How is Shakespeare's Hamlet a Reformation play?
HOW IS SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET A REFORMATION PLAY, pointing to efforts by Catholics and Protestants to reform Christian institutions and hearts?
1. First on stage is Francisco. Francis of Assisi was a famous church reformer [1] (demonstrating that "reformation" - reforming the church - was a popular topic centuries before Martin Luther).
2. Second is Bernardo. Bernard of Clairvaux was a famous Cistercian monastic reformer [2].
3. Hamlet goes to university at Wittenberg, where Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door [3].
4. The ghost tells Hamlet that he is being purged of sins (purgatory, believed in by many Catholics, doubted by many Protestants) [4].
5. Hamlet tells the players not to overact. The actors say they have "reformed" that; Hamlet replies, "reform it altogether" [5], reformation wordplay.
6. Hamlet mentions a "convocation of politic worms," ‘your only emperor for diet” [6]: A council, the “Diet of Worms,” questioned Luther’s orthodoxy.
7. In 5.1, Laertes calls the only priest in the play "churlish" for nit-picking about rules regarding how suspected suicides should be buried. Elizabethan Protestant priests were increasingly ungenerous about suicides [7].
8. Hamlet mentions “special providence,” an idea associated with Protestant reformer John Calvin [8].
9. Claudius poisons a chalice of wine: Poisoned Eucharistic wine was a repeated theme in anti-Catholic Protestant polemics [9].
10. The Catholic Church required confession once a year [10.a.]. Protestant reformers believed sins can be forgiven without a priest; Protestant churches only recommended seeking a priest after serious sin. There is no confession of sin to a priest in the play - though the ghost wished for it - but Hamlet confesses sinful inclinations to Ophelia [10.b.]; Claudius tries to confess in his room, believing no other person present (the play’s least successful confession) [10.c.]; Hamlet and Laertes exchange forgiveness in the last scene [10.d.].
11. Horatio quotes the Latin Requiem Mass - in English - after Hamlet dies ("flights of angels sing thee to thy rest") [11].
No escaping Reformation in Hamlet.
[1] The name Francisco in Renaissance England goes back to Francis of Assissi.
- There were more than 180 Franciscan monasteries in England at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536.
- Henry VIII actually liked Franciscans, but not his first wife’s Franciscan confessor, John Forest, who opposed Henry’s divorce and was burned at the stake for it.
- Francis tried to live as an example of charity and poverty (which would put him in solidarity with the beggar Lazarus, alluded to by the ghost regarding his “lazar-like” skin).
- For more on Francisco as named after Francis of Assisi (and one of the Pazzi assassins), see the following index of previous posts:
Francisco and Bernardo: (April 3-June 24, / Nov 13-20, / Dec. 3-4, 2017; / Jan 1, March 26, 2018)
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/04/index-of-posts-on-francisco-bernardo.html
[2] The name Bernard in Renaissance England often goes back to Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian reformer. - There were 800-900 monasteries in England at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, many of which were Cistercian.
- The patron of Shakespeare’s playing company, Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, was educated at Woburn Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in Bedfordshire, England, under the patronage of Anne Boleyn, his aunt.
- Bernard of Clairvaux once helped convince an earlier king of England not to promote an antipope and schism.
- Martin Luther liked and quoted St. Bernard.
- For more on Bernardo as named after Bernard of Clairvaux (and one of the Pazzi assassins), also see the same index of previous posts:
Francisco and Bernardo: (April 3-June 24, / Nov 13-20, / Dec. 3-4, 2017; / Jan 1, March 26, 2018)
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/04/index-of-posts-on-francisco-bernardo.html
[3] See Hamlet 1.2.117: “For your intent / In going back to school in Wittenberg, / It is most retrograde to our desire.”
Others have observed that it was common for a student studying for a higher degree to nail their thesis or theses to a particular door, but this is often how Martin Luther’s theses were remembered.
[4] 1.5.14-18: GHOST: I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
We should not fall into a binary, where either the apparition is the ghost of Hamlet’s father as it claims, or it is a demon in disguise as Hamlet suspects is possible. See 1.4.43-50 (especially 44, “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned”) and 2.2.627-9, “The spirit that I have seen / May be a devil, and the devil hath power / T’ assume a pleasing shape”... The ghost may be a soul not yet purged of its sins, which might in part explain its thirst for vengeance.
