Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Years ago, prompted by a student question, I noticed that Hamlet’s westward sea-voyage toward England - and change of mode of transportation mid-sea - was like Jonah’s. I thought others had probably noticed and considered this at length, but never found any. Hannibal Hamlin notes that a popular play, “A Looking Glass for London and England,” featured the prophet Jonah [1] (performed when Shakespeare was with The Lord Strange's Men), and that Elizabeth I named one of her ships Elizabeth Jonas, with a speech that (strangely?) read the Jonah story as a triumph over enemies [2]. Two gospels quote Jesus speaking of the “sign of Jonah” [3]. English citizens were required to attend church, and would have heard these every year of their lives [4]. Many people only know that Jonah was swallowed by a fish. Fewer know that, even after being saved from the fish’s belly, Jonah would rather witness the destruction of Nineveh than see them repent and be saved by God’s mercy. Dennis Taylor notes t...

On the 6th day of Christmas (December 30) if Shakespeare attended church for morning or evening prayer, what Bible passages would he have heard? MORNING: Psalm 30 - The House of David [1]. Isaiah 63 - A vengeful God [2]. Acts 27 - Paul shipwrecked.* EVENING: Isaiah 64 - Divine intervention [3]? 3 John 1 - Welcome strangers [4]? “Demetrius” [5]? * Acts 27 is about St. Paul and a shipwreck, reminding us of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night , but also of the Shakespeare collaboration, 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴, which echoes the geography of Paul’s travels. Hannibal Hamlin refers to the play as “The Acts of 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴” for all of its resemblances to Paul’s journeys [6]. After Paul’s shipwreck, Roman soldiers at first want to execute all prisoners so they don’t escape, but one wants Paul to be spared, an act of mercy. Paul argues that they can all swim to shore: Paul takes the gift of the soldier’s mercy and expands it to include all of the prisoners, not just himself (like a figurative multiplica...

Does Shakespeare’s Hamlet depict religiously shaped or motivated regicide? [1] Given its many religious and biblical allusions and plot echoes, I would argue that it does. [David Tennant (L) as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart (R) as Claudius in the 2009 film, Hamlet , dir. Gregory Doran. Source: IMDB . Fair use.] Dr. Arthur F. Marotti gave a talk at Fordham in late October of 2013 in which he noted, “In the last years of Elizabeth’s rule people believed something was rotten in England—though perhaps not rotten enough to justify regicide. ” [2] Marotti has written numerous books [3] about Early Modern literature and religion, including a 2004 essay with Ken Jackson on “The Turn to Religion” in Shakespeare studies. In an abstract for a more recent (2017) essay [4], Marotti notes that “Shakespeare's plays may not stage religiously motivated regicides…,” with “may” being the operative word here: Scholars may disagree on this point. But what about Hamlet? Recognizing that H...

FROM HANNIBAL HAMLIN'S INTRODUCTION (SEE PIC BELOW) to his book, "The Bible in Shakespeare," which offers a systematic study of Shakespeare's biblical allusions in a wide array of his plays - but no focused analysis of many/most such allusions in a single play (as I'm attempting with Hamlet). Even audience members and readers of the plays who notice some of the biblical allusions often do not recognize how profoundly biblical Elizabethan culture was, but Hamlin grasps this, as the following sample from the first page of his introduction shows. If you're a fan of Shakespeare and the bible, Hamlin's book is a good investment. If you can't afford it, try local libraries, or inter-library loans. The samples available on Google Books are incomplete, and a scholar like Hamlin deserves to have his work supported, and not to have Google Books reproduce major parts of it by way of legal loopholes. If you work in a college, university, or theater with a res...