Part 31: Gertrude as Protestant Allegory (Interlude A)
One of my least favorite interpretations of Gertrude in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is when people read her merely as a Protestant allegory for the corrupt Catholic church. In this reading, Gertrude (like the Roman church) is a slave to her passions; she cannot resist either her lust for Claudius or her desire for wine.[1]
Many readers and playgoers today are too removed from Protestant-Catholic debates and propaganda in Shakespeare’s time, so to suggest this allegory often elicits only confusion.
In the Bible, in Revelations 17, Protestants found an analogy for corruption in the Roman Catholic church, comparing it to a fallen woman selling favors, worshiping idols of pleasure instead of the “one true God.”
It helps to know that Shakespeare and most everyone in England and on the continent were exposed to this rhetoric, but it would be a mistake to assume that Shakespeare wrote the play only for firm Protestants.
This allegorical approach starts with an ideological assumption about the meaning of the character of Gertrude, and like proof-texting, hunts only for evidence that might fit the assumption, “decoding” the text instead of keeping an open mind and paying attention to all of its details.
Linda Kay Hoff’s book, Hamlet's Choice: A Reformation Allegory, uses this approach.[2] It is rich in detail, and not without merit, reading Claudius as the Antichrist, and the death of Ophelia in light of the Protestant rejection of the cult of Mary [3].
But we might ask:
- If Gertrude was married to an apparently Catholic King Hamlet, why is his brother and murderer the Antichrist?
- Why does she keep Hamlet’s secrets from Claudius, the Antichrist?
- Why does the First Quarto have Gertrude collaborate with Horatio to help Hamlet?
- Why does she announce that she will drink from the (secretly poisoned) cup, and disobey Claudius when he tells her not to drink? [4]
In the end, it is just too hard to sustain the allegory. This type of reading may shed limited light, but breaks down for these and other reasons.
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/02/part-31-interlude-gertrude-as.html
NOTES: All references to Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/
[1] Because the royal court of Denmark was known to party and drink excessively, and because Denmark was Protestant in Shakespeare’s time, this undermines the idea of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its character of Gertrude as a Protestant allegory of Catholic corruption.
- For an essay exploring Gertrude as overindulgent (for sex and drink) and as slave to her passions (and reflecting tales of Denmark’s partying and corruption in Shakespeare’s time), Stephanie Chamberlain is perhaps too quick to assume that Gertrude does not suspect poison, but she explores Elizabethan prejudices about drink and sex in a helpful way. See Stephanie Chamberlain, “Fatal Indulgences: Gertrude and the Perils of Excess in Early Modern England”, Southern Utah University, https://omeka.li.suu.edu/ojs/index.php/woodeno/article/download/198/173/322
[2] For a review of Hoff’s book, see
Dabbs, Thomas. South Atlantic Review 56, no. 3 (1991): 106–8. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/3200034>.
[3] Catholics are taught to believe that
a) Mary was conceived without sin (including original sin);
b) that she was perpetually a virgin, even after the birth of Jesus;
c) and that when she died, her body was assumed into heaven instead of having to decay on earth.
- So in this reading, if Ophelia was Hamlet’s lover, she was no longer a perpetual virgin (like the Catholic Church claims of the Virgin Mary). The “nunnery” scene has Polonius give Ophelia a book to read so that she might remind Hamlet of the image of the Virgin Mary reading a book when visited by the angel Gabriel, but this is a deception so that Polonius and Claudius may spy on Hamlet, and in the allegorical reading, the Catholic cult of Mary is similarly a deception; Ophlia’s death would seem to signify the demise of the Marion cult.
[4] Is she punished with poison and death for disobeying her husband, set over her by God in marriage, even if Claudius is corrupt, a murderer, an incestuous usurper, and the Antichrist?
IMAGE:
Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911), The Queen in Hamlet (1895), detail. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Public domain via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abbey_-_The_Queen_in_Hamlet.jpg
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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-ophelia-posts-2023-series-and.html
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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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