Series conclusion: Hamlet & Jacob - part 4

In this series of posts on Jacob and Hamlet, I’ve suggested that in Shakespeare’s play, certain elements in the text and its themes are either allusions to the biblical Jacob-Esau tales, or show an influence of those tales on Shakespeare’s development of the play. [1]

These include
- Laertes’ use of the phrase, “double blessing” (see part 1);
- the possibility that Laertes is an Esau figure, while Hamlet and Ophelia might be viewed as Jacob figures (see part 1);
- the idea of poetic justice in Hamlet as in part influenced by its presence in the Jacob tales (see part 2);
- the importance of maternal approval for marriage, not only for Jacob, but also for Ophelia and Hamlet, with Gertrude’s voice of approval (see part 3).

The impulse of some might be to take Laertes’ phrase, “double blessing” (1.3.57-59) and consult Naseeb Shaheen’s “Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays” (1999) as authoritative, or even as the last word. But Shaheen is of very limited help, even misleading, as explained in part 1 of this series.

My approach in part 1 was, instead, to consider a story in which a double blessing occurred. That led me to the Jacob tales.

Once the Jacob tales and themes are identified as possibly present in Hamlet, one might ask:  What other evidence is there of Early Modern writers or playwrights thinking about the Jacob-Esau tale?

In fact, there was a 1568 English play, Jacob and Esau, by an anonymous playwright, retelling the biblical tale and emphasizing various Protestant ideas (available to read for free at archive.org). [2] Unlike some plays that are named in various records but are now lost, this play was popular enough, and reprinted enough, that it is still available to read in a variety of forms.

Next we might ask: Did Shakespeare display an interest in the Jacob saga by alluding to it in other plays? If he did, we might conclude that it was popular enough, and that he was interested in it enough, that perhaps the tale had a variety of influences on plots and themes in a number of his works. 

In other words, we might say Shakespeare allowed the biblical Jacob tales to become one among many of his teachers. This might further justify speculation about the story’s influences on Hamlet.

In fact, there are at least 12 other Shakespeare plays that allude to — or at times parody — themes in the biblical Jacob-Esau tales.[3] Scholars have published reflections on the presence and significance of these Jacob allusions and themes in the comedies [4], histories [5] and tragedies [6].

If the only explicit evidence of the Jacob-Esau story being alluded to in Hamlet was in Laertes’ comment about a “double blessing,” we might be correct to consider this to be quite tenuous. But given these other factors, including the anonymous 1568 play, and the many Shakespeare plays in which Jacob allusions have been identified, this strengthens the case for other possible thematic influences and connections, as I explored in my first three posts in this series.

For more background on the blessing of Jacob and Esau, on blessings in Genesis as a theme, see also other sources listed in notes [7] (not an exhaustive list).

Thank you for reading and for your interest in this series!

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NOTES:
[1] POSTS IN THIS SERIES:

Part 1: Laertes' "double blessing": Echoes of Jacob, Esau, & Rachel in Hamlet - August 2, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/08/laertes-double-blessing-jacob-essau-and.html

Part 2: “Hoist with his own petard”: Jacob - Hamlet Echoes - September 6, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/09/hoist-with-his-own-petard-jacob-hamlet.html

Part 3: Marriage & Maternal Approval: Jacob - Hamlet Echoes - September 13, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/09/marriage-maternal-approval-jacob-hamlet.html

Part 4: Series conclusion: Hamlet & Jacob - September 20, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/09/series-conclusion-hamlet-jacob.html

~~~~~ NOTES [2] Jacob and Esau (1568):
https://archive.org/details/cu31924013324474/page/n7/mode/2up

On the Early Modern play (c.1550), The History of Jacob and Esau:
http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/articles/mengel/5_95.html

https://youtu.be/WFtSbwP4g5M

~~~~~ NOTES [3] These other 12 plays include (but may not be limited to) the following:

As You Like It
Comedy of Errors
The Merchant of Venice
Love’s Labor’s Lost
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Tempest
The Winter’s Tale
Othello
King Lear
Richard III
2 Henry IV
2 Henry VI

NOTES [4] In comedies:

In As You Like It and feuding brothers Oliver and Orlando: See “Reconciliation in As You Like It: World Enough and Time?” by Daniel O’Day, chapter 9, 141-142, in Reconciliation in Selected Shakespearean Dramas (2008), ed. Beatrice Batson.

In The Comedy of Errors: See my previous blog post:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/10/begging-and-poor-in-comedy-of-errors.html

Also see Shakespeare from the Margins: Language, Culture, Context (1996), by Patricia A. Parker, 26, 62-65

Elder and Younger: The Opening Scene of The Comedy of Errors
Patricia Parker
Shakespeare Quarterly Vol. 34, No. 3 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 325-327
https://doi.org/10.2307/2869891
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2869891

In The Merchant of Venice, on Jacob and Shylock’s source of wealth:
https://www.thetorah.com/article/shakespeare-plays-on-the-questionable-source-of-jacobs-wealth

In The Merchant of Venice: On Lancelot’s blind father (like Jacob’s blind father Isaac) and other echoes of Jacob:
Beatrice Groves, Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare 1592-1604 (2007), 23.

