Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Geoffrey Bullough (1957-1972), Isaac Asimov (1970), and Harold Jenkins (1982) all noted Shakespeare having changed the name of Hamlet's uncle “Feng” to “Claudius”: Asimov: "The reigning King of Denmark, who has succeeded the elder Hamlet[...] is Claudius. Shakespeare has chosen an aristocratic Roman name for the purpose. (It was the name of a patrician family in the time of the Republic and one from which several of the early emperors were descended—including Claudius, the fourth Emperor, under whom Britain was conquered in the years following Cymbeline's death.[1]) In Saxo Grammaticus' original tale, the new King was named Feng, and perhaps Shakespeare did well to change that." (87)  [2] Jenkins: "The King's name is knows from his first entry-direction and first speech-heading, after which, however, it is never used again."  [3] Jenkins continues: "It was evidently suggested by that of the Roman emperor who married Agrippina, his niece and th...

In late 2020, I did a series on Isaac Asimov's treatment of Hamlet in his two-volume work on Shakespeare, pondering various insights gleaned from his work, after which I revisited one of the topics two years later: Part 1: Wicked Uncles: Notes on Asimov on Hamlet, Part 1 - September 22, 2020: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/09/notes-on-asimov-on-hamlet-part-1-wicked.html Part 2: Niobe & the Nemean Lion: Notes on Asimov on Hamlet, Part 2 - September 29, 2020: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/09/asimov-hamlet-niobe-nemean-lion.html Part 3: Power-Broker Polonius, Ungenerous Jephthah https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/10/powerbroker-polonius-ungenerous-jephthah.html Part 4: Suicide, Survival, Adaptivity, & Resistance: Notes on Asimov on Hamlet - October 13, 2020 https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2020/10/on-suicide-survival-adaptivity.html Part 5: Chameleon Hamlet & 1 Cor 9: Notes on Asimov on Hamlet - October 20, 2020 htt...

Two days ago I posted about Hamlet, Orestes, Gertrude, Hecuba and Clytemnestra . While Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Greek mythology is fresh in the mind, I wanted to repost something similar from two years ago: Hamlet compares his mother’s tears at his father’s funeral to Niobe’s tears, and compares his own resolve to the nerves of the Nemean lion . In his two-volume work on Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov explains these two references well, but although he doesn't spell it out, both of these references foreshadow Hamlet’s own death. NIOBE Asimov considers the Niobe allusion first (II.93-94): . . . Hamlet is angry with his mother [. . .]. She had seemed so in love with his father, had mourned so at his death- . . . she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears . . . - Act 1, scene ii, lines 148-49 “Niobe was one of the more pathetic characters in Greek myth. She had six sons and six daughters and boasted her superiority to the goddess Latona (Leto), who ...

For now , I have come to the end of my research and series of blog posts on Jephthah and Polonius. It has turned out to be very much like the poet Mary Oliver's "Instructions for living a life": Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. This is far better than the vague and limited advice one hears more often: "Write what you know"; better to go on a quest to find out even more, and to be astonished in the process. Since at least last October I have been thinking and researching more methodically than I had in the past about Hamlet's Jephthah allusion in reference to Polonius. In paying attention, I’ve often  been astonished to find that the Jephthah allusion in Hamlet is much richer than many footnotes and other sources sometimes suggest (in my admittedly limited research).  So here is an index to my Jephthah/Polonius posts since last October, with links to those posts, and with some brief comments about the things I found that most astonished me in eac...

Some Shakespeare fans are huge fans of Asimov's two-volume work, Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare . It surveys all the plays, provides cross-references to how various plays share references, especially to elements of history and classical mythology, but also to a smaller number of biblical tales. It's also accessible, free of scholarly jargon that often makes many readers feel excluded from the intended audience. These are among its greatest strengths. The explanations of distant European history especially helps to place Hamlet in a much larger and interesting context, especially in the sweep of political and military history, and that's quite interesting. It gives a sense that very old history matters, and that the forces of history keep finding expression even in the present. But at least as far as its treatment of Hamlet is concerned, Asimov's Guide is not without a number of glaring weaknesses. First published in 1970, Asimov's Guide is terribly dismiss...

When a country's leader is responsible for many crimes, either in secret or publicly known, including the murder of one or the deaths of many, and he shrouds his actions in lies, what is to be done with old school-friends who tried to hitch their wagons to the dark star of the corrupt regime? Are they, essentially, complicit in the crimes and deserving some share of any punishment, should it come? Or were they just human beings who had average human ambitions to get ahead, and should not be held responsible for the evils in which they participated, even knowingly? These were questions asked by the Nuremberg trials after World War II, and that some asked after the Bush-Cheney regime with its scandals of torture and lies that got the U.S. into a war with Iraq that violated international law. They are questions that may soon be asked if Trump is replaced by Biden as U.S. president. And they are questions we might consider regarding Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Shakespeare's Ha...