Why does Hamlet criticism often prefer the personal over the political?

IF HAMLET SCHOLARS tried to interpret the play too exclusively in terms of the slim biographical facts we know about Shakespeare, expanding that understanding through perhaps baseless speculation on what we don't know about the playwright, we might be correct to criticize them as perhaps guilty of the biographical fallacy, a kind of reductionism that views work too exclusively as commentary about the author.

If scholars did the same too exclusively with certain historical facts - about the "incestuous marriage" of Henry VIII that led to the English Reformation, or Elizabeth I's Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, or Cecil's daughter who, like Ophelia, died under suspicious circumstances - then we might do well to criticize the approach as a kind of historical reductionism - as if the meaning of the play is "nothing but" veiled commentary on certain historical events. (Some readers seem reductionist in this way, claiming the prince is nothing but a kind of code for and commentary on Essex, etc.)

But while some Hamlet scholars have been open to historical and political aspects of the play, there have long been others who would rather not revisit the first marriage of Henry VIII and other details of history, and so, prefer to canonize Shakespeare as an angelic poet speaking eternal truths...

In that context, has it long been easier to prefer the personal details (and the psychoanalytical?) over the political?

Is it (sadly) easier for scholars to agree on references in Hamlet to the war of the theaters than it is to the play's incestuous marriage as pointing at least in part to Henry VIII's incestuous marriage, or Polonius at least in part as William Cecil, because of the pushback in some quarters - resulting in many general introductions that shy away from such topics?

I HAVE BEEN READING Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages by David Bevington, who was an author, scholar, and Shakespeare editor (for just one example, he edited a version of Hamlet that I often use, at internetshakespeare.uvic.ca). So in other words, on a daily basis, I enjoy and benefit from his handiwork when I do Hamlet research. Bevington died last August 2nd (2019).
For a brief review of Murder Most Foul, see the Shakespeare Geek blog entry here.

In Murder Most Foul, Bevington has a wonderful way of conveying a great deal of information in a way that makes it seem easy, as many good writers do. It's a pleasure to read.

One early section of the book is about the "Pre-history" of the play, and in that section, he includes brief treatment not only of the Saxo Grammaticus version of the Hamlet story (c.1200, with the main character originally named "Amleth") as well as the French translation and revision/adaptation by François de Belleforest (1570), but also—and here's the rub—some personal facts about Shakespeare's life, including the death of his father and of his son, Hamnet. Stephen Greenblatt also includes these personal facts in his book, Hamlet in Purgatory. This is fine. It's important to consider.

But it occurred to me: Why do people like Bevington and Greenblatt mention the personal events in Shakespeare's life that might have inspired certain aspects of the play, but (at least some of them) not mention the political and social events, scandals, and upheavals that may also have inspired Shakespeare's version, or rewriting, of the old story?
Like Henry VIII marrying the widow of his brother Arthur?

For just a few examples of historical events that may have inspired certain details of the play besides the deaths of Shakespeare's son Hamnet and his father, consider these:

1. The play is about the end of a royal house in Denmark.
England was also at the end of a royal house, the House of Tudor, which ended with the death of Elizabeth I, who died about the same time that the first published versions of the play were coming out (1603-4). Some scholars note this, but others leave it out - even out of general introductions to the play.

2. In the play, after all the royals are dead, Fortinbras is poised to become the next king of Denmark. He is a prince from the north.
In England, James of Scotland, son of Mary, became king. He is a prince from the north.
Some note this, including a number of news articles from January 2017, mentioning that Shakespeare's Hamlet had been re-dated to 1603 instead of 1601. This is an important insight that some understood, but was resisted for too long in some quarters.

3. In the play, King Hamlet had killed the father of young Fortinbras many years earlier, when Hamlet and Fortinbras were very young.
In England, Elizabeth had signed the order to have Mary, Queen of Scots, father of James (future king of England), beheaded for treason; so in both cases, a previous (now dead) monarch had killed or ordered the killing of another monarch whose son became the next king.
(Did some scholars want to ignore this because perhaps it drew too much attention to Catholic-Protestant issues, and Elizabeth's decision to have her cousin Mary executed? Better to let sleeping dogs lie and pretend Shakespeare was addressing more eternal than ephemeral themes?)

4. In the play, Polonius (in an earlier draft named Corambis) is a key advisor and sometime-spymaster to the throne, and he has a son Laertes who may take his job one day (when Claudius receives the letter from Hamlet after the sea-voyage, he doesn't understand it, and asks Laertes, "...advise me?" 4.7.3068).
In England, William Cecil had been key advisor to Elizabeth and was sometimes involved in ordering spying, as well as other aspects of statecraft; he had a son, Robert, and once William died, Robert Cecil was given his father's job.)
Some scholars have long noted this, but others have long contested it. What are the biases of those who note or contest this insight? Have some of them had an axe to grind, or an idolized, sanitized Shakespeare to protect?

