Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

At the Folger Shakespeare Library's " Shakespeare and Beyond " blog, Austin Tichenor recently (April 19, 2022) posted some excellent reflections about Hamlet-Batman parallels, with Batman as a kind of American Hamlet, and including his thoughts on the recent film starring Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader in The Batman . It is a fun read that doesn't get bogged down in scholarly jargon. The blog also includes this fun comicbook image from 2008, Batman #682 (Grant Morrison, Lee Garbett, Trevor Scott), via the Folger blog post: Highly recommended. It also offers bonus reflects near the end about Hamlet-Black Panther parallels. You can read it here , or by copying and pasting the following URL into your browser: https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2022/04/19/batman-shakespeare-hamlet-gotham/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Disclaimer : If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promo...

Last week my post addressed the anxiety of characters in Hamlet about the missing body of Polonius, compared to that of the women at the tomb regarding the corpse of Jesus . [Images: Illuminations from Folio 117r of the Pericopes of Henry II, Reichenau, c. 1002–1012: The Three Marys, and the Angel at the Empty Tomb. Public domain, via Wikipedia , and fair use, via Flickr .] If Shakespeare is satirizing William Cecil as Polonius (and as *the antithesis of Jesus*), the point is not to affirm belief in a resurrection of Christ, but to perform political satire. But there is more to this missing body business (as there usually is with Shakespeare). Consider certain claims about William Cecil and the Privy Council before we return to Polonius: Robert Persons, a Jesuit priest, claimed in 1592 that there was a "school of atheism" in England centered on Sir Walter Raleigh . Atheism in Elizabethan England was a label for many things, including those (like later US Pres...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 271 views from the following countries: Thank you 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 Shakespeare’s Hamlet, three characters express anxiety about the missing body of Polonius: Rosencrantz (with Guildenstern), and Claudius. Strangely, this echoes what, in Christian tradition, came to be known as “the three Marys” at the tomb of Jesus, with Mary Magdalene in John 20:11-15 being especially verbal about her anxiety about the missing body. [More information below on these three images.] [Left: العربية: أيقونة المريمات الثلاثة. Icon of The Three Marys. 11th century, Nea Moni of Chios (Byzantine monastery, Greece). Public domain. Via Wikipedia . Right: Three Marys at the Tomb (Polski: Trzy Marie u grobu). Circa 1470, Nicolaus Haberschrack  (1454–1484). National Museum, Kraków. Public domain. Via Wikipedia .] This perhaps offers an ironic and even humorous feminizing of Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern in the comparison. If Shakespeare offers such an ironic and playful contrast to evoke something in his audiences, what is the purpose? First,...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 200 views from the following countries: Thank you 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 week (April 16, 2022) I've been posting about allusions in Shakespeare's Hamlet to various biblical passages and traditions associated with what Christians call "Holy Week," which begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter Sunday. I’ve compiled this post from my previous posts about Holy Week allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. (Updated, 2023.) Some of these are clearly allusions in a traditional sense; Others are plot echoes, as with the Jonah echoes in Hamlet’s sea voyage. Others involve how the play appeals to what the national religion(s) conditioned playgoers to think and feel about certain elements, such as “They know not what they do,” or Gertrude’s “Veronica complex,” wiping the face of Hamlet… This blog post contains links to the following posts. In summary: ~~~ PALM SUNDAY: Hamlet's Palm Sunday Allusion & Cognitive Dissonance: "preaching to stones, Would make them capable." [Image: Pietro Lorenzetti (1280–1348), Untitl...

In the past, I have posted about the sea-voyage of Hamlet as resembling that of the prophet Jonah . [1] But the connection of Hamlet to Jonah also connects Hamlet to Jesus in the tomb, like Jonah in the belly of the fish. Jonah later emerges alive, as Hamlet survives his sea voyage and capture by pirates. Hamlet does not = Jonah or Jesus, but Shakespeare holds the mirror up for us to compare them. Christian tradition holds that after Jesus’ crucifixion, he was placed in a tomb (on Friday), and “descended into hell” to free all the souls of the just. In Matthew 12:39-40, Jesus says, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign, but no sign shall be given unto it, save that sign of the Prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly: so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. People in Shakespeare’s time would have known this passage, not only because there were many avid bible readers in his tim...

