Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

HOW IS SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET A REFORMATION PLAY, pointing to efforts by Catholics and Protestants to reform Christian institutions and hearts? 1. First on stage is Francisco. Francis of Assisi was a famous church reformer [1] (demonstrating that "reformation" - reforming the church - was a popular  topic centuries before Martin Luther). 2. Second is Bernardo. Bernard of Clairvaux was a famous Cistercian monastic reformer [2]. 3. Hamlet goes to university at Wittenberg, where Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door [3]. 4. The ghost tells Hamlet that he is being purged of sins (purgatory, believed in by many Catholics, doubted by many Protestants) [4]. 5. Hamlet tells the players not to overact. The actors say they have "reformed" that; Hamlet replies, "reform it altogether" [5], reformation wordplay. 6. Hamlet mentions a "convocation of politic worms," ‘your only emperor for diet” [6]: A council, the “Diet of Worms,” questioned Luther’s orthod...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ INDEX OF POSTS IN THIS SERIES: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/01/index-hamlet-in-32-as-boy-jesus-lost.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  After The Mousetrap, Hamlet subtly compares himself to the boy Jesus,[1] amazing elders in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52).[2] See Part 1 of this series [3] for a simple comparison of the Hamlet lines to the scripture verses in Luke 2.  Some of my readers caught the allusion right away with the texts side-by-side. Others were reluctant. It may help to look more closely. HOW THE ALLUSION WORKS Why might Hamlet (and Shakespeare) have thought that this moment parallels the Luke tale enough to warrant the allusion? (Not an exhaustive list.) DISTRESSED PARENTS - In Luke: Mary and Joseph had “heavy hearts” (v.48) to find that Jesus was missing. - In Hamlet: Claudius is “marvelous distempered” [4]; Gertrude, “in most great affliction of spirit" [5]. ASTONISHED & AMAZED - Luke uses the word “a...

If Hamlet is NOT a revenge tragedy, what is it? Peter Lake [1] shares his ideas on this topic and more in his 2020 book, Hamlet’s Choice: Religion and Resistance in Shakespeare's Revenge Tragedies .[2] Lake claims Hamlet is not *merely* a revenge tragedy, but much more, bending and mixing genres. If Hamlet is not *merely* a revenge tragedy, what is it? In a (Senecan, or heroic/Homeric) revenge tragedy like The Spanish Tragedy (1587, Thomas Kyd), injustices occur, and a victim of wrongs decides to take revenge. Eventually there’s a lot of plotting of violence, and the revenge is worse than the original injustice. Not in Hamlet, Lake observes. Shakespeare had already written the successful Titus Andronicus (1594), a more traditional revenge tragedy, which ends like The Spanish Tragedy, with the main character killing the heirs of the villains and cooking them, and then making the villains eat it. Yuck. Nothing like that happens in Hamlet. Lake observes: By the tim...

OPHELIA: "THE FALSE STEWARD THAT STOLE HIS MASTER'S DAUGHTER" In recent years, scholars* have identified a cryptic statement Ophelia makes: “It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter” (4.5). They now think this points to a Ben Jonson play in which a young girl is taken by a steward and passed off as his own while the father is away at war. Years later, she falls in love but is told she is unworthy of the match, when in fact she is worthy by her true parentage. This changeling theme resembles the story of Jesus, apparent son of a carpenter, but actually of a heavenly father. I have posted before of how Francisco of Assisi (see sentinel name) renounced his earthly father in favor of a heavenly one, and how, after his Jonah-like sea-voyage, Hamlet finds a heavenly father in Providence. Ophelia is told by Laertes that she is "unvalued"/unworthy of marriage to Hamlet, who made to her “almost all the holy vows of heaven” (a marriage propo...

Shakespeare's Hamlet has father issues, and only after being spared by pirates at sea does he refocus from his father's ghost to what he sees as the hand of Providence. It might have been better if he'd made the break sooner. But Shakespeare chose to name the first character on stage Francisco, a sentinel, and