5. In the play, Ophelia, daughter of Polonius, sister to Laertes, has a tempestuous relationship with a man (Hamlet, who she rejects on orders from her father, and who then rejects her for a time in spite of having made "almost all the holy vows of heaven); later she dies under suspicious circumstances; some suspect suicide.
In England, Anne, the daughter of William Cecil, sister to Robert, had a tempestuous relationship with her husband, who rejected her for a time, and she died under suspicious circumstances.)

6. One popular play before Hamlet was called A Looking Glass for London and England; this play not only had a king who was considering entering into an incestuous marriage, but it also had prophets, including Jonah, who call him to repent of his evil ways.
In the play, Hamlet opposes the incestuous marriage of Gertrude to her dead husband's brother, and he has a Jonah-like sea-voyage, west toward England, and then changes mode of transportation mid-sea, getting figuratively swallowed by a pirate ship instead of a fish.

7. The play is about an incestuous marriage in which a widow marries the brother of her dead husband, the king.
And it just so happened that in England, Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, had wed the widow of his dead brother, Arthur (and this later played a key role in the English Reformation).

8. The play is about a murderous king, who would kill so as to marry the woman he desires, and to secure the throne.
And in England, Henry VIII was known to have had wives executed so that he could wed his new love interest, and to have had executed the Franciscan priest, John Forest, who was confessor to his first wife: Forest opposed the divorce of Henry and Catherine, and he refused to recognize Henry VIII as head of the English church.

9. Hamlet describes Claudius as a "cutpurse," a thief.
And in England, Henry VIII had been described as a cutpurse who wasted the country's treasury.

If the play, Hamlet, seems to cast judgment about the corruptions of a royal house that is coming to an end, it seems to cast judgment on the House of Tudor, and especially on that murderous, incestuous English king, Henry VIII.

And perhaps Freudian/Oedipal analyses are another very sophisticated way of avoiding the political in favor of the personal?
The following tweet capsulizes it:

(Maybe there's a strong tendency on the part of some scholars in decades past to avoid talk of class privilege and anything that smacks of Marxism, because of the assumption that Marxism failed when the USSR collapsed? Fear of alienating rich kids and losing corporate funding for humanities at some universities and colleges? But that's another complicated set of issues to explore perhaps some other day...)

Why do scholars like Bevington consider the death of Hamnet and of Shakespeare's father as some of the inspiration for the play, but they often overlook, or discuss in some later context, these and other events that also may have inspired aspects of the play, events in England beyond Shakespeare's small circle of family and friends?

My hunch (I'm shooting from the hip here): bardolatry (in one form or another, although Bevington might deny he practiced it).

Bardolatry may have reached its height in the Victorian era, or so claims Wikipedia.
Bardolatry that was English, Protestant, and nationalistic, seemed to strive to elevate Shakespeare to the status of an angel speaking eternal and universal truths, not to be sullied by day-to-day gossip or politics. It seems they preferred to think of Shakespeare as an angel or divinely-inspired poet who was so busy writing his poems and plays for ALL OF TIME, for future readers of EVERY AGE to read and enjoy, that he could hardly be bothered to make references to "topical" events or issues unless in a few cases it fit in with his angelic reputation. The national poet would not sully himself to stoop so low. Right.

So some scholars got in the habit of thinking of Shakespeare as not political in the timely and local sense of passing events, but only in the eternal sense: If he had observations about historical events or politics, it was mostly so that he could speak his eternal truths. So if one didn't have time to read and remember whole plays, one could always memorize the advice of Polonius to his son Laertes as the son is leaving for France, or the St. Crispin's day speech of Henry V to his troops before the Battle of Agincourt, or of Marc Antony in Julius Caesar: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears....”

If Shakespeare was viewed as a poet and playwright for all times, not tarnished by focus on passing events, this allowed especially English Protestant readers a way of clinging to their political assumptions and canonizing - and sterilizing - their national poet.

So re-making Shakespeare in their own image, they assumed he was
—Protestant (of course),
—anti-Catholic (like all good Protestants of his time),
—pro-monarchy (in spite of the flaws of monarchs),
—generally anti-Semitic (England had expelled almost all the Jews there in 1290, and Christians of the time viewed Jesus as transcending the old law, as St. Paul puts it),
—pro-patriarchy, and heterosexual (some editors revised his more homo-erotic poems to sound more heterosexual).

But especially in the last half-century, many of these assumptions are being more widely questioned. Yet some aspects of Bardolatry's after-effects remain with us—in spite of the efforts of many scholars to remove Shakespeare from his pedestal.

That's my impression. I could be wrong! Let me know what you think!

Meanwhile, I am enjoying Bevington's Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages and highly recommend it.
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Quotes from Hamlet are taken from InternetShakespeare, Modern Version, edited by David Bevington.
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Thanks for reading!
My current project is a book tentatively titled “Hamlet’s Bible,” about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

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https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html

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