the inventors' heads.”
If King Hamlet had died in some other way, and if Prince Hamlet had assumed the throne at too young an age, Claudius as Regent or advisor might have been more positive about utilizing Hamlet’s popularity with the public. In such a case, we might observe that such a Claudius may have been more open to the gifts of Prince Hamlet, and perhaps the relationship could have been more positive and mutually beneficial. But instead, Claudius is closed off to Prince Hamlet as a collaborator in serving Denmark, and views him merely as an adversary.
One of the remarkable things about how Claudius is treated by scholars is that this passage regarding how Hamlet’s popularity —and how Claudius therefore fears opposing him— elicits some interesting projection: Some scholars think that Claudius is an effective administrator and, instead of killing him and having the throne go to a Norwegian (like the throne of Elizabeth I going to the Scottish King James VI?) perhaps Hamlet should have compromised; in this view, Hamlet’s popularity marks him as merely another populist who would (they assume) be less effective than the more Machiavellian Claudius. In other words, these scholars wish to defend the idea of keeping a usurping murderer on the throne rather than have Denmark’s throne (like England’s?) go to an “outsider.” I have a problem with this line of thinking, in part because it seems to assume the play might end either in Claudius remaining on the throne, or in the mad and sloppily vengeful Hamlet on the throne, as the only positive alternatives to the dreaded Fortinbras, who elicits xenophobia in some critics and a foreign invasion to be avoided. In fact, as other scholars have noted, Fortinbras, the prince from the north, represents James VI of Scotland, who succeeds Elizabeth.
IT IS THE POISON’D CUP: IT IS TOO LATE
Claudius has another moment of grace, a moment that offers him a gift of insight and an opportunity to repent of his plan: After Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup, he realizes that his plan to kill Hamlet with Laertes’ help has gone badly awry, and all that he hoped to save in killing Hamlet—his throne and his wife and queen—may be lost. Laertes notices that Gertrude drank from the poisoned cup, and, still blinded by his quest for revenge, says to Claudius that perhaps this is the moment for him to strike Hamlet with the poisoned sword:
CLAUDIUS: Gertrude, do not drink.
GERTRUDE: I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
CLAUDIUS: [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
HAMLET: I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
GERTRUDE: Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES: My lord, I'll hit him now.
CLAUDIUS: I do not think't.
In this exchange, we see that Claudius experiences an opportunity, a sort of gift of the grace of regret. All his plans have begun to turn on him, and he knows it, yet in the end, doesn't change for the better as Laertes eventually does.
Ironically, Gertrude wishes to wipe the face of her son who, unknown to her, will soon die, but in fact she will die first. As I have noted in a previous post, Gertrude wiping the face of Hamlet as he goes to his death echoes Veronica wiping the face of Jesus on the way to the crucifixion(2), a legend not found in scripture but which developed independently of scripture through popular devotion.
Claudius saying “I do not think’t” hints that he realizes that all is lost, and that it matters not whether he and Laertes continue with the plan of killing Hamlet, because after Gertrude dies, Claudius may likely be found out as the poisoner. Hamlet is not yet dead, so Claudius could still repent of his plan and confess his guilt in having murdered his brother, preventing the death of Hamlet. But instead, Claudius may be too shaken by Gertrude’s act of drinking from the cup to stop Laertes. So he fails to act upon the grace of regret he is given; he is not in the habit of accepting and acting on grace, so he is just not inclined in that way.
Ever the liar, Claudius even lies about Gertrude and the poisoned cup:
CLAUDIUS: She swounds to see them bleed.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
[Dies]
Hamlet calls for the doors to be locked and the source of the treachery found, but Laertes confesses regarding the poisons, explains that Hamlet has only moments to live, and says that the king is to blame. Hamlet decides what he now feels he must do with his last moments:
HAMLET: The point!--envenom'd too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
[Stabs CLAUDIUS]
All: Treason! treason!
CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
Other scholars have noted the tradition in England of allowing criminals an opportunity to confess their sins and repent before execution. This would be a good opportunity for Claudius to repent, but instead, he doubles down and lies again, seemingly in denial of the poison and about his prospects of survival.
