Shakespeare's Uses of Ambiguity (What We Talk About When We Talk About Ambiguity in Shakespeare)

There are at least three major uses of ambiguity in Shakespeare. How we speak of it, and what we value about it, varies widely. 

1. One popular use of ambiguity can be a “Rorschach Effect”: Many believe that this gives actors and audiences permission to imagine and interpret any meaning or motivation they wish about the lines [1]. 

Shakespeare, his playing company, and early audiences may not have been quite that relativistic [2], but it certainly helps playing companies today in new contexts, to adapt plays to changing circumstances. 

2. A second kind of ambiguity might be a “Scheherazade Effect” [3]. If you live in times when many are executed for their opinions or religious allegiances, you might feel like Scheherazade, who had to entertain with stories to stay alive. 

If you also wanted to catch the conscience of the monarch, you had to be careful, or there would be trouble [4]. Instead of being too confrontational, one had to be indirect [5]: One had to use stories and situations analogous to what England was going through, instead of being too obvious. 

Some people think Shakespeare never used this second form of ambiguity: They assume he was a subservient puppy dog playwright for the monarch. 

But Shakespeare and many of his fellow players had been in The Lord Strange’s men: Strange (Ferdinando Stanley) was a possible heir to the throne, probably poisoned to remove him as a contender, which may explain why the word “strange” occurs so many times in Hamlet, Act 1, always in association with the poisoned ghost [6]. 

But if we don’t want to think of Shakespeare using ambiguity this way, we don’t have to. Go back to “Rorchach Effect.” Lather, rinse, and repeat. 

3. A third use of ambiguity relates to how life is mysterious: there is more that we do not understand than that we do. Mystery and ambiguity are at the core of human experience, and also at the core of religious experience. Ambiguity in a play is mystery made manifest – and not something to be plucked recklessly [7]. Ambiguity and mystery, at best, can draw us in by our own curiosity. 


NOTES: All references to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu

[1] But how we interpret may say more about us than about the lines in the play (as Hamlet knew, speaking of shapes of clouds with Polonius in 3.2). 

[2] Regarding Shakespeare and relativism, some would like to believe that Hamlet is being transparently honest and wise when he says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” (2.2), another kind of Rorschach effect: no good or bad, things can mean whatever you wish. But Hamlet suspects his schoolmates have been sent to spy on him. Perhaps he doesn’t mean this as a philosophy, but only says it to bait his schoolmates?  

[3] Scheherazade is a character in the book, One Thousand and One Nights (9th Cen. Arabic), who must tell stories to save her own life from a jealous King who was betrayed by a previous wife. 

[4] Some writers and playwrights of Shakespeare’s time did end up in trouble: 
- Shakespeare and members of his company were questioned in relation to the Essex rebellion, in part because of the commission to perform Richard II. 
- Ben Jonson was imprisoned and questioned related to at least three of his plays. 
- As I have mentioned in previous posts, Thomas Kyd was (falsely) accused of Arianism, arrested, and tortured. 
- Christopher Marlowe was released on bail related to the same controversy as Kyd, and he seems to have been assassinated before he went to court for it. 
- Thomas Nashe (who is believed to have collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VI, Part 1, and perhaps Sir Thomas More), fled the country because of controversy related to his writing, and his works were banned. 
- Religious writers like Edmund Campion were put to death for their writing. 

[5] As Polonius tells his servant Reynaldo upon sending him to France to spy on Laertes, "By indirections find directions out" (2.1).  

[6] See my previous post on Lord Strange: 
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2021/04/welcome-lazarus-lord-stranges-men-for.html

[7] Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in 3.2: “you would pluck out the heart of my mystery”....


IMAGES: 
There is ambiguity about how we might best imagine what Shakespeare looked like. These are just a few options: 

Top row, L-R: 
"Psychedelic Shakespeare" by Vulpes Lumin, fair use, via “Shakespeare's Precarious Kingdoms: Notes on a Subversive Art: 
https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=960x10000:format=jpg/path/s168de90b5a6b6996/image/i386826054044c716/version/1620128637/image.jpg
The Grafton Portrait (1588, unknown painter), John Rylands Library, via Wikipedia, public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grafton_portrait.jpg

The Wadlow Portrait (1595?), fair use creative commons 4.0 via https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2024/08/wadlow-shakespeare-portrait-736x1024.jpg

The Sanders Portrait (circa 1603-1650?) public domain via Wikipedia, 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders_portrait#/media/File:Sanders_portrait2.jpg 

Bottom Row, L-R:  
The Chandos Portrait, c. 1600-1610. Attributed to John Taylor. Public Domain via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandos_portrait#/media/File:William_Shakespeare_by_John_Taylor,_edited.jpg

The Cobbe Portrait, 1610, anonymous, public domain via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobbe_portrait#/media/File:Cobbe_portrait_of_Shakespeare.jpg

The Droeshout Engraving, from the title page of the First Folio, by Martin Droeshout, 1623. Image courtesy of the Elizabethan Club and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Public Domain via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droeshout_portrait#/media/File:Title_page_William_Shakespeare's_First_Folio_1623.jpg 

Pablo Picasso, Imaginary Portrait (Shakespeare series), 1969. Fair use via https://www.lamodern.com/items/index/1000/221_0_modern_art_design_june_2008_pablo_picasso_imaginary_portrait_shakespeare_series__lama_auction.jpg?t=1687209453



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