Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Shakespeare’s Hamlet can be read as offering not mere variations, but transformations of suicide [1]: After Hamlet wishes that God had not made laws against suicide, he later feels called by heaven and hell to avenge his father’s death [2], a kind of suicide mission. If he kills Claudius as God’s vengeful scourge [3], Hamlet may be hell-bound. He later realizes: it may be more damnable not to kill him, and for Claudius to cause Denmark further harm [4]; Hamlet may not survive, but his death might be transformed by a higher purpose. Ophelia’s is the first alleged suicide, in 4.7, transformed by her own madness in 4.5 [5] and by Gertrude’s account in three ways: 1. She says it was caused by the breaking of an “envious sliver” of willow [6], envious that it had no crowns like other willow branches (envious, like Claudius of his brother’s crown and wife). 2. Gertrude implies that, in the water, Ophelia seemed to surrender to the unfolding will of God [7]. 3. Her account may be...

"So critics want to see Shakespeare as early modern and secular, but Shakespeare is also Late Medieval and Christian. And tragedy for Shakespeare is, I would say, essentially the same thing it is for 15th century, 16th century vernacular drama: tragedy is the failure of a sinner to repent. Whereas for Aristotle, tragedy is something very alien to a Christian sensibility. Aristotle doesn't really care about moral character. [PF note: in the context of his poetic, though he does care about moral character in his ethics]. What Aristotle means by 'hamartia' is not sin, but something more like a mistake. And what he means by 'anagnorisis' is not repentance, but something more like a discovery, like a correction of an error as regards to matters of fact. So for Aristotle, tragedy is amoral: it's like the process of legal discovery that occurs in a court of law. Nonetheless, I think many critics continue to use Aristotle's terms to describe Shakespeare's...

As I said at the end of Part 48 [1], I do like that a pregnancy for Ophelia is suggested but not conclusive in Hamlet, and that such mysteries and ambiguities may be something like a presence of God: "Who's there?" - the play’s opening question, would have been appropriate for the rich man who neglects the beggar Lazarus to whom the Ghost refers [2], as well as for the baker’s daughter referred to by Ophelia [3]. In both cases, those who neglect the beggar at the door neglect the presence of God. How do we face the presence of mystery in the beggar, the stranger? In Ophelia? Did Ophelia miscarry, and in postpartum depression, commit suicide, which Gertrude generously conceals in a story about an “envious sliver” and a death in faith [4]? Would the Ophelia we come to know in the play have killed herself and an unborn child? Can we know for certain, or is such a quest for certitude like a form of self-idolatry? How might we consider the mystery of Ophelia in the context of ...

Ophelia and Hamlet are an interesting variation on a recurring Shakespeare theme, almost willing to elope like Romeo and Juliet, or Othello and Desdemona, but not willing to disobey Polonius’ parental authority once he expresses disapproval. In stark contrast with the sins of Claudius, at first the play displays children submitting to authority: Ophelia to Polonius [1]; Hamlet to his mother (no return to Wittenberg [2]) and to the ghost (to obey and avenge [3]); Laertes seeking parental and royal approval before returning to France [4]. Forbidden contact with Hamlet [5], but used as bait for spying [6], Ophelia resembles Viola disguised as Cesario in Twelfth Night , tasked as messenger for Duke Orsino, but in love with the duke. Blameless, obedient, but scolded, ordered “to a nunnery” [7], she resembles Hero in Much Ado About Nothing , victim of deception and misunderstanding, rejected by her betrothed.  Hamlet made to her “almost all the holy vows of heaven” [8], probably a be...

Austin Tichenor offers a good, brief article on Shakespeare's repurposing of sources , available at the Folger Shakespeare Library website. He writes: "Charlotte Artese, author of Shakespeare and the Folktale, explained on the Folger’s Shakespeare Unlimitedpodcast that Shakespeare frequently refers to things that have little meaning to us now but would have been familiar to his audience then. Among her many examples, Artese cites Ophelia’s odd-seeming non-sequitur “They say the owl is a baker’s daughter” from her mad scene in Hamlet as referring to a folktale in which Jesus turns a baker’s daughter into an owl for giving him a meager portion of bread..." And as I've argued before, the tale of the baker's daughter changed to an owl might best be considered as a repurposing/transformation of the gospel tale about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus - which is referred to by the ghost regarding his "lazar-like" skin after poisoning - and also referred to...