An old tradition has this scene played in such a way that Hamlet stabs Claudius through the chest, and then forces the rest of the poison cup into the mouth of Claudius. But in a 1988 article in Hamlet Studies, David C.H. Morgan proposed that, instead, Hamlet only scratches Claudius with the poison sword to give him a taste of his own medicine, and then offers the cup to Claudius, which he takes to end his own life.(3) The 2009 BBC production of Hamlet starring David Tennant and Sir Patrick Stewart, directed by Gregory Doran, followed this approach, which some may feel makes Hamlet less an extreme revenger, and Claudius more willing to recognize his crimes. But either way, Claudius either dies unrepentant and resisting until the end, or he dies a suicide, taking the Roman way out that Hamlet requires Horatio to reject.
CONCLUSION
Because Claudius is a murderer, usurper, and liar, and because he is more a thief of the kingdom and his brother’s wife than he is one involved in healthy and mutual gift-dynamics, it’s clear that he’s not only destined for a bad end, but also that he is a sinner who refuses what Christians in Shakespeare’s time would call divine grace, incarnate in his interactions with people around him. There may be ambiguity regarding Hamlet, Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Polonius, all of whom, arguably, display moments of regret and openness to development and gift-exchange or grace, but this seems much less the case with Claudius.
Thanks for reading.
(1) Onion, Rebecca. "The Real Story Behind Margot Robbie’s Wild Queen Elizabeth Makeup." Slate, Dec. 06, 2018.
https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/queen-elizabeth-makeup-margot-robbie-mary-queen-of-scots-real-story.html
(2) Kaula, David. “Hamlet and the Image of Both Churches.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 Vol. 24, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1984), pp. 241-255
(3) Morgan, David C.H. “‘When mercy seasons justice’: How and (Why) Hamlet Does Not Kill Claudius.” Hamlet Studies 10.1-10.2 (1988): 47-78.
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Continued Next Week
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Future posts in this series on "Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet":
Horatio & character development
Fortinbras & character development
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NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
Hamlet quotes are taken from the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare at mit.edu, not for any preference in a particular version or editor, but for simplicity & accessibility.
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
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Index of other posts in this series:
Part 1: Gifts & labors of gratitude in Hansel & Gretel - (prep. for Hamlet) - 8/12/19
Part 2: Hamlet's Descent & Arc Toward Mercy: Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet - 8/19/19
Part 3: Polonius' Labor of Regret - 8/26/19
Part 4: Into Dad's Circle of Fear & Flattery: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret, 1.2 - 9/3/19
Part 5: Fear & Hypocrisy; Laertes’ Labors of Gratitude & Regret, Hamlet 1.3 - 9/9/19
Part 6: Fearsome, Flattered, Glimpsing Transformation: Laertes’ Labors of Gratitude & Regret, 4.5 - 9/17/19
Part 7: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret (Toxic Masculinity Distrats While Ophelia Drowns, Hamlet 4.7 - 9/24/19
Part 8: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret (Laertes & Hamlet Fight at Ophelia’s Grave, Hamlet 5.1 - 10/01/19
Part 9: Gertrude as Recipient & Source of Gifts: Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet - 10/8/19
Part 10: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret: Laertes Turns, but Only When Facing Death, 5.2 - 10/15/19
Part 11: Does Hamlet & Ophelia’s Love Change Them? (Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet) - 10/21/19
Part 12: Claudius Resists Gift-Dynamics & Grace (Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet) - 10/29/19
Part 13: Does Fortinbras Benefit from Gratitude or Regret (or is he more a cipher for James VI & I)? - 11/05/19
Part 14: Horatio's Gift-Dynamics & Christ-Figures Shifting Ground in Hamlet 1.1 - 11/19/19
Part 15: Hamlet & Horatio's Friendship: Mutual, Reciprocal, Transformative, Free - 11/26/19
Part 16: WHY GIFT-DYNAMICS MATTER FOR HAMLET & THE BIBLE: Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet - 12/19/19
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MY BOOK PROJECT:
My book project: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html
RETROSPECTIVES:
Retrospectives of popular posts through March 0f 2019: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/03/hamlets-bible-2-year-anniversary.html
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What do we find if we view Claudius through Lewis Hyde’s lens of gift exchange dynamics? Hyde shows how people receive gifts, and when awakened to the gift’s potential, they may respond in gratitude and labor to become like the gift or the giver. This is a transformative process that may yield dynamic characters who evolve through their interactions rather than remaining static and unchanged, or in terms Christians may have used in Shakespeare's time, remaining proud, stubborn, and hard-hearted. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Claudius never seems to be involved in a truly positive or transformative gift exchange, and in fact, is not shown fully accepting any moment of grace. He uses people and flatters them (Polonius & Laertes), he tries to draw them into his web to his advantage (as he does Laertes), sometimes only to be rejected (as with Hamlet). Even when those around him or his conscience offer him what could be viewed as gifts or grace, he rejects the gifts and stays committed to his plans and maintaining his power.
