Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

In January of 2023, I began a 12-part series of posts regarding Hamlet's allusion to himself as like the boy Jesus, lost and found in the temple, amazing and astonishing the temple elders and his parents, a story from Luke 2:46-52. This is a very ironic allusion. The index of posts is below: Posts in this series: (Part 1) Hamlet as the Boy Jesus among Temple Elders https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/hamlet-as-boy-jesus-among-synagogue.html (Part 2) Hamlet as boy Jesus among Temple Elders: Historical-Artistic Background https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/hamlet-as-boy-jesus-among-temple-elders.html (Part 3) Hamlet as the boy Jesus among Temple Elders: A closer look https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/hamlet-as-boy-jesus-among-temple-elders_14.html (Part 4 ) Dissonance and Irony in Hamlet's 3.2 Allusion to Luke 2 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/02/part-4-dissonance-and-irony-in-hamlets.html (Part 5) The targets of ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INDEX OF POSTS IN THIS SERIES: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/index-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-lost.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After the play-within-the-play, in conversation with Rosencrantz, Hamlet implies that he has amazed and astonished his mother like the boy Jesus did when his parents found him with the elders in the Temple. I’ve omitted some parts of the Hamlet text so as to focus more closely on the applicable parts below. Compare the text from the play, below, to the text from 2:46-52 (Geneva), which was read every January in Shakespeare's lifetime on the Sunday after Epiphany: [1] GUILDENSTERN: The King … Is …marvelous distempered.... The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. ...your behavior hath struck her into *amazement* and admiration. HAMLET: O wonderful son that can so *’stonish* [astonish] a mother! (3.2.325-356) [2] Compare Luke 2:46-52 (Geneva): 46 And i...

Thanks to readers, 1-31 January, 2023 ~~~~~~~ Thank you to readers of this blog for this past month, which the blog's analytics say came to 539 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.

How might we best grasp (“get a handle on”) Hamlet’s “Mousetrap,” the play-within-the-play? Thirteen handles (see also more lengthy endnotes corresponding to numbered list): 1. Hamlet asks the first player if he can play “The Murder of Gonzago.” This points to Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Duke of Urbino; whose wife was Eleonora Gonzaga, and who was marginalized (like Essex and Lord Strange, and poisoned like Strange).[1] 2. “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” — Hamlet says he will do this by reproducing events like his father’s murder with the help of the players.[2] 3. This conscience-trap echoes the prophet Nathan catching King David’s conscience in a story, after David’s affair with Bathsheba and arranging for the death of her husband.[3] 4. The play-within-the-play begins as a trap for the conscience of his mother, Queen Gertrude. — Later in Gertrude’s closet scene, it’s clear that Hamlet wants his mother to repent, a...

Why does Hamlet hate the women he loves - his mother Gertrude, and Ophelia? My last post [1] claimed that Hamlet is harsh with Gertrude and Ophelia, at least in part, because he loves them and wants them to avoid sin (Ophelia) or repent (Gertrude), to avoid the pains of purgatory (like his father) or eternal damnation. He fears for their eternal fate. But this is not the whole story. Hamlet may have many motivations for being so harsh,[2] for hating the women he loves (as noted by many critics). Just a few: WHY HATE HIS MOTHER? Personal reasons: He wanted the throne to pass to him, not his uncle. When Gertrude married her brother-in law, for whatever reasons (passion; fear of attack from Norway), this ruined Prince Hamlet’s chances to become the next king after his father. He may hate her for that reason. Cultural/Religious reasons: Shakespeare’s culture was misogynistic: Henry VIII wanted a son to succeed him, not a daughter. Many agreed. Many assumed women were the “w...

If we take seriously that Hamlet, Horatio and the sentinels saw a ghost from purgatory, [1] then we have to consider this possibility: Hamlet is harsh with his mother and Ophelia because he thinks he has seen his father’s ghost from purgatory who claims to be there because he had sinned, committed foul crimes. Hamlet doesn’t want the two women he loves most to end up in purgatory like his father, or worse, in hell. He scolds Ophelia and tells her to get to a nunnery; he scolds his mother, tells her to repent of her incestuous marriage, a relationship that began, according to the ghost, with adultery when his father was still alive. Hamlet feels a duty to be harsh with them because he fears for their eternal fate. If one encountered a ghost from purgatory as Hamlet did, and loved his mother and Ophelia, it makes sense that one might want to warn them, to spare them such a fate. [2] To be clear, while many in Shakespeare’s time believed in ghosts [3], there were also those who did not,...

Insights from scientists who study paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions that might shed light on confirmation bias [1] in Shakespeare scholarship: In his famous 1963 book on scientific revolutions, Thomas Kuhn tells of an experiment where subjects were asked to view playing cards for brief, controlled amounts of time, and identify them. Many were normal; a few were “made anomalous, e.g., a red six of spades and a black four of hearts.” Some had trouble with the anomalies, but as the time to view each card increased, subjects were more able to correctly notice and identify even the anomalies. “Further increase of exposure resulted in still more hesitation and confusion until finally, and sometimes quite suddenly, most subjects would produce the correct identification without hesitation. Moreover, after doing this with two or three of the anomalous cards, they would have little further difficulty with the others.” [Most, but not all?] “A few subjects, however, were never able to ma...

In a December 2020 article, Jonathan Jones explained how the idea of a black Balthazar among the magi or wise men visiting Jesus was an idea that began to blossom in the Renaissance among painters who portrayed the scene.[1] "Balthazar" was a new name given to the biblical Daniel. In a text attributed to the Venerable Bede of Northumbria (672/3 – 735), Balthazar was identified as coming from Africa, yet Jones claims that many in Bede’s time had little concept of what color skin an African might have. As Renaissance Europeans became more exposed to people from other parts of the world, the imagining of Balthazar as black expanded with the help of paintings. Jones notes, “Behind those dark daubs of paint lay a new curiosity about people and about peoples: the ‘humanist’ thinking of the Renaissance that inspired the great French philosopher Montaigne to declare that all global customs and beliefs are equally valid.” Given this expanding awareness, it is perhaps no surp...

Last year was a good year for the “Hamlet’s Bible” blog! Thank you to all who have read and followed. My favorite multi-part series to research and write last year were about: Holy Week/Easter/Emmaus/Pentecost, Hamlet and Jacob, Hamlet and the Odyssey, and “When you are desirous to be blest, I’ll blessing beg of you.” My favorite single posts were about the lunar eclipse mentioned in Hamlet 1.1, and “Poison cups & Martyrs: Gertrude, Medea, and Matt 20:20-24.” If you want to re-read, or if you’re new to the blog, check it out (link below). SERIES Scholarly Biases: Jan. 11,18,25 Feb 1,8,15,22 March 1,8,15,22,29 April 5,10 Holy Week/Easter/Emmaus/Pentecost: April 10 Palm Sunday April 12 Foot-washing April 14 Eucharistic Allusions April 15 Good Friday/Passion April 16 Christ in the tomb, sign of Jonah April 16 Holy Week (summary/Index) Easter: Missing Body of Jesus/Polonius - April 19, 26 Emmaus: May 10,12,20,24,26,31 Pentecost: June 6 Elizabeth Jonas: Ma...