Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

How might a 21st century view of Sir Thomas More differ from Hamlet’s?  Catholic worship was illegal in England until 1791 [1]. More was beatified in 1886, canonized a saint in 1935.  In 1960 JFK became the first Catholic US president [2].  Robert Bolt's “A Man for All Seasons,” a play about More that won a 1962 Tony Award, had by the time of JFK’s 1963 assassination finished a successful Broadway run of 637 shows since 1961 after its London debut [3]. The hero of the play, More would not support Henry VIII's quest for a divorce from his first wife, resulting in his execution, a martyr for conscience.  Henry had sought special permission (‘dispensation’) to marry his dead brother’s widow (the church usually considered such marriages incestuous), but after 24 years of marriage and a daughter, Henry famously changed his mind after his affair with Anne Boleyn, and no thriving male heirs.  Shakespeare used More’s historical writing as a basis for Richard III, and ...

When Shakespeare has his Hamlet abbreviate his sea voyage to England (compared to the Saxo Grammaticus source c. 1185–1208) and change mode of transportation mid-sea, it seems an implied allusion to Jonah not present in Saxo. Jonah also changed mode of transport mid-sea, swallowed by a fish doing the will of a merciful God; Hamlet was figuratively swallowed by a pirate ship; they imprisoned him, but he described the pirates as "thieves of mercy" [1] Shakespeare's Hamlet never mentions Jonah explicitly, and neither does the Disney film, Pinocchio (1940) [2], but Pinocchio and Geppetto are actually swallowed by a whale, whereas the pirate ship only figuratively swallows Hamlet, so critics (who are, yes, sometimes far too literal) have been more likely to see Jonah in Pinocchio than in Hamlet's sea voyage. One might ask: Why was Shakespeare being so subtle instead of being more explicit about his Jonah echo? Was it an artistic/aesthetic choice? Or were there other fact...

How do we understand an allusion, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet using a play to catch the conscience of the king, like the prophet Nathan catching the conscience of King David? Especially after the New Critics, the "death of the author," and disillusionment with “old historicism,” there was a tendency to ignore many aspects of historical-cultural contexts in favor of only what is immediately clear in the text. This may have seemed a more objective, even empirical approach: If the text doesn't say "Nathan" or "David" or "Bathsheba," or use the same phrasing as the Bible, shall we assume there is no such biblical allusion present? The more subtle the allusion, the more reason to doubt it? What if we know that many other writers in Shakespeare's time were alluding to or retelling the David story? Did that allow for a kind of shorthand in making allusions? Last week’s post [1] noted that Shakespeare didn't always have to be explicit;...

Shakespeare didn’t need to be too explicit about some biblical allusions: He knew his Bible-influenced audiences would experience his play through lenses of scripture. When modern critics split hairs about whether something is explicit enough to count as an allusion [1], they're imposing modern expectations on Elizabethan texts. This is true of Hamlet’s Davidic influences: In 1599 George Peele’s popular play “David and Bathsebe” was published in quarto after stage success (c. 1595-9). David was a trending topic [2]. In this context Shakespeare wrote his Hamlet (1599-1601-04): King Hamlet fought Old Fortinbras in single combat, as David fought Goliath [3]. Claudius killed King Hamlet to take his wife Gertrude, as King David arranged for Uriah’s death to steal his wife, Bathsheba [4]. The sentinels and Horatio [5], and also the Danish public [6] may have thought Prince Hamlet the rightful heir denied the throne, like David, chosen by God via the prophet Samuel to be the next king...