[L-R, three images of Claudius in film: Alan Bates, dir. by Franco Zeffirelli (1990); Sir Patrick Stewart, dir. by Gregory Doran (2009); Derek Jacobi, dir. by Kenneth Branagh (1996)]
CLAUDIUS AS INCESTUOUS
In Shakespeare’s time, to be involved what the bible viewed as an incestuous marriage was considered wrong, scandalous, and a kind of trigger of strong religious and political feeling. This was in part due to the fact that Henry VIII had sought an annulment from his first wife, which eventually became a cause of the English Reformation. She had been the widow of Henry’s older, sickly brother Arthur, but Henry and Catherine of Aragon had been given a special dispensation by Rome to marry, in part because Catherine had said the first marriage was never consummated (never had sex). They were not able to produce a male heir that thrived more than a short time; meanwhile, Henry was having an affair with Anne Boleyn. Henry claimed Catherine’s marriage to Arthur had in fact been consummated, and that God was punishing him with no thriving male heir, so he believed he had a right to an annulment in order to repent of the sin of an incestuous marriage (and to enable him to wed Anne, his second wife).
By Lewis Hyde's logic of gift-dynamics, an incestuous marriage demonstrates a circle of gift-exchange that is too small, too closed to the stranger and the unknown, and in theological terms, therefore too closed to transcendence. I mentioned in last week's post that, inasmuch as Hamlet is of royal blood and Ophelia was not, their relationship resembled that of Cinderella tales, the opposite of an incestuous marriage, where the prince or princess meets and marries a commoner. The Bible was popular reading in Elizabethan times, available in the mother-tongue for the first time only since the English Reformation and the lifetime of Shakespeare’s parents; in both the Hebrew scriptures (“Old Testament”) and the Christian Scriptures (“New Testament”), welcoming the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:19, Leviticus 19:34) was considered a virtue that connected people to the divine, as sometimes strangers turned out to be angels in disguise (Hebrews 13:2).
Claudius is a character who has secretly killed his brother by poison and married his brother’s widow, so in Shakespeare's time, he would have been considered sinful and evil. The play has the ghost claim that Claudius poured poison in his ear (1.5), but Claudius has also poisoned the ear of the body politic with a lie about a snake biting the king as he napped in his garden. The Bible’s Genesis tale says that God took a rib from Adam while he slept and fashioned Eve for him as a helpmate, but Claudius took his brother’s life while he slept, and he took his helpmate and wife from him as well. Claudius is an anti-Creator, a liar and thief more than a servant-king; he does not nurture or engage in mutual gift exchange that might represent healthy social and spiritual dynamics for Denmark.
There are only two main gift-relationships we see Claudius as engaged in other than offering himself as a new (and unwanted) father-figure to Hamlet; neither one seems particularly healthy or liberating. One is his relationship with Polonius and Laertes, and the other is his relationship with Gertrude.
CLAUDIUS AS HEROD ANTIPAS
In act one, scene two, we see Claudius taking the occasion of Laertes’ desired return to France as an opportunity to grandstand regarding his affection and debts of gratitude to his advisor Polonius, claiming that because of this gratitude toward the father, he must repay the son:
CLAUDIUS:
...what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
I have mentioned before this aspect of Claudius using Laertes to display his generosity in replaying Polonius, in a previous blog post on Laertes in this scene, and have also mentioned how Claudius here resembles King Herod Antipas, offering Salome anything, up to half of his kingdom, in gratitude for how she danced pleasingly for him and his guests. With coaching from her mother, she asks for the head of John the Baptist, who had condemned their incestuous marriage.
If Claudius is like Herod Antipas, who married his brother's wife and whose marriage was condemned by John the Baptist, then Hamlet is a John the Baptist figure, which in part explains why the player queen in "The Mousetrap" is named "Baptista."
Laertes doesn’t ask for the head of Hamlet (a kind of John the Baptist figure, condemning an incestuous marriage) in this scene, but he will ask for it later in Act Four.
