Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life... Hamlet 5.2.25 [1] This is my favorite Halloween-themed line in Hamlet , from the last scene, at the start of which Hamlet describes to Horatio how he discovered the letter with orders from Claudius for England to execute Hamlet (by beheading) upon their ship's arrival there. In the USA, we are approaching Halloween, the evening of 31 October, "All Hallows Eve," before All Saints Day. Children dress in costumes, go door to door and ask, "Trick or treat?" and often receive a treat of some kind. Usually too much manufactured sugary-candy (one of the reasons the USA has so many diabetics...). 2022 SCSC, Minneapolis: This Year, the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference has its convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, only about an hour's drive from where I live. I will be giving a paper/presentation touching on how Shakespeare had to carefully encode his critique of government and the state religion, and h...

Thanks to readers, 18-25 October, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 185 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. To find the subscribe button, see the drop-down menu with three horizontal lines = in the upper left.

"Bohemia and English literature? Everybody who sees this title will instantly think if Shakespeare's Winter's Tale and the sea-coast of Bohemia..." - RENÉ WELLEK [1] If Shakespeare critics mention one thing about Bohemia, it's that Shakespeare got the geography wrong: You can't get there by boat. For example, Susan Halstead writes , "This glaring geographical error – attributing a sea-shore to the landlocked territory of Bohemia – has frequently been cited as an instance of Shakespeare’s ignorance of Central European topography..." [2] But what if the thing we read and heard most often was that Bohemia was the land of Jan Hus, who advocated communion under both kinds (bread and wine), something very common today even in Roman Catholic parishes. Yet Jan Hus was burned at the stake for it. What if we heard that the ideas of Jan Hus influenced the "Confesio Bohemica" (Czech Confession), "the first ecumenical confession," and...

Thanks to readers, 11-18 October, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 282 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. To find the subscribe button, see the drop-down menu with three horizontal lines = in the upper left.

In Shakespeare’s lifetime (as in ours for some), there was an anti-Semitic tendency among Christians to view Judaism as an inferior faith and to view Jesus, Son-figure of a Trinitarian God, as Judaism’s promised messiah sent to redeem humanity from their sins, establishing a "one true faith." An alternative view: Jesus was a Jew, and a reformer, who lived and preached at a time when Judaism had been corrupted in large part by the Roman occupation. Reformers like Jan Hus, Luther and Calvin may have thought it too proud to consider their own reformer-roles analogous to that of Jesus (Luther once destroyed a chair he had made because he believed he had become too proud of it). But in fact we might consider that they attempted to do for Christianity something analogous to what Jesus attempted to do for Judaism. Hamlet contains references to many reformers: - St. Gis (Jesus). - Wittenberg, where Luther announced his theses for reform. - Bernard of Clairvaux, namesak...

Thanks to readers, 4-11 October, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 205 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. To find the subscribe button, see the drop-down menu with three horizontal lines = in the upper left.

Sometimes what looks like a gamble may be a risk taken in faith. (Does gambling for money parody such faith?) FORTUNE AND GAMBLING IN HAMLET : THE DEAD KING HAMLET GAMBLED, in an agreement with Old Fortinbras, to engage in single combat, described by Horatio in 1.1. The survivor won the loser’s land. We learn in 5.1 that this combat took place on the day that Hamlet was born.[1] CLAUDIUS BETS that Hamlet will win the duel with Laertes in 5.2, though he and Laertes plan to kill Hamlet. Claudius takes his chances that the plot will succeed, but to increase his chances, a poison cup is a back-up plan, and instead of Laertes merely using an "unbaited" rapier (with no blunt safety tip), Laertes also anoints the rapier with poison. This combines cheating with gambling. [EDIT: Grace Tiffany of Western Michigan University adds to the list of gambling references: Gertrude's marriage vows are "false as dicers' oaths" (3.4), referring to how gamblers, wh...

Thanks to readers, 27 September - 4 October, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 230 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. To find the subscribe button, see the drop-down menu with three horizontal lines = in the upper left.

In the past ( here and here ) I've mentioned how much I enjoyed Secret Shakespeare by Richard Wilson , respected Shakespeare scholar and author and/or editor of 15+ books and collections of essays. Wilson suffered a massive stroke while in Peru, and his friends have set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds to help him get home to the UK and cover his medical and repatriation expenses. Please consider donating to help Richard. Thanks.