Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life... - Hamlet 5.2.25 [1] This is my favorite Halloween-themed line in Hamlet, from the last scene, at the start of which Hamlet describes to Horatio how he discovered the letter with orders from Claudius for England to execute Hamlet (by beheading) upon their ship's arrival there. Frightening stuff! In many places around the world, some people will observe Halloween, the evening of 31 October, "All Hallows Eve," with its roots in Christian tradition of celebrating All Souls this day, and anticipating the Feast of All Saints tomorrow, November 1. It is harvest time, and so we also consider death as a harvest of souls. It is a good time of year for such stuff, with cold weather, and with leaves changing color in the Northern Hemisphere approaching winter. Hamlet famously converses with an apparition that claims to be the ghost of his father, after the apparition had been previously seen a number of times by sentinels, finall...

HAMLET, SUPERMAN, AND FRANCIS OF ASSISI WALK INTO A BAR.  What do they talk about? Fathers.  Was it ever more honorable to disobey your father than to obey him?  SUPERMAN, in the latest film (dir. James Gunn, 2025), faces a choice: His biological father on Krypton had recorded messages for him. One had been damaged, at first thought irretrievable. When finally decoded, Superman learned that he was sent to earth because its inhabitants were weaker, so that he could dominate them.  Should he obey his biological father’s plans for domination?  He disobeys and heeds the advice of his adoptive parents, using his powers to serve.  The first sentinel in Hamlet?  FRANCISO, named after FRANCIS OF ASSISI, once a soldier and prisoner of war. His father, a rich merchant, was not quick to ransom him for early release.  Francis later heard a voice: “Repair my church.” At first he thought this was about church buildings, but soon realized it was about repairin...

In light of Taylor Swift’s new album on which her song “The Fate of Ophelia” appears, Emily Rome (creator of the podcast @shakespearesshadows) has good reflections: Why in the song does Ophelia have to be rescued by a man? Shakespeare borrowed and adapted freely, so if we’re going to revise Ophelia, why not do so in ways that imagine her having more agency? On Instagram, Emily has a short video in which she mentions the 2018 film, “Ophelia,” starring Daisy Ridley; the 2006 book by Lisa Klein on which it was based; the Lauren M. Gunderson stage play, “A Room in the Castle,”; and the 2019 video game, “Elsinore,” all of which adapt Ophelia’s story in creative ways. (And yes, video games are no longer merely ping-pong, but contain complex plots and characters, with interesting original soundtracks and visual effects, as well as effective voice actors; they generate more revenue than new releases in TV and Film, so an Ophelia video game may make interesting, significant impressions on new...