In The Merry Wives of Windsor, see
Shakespeare from the Margins, Patricia A. Parker, 35, 284, FN 17.

In The Tempest (Caliban as an Esau figure):
See Stephen Marx,
“Posterity and Prosperity: Genesis in The Tempest,”
http://cola.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Shakespeare/ShBible/Posterit.html
and “Progeny: Prospero's Books, Genesis and The Tempest”
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1011&context=engl_fac

In Love’s Labor’s Lost, and The Winter’s Tale: See
Shakespeare from the Margins, Patricia A. Parker, 284, FN 17.

NOTES [5] In the history plays:

In Richard III: See
Shakespeare from the Margins, Patricia A. Parker, 284, FN 17.

See also “Curse, Interrupted: Richard III, Jacob and Esau, and the Elizabethan Succession Crisis” by Sarah Skwire, Religions 2018, 9(11), 331; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9110331

In 2 Henry IV: see Robert Hornback, “Falstaffian ‘Gross Indecorum‘, ‘Contrarietie’, and Arrested Prodigality: Anachronism and Colliding Generational Sensibilities in 1 Henry IV,” pp. 122-141, esp. 136,
in 1 Henry IV: A Critical Guide, by Stephen Longstaffe, 2011.

In 2 Henry VI, also see Shakespeare from the Margins, Patricia A. Parker, 37.

NOTES [6] In the tragedies:

In King Lear: On Edgar and Edmond as a Jacob-Esau pair:
https://academic.oup.com/chicago-scholarship-online/book/16237/chapter-abstract/171318863?redirectedFrom=fulltext

In Othello:
Othello Circumcised: Shakespeare and the Pauline Discourse of Nations
Julia Reinhard Lupton
Representations (1997) 57: 73–89.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2928664
NOTES [7] Julia Reinhard Lupton, “Blessing: Shakespeare’s Benedictional Designs,” 39-53 in Literature and Religious Experience: Beyond Belief and Unbelief, edited by Matthew J. Smith, Caleb D. Spencer (2022).

Barbara A. Mowat, “Shakespeare Reads the Geneva Bible,” p.31, Chapter 2 in Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book: Contested Scriptures,
Travis DeCook, Alan Galey (eds), 2011.
- Mowat notes, “Robert Alter argues that ‘The entire Book of Genesis is about the reversal of the iron law of primogeniture.’’
- Mowat’s note (fn 22) on Alter identifies a few others who have noted this:
Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, …1992, p.6.
- Among the many other scholars who have noted Genesis’s repeated subversion of primogeniture,
see, e.g., Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature,... 1982 pp.180-1;
Tibor Fabiny, “Brothers as Doubles: Birthright and Rivalry of ‘brothers’ in Genesis and Shakespeare,” in Gabor Itzes and Andras Kisery (eds) Elaborate Trifles … 2002, pp.35-47.

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IMAGES:
TOP: Andrea Schiavone (1510–1563), “The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel” (cropped), circa 1530 - circa 1560. Royal Collection. Public domain. Image via WikiMedia:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrea_Schiavone_(c._1500-1563)_-_The_Meeting_of_Jacob_and_Rachel_-_RCIN_402890_-_Royal_Collection.jpg

CENTER-LEFT: Govert Flinck, "Isaac Blessing Jacob," 1638 (cropped). Rijksmuseum, Ámsterdam. Public domain, via Wikimedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Isaak_zegent_Jakob_Rijksmuseum_SK-A-110.jpeg/1024px-Isaak_zegent_Jakob_Rijksmuseum_SK-A-110.jpeg

CENTER-MIDDLE: [8] Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), "The reconciliation of Jacob and Esau" (German: Versöhnung von Esau und Jakob), c. 1625 - 1628 (cropped). Bavarian State Painting Collections, Schleißheim State Gallery. Public domain. Via Wikimedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Peter_Paul_Rubens_185.jpg

CENTER_RIGHT: Francesco de Rosa (Pacecco de Rosa), “Meeting of Jacob and Rachel” (cropped),
ca. 1630-50, oil on canvas. Pinacoteca della Città Metropolitana di Bari. Photo by Sailko. Creative Commons. Image via Wikimedia commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_de_rosa_detto_pacecco,_incontro_di_rachele_e_giacobbe,_1630-50_ca.,_01.jpg

BOTTOM: Michelangelo (1475–1564), “Jacob and Joseph,” fresco, between 1511 and 1512 (cropped). Photo: Web Gallery of Art. Public domain via Wikimedia:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo,_lunetta,_Jacob_-_Joseph_01.jpg
This image appears to show Jacob with Leah on the left, and with at least one of Leah's children by Jacob; Jacob seems to be making eye contact with his beloved Rachel across a great divide, where Rachel is tending to her father Laban, with other children, either of her own or of Leah. Jacob who deceived his father has been deceived by his father-in-law, and must live in a kind of purgatory of the consequences of his own actions.

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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 explore how the Bible and religion 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 Shakespeare's Hamlet.

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