Hamlet's Palm Sunday Allusion & Cognitive Dissonance: "preaching to stones, Would make them capable."
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]
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[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 divine right of kings/queens participate in a kind of idolatry similar to Hamlet who idolizes his father?
- But also perhaps does this imply that there are important matters in Denmark, corruptions about which the people should not be silent?
- And - ? Other possibilities?
This allusion demonstrates that Shakespeare's allusive practice is often not as straightforward as Claudius comparing himself to Cain having murdered his brother Abel....
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible and religion may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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Thanks for reading!
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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.
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]
~~~~~~~
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 divine right of kings/queens participate in a kind of idolatry similar to Hamlet who idolizes his father?
- But also perhaps does this imply that there are important matters in Denmark, corruptions about which the people should not be silent?
- And - ? Other possibilities?
This allusion demonstrates that Shakespeare's allusive practice is often not as straightforward as Claudius comparing himself to Cain having murdered his brother Abel....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible and religion may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for reading!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your work to bring the strong Biblical element in Shakespeare into greater prominence and I believe we might usefully share the results of our parallel studies.
Here is one of my recent blog posts: https://shake-speares-bible.com/2022/04/27/ezekiel-16-49-and-the-shakespeare-question/
Here's my contact information: https://shake-speares-bible.com/about/
If you like we can swap books. You can find contact me here: https://shake-speares-bible.com/about/
Let's compare notes. You can contact me here: https://shake-speares-bible.com/about/
ReplyDeleteRoger,
DeleteThank you for your comments!
Regrettably, I while I do hope to publish my work on biblical allusions in Hamlet one day (in book form), I don’t yet have any book to swap!
But I appreciate your interest. For now, all that I have that’s fit to share is what you find in the blog here, which you are free to search and peruse as you like.
Regarding your link to your own blog post on Ezekiel 16:49-50:
It’s very helpful that authors like Shaheen (and some of his predecessors, or at least Carter?) noticed the “fullness of bread” allusion. Many modern readers (especially those unfamiliar with the Geneva Bible translation) can be thrown off by that reference in v.49.
Regarding the lack of attention to the poor, referenced in v.50:
You may have noticed the proliferation of memes in recent years that wrestle a bit with the reductionist tradition, that Sodom and Gomorrah was about homosexuality (exclusively), and instead, note that the tale was also about
a) a lack of hospitality to strangers;
b) rape;
c) a strange and confusing moment where a father offers his daughters to be raped instead (!); and
d) lack of help for the poor.
If one does a Google search for one can find many examples of not only memes, but also articles on the topic.
Regarding treatment of the poor, you may be aware of the vagrancy acts of 1572 and 1597, and also of John Manwood’s 1592 treatise, “A Brefe Collection of the Lawes of the Forest.” Thomas More also complained about the harmful consequences to the poor of enclosing the commons for sheep, driving off tenant farmers (who were often then homeless, out of work, vagrants).
Elizabeth’s solution, to punish vagrants and beggars, and to require them to be returned to their place of birth, often was not a solution at all, but only caused more problems.
If you’re Shakespeare, and the queen is among your patrons, how do you raise this issue without offending the queen?
The ghost in Hamlet speaks of how the poison made his skin “lazar-like,” as if in death he, a rich king, was forced to trade places with the beggar Lazarus whose sores were licked by dogs. It’s a subtle but important reference.
And there are other beggars in Hamlet:
- Ophelia begs her father and brother for affirmation of her love for Hamlet, but they send her away disappointed and criticized as “prodigal.”
- The (“vagabond”) players seek lodging, and Hamlet scolds Polonius for being ungenerous with them.
- Ophelia speaks of how they say the owl was a baker’s daughter: That folktale is basically a retelling of the story of the Rich Man and the Beggar Lazarus, with Jesus disguised as the beggar, and the baker’s daughter like the ungenerous rich man.
I explored these aspects of the Lazarus resonances in Hamlet in a series of about 18 posts, starting here, with an index of posts in that series near the bottom:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/02/new-series-on-rich-man-lazarus.html
I followed this up by exploring other Shakespeare plays that refer to Lazarus and the Rich Man, or that use terms like “beg” and “poor.” You commented on one of these.
I hope that’s helpful!
Paul
Hi Paul,
DeleteThis is actually what I meant when I said, swap.
Your comment is very useful to me in summarizing some pieces of our briefer exchange over the past few months and years, especially the bit about the terms "beg" and "poor," and how this correlates with the frequent recall and reusing of the the Lazarus and the rich man story from Luke 16.
You might be intrigued to know that the word "poor" is the most common annotation in the de Vere Geneva Bible. I'm going to do a blog on that in the near future as it deserves more attention as one salient aspect of the data preserved in the book.
You also write: "Regarding treatment of the poor, you may be aware of the vagrancy acts of 1572 and 1597, and also of John Manwood’s 1592 treatise, “A Brefe Collection of the Lawes of the Forest.”
This is of great interest to me since I already knew of Manwood's Treatise. In this document (https://shake-speares-bible.com/2022/04/26/your-majestys-most-humble-servant-the-earl-of-oxfords-last-surviving-letter/) when Oxford confirms to James of having been "bowlde to send unto yowre Magestye a man skillfull, lerned, & experiencede in foreste causes" -- well, guess who that is?
Interesting coincidence, huh. You're doing some really great work and obviously have a broad knowledge of the relevant texts, from which I'm learning. Let's continue over the coming weeks.
Thanks also for these observations, Roger. It strikes me, how seldom I've heard of Thomas More's concern for the loss of the commons, or John Manwood's treatise.
DeleteI only arrived at such stuff by way of investigating aspects of the Dives and Lazarus allusion by the ghost, which was relatively late in my (admittedly limited) research. Maybe I'm not reading the right stuff - maybe I'm spending too much time on critical writing related to Hamlet, and not enough on As You Like It, and critical writings related to the Forest of Arden? It would seem that the loss of the commons may have been a recurring theme in Shakespeare's time (and earlier), but (as often happens) other scholarly concerns take center stage, while those things that might contribute to our historical sensibility about the plays get pushed aside. . . .