Christianity has long used the Friday before Easter to commemorate the story of the betrayal, torture, crucifixion, and death of Jesus. These stories are retold in the Bible (Mark 14-15, Matthew 26-27, Luke 22-23, John 18-19). [Image: David Tennant in 2008 RSC production of Hamlet, directed by Gregory Doran. Via BBC . Fair use.] Shakespeare’s Hamlet echoes a number of details from these stories and from larger Christian tradition. (See also Shaheen.) A few examples: [1] 1.1.125-137: Horatio describes the dead rising and strange signs in the heavens upon the death of Julius Caesar, but Matthew 27:53 similarly describes the dead raised at the moment of Jesus' death, and Luke 23:44-45 describes an eclipse. 1.1.162 and 163-4: The ghost hears the cock crow, and Horatio comments, “it started like a guilty thing / Upon a fearful summons.” Each of the gospels tells of Jesus predicting that Peter will deny him, and later, that the prediction comes true, marked by the crowing of a...

In Shakespeare’s time as now, the Thursday before Easter included a special "Mass" to commemorate the Last Supper, when Jesus broke bread with his disciples and said it was his body, and shared a cup of wine, saying it was his blood. (As my previous post mentioned, this also included a foot-washing ritual .) Scholars have noticed many allusions in Hamlet to Eucharist and the mass (and argue whether they are more Protestant or Catholic). Here are a few: [Image: David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet directed by Gregory Doran, 2008. Image from RSC ( here ), cropped. Fair use.] 1.5. 84: The ghost says he was poisoned by his brother and died “Unhous'led,” meaning not having received Eucharist in the Last Rites. 1.5. 98: He says “Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.” This recalls Jesus at the Last Supper: “Do this in memory of me.” 2.1. 56-8: Polonius loses his train of thought and curses (“by the Mass”): “...what was ...

Echoes of Maundy Thursday in Hamlet (and Hobbits): [Image: Screen capture from YouTube clip of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), directed by Peter Jackson, Warner Bros. based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien. Fair use.] Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday, April 14 in 2022, and April 6 in 2023) begins what the Roman Catholic Church calls the Triduum (Paschal or Easter Triduum), which includes a ritual remembrance of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples (John 13:1–17). “Maundy” comes from the Latin word for “command,” so Maundy Thursday gets its name from the Latin words once used at the opening of the Thursday service during Holy Week, and the gospel in which Jesus commands his disciples to love and serve others as he loved and served them. This came to be known as Jesus “New Commandment” to love, an idea used by Christians to differentiate them from the Ten Commandments of Moses. [1] There are echoes in Hamlet of this passage from John, and related passages f...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 170 views from the following countries: Thank you 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.

Compare: HAMLET: On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares. His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones , Would make them capable. (3.4.142-4) Palm Sunday reading (Geneva trans.), Luke 19:39-41: 39 Then some of the Pharisees of the company said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. 40 But he answered, and said unto them, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would cry. [ Emphasis mine] ~~~~~~~ [Image: Pietro Lorenzetti (1280–1348), Untitled, known as Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Fresco, Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. Public domain. Via Wikimedia .] But note the cognitive dissonance this allusion creates: The apparition that claims to be the ghost of Hamlet's father in purgatory is not the same as Jesus on Palm Sunday... - So does Shakespeare put these words in Hamlet's mouth to emphasize that Hamlet wrongly idolizes his father? - Does this also (cleverly, covertly) imply that those who believe in the divin...

"Shakespeare quotes the Bible roughly 1,350 times, considerably more than any other playwright of the period. Ignoring religion when discussing his work is a bit like ignoring an elephant sitting on your sofa sipping a martini." - John R. Yamamoto-Wilson (from an online comment on a post here ) From Hamlet's Choice: Hamlet—A Reformation Allegory , by Linda Kay Hoff (1990): Hamlet is a play in which religious elements loom large. As such it has attracted an inordinate number of Catholic and Protestant apologist critics who, more than any other, "botch the words up fit to their own thought" * in trying to make of Hamlet a religious drama compatible with the preconceived religious beliefs that moved them to respond to the religious elements within Hamlet in the first place, usually with the transparent ulterior motive of aligning Shakespeare with themselves as their coreligionist. While many of these apologist critics have contributed useful explanations...