[5] 3.2.14-15: “It out-Herods / Herod.”
3.2.38-40:
PLAYER I hope we have reformed that indifferently / with us, sir.
HAMLET O, reform it altogether.
[6] “A / certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at / him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet.” 4.3.22-24. In this way, Shakespeare uses the word “worms” and also “diet,” which is usually viewed as pointing to Martin Luther’s dangerous presence at the council, and his early escape in disguise.
[7] “I tell thee, churlish priest, / A minist’ring angel shall my sister be / When thou liest howling.” (5.1.250-2).
Laertes implies that the priest will be howling in hell, like the rich man in Luke 16:19-31, and his sister will be like Lazarus in heaven.
- See also Michael MacDonald and Terrance R. Murphy, Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England (1993): The authors note that suicides in the medieval times ruled accidents to save families pain (23), but from 1590-1599, rulings by the Star Chamber increased from six (1485-1499) to 797 (98.3%), as noted by Kate Heinz (2018), p.26-27: https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/english-assets/migrated/honors_files/Heinz,%20Kate%20Thesis.pdf
So the protest of Laertes may voice a more general societal outrage at the increase in rulings of suicide, where the “crowner’s quest” (coroner’s inquest) mentioned in 5.1.4 and 5.1.23 corresponds to the Elizabethan Start Chamber: The more deaths judged as suicides, the more property the crown could confiscate.
[9] Scottish reformer John Knox (1514-1572) said that one (Catholic) Mass is worse than a cup of poison in Protestant-Catholic transubstantiation debates, the phrase an example of anti-Catholic polemics. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestantism/The-role-of-John-Knox
Thomas Cranmer also spoke of poison in a similar way, associated with Catholic mass:
"It pitieth me to see the simple and hungry flock of Christ led into corrupt pastures, to be carried blindfolded they know not whither, and to be fed with poison in the stead of wholesome meats."
"...beware of that great harlot [Revelation 14, 17, 18.], that is to say, the pestiferous see of Rome, that she make you not drunk with her pleasant wine. Trust not her sweet promises, nor banquet with her; for instead of wine she will give you sour dregs, and for meat she will feed you with rank poison."
"The wine also will poison, (as divers Bishops of Rome have had experiences, both in poisoning of other, and being poisoned themselves,) which poisoning they cannot ascribe to the most wholesome blood of our Saviour Christ, but only to the poisoned wine."
https://newwhitchurch.press/cranmer/supper
[10] Yearly confession was first mandated in 1215 with the Fourth Lateran Council by Pope Innocent III, as well as annual communion. In the play, Claudius tries to confess in 3.3.40-103. Hamlet apologizes to Laertes in 5.2.240-258. Laertes confesses his and the king’s use of poison in 5.2.344-351, and asks Hamlet to exchange forgiveness with him in 5.2.361-363.
[11] 5.2.398.
IMAGES
Far Left: Life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux:
Saint Bernard mediates a dispute between Bishop Stephan von Bar and Duke Matthew von Lothringen in Metz. Stained glass.
German, Cologne.
After 1535.
Public domain via The Met at https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/202330
Center-Left: Portrait of Martin Luther (1528), by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553).
Veste Coburg. Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucas_Cranach_d.%C3%84._-_Martin_Luther,_1528_(Veste_Coburg).jpg#/media/File:Lucas_Cranach_d.%C3%84._-_Martin_Luther,_1528_(Veste_Coburg).jpg/2
Center-Right: Portrait of John Calvin (1509–1564). Anonymous. Circa 1550.
Museum Catharijneconvent.
Ground floor, Zuidelijke Kloostergang.
Public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Calvin_Museum_Catharijneconvent_RMCC_s84_cropped.png#/media/File:Portrait_of_John_Calvin_(1509%E2%80%931564),_by_anonymous_-_Museum_Catharijneconvent.jpg
Far Right: Francis of Assissi. St. Francis Renounces all Worldly Goods (and his earthly father). Giotto. Original Title: Rinunciando San Francesco i suoi beni. Date: 1297-1299.
Location: Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy.
Public domain via https://www.wikiart.org/en/giotto/st-francis-renounces-all-worldly-goods-1299
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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