Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

What Bible verses relate to the allegedly incestuous marriages of Henry VIII and Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet? Mainly two. These may seem contradictory, but examined carefully, make sense. [Image: Mishneh Torah (Maimonides), Perugia, c. 1400 (Elie Kedouri, The Jewish World, 1979, p. 193). Illuminated Hebrew manuscript. National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. Photo is from replica at the Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv. Fair use. Via Wikimedia.org .] First, Arthur Tudor died without any children, so Deuteronomy 25:5-10 seems to apply: Verse 5 explains: If a brother dies without children (especially a male child in Hebrew biblical culture), his widow should not marry a “stranger” outside the family; a surviving brother should take the brother’s widow as a wife. (This is called "levirate marriage.") Verse 6: The first child she bears by this new marriage will be considered the child of the dead brother, to carry on his line and legacy. (Yes, very patriarchal.) Verses 7...

Shakespeare certainly wrote of Claudius and Gertrude’s “incestuous” marriage with Henry VIII in mind. Early audiences recognized it. In teaching the play, is it a mistake to omit that context? [Left: Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales (1486-1502), "regarded as the only surviving contemporary portrait"; circa 1500. Anglo-Flemish School. Private collection, Hever Castle, Kent. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia . Center: Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), originally identified as Catherine Parr, but now recognized as Catherine of Aragon. Unidentified painter. 16th Century. Lambeth Palace. Public domain, via Wikimedia . Right: Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), circa 1509. Attributed to Meynnart Wewyck. Denver Art Museum. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia ]. From “The Character of Hamlet,” by John Erskine Hankins* (1941), p.101: ~~~ It will be remembered that Henry VII's eldest son Arthur was married to Katherine of Aragon to cement an alliance between England and Spa...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 110 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.

When Hamlet is seen for the first time in the first act, second scene of Shakespeare's play that bears his name, is he wearing black because he is just a spoiled boy having a tantrum because he didn't get to be king, or can we take him at his word that he is in deep grief? Excerpts from Rebecca Mead’s 6/6 New Yorker article on Robert Icke’s Hamlet stood out to me in part because of the emphasis on real rather than feigned grief, or “Hamlet as neurotically indecisive or Oedipally compromised”: [Photo by Jeff Brown for the Ney Yorker. Fair use.] ~~~~~ [...] Icke first staged “Hamlet” in 2017 [...] with Andrew Scott in the lead role [...]. Scott was then best known for his performance as Moriarty, on “Sherlock” [...] The production, in which Denmark was imagined as a chilling surveillance state, incorporated the use of video to powerful effect—the Ghost is initially observed on grainy security footage—and was heralded for its emotional veracity. Especially praised was the i...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 640 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.

Today is Father’s Day in the USA. What kinds of father figures are there in Hamlet? [1] [Images: Top left: Brian Blessed as the Ghost in Hamlet , 1996, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Via Hamlet Digi-book, Blue Ray -dot-com . Fair use. Top right: Alan Bates as Claudis in Hamlet , 1990, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Via Shakespeare Navigators . Fair use. Lower left: Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius in in Hamlet , 2008, directed by Gregory Doran. Via BBC and RSC . Fair use. Lower right: Sir Ken Dodd, who played Yorick in Hamlet , 1996, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Via Telegraph UK . Fair use.] Many children are haunted by their fathers, at least figuratively, in good or bad ways. Old Fortinbras: The father of Young Fortinbras gambles his life in for ambition. The prize: Honor and land conquest by defeating an adversary. He loses. Some fathers are ambitious, gamblers, violent, but blunt about it, making no secret of their ambitions, or their violence. Some are killed in battl...