Claudius is generous with Laertes, perhaps only for show, but in contrast, he is the opposite of generous with Hamlet, who wishes to return to his studies in Wittenberg (1.2):
CLAUDIUS: For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
If gratitude and generosity motivate Claudius to allow Laertes to return to France, we are right to wonder why the contrast here with the way in which Claudius treats Hamlet. One might argue that Gertrude, having lost a husband and recently married his brother, may wish to have the company of her son by that marriage. But it seems Claudius is probably motivated by suspicion and a desire to keep an eye on Hamlet. If he, Claudius, was willing to kill his brother to get the throne, he would be foolish not to suspect that a prince might one day have similar ambitions and take the throne back.
PRIDE BLINDS CLAUDIUS & POLONIUS TO THE THREAT FROM FORTINBRAS
In 2.2, it seems to me that Claudius and Polonius make a grave mistake that too many critics overlook. Their pride tempts them to believe that their diplomacy with Norway has been effective and the threat of Fortinbras has been neutralized, when in fact the uncle of Fortinbras may have underwritten his nephew’s military adventures and made of him an even greater threat, supposedly gaining permission to cross Denmark on the way to war with Poland, but in the process, posing a grave but unrecognized threat:
CLAUDIUS
[Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
VOLTIMAND
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found
It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[Giving a paper]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.
CLAUDIUS
It likes us well;
And at our more consider'd time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
In fact, the business is not well-ended, and Fortinbras poses at least as much a threat to Denmark as the madness of Prince Hamlet. Some scholars note that Claudius hopes “at our more consider'd time well read, / Answer, and think upon this business,” but that Hamlet’s immature fussing over his father’s death and insistence upon revenge distract Claudius, so of course, to them, Hamlet is to blame, and Claudius should have been allowed to remain on the throne. Given the crimes of Claudius (murdering a brother and king, and an illegal [biblically incestuous] marriage that no citizen would have been allowed), I have as much problem with blaming Hamlet as I would blaming those who discovered the Watergate burglars for the resignation of Nixon.
A HEAVY BURTHEN
In 3.1, Claudius first displays the guilt he feels for having killed his brother: Polonius has just given Ophelia a prayer book to read (which, as I've noted in a past blog post, would make her appear like the Virgin Mary, reading a Book of Psalms at the Annunciation, an illustration that often appeared in prayer books of the time). Polonius comments on the false image this presents of Ophelia, who is to be used as bait, and then Claudius has an aside in which he speaks of his guilty conscience:
POLONIUS
...We are oft to blame in this,--
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
KING CLAUDIUS
[Aside] O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!
This is a kind of moment of grace, a gift, whereby Claudius is able to admit his guilt. He notes the contrast between his ugly deed and his public display of being a good and responsible king. But unfortunately, he doesn’t respond in gratitude for the grace or inspiration to be honest with himself and to repent of his wrongdoing, so the moment passes.
(We might also note that Elizabeth I had died by the time the second quarto and first folio of the play had been published, so comments from Hamlet and Claudius about female faces "beautied with plastering art" might imply criticism of Elizabeth who survived smallpox, but who later painted her face thick with makeup that contained lead to conceal the scars, and which some believe may have contributed to her death. For an interesting discussion of Elizabeth's makeup and its effects, see Rebecca Onion's December 1918 article in Slate.[1])
CLAUDIUS AT PRAYER
Hamlet presents his play, “The Mousetrap,” by which he hopes to catch the conscience of the king (as the prophet Nathan caught the conscience of King David with a tale about a shepherd boy who owned but one sheep). As the play progresses, Claudius asks for more light, signaling the end of the entertainment and also revealing his troubled conscience. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to tell Hamlet that his mother is displeased with him and wishes to see him, but on the way, Hamlet finds Claudius at prayer.
The scene in which we see Claudius at prayer is 3.3; just before Polonius leaves, he explains that Hamlet is going to speak to his mother, but that mothers are not to be trusted because nature makes them inclined to be partial, so a spy (like Polonius) eavesdropping is supposedly necessary, at least in Polonius' mind:
POLONIUS
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear
The speech, of vantage.
Neither Polonius nor Claudius trust Gertrude because she loves her son and may naturally be inclined to be partial, so in this, we see that Claudius’ other gift-relationship, that with his wife, is not one that liberates him to new possibilities of self-transcendence, but only worries him with a need for more suspicion.
