Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

In Hamlet 3.4, after scolding his mother to repent of her marriage to his Uncle Claudius, Hamlet says a curious thing: "when you are desirous to be blest, I’ll blessing beg of you." (3.4.192-3) [1] If his mother desires or needs to be blest, why would Hamlet beg blessing of her? If someone desired medical aid, would you ask them to heal you? If they were hungry, would you ask them to feed you? This is counter-intuitive. But it may foreshadow something yet to come; it may also reflect a certain spiritual dynamic. To understand Hamlet’s cryptic statement, we might ask: Are there Bible stories that conform to this pattern, asking a favor of a person who is in need? Stories with which Shakespeare and his age were familiar? The answer is yes. Certain Bible tales demonstrate this dynamic. These include tales of Elijah and Elisha helping widows, and gospel tales of Jesus feeding multitudes. In each, a person or group is in need, and the prophet or Jesus first asks a favor be...

Thanks to readers, 22-29 November, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 67 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.

"The rest is silence." When Shakespeare scholars write about Hamlet's last words, more often than not, their focus is that Hamlet is being serious, even nihilistic. Too few critics and scholars consider that Hamlet is making a musical pun for Horatio (and for theater audiences) with his last breath: The rest (in musical notation) is silence. Hamlet is, after all, not only the son of King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude, but also the spiritual offspring of Yorick the fool. His first words in the play involve a sarcastic pun: His uncle Claudius calls Hamlet his son, and Hamlet says he is “too much in the sun.” (1.2.69) [1] He makes fun of Polonius, who deserves it: POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord? HAMLET: Words, words, words. POLONIUS What is the matter, my lord? HAMLET Between who? POLONIUS I mean the matter that you read, my lord. HAMLET Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled,...

Thanks to readers, 15-22 November, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 82 views from the following countries: This is good, especially since most of my views are usually from my home country of the U.S., where schools and universities are going into a break for Thanksgiving on the 24th, and students and faculty sometimes traveling long distances to be with family. 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 th...

One of my favorite things about the following video by John R. Yamamoto-Wilson is that he challenges prevailing scholarly and performance assumptions about what Hamlet means in his “To be or not to be” speech, and in particular, that he expands popular understanding of what Hamlet means by “quietus.” (3.1.64-96; 3.1.83.). [1] John points out very clearly that Hamlet already considered suicide in Act 1, scene 2: O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! 1.2.133-136 Later, in Act 1, scene 5, Hamlet had already promised the ghost that he will avenge his murder, so there is little dramatic purpose in Act 3 to considering suicide yet again. Importantly, John points out that the word “quietus” has a more primary meaning as found in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) than the one Shakespeare scholars and directors often assume. They wrongly assume that the phrase,...

Thanks to readers, 8-15 November, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 207 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.

Two days ago I posted about Hamlet, Orestes, Gertrude, Hecuba and Clytemnestra . While Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Greek mythology is fresh in the mind, I wanted to repost something similar from two years ago: Hamlet compares his mother’s tears at his father’s funeral to Niobe’s tears, and compares his own resolve to the nerves of the Nemean lion . In his two-volume work on Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov explains these two references well, but although he doesn't spell it out, both of these references foreshadow Hamlet’s own death. NIOBE Asimov considers the Niobe allusion first (II.93-94): . . . Hamlet is angry with his mother [. . .]. She had seemed so in love with his father, had mourned so at his death- . . . she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears . . . - Act 1, scene ii, lines 148-49 “Niobe was one of the more pathetic characters in Greek myth. She had six sons and six daughters and boasted her superiority to the goddess Latona (Leto), who ...

To understand all the classical references in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it helps to be familiar with certain ancient Greek myths. These include the tales of Hecuba, Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra, their daughters Iphigenia and Electra, and their son, Orestes. I recently posted about Tanya Pollard’s good article on Hecuba and Shakespeare ,[1] so this post will focus on Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, and Orestes. Due to poor winds, Agamemnon was unable to sail to the Trojan war to help his brother, King Menelaus of Sparta, whose wife Helen had been seduced and taken by Paris, prince of Troy. A priest claimed that if Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia, the gods might be appeased and the winds might improve. One can already tell that this tale will not end well. Thinking Iphigenia is sacrificed,[2] Clytemnestra is grieved and traumatized. In one version, Agamemnon had killed Clytemnestra’s first husband and taken her as a prize, so this adds to her sense of violation. Wi...

Thanks to readers, 1-8 November, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 306 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.

At the Sixteenth Century Society Conference convention in Minneapolis last week, I had many serendipitous meetings with scholar/authors. In a Friday session, “Literature and Religion in Early Elizabethan England,” one presenter cited a source claiming God the Father as defending the masculinity of Jesus. I was reminded of parts of Debora K. Shuger’s book, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity .[1] During Q&A time, I mentioned how Shuger’s book seemed to offer an alternative view. The presenter replied, “Do you know you are sitting right behind Debora Shuger?” So that is how I met Debora Shuger ,[2] who was kind and generous to talk with me then and later in the conference. I attended a roundtable on Thursday night called “Crisis And Refuge: Historical Reflections On War, Persecution, And Exile.” I had started reading Nicholas Terpstra’s book, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation .[3] Terpstra[4] wa...

In her helpful essay, "What’s Hecuba to Shakespeare?" [1], Tanya Pollard does a remarkable job showing how the critical trend in Shakespeare scholarship goes wrong in assuming that tragedy is usually, mostly, about male tragic figures. Pollard notes, “in the early modern period, Hecuba was the established icon of Greek tragedy [....] by far the most popular of the Greek plays printed, translated, and performed in sixteenth-century Europe.” (1064) Hamlet wrestles with the genre: “Hamlet has more to say about his mother’s failure to grieve than about his own grief. His preoccupation with Gertrude has been widely read as a sign of his misogyny, and his Oedipal fixation on her sexuality. But in the context of Shakespeare’s interest in Hecuba, it might be more fruitfully understood as representing a confrontation with the genre’s conventions.” (1079) Hamlet is frustrated that Gertrude fails to live up to the ideal represented by Hecuba. Pollard notes other examples of t...

Thanks to readers, 25 October-1 November, 2022 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 198 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.