Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Shobha Pawar is a translator and former English professor and department chair from Pune, Maharashtra, India, who has long been a collegial acquaintance on LinkedIn, and for this, I am most grateful. Last week I posted about Aristotelian poetics, ethics, and politics in Hamlet , and Shobha asked some helpful questions and made good observations. Her comments inspired this week's blog post. Shobha wrote, "Paul, taking the cue from Aristotle I think anagnorisis is the decisive factor in defining tragedy. How would you view Hamlet's journey in the light of this?" Great question. There used to be a series of books called Where's Waldo , in which there were detailed pictures of crowds, and the task on each set of pages of the open book was to find Waldo, who always wore the same clothing. The task Shobha's question suggests is to approach Hamlet and to ask, "Where's anagnorisis?" Edit: I should note early that Shobha does not believe Hamlet is...

Thanks to readers for the past week, which the blog's analytics show as being from the following countries: Albania Australia Canada Costa Rica Germany Hungary India Indonesia Israel Japan Malta Netherlands Sweden Tunisia Turkey United Kingdom United States The analytics feature is limited, so unless I check it daily, I may miss some that pop up. Some may get cut off or listed as from "Unknown Region." Listed or not, thanks for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.

A feature of the period called the English Renaissance is its attention to Greek and Latin classical texts, which includes not only poetry and drama, but also philosophy - including Aristotle. Many students of Shakespeare are told to consider his tragedies in terms of Aristotle's poetics, which says that the main character has some tragic flaw which eventually brings out his downfall. But a number of elements in Hamlet invite us to scrutinize this limited approach. [L: Roman copy Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos, c. 330 BC. R: Detail from the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare , 1610.] By this, many claim Hamlet's flaw is that his conscience makes him overthink and hesitate; but in fact as some scholars have recognized, many of his worst moments (his unkindness to Ophelia, his stabbing of Polonius) come from not thinking enough, not pausing before acting. If Hamlet simply kills Claudius at prayer, not only does he risk sending Claudius to heaven and failing at re...

Thanks to readers for the past week, which the blog's analytics show as being from the following countries: Australia Canada India Indonesia Sweden Ukraine United States United Kingdom The analytics feature is limited, so unless I check it daily, I may miss some that pop up. Some may get cut off or listed as from "Unknown Region." Listed or not, thanks for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.

This past week, one generous reader on a FaceBook Shakespeare-related forum recommended a helpful essay by Michael MacDonald called "Ophelia's Maimèd Rites," published in Shakespeare Quarterly Vol. 37, No. 3 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 309-317 (9 pages). The recommendation was in response to my blog post from last week, "Coroner's Suicide Inquest as 'Crowner's Quest' in Hamlet" which quoted David Bevington's claim that coroner's inquests were pressured by the crown to rule questionable deaths as suicides, in which case the crown often took possession of the deceased's property, since suicide was considered sinful by the church and a crime by the state. It may also have tempted the crown to the sin or vice of greed. [ Painting by Benjamin West, 1789, Boydell Shakespeare Gallery ] MacDonald doesn't explicitly claim any support for a position like Bevington's regarding pressure on coroner's inquests; in fact, he takes a more ne...

Thanks to readers for the past week, which the blog's analytics show as being from the following countries: Argentina Australia Brazil Canada Hungary Israel Japan New Zealand United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States The analytics feature is limited, so unless I check it daily, I may miss some that pop up. Some may get cut off or listed as from "Unknown Region." Listed or not, thanks for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.

In David Bevington's book Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages, Bevington includes the following parenthetical observation regarding suicides: (Coroners in Shakespeare's day were instructed to issue of suicide in such dubious cases, partly because swimming was regarded as reckless self-endangerment and thus virtually a suicidal act, but more importantly because the estate of the deceased would then go to the crown.) (60) Bevington died last summer in his late 80s, and the book was first published in 2011 when he was about 80. On this point in the parenthetical above, there is no footnote, no mention in the end notes. (If this is a commonly-known understanding, and if many other sources confirm it, and if you are aware of some of those, please let me know). The general logic is that suicide is self-murder, and murder violates one of the ten commandments ("thou shalt not kill"), so a suicide (or even an attempted suicide) is therefore a criminal, and the land...

Thanks to readers for the past week, which the blog's analytics show as being from the following countries: Belgium Canada France Georgia India Ireland Italy South Korea Sweden United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Unknown Region The analytics feature is limited, so unless I check it daily, I may miss some that pop up. Some may get cut off or listed as from "Unknown Region." Listed or not, thanks for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.