For centuries, scholars and critics have noted that Claudius has the longest soliloquy in the play belonging to any character other than the prince himself, and in that soliloquy, he displays that he not only knows that he sinned, but eventually displays that he knows what he must do to be forgiven, yet is unwilling to do it:
CLAUDIUS: O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
[Retires and kneels]
Claudius knows that, as long as he has not confessed his sin of murdering his brother, and given up the wife and throne he gained by it, he cannot be forgiven. He views his soul as trapped by his conscience, like an animal in a trap that becomes more entangled by struggling to be free. He knows that he can put on a show for his subjects, and that as king, he has a “gilded hand,” money and power to do a great many things and appear to be on the side of justice, yet such things don’t fool heaven (“but ‘tis not so above; / There is no shuffling.”)
For these reasons, scholars note Claudius as demonstrating what Christian catechism of the time said was required of the sinner, except only that he lacks the will to repent of his sin.
Hamlet watches him pray and considers killing him, but decides not to because of the chance that, in killing him at prayer, Hamlet would perhaps send him right to heaven, so it would be better to kill him when Claudius is doing something more sinful. And all of this is ironic because Claudius knows he is not forgiven:
CLAUDIUS [Rising]
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [Exit]
And so in this way, Claudius continues to reject opportunities to acknowledge gifts—the gift of a pricked conscience from viewing the play, the gift of a moment of grace where he moves close to repentance—but because he refuses these gifts, he is never transformed by them in a positive way to become more like the gifts or the givers, as Lewis Hyde would say.
Also, I have posted before regarding this scene how Claudius seems to echo the biblical “agony in the garden” of Jesus did before his death; but unlike Jesus, who concluded, “not my will, but yours be done,” Claudius goes against conscience and chooses self-preservation over repentance. Hamlet, for his part in this scene, seems to echo the tale of David sparing the life of Saul from the Hebrew scriptures, but unlike David, Hamlet merely wishes to wait for a more opportune time when in killing Claudius, he will condemn him to hell, playing god. In these ways, both Claudius and Hamlet are failing to live up to the biblical tales they echo. This shows them both as being (at least temporarily) closed-off to gift exchange, grace, and transcendence.
MY VIRTUE OR MY PLAGUE… I COULD NOT BUT BY HER
By Act 4, scene 7, Claudius has already sent orders with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, unknown to them, that Hamlet is to be killed by England when he arrives there after his sea voyage. But that plan fails when Hamlet, attempting to be brave in fighting off pirates along the way, boards a pirate ship to fight but is spared and brought back to Denmark, like a Jonah figure brought back by the fish that swallowed him, to complete his prophetic destiny (and which I've blogged about in the past).
News of Hamlet's return reaches Claudius while he is speaking with Laertes, who he has been flattering to win over and to convince Laertes not to blame and kill Claudius for the death of Laertes' father. They devise a plan to kill Hamlet in a duel with Laertes' secretly poisoned sword, or with a poison cup as a back-up plan.
In the same scene, Laertes asks Claudius why he didn’t deal differently with Hamlet if indeed Hamlet had proven to be such a threat to Claudius’ life. Claudius responds in a way that shows how he is closed off to the gifts and potential of Hamlet, viewing him as a threat rather than an asset:
LAERTES: ... tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr'd up.
CLAUDIUS: O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.
Claudius knows that Hamlet is loved, not only by his mother, but also by the public, or at least the “general gender,” who view even Hamlet’s faults as “graces” or virtues. He ends with the image of an arrow that “Would have reverted to my bow again” because of the strong wind of public opinion, an image that foreshadows Hamlet’s apology to Laertes before the duel in 5.2, and also Horatio’s words to Fortinbras at the end of the same scene, “purposes mistook / Fall'n on the inventors' heads.”
If King Hamlet had died in some other way, and if Prince Hamlet had assumed the throne at too young an age, Claudius as Regent or advisor might have been more positive about utilizing Hamlet’s popularity with the public. In such a case, we might observe that such a Claudius may have been more open to the gifts of Prince Hamlet, and perhaps the relationship could have been more positive and mutually beneficial. But instead, Claudius is closed off to Prince Hamlet as a collaborator in serving Denmark, and views him merely as an adversary.
