Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

This Monday I noticed: My blog has had more than 30k views from 83+ countries in 3.5 years! Thanks for reading! To celebrate, here are 30+ books related to Shakespeare/Hamlet/Bible/Religion, some of which I especially liked; others I wrestled with, tolerated, but found useful; plus a few I’ve recently acquired and am excited to read ( * ). By author: Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness Sarah Beckwith (2011) Shakespeare and the Loss of Eden Catherine Belsey (1999) Murder Most Foul: Hamlet through the Ages David Bevington (2011) Shakespeare and the Theatre of Wonder T.G. Bishop (1996) * Hamlet as Minister and Scourge Fredson Bowers (1989) The Bible in Shakespeare William Burgess (1903) Shakespeare and the Holy Scripture, Thomas Carter (1905) Enacting the Bible in medieval and early modern drama eds. Eva von Contzen, Chanita Goodblatt (2020) Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (3rd edition) Juliet Dusinberre (2003) The Biblical Presence in Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake Harold ...

What I learned today about Shakespeare's influence on the phrase, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" attributed to Henry II regarding Thomas Becket, (I may be coming late to this insight compared to some!) Timeline: 1170 - Archbishop Thomas Becket [1] is killed in Canterbury Cathedral. 1180 - Edward Grim [2] publishes a book on the Life of St. Thomas (Becket), based in part on his own witness, quotes King Henry II of England as saying to a gathering on Christmas, 1170, "What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!" [3] This seems to have inspired eager followers of Henry II to assume that killing the archbishop would please the king. 1595–96 William Shakespeare writes his play, Richard II , published in 1597. In this play, Richard II relinquishes the crown to Henry Bollingbroke. In Act 5, scene 4, Sir Pierce of Exton...

From Chapter 7 BRUNO AND SHAKESPEARE: HAMLET The Historical Context By HILARY GATTI [...] Those who wish to underline Shakespeare’s position in the course of British history between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, when Hamlet was written and acted for the first time (1600–1601), often explain this dramatic change of mood by pointing to the final years of the long and fertile reign of Queen Elizabeth I, which would soon, in 1603, give way to the beginning of the more unpopular and conflictual story of the Stuart dynasty. For it seems difficult to deny that Shakespeare was possessed of an almost prophetic vision when, in the first decade of the seventeenth century, he elaborated his remarkable sequence of tragic stories of failed princes, who drag with them in their personal disaster the whole kingdom over which they should have reigned (King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra). Such tragedies surely have something to do with the coronation ...

If Hamlet is NOT a revenge tragedy, what is it? Peter Lake [1] shares his ideas on this topic and more in his 2020 book, Hamlet’s Choice: Religion and Resistance in Shakespeare's Revenge Tragedies .[2] Lake claims Hamlet is not *merely* a revenge tragedy, but much more, bending and mixing genres. If Hamlet is not *merely* a revenge tragedy, what is it? In a (Senecan, or heroic/Homeric) revenge tragedy like The Spanish Tragedy (1587, Thomas Kyd), injustices occur, and a victim of wrongs decides to take revenge. Eventually there’s a lot of plotting of violence, and the revenge is worse than the original injustice. Not in Hamlet, Lake observes. Shakespeare had already written the successful Titus Andronicus (1594), a more traditional revenge tragedy, which ends like The Spanish Tragedy, with the main character killing the heirs of the villains and cooking them, and then making the villains eat it. Yuck. Nothing like that happens in Hamlet. Lake observes: By the tim...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 135 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.

JSTOR Daily recently published a piece called “In Defense of Polonius,” which is a little misleading in its title and subtitle: “Shakespeare’s tedious old fool was also a dad just doing his best” (15 June, 2022). [1] The article admits that in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius is a poor father figure, but argues that the role is not only a good one, but an essential one to the play. I agree on that point. The article is by Jeffrey Wilson, also the author of an article I shared a few days ago which explored how today, Claudius would probably be considered an alcoholic. [2] In this 15 June piece, Wilson notes that Polonius apologizes twice, perhaps more convincingly the second time. And yet he softens the effect of the second apology by putting his own mistake in a larger context of mistakes often made by the young: “I am sorry that with better heed and judgment I had not quoted him. I fear'd he did but trifle And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy! By heaven, it i...

