Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

If we are to believe Roland Frye (1963) [1], what was later called “The Turn to Religion in Early Modern English Studies” [2] may actually have been more of a *return* to religion on renewed terms, after a turning away that was aided in part by Frye and a bit of Protestant gatekeeping. Frye writes, “In the train of [G. Wilson] Knight’s influence, we have had and continue to have a great wave of supposedly theological analyses of Shakespeare: again and again we are informed of the discovery of some new Christ-figure or Christ-allusion in the plays, or we are advised as to the eternal destiny in a future life of Shakespeare’s stage characters, or we are introduced to some doctrine which serves as a theological structure upon which an entire plays is built.” (5) At least at that time, Frye believed there was too much “supposedly theological analyses of Shakespeare,” marked by sloppy or ill-supported religious claims, and poorly thought out theology, often for not being Protestant enou...

MARY JO KIETZMAN's book, The Biblical Covenant in Shakespeare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) To introduce some thoughts on Mary Jo Kietzman's fine book and its good chapter on Hamlet, I need to say a few words about my own relative unfamiliarity with certain books of the Hebrew scriptures, and to do that, some observations about the scripture readings people heard in church in Shakespeare's England, as compared to Catholic churchgoers of the last 50-75 years. Why? Because Kietzman's book helped me realize some gaps in what scripture readings I had internalized during my years growing up Catholic, and later, as a church choir director and liturgist. REQUIRED BY LAW, OR CATHOLIC "OBLIGATION"? In Shakespeare's lifetime, Sunday church attendance was required by law, so if one were a law-abiding citizen, one tended to hear the entire Sunday cycle of readings as listed in the Book of Common Prayer. I was raised Catholic, a strand of Christianity in which th...

I am realizing that, more often, I should highlight some of the books I've enjoyed and benefitted from regarding Hamlet studies. One of these recently is called Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life , by Julia Reinhard Lupton , and more specifically, her chapter called "The Hamlet Elections." Lupton begins the chapter explaining how she is borrowing some ideas from Carl Schmitt, including ideas about similarities between Hamlet the prince and James the king. She also explores a variety of meanings and implications of the word "election" in the play, and discusses Hamlet's first meeting with the ghost as a dark retelling of Moses going up on the mountain to receive the law from God (Hamlet says he will erase all else from the tables of his memory and remember only what the Ghost has told him). Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law - 1659, by Rembrandt, via Google Cultural Institute I have mentioned in the past on this blog the possib...