One of the remarkable things about how Claudius is treated by scholars is that this passage regarding how Hamlet’s popularity —and how Claudius therefore fears opposing him— elicits some interesting projection: Some scholars think that Claudius is an effective administrator and, instead of killing him and having the throne go to a Norwegian (like the throne of Elizabeth I going to the Scottish King James VI?) perhaps Hamlet should have compromised; in this view, Hamlet’s popularity marks him as merely another populist who would (they assume) be less effective than the more Machiavellian Claudius. In other words, these scholars wish to defend the idea of keeping a usurping murderer on the throne rather than have Denmark’s throne (like England’s?) go to an “outsider.” I have a problem with this line of thinking, in part because it seems to assume the play might end either in Claudius remaining on the throne, or in the mad and sloppily vengeful Hamlet on the throne, as the only positive alternatives to the dreaded Fortinbras, who elicits xenophobia in some critics and a foreign invasion to be avoided. In fact, as other scholars have noted, Fortinbras, the prince from the north, represents James VI of Scotland, who succeeds Elizabeth.
IT IS THE POISON’D CUP: IT IS TOO LATE
Claudius has another moment of grace, a moment that offers him a gift of insight and an opportunity to repent of his plan: After Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup, he realizes that his plan to kill Hamlet with Laertes’ help has gone badly awry, and all that he hoped to save in killing Hamlet—his throne and his wife and queen—may be lost. Laertes notices that Gertrude drank from the poisoned cup, and, still blinded by his quest for revenge, says to Claudius that perhaps this is the moment for him to strike Hamlet with the poisoned sword:
CLAUDIUS: Gertrude, do not drink.
GERTRUDE: I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
CLAUDIUS: [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
HAMLET: I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
GERTRUDE: Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES: My lord, I'll hit him now.
CLAUDIUS: I do not think't.
In this exchange, we see that Claudius experiences an opportunity, a sort of gift of the grace of regret. All his plans have begun to turn on him, and he knows it, yet in the end, doesn't change for the better as Laertes eventually does.
Ironically, Gertrude wishes to wipe the face of her son who, unknown to her, will soon die, but in fact she will die first. As I have noted in a previous post, Gertrude wiping the face of Hamlet as he goes to his death echoes Veronica wiping the face of Jesus on the way to the crucifixion(2), a legend not found in scripture but which developed independently of scripture through popular devotion.
Claudius saying “I do not think’t” hints that he realizes that all is lost, and that it matters not whether he and Laertes continue with the plan of killing Hamlet, because after Gertrude dies, Claudius may likely be found out as the poisoner. Hamlet is not yet dead, so Claudius could still repent of his plan and confess his guilt in having murdered his brother, preventing the death of Hamlet. But instead, Claudius may be too shaken by Gertrude’s act of drinking from the cup to stop Laertes. So he fails to act upon the grace of regret he is given; he is not in the habit of accepting and acting on grace, so he is just not inclined in that way.
Ever the liar, Claudius even lies about Gertrude and the poisoned cup:
CLAUDIUS: She swounds to see them bleed.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,--
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
[Dies]
Hamlet calls for the doors to be locked and the source of the treachery found, but Laertes confesses regarding the poisons, explains that Hamlet has only moments to live, and says that the king is to blame. Hamlet decides what he now feels he must do with his last moments:
HAMLET: The point!--envenom'd too!
Then, venom, to thy work.
[Stabs CLAUDIUS]
All: Treason! treason!
CLAUDIUS
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
Other scholars have noted the tradition in England of allowing criminals an opportunity to confess their sins and repent before execution. This would be a good opportunity for Claudius to repent, but instead, he doubles down and lies again, seemingly in denial of the poison and about his prospects of survival.
An old tradition has this scene played in such a way that Hamlet stabs Claudius through the chest, and then forces the rest of the poison cup into the mouth of Claudius. But in a 1988 article in Hamlet Studies, David C.H. Morgan proposed that, instead, Hamlet only scratches Claudius with the poison sword to give him a taste of his own medicine, and then offers the cup to Claudius, which he takes to end his own life.(3) The 2009 BBC production of Hamlet starring David Tennant and Sir Patrick Stewart, directed by Gregory Doran, followed this approach, which some may feel makes Hamlet less an extreme revenger, and Claudius more willing to recognize his crimes. But either way, Claudius either dies unrepentant and resisting until the end, or he dies a suicide, taking the Roman way out that Hamlet requires Horatio to reject.
