Hamlet, hero to the English for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's deaths?

English audiences - after recent attempted invasions by the Spanish Armada, and anticipating more - may have felt Hamlet was their hero, to change Claudius’ secret letter that ordered Hamlet's death so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are executed instead.

Early audiences may have opposed any suggestion of oppression by a foreign power, Spanish or Danish. Hamlet and his former school-friends-turned-spies had been sent by Claudius, who claimed they must collect England’s "neglected tribute" (3.1), like insurance payments to organized crime: Pay, and we won't hurt you.

It may have seemed to them satisfying that the rebellious, "mad" Danish prince would change the letter intended to bring about his own death, so that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be executed by the very English from whom the three were told to collect this tribute.

Although Elizabeth prohibited speculation about her successor, many knew that James of Scotland, who had married Princess Anne of Denmark (1589), would probably succeed her. (Three Danish kings had invaded and ruled England centuries earlier [1].)

The Danish-Catholic princess who married James would have to submit to him as his wife and queen if he became England's king.

Audiences may have been much more sympathetic then about the deaths of Hamlet's former school friends learning how Hamlet sent them to their deaths with "no shriving time allowed" (5.2), a particularly ruthless, vengeful Hamlet, not yet seasoned by the mercy of pirates, still thinking "...My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!" (4.4).

Shakespeare may have known that many in his first audiences would have considered Hamlet a hero just for arranging for the deaths of those foreigners who would dare to demand England’s tribute.

As Harold Bloom and others have said, Shakespeare knew his plays would elicit varied responses, and we are judged by these, as the title of Measure for Measure suggests: the measure we use to judge may likely be the measure that is used to judge us [2].


NOTES: References to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/

[1] Sweyn Forkbeard (1013-1014);
Cnut the Great (1016-1035);
Harthacnut (1040-1042).

[2] Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998).


IMAGES, clockwise from right:

RIGHT: Tobin Moss and Glenn Provost in a Players Ring production (Portsmouth, Maine) of Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” Photo via Portsmouth Herald, via Seacost Online, fair use via https://www.seacoastonline.com/gcdn/authoring/2010/06/10/NPOH/ghows-SO-dd45e6f8-215c-42f5-b5eb-9511b8f1f9d8-fde1b8f8.jpeg?width=300&height=443&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp

LOWER LEFT: Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire in an Old Vic 2017 production of Tom Stoppard's “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” Image fair use via Hollywood reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/daniel_radcliffe_joshua_mcguirein_rosencrantz__guildenstern_are_dead__-_publicity_-_h_2017.jpg

UPPER LEFT: Spring semester 2013 in the Snow Black Box Theatre at Brigham Young University-Idaho. From “The Theatrical Designs of Gary Benson” Wednesday, March 1, 2015, at blogspot, fair use via https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOAlO4qVDR1YyzjJLisiwq2KjOTjpJL4UCWB9oDVN5wi6YKJt3d2tn0wrb-EkRShD7I9lclzym9PvfseH6uo2o8w3w_ogT1IQkPbvwIHallGNBbvFrvMYER6q0S46Wm1MqsrCPOh2j5zk/s1600/130530_Rosencrantz&Guildenstern_033+(1024x678).jpg



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