Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Discussion of Elizabethan melancholy often turns to Robert Burton’s 1621 work, The Anatomy of Melancholy. Others claim melancholy was fashionably pretended by lovers, poets and scholars. Or Hamlet might be in a mystical dark night of the soul as described by John of the Cross (1577-9) and earlier mystics such as the English 14th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing. The dark night included a purgation of sense and spirit; it resembles not only Hamlet’s “man delights not me” speech (2.2), but also St. Francis's melancholy as a young man. We find traces of it also in the Song of Songs, often thought an allegory for the love of Christ for his church, and the longing for union with a divine beloved. Another explanation: Many members of Shakespeare's audiences were traumatized, probably suffering from PTSD after brutal public executions of Catholics under Henry VIII & Edward VI, of Protestants under Mary I, and Catholics again under Elizabeth, contributing to a disillu...

USING SCRIPTURE AS A WEAPON in Hamlet 1.2 In his book, Hamlet in Purgatory, Stephen Greenblatt shows how the English government and church took the protestant view that the fate of the dead can’t be changed by prayers of the living; they encouraged briefer mourning, in harmony with Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 38:17-21. Mourn the dead, but don’t forget to live. Yet Hamlet’s mourning is an embarrassment to Gertrude, who deprived her son of the throne by marrying Claudius. She fears he might be putting on a show of grief as a quiet tantrum for not being made king. Hamlet denies that it is merely show. Claudius turns helpful biblical advice into aggressive insults against Hamlet’s manhood and faith. He fears that Hamlet’s mourning may contain a hint of rebellion against his having usurped the throne meant for the prince, since Claudius used an improper or “incestuous” marriage to achieve his ends. Both Gertrude and Claudius turn the good advice of scripture into a weapon against Hamlet t...

DO HAMLET'S MASKS INCLUDE MELANCHOLIC MISOGYNY? In an article from the 1995 edition of Hamlet Studies, Francesca Bugliani (Knox) interprets Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy. She does not consider biblical allusions, like Job's dilemma of whether to remain faithful to his God, or to curse God and die (a sort of "to be or not to be" crossroads). But she has a wealth of insightful observations. I've said before that I don't buy the Freudian explanation for Hamlet's apparent misogyny to Gertrude and Ophelia, but the Christian biblical and cultural tradition in which the play was written was certainly patriarchal and misogynist. Bugliani suggests it's melancholic misogyny, and may be one of many forms of feigned madness. But why feign melancholy misogyny with Ophelia? To sound her out, suspecting she's working with the enemy? To push her away from the threat to his life? (Or both?) In contemplating revenge and the sinfu...

In 2.2, Hamlet describes his melancholy to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern: " I have of late... lost all my mirth ...this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, ...this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears... a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. ...what is this quintessence of dust? man delights* not me...." This resembles a description of Francis of Assisi in his youth From pt.1, ch.2, par.3 of Thomas of Celano's "Vita Beati Francisci " (Life of Blessed Francis), commissioned 1228. After soldiering, being a P.O.W. , and a long illness, Francis goes for a walk, "But neither the beauty of the fields, the pleasantness of the vineyards, nor anything that is fair to see could in any way delight* him. And he wondered at the sudden change in himself and began to deem the lovers of such things to be very fools, and from that...

Stephen Greenblatt ("Shakespearean Negotiations") is among those scholars who note that Twelfth Night 's Olivia is a caricature of Elizabeth I, mourning the death of her father (HenryVIII, whom she idolized) and brother (young King Edward), and making excuses to avoid being courted for marriage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_(1996_film) Olivia's steward, Malvolio, may therefore be a caricature of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who in the play is toyed with as being possessed and gets a mock-exorcism (!), which (in the eyes of some, like Essex) Cecil deserved, of course. If the unnaturally mourning Olivia can be Eliz I, what about Hamlet? If Viola, and MofV's Portia, and AYLI's Rosalind, etc., can disguise themselves as males, then Hamlet can stand (at least in part) for an idealized Elizabeth, a recipe for how Elizabeth I might end her life and reconcile with James, that prince from the north, the son of her enemy, as Hamlet does with Fo...