CONCLUSION
Because Claudius is a murderer, usurper, and liar, and because he is more a thief of the kingdom and his brother’s wife than he is one involved in healthy and mutual gift-dynamics, it’s clear that he’s not only destined for a bad end, but also that he is a sinner who refuses what Christians in Shakespeare’s time would call divine grace, incarnate in his interactions with people around him. There may be ambiguity regarding Hamlet, Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, and Polonius, all of whom, arguably, display moments of regret and openness to development and gift-exchange or grace, but this seems much less the case with Claudius.
Thanks for reading.
(1) Onion, Rebecca. "The Real Story Behind Margot Robbie’s Wild Queen Elizabeth Makeup." Slate, Dec. 06, 2018.
https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/queen-elizabeth-makeup-margot-robbie-mary-queen-of-scots-real-story.html
(2) Kaula, David. “Hamlet and the Image of Both Churches.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 Vol. 24, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1984), pp. 241-255
(3) Morgan, David C.H. “‘When mercy seasons justice’: How and (Why) Hamlet Does Not Kill Claudius.” Hamlet Studies 10.1-10.2 (1988): 47-78.
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Continued Next Week
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Future posts in this series on "Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet":
Horatio & character development
Fortinbras & character development
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NOTE ON THIS SERIES OF POSTS:
Hamlet quotes are taken from the Complete Moby(tm) Shakespeare at mit.edu, not for any preference in a particular version or editor, but for simplicity & accessibility.
This is the latest installment in a multi-part series examining how characters interact in Hamlet, offering opportunities, gifts, planting seeds for future inspiration, or for changes of heart & mind. It follows ideas from Lewis Hyde (“The Labor of Gratitude,” a chapter in his book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property).
- The more I examine characters in this way, the more I realize how the major characters in Hamlet are dynamic characters who change, becoming better or worse in one way or another. This approach goes against the grain of a great deal of scholarship that seems to reify (or thing-ify) too many characters (as foil, as Oedipal, as Machiavellian, etc.) and view them as more static, rather than as dynamic, fluid, interacting. For an index of previous posts in this series, see below.
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Index of other posts in this series:
Part 1: Gifts & labors of gratitude in Hansel & Gretel - (prep. for Hamlet) - 8/12/19
Part 2: Hamlet's Descent & Arc Toward Mercy: Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet - 8/19/19
Part 3: Polonius' Labor of Regret - 8/26/19
Part 4: Into Dad's Circle of Fear & Flattery: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret, 1.2 - 9/3/19
Part 5: Fear & Hypocrisy; Laertes’ Labors of Gratitude & Regret, Hamlet 1.3 - 9/9/19
Part 6: Fearsome, Flattered, Glimpsing Transformation: Laertes’ Labors of Gratitude & Regret, 4.5 - 9/17/19
Part 7: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret (Toxic Masculinity Distrats While Ophelia Drowns, Hamlet 4.7 - 9/24/19
Part 8: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret (Laertes & Hamlet Fight at Ophelia’s Grave, Hamlet 5.1 - 10/01/19
Part 9: Gertrude as Recipient & Source of Gifts: Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet - 10/8/19
Part 10: Laertes' Labors of Gratitude & Regret: Laertes Turns, but Only When Facing Death, 5.2 - 10/15/19
Part 11: Does Hamlet & Ophelia’s Love Change Them? (Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet) - 10/21/19
Part 12: Claudius Resists Gift-Dynamics & Grace (Labors of Gratitude & Regret in Hamlet) - 10/29/19
Part 13: Does Fortinbras Benefit from Gratitude or Regret (or is he more a cipher for James VI & I)? - 11/05/19
Part 14: Horatio's Gift-Dynamics & Christ-Figures Shifting Ground in Hamlet 1.1 - 11/19/19
Part 15: Hamlet & Horatio's Friendship: Mutual, Reciprocal, Transformative, Free - 11/26/19
Part 16: WHY GIFT-DYNAMICS MATTER FOR HAMLET & THE BIBLE: Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet - 12/19/19
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MY BOOK PROJECT:
My book project: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html
RETROSPECTIVES:
Retrospectives of popular posts through March 0f 2019: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/03/hamlets-bible-2-year-anniversary.html
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