Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

INSTEAD OF ASKING WHY HAMLET DELAYS, let's ask: Why does Shakespeare write Hamlet that way?  Besides the execution of two wives of Henry VIII, and of many Catholics accused of treason, including Shakespeare’s relative Edward Arden in 1583 [1], what figurative ghosts may have made a cautious Shakespeare write a cautious Hamlet?  1. In February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in England for conspiring against Queen Elizabeth I, her cousin. She was found guilty and beheaded. 2. In 1594, Ferdinando Stanley, patron of the Lord Strange's Men (in which Shakespeare and many of his fellow players were active) and possible heir to Elizabeth’s throne, was poisoned after faithfully reporting a plot against Elizabeth I that may have been intended to entrap him [2].  3. In February, 1601, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, attempted a rebellion against the English government, a year and a half before Shakespeare's Hamlet first appeared in the stationer's registry (July 1602), an...

The main reason for Hamlet's delay: So that Shakespeare could write his play. Joking, of course. But absolutely serious. We can say we're impatient because we love quick and bloody revenge plots. ACTION FIGURE HAMLET! But if that's what we want, we're at the wrong play. Instead, we might choose not to be impatient because at least sometimes, we might prefer for princes to be careful to discern the truth about whether ghosts are honest, and whether kings are guilty, and whether princes who contemplate revenge are bound for heaven or “th’ other place”, as Hamlet calls it [4.3.38-9]. We might find that we like Hamlet humbly scolding himself for his own delay, and laugh at all the critics who take his impatient self-scolding too seriously, or too literally - as if Hamlet should act more quickly. Such critics may not notice how necessary it is for the play, to have Hamlet delay while Shakespeare explicates his character and that of others, and develops his plot. THE STORY:...

IN HAMLET'S PLACE, WWOD? (What would Othello do?) At some point [1], to help understand (or make fun of?) Hamlet’s apparent indecision, someone thought this question was important, or clever. If Othello were the Prince of Denmark, he would elope with Ophelia, kill her, kill his uncle, kill Fortinbras, and commit suicide. Done. A Kenneth Branagh film version might only take 3.8 hours, tops.  Such comparisons may or may not be helpful, but they add levity to the classroom and ensure that all students might get at least one answer right on the quiz.  What would avenge a father’s death more quickly: Superman or a nuclear bomb?  Woah!  Bambi and Rambo: Both names end in a vowel, announcing their similarity in spite of their contrast.  Bring those dear MIA members of the herd home. With grenades and lots of ammo. Get ‘er done. Boom.  Shakespeare would love these comparisons. How do we know? Because of the intentional fallacy, by that comic duo, Wimsatt and Beard...

Shakespeare catches the conscience of audiences impatient for action: 1. Speaking to the ghost, Hamlet says he’ll act with wings swift as... lightning? Nope. As “meditation or thoughts of love” [1.5.36]. In other words, NOT SWIFT. He's not planning swiftness but caution. 2. After the players arrive, Hamlet scolds himself for cowardice: "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! [...] A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, [...] I am pigeon-livered" [2]. Whether or not we condone revenge, we may admire Hamlet scolding himself for apparent cowardice.  3. Hamlet ends this speech saying he needs to be more certain of the ghost’s honesty and Claudius’ guilt, so he’ll put on a play to catch the conscience of the king [3]. This may inspire a public confession from Claudius. If not, then what should Hamlet do?  4. Next act: To be or not? Should Hamlet patiently tolerate the scandal of his father's murder and his mother's hasty remarriage - "suffer / The slings and arrows o...

In the final scene, why does Hamlet tell Horatio, “We defy augury” [1]?  Hamlet refers to scripture often in this part of the scene - “The readiness is all” [2], “the fall of a sparrow” [3]. But augury? What might that have meant to Elizabethan audiences?  Generally, augury is related to the belief in omens and signs, as mentioned by Horatio in the first scene of the play when he speaks of omens in Roman graveyards and in the heavens,  “the like precurse of feared events, As harbingers preceding still the fates And prologue to the omen coming on”. [4]  Augury in the story of the founding of Rome involved Romulus and Remus observing birds to determine fate or the will of the gods: The two had survived their great uncle’s attempt to drown them (and are adopted by a she-wolf, perhaps as Laertes is figuratively adopted and manipulated by Claudius?); they argued about where to locate the city. They decided to use augury to settle the dispute, but still argued about the ou...

Jeremy McCarter [1] has a good New York Times opinion piece, “Listen to ‘Hamlet.’ Feel Better” Access requires subscription [2]. Favorite bits: ~~~ “It is we who are Hamlet,” wrote the essayist and critic William Hazlitt. [....] His circumstances may not match yours [...] but, after the traumas of the past few years, Hamlet’s sorrow is likely to feel familiar, as is his sense of powerlessness. Amid political unrest, military deployments in the streets, an unfolding climate crisis and the unforeseeable, possibly apocalyptic disruptions of A.I., who among us hasn’t felt, as Hamlet does, that “the time is out of joint”? [....] According to the textbooks, a tragedy is a story in which a hero tumbles from a lofty height. But when we first meet Hamlet, he’s already in the dumps: grief-stricken by the sudden death of his father and appalled by everything that has followed. [....] In scene after scene that follows, new discoveries violate his sense of reality, bombarding him with what he cal...