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is Claudius an alcoholic? Jeffrey Wilson explores this possibility in his (open-access) essay, “Sigma Alpha Elsinore” [1] using the analogy of university fraternities and drinking culture, among other things. [Left: Alan Bates as Claudius (1990), dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Fair use. Cropped, via screen grab from YouTube . Center: Derek Jacobi as Claudius (1996), dir. Kenneth Branagh. Fair use. Cropped, via Shakespeare Wiki . Right: Patrick Stewart as Claudius (2009), dir. Gregory Doran. Fair use. Cropped, via BBC. ] Wilson is a lecturer at Harvard who has written and published frequently on Shakespeare-related topics. I follow him on Twitter <@DrJeffreyWilson> in part because he often advocates online open access, as well as the idea that scholars should share their ideas more freely to stimulate good thinking and collaboration, rather than hoarding their ideas in fear they might be stolen before publication. (As a blogger, I agree.) His essay remin...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 178 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.

“. . . the purpose of playing . . . is . . . to hold . . . the mirror up to nature; to show . . . the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” (Hamlet, 3.2)1 Many people assume that Shakespeare is unconcerned with the topical, political, ephemeral details of his time, because they don't spot all the parallels that original audiences did. But in fact plays like Hamlet are full of them. “Playing” doesn’t merely reveal so-called universal truths: John Erskine Hankins thinks Hamlet addresses historical-political events of Shakespeare's “very age” and “time”: “Though the scene of Hamlet is medieval Denmark, most critics will agree that its characters and problems are those of sixteenth-century England. As is his usual custom, Shakespeare writes of his own day, regardless of where and when the action of his drama takes place. This is truer of Hamlet than has been generally supposed.”2 [Left: Allegory of Vanity (1632-1636), by Antonio de Pereda (1611...

Excerpts from LA Times article:   In an interview with director Richard Eyre, Brook explained what he was after: “I think that what was quite clear was that ‘Lear’ had suffered like all the other plays from tradition. … Because we hadn’t got a true Elizabethan tradition: we had at that time a very, very bad Victorian tradition that took you far away from the plays," Brook said. "It had put a wrong pictorial stamp on the plays and a wrong moral stamp, because the Victorian tradition told you very strongly who were the good and who were the bad people.”   [PF notes: This is often still true of other plays, including Hamlet , where performance- and critical traditions get in the way of new. insightful interpretations.]   [...]    "The Mahabharata,'' Brook's epic production created with co-director Marie-Hélène Estienne and dramatist Jean-Claude Carrière, theatricalized for Western audiences the vast Hindu epic. The nine-hour work, a culminat...

“. . . the purpose of playing . . . is . . . to hold . . . the mirror up to nature; to show . . . the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” (Hamlet, 3.2)1 Many people assume that Shakespeare is unconcerned with the topical, political, ephemeral details of his time, because they don't spot all the parallels that original audiences did. But in fact plays like Hamlet are full of them. “Playing” doesn’t merely reveal so-called universal truths: John Erskine Hankins thinks Hamlet addresses historical-political events of Shakespeare's “very age” and “time”: “Though the scene of Hamlet is medieval Denmark, most critics will agree that its characters and problems are those of sixteenth-century England. As is his usual custom, Shakespeare writes of his own day, regardless of where and when the action of his drama takes place. This is truer of Hamlet than has been generally supposed.”2 [Left: Allegory of Vanity (1632-1636), by Antonio de Pereda (1611...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 209 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.

A number of weeks ago, three of my LinkedIn connections posted some passages from various sources that caught my attention and seemed somewhat related, as if belonging in a cluster - and to which I would add a fourth. 1) Gordana Lekovic shared the following quote from Bertrand Russell (British philosopher, 1872–1970), among other Russell quotes: “It is normal to hate what we fear, and it happens frequently that we fear what we hate. I think it may be taken as the rule among primitive men, that they both fear and hate whatever is unfamiliar.” This seems natural or normative, like a survival instinct: We hate and fear our enemies, as we often do strangers. 2) But this brought to mind Hamlet’s words to Horatio: Late in 1.5, upon seeing the ghost again, Horatio says, “this is wondrous strange!” Hamlet replies, “And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.” Hamlet seems to be thinking of the biblical injunctions to welcome the stranger: Hebrews 13:2 (in the Geneva translation wi...

There are always challenges to teaching Hamlet, in part due to the historical and cultural gaps between the original audiences for whom Shakespeare was writing, and that of today’s students. When teaching about the “incestuous” marriage of Claudius and Gertrude, one may find challenges especially in at least three areas: Definitions, religious considerations, and trigger warning issues. [Left to right: 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. 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. Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), circa 1509. Attributed to Meynnart Wewyck. Denver Art Museum. Public domain. Image via Wikimedia. Penny Downie as Gertrude, and Patri...