Women and Indian Shakespeares (Arden Shakespeare) This looks fascinating to me, but I'm wondering about impressions from some those in or from India who follow me. You can read an excerpt at the link and view the titles in the table of contents. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/women-and-indian-shakespeares-9781350234345/ Includes essays on adaptation and translation. I have not yet read it, but it looks interesting to me from my own [very limited!] perspective. From the web page description: < Women and Indian Shakespeares explores the multiple ways in which women, and those identifying as women, are, and have been, engaged with Shakespeare in India. Women's engagements encompass the full range of media, from translation to cinematic adaptation and from early colonial performance to contemporary theatrical experiment. Simultaneously, Women and Indian Shakespeares makes visible the ways in which women are figured in various representational registers as resist...

Usually when summer begins, views to my blog fall off as students and instructors take a break at the end of the spring term. But unexpectedly, in a 12-hour period this past day, I had 640 views of one of my blog posts from October of 2019 called " Gertrude as Recipient and Source of Gifts ." This was part 9 in a multi-part series on "Labors of Gratitude and Regret in Hamlet exploring how interactions between characters either offered (non-material) gifts that might inspire them to change, or how interactions sometimes moved characters to regret and change. (If you have not yet read that post, please feel free to visit the blog and give it a read at this link: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/10/gertrude-as-recipient-giver-of-gifts.html Here is a screen shot of the increased views over the last 24 hours associated with that post: When there is a surge in views like that, it might be caused by an instructor who teaches multiple sections of a class whose s...

From the chapter, “On Ghosts” (131-171) from the book, The Character of Hamlet by John Erskine Hankins (1941), regarding 5 options for different beliefs regarding ghosts, represented by various characters in Hamlet. [1] [Upper left: Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet and Ewart James Walters as Ghost in 2018 RSC production of Hamlet, photo by Manuel Harlan via RSC, cropped . Fair use. Upper right: Illustration of the ghost by Thomas Ridgeway Gould from an 1890 printing of Hamlet, public domain, via Wikipedia . Lower right: Paul Scofield as the ghost in Hamlet, 1990, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Photo via The Guardian . Fair use. Lower left: Engraving, "Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost, on platform before the Palace of Elsinor," by Robert Thew (1758–1802) After Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), September 29, 1796, after a 1789 painting by Kaufmann. Public domain. Via Wikimedia and The Huntington Library and Museum (Huntington.org) .] 1. “All supernatural apparitions, includin...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 109 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 past week, three sources came together to nudge me toward thinking in new ways about the ghost in Hamlet . [Images: Left: Screen-shot of headline and Ian McKellen from Michael Billington article in The Guardian (see below). Fair use. Right: Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice , directed by Tim Burton, 1988, warner Brothers, image via IMDB . Fair use.] The first was an article in The Guardian by critic Michael Billington regarding a new film called The Hamlet Within . It mentioned productions of the play that portray the ghost as an inner voice of Hamlet rather than the manifestation witnessed by the sentinels and Horatio in the opening scene. The second was when Shobha Pawar sent a link to an excellent YouTube video by John Berger from the 1970s, about how our experience of art and of its meanings changes over time , especially after technological changes that allow mass replication of famous art images. The third was a “Speaking of Shakespeare” video on Shakespeare and th...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 260 views from the following 19+ 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.

 Is there a Pentecost echo in Hamlet ? [Images, clockwise from UPPER LEFT: Pentecost, circa 1310 and circa 1318, from "Seven panels with scenes from the Life of Christ" by Giotto and workshop (1266–1337). National Gallery, London. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons . RIGHT: "The Pentecost," Part of Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece, circa 1600, by El Greco (1541–1614). Museo del Prado, National Museum of Spain, Madrid. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons . LOWER LEFT: "The Pentecost" by a follower of Bernard van Orley, circa 1530. North Carolina Museum of Art, USA. Public domain, via Wikimedia.org .] Consider: Hamlet contains not only more biblical allusions than do plays by other English playwrights of the age, but also more than any other of Shakespeare's plays.[1] There is a rhythm in the story of the life of Jesus: He is a mentor and leader figure who is crucified, then rises, and appears to the disciples. He appears to women at the tomb (...