Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

INSTEAD OF ASKING WHY HAMLET DELAYS, let's ask: Why does Shakespeare write Hamlet that way?  Besides the execution of two wives of Henry VIII, and of many Catholics accused of treason, including Shakespeare’s relative Edward Arden in 1583 [1], what figurative ghosts may have made a cautious Shakespeare write a cautious Hamlet?  1. In February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed in England for conspiring against Queen Elizabeth I, her cousin. She was found guilty and beheaded. 2. In 1594, Ferdinando Stanley, patron of the Lord Strange's Men (in which Shakespeare and many of his fellow players were active) and possible heir to Elizabeth’s throne, was poisoned after faithfully reporting a plot against Elizabeth I that may have been intended to entrap him [2].  3. In February, 1601, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, attempted a rebellion against the English government, a year and a half before Shakespeare's Hamlet first appeared in the stationer's registry (July 1602), an...

Emily Dickinson famously wrote, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant” [1]. In the character of Claudius, Shakespeare does this in a number of ways: He retells an old Danish tale about a murderous king who married his brother’s widow (echoes of Henry VIII [2]). He changes the uncle’s name from Feng to Claudius, associating him not only with literary villains in Arthurian tales [3.a., 3.b.] and in Chaucer [4], but also with Rome and two Roman emperors - Claudius II, who ordered the execution of St. Valentine (as King Claudius ordered the execution of Ophelia’s Valentine) [5], and Claudius I, who married his niece and invaded England [6]. Shakespeare associated the uncle with Rome in these ways during the English Reformation, when Protestantism and Rome were at odds, executing traitors and heretics; when Elizabeth had been excommunicated by two Roman Catholic popes [7]; and when Rome enlisted Philip II of Spain (who had proposed to Elizabeth in 1559) and its Armada to attempt invasions of...

People argue about Hamlet’s age. The ghost calls him “thou noble youth” (1.5); Ophelia describes his “blown youth / Blasted with ecstasy” (3.1). Hamlet was a university student: Rhodri Lewis notes, “the median age of matriculation at Oxford for the years 1600-02 was 17.1. Among the aristocracy and gentry it was substantially lower, at 15.9 years” [1]. But given the gravedigger’s remarks in two later editions [2] regarding Hamlet’s birth and Yorick’s death, people assume Hamlet was 30 and ignore references to his youth. Yet why would he still be at university at 30, and want to go back? [3] Rhodri Lewis makes an argument for the gravedigger feigning a competence with numbers that he doesn’t possess [4].   Perhaps too many assume that Shakespeare was writing under the same rules as modern writers regarding faithfulness to details. The gravedigger’s estimate of 30 years may also have pointed to at least [edit] four famous Elizabethan men who died in their 30s, and perhaps also a rel...

In the first act of Hamlet, the first five uses of the word "strange" all refer to the poisoned king. HORATIO: 'Tis *strange.* (1.1.75) HORATIO: ...This bodes some *strange* eruption to our state. (1.1.80) HAMLET: 'Tis very *strange.* (1.2.233) GHOST: Murther most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, *strange,* and unnatural. (1.5.34) HORATIO: O day and night, but this is wondrous *strange*! (1.5.185) HAMLET: And therefore as a *stranger* give it welcome. (1.5.186) Shortly after that, some of the next occurrences of the word "strange" refer to the way Hamlet may act while feigning madness. Having spoken to the ghost and learned of the poisoning, Hamlet warns Horatio and the sentinels that he may act *strange* (1.5.190), but that they are to keep his secret (1.5.201-202). IT SO HAPPENS that until the death in 1594 of Lord Strange, Ferdinando Stanley, more than half of the actors in Shakespeare's playing company were "Strangers," or ...

With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life... Hamlet 5.2.25 [1] This is my favorite Halloween-themed line in Hamlet , from the last scene, at the start of which Hamlet describes to Horatio how he discovered the letter with orders from Claudius for England to execute Hamlet (by beheading) upon their ship's arrival there. In the USA, we are approaching Halloween, the evening of 31 October, "All Hallows Eve," before All Saints Day. Children dress in costumes, go door to door and ask, "Trick or treat?" and often receive a treat of some kind. Usually too much manufactured sugary-candy (one of the reasons the USA has so many diabetics...). 2022 SCSC, Minneapolis: This Year, the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference has its convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, only about an hour's drive from where I live. I will be giving a paper/presentation touching on how Shakespeare had to carefully encode his critique of government and the state religion, and h...

In Hamet , Horatio and the prince repeatedly describe as "strange" the apparition who claims to have been killed by poison. For those familiar with the history of Shakespeare's acting career and of various claimants to the English throne, Lord Strange (pronounced "Strang") might come to mind. He died at the age of 35, strongly suspected of having been poisoned, and was the patron of an acting company in which Shakespeare and a number of his fellow actors worked before the forming of The Lord Chamberlain's men. Lord Strange's grandmother was a younger sister of Henry VIII, and had been listed in his will as in the line of succession, so for that reason, Lord Strange, Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, was also in the line of succession. [Dated 1594, oil portrait of Fernando Stanley, Lord Strange, 5th Earl of Derby (1559–16 April 1594), by unknown. Cropped. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons .] Many others may have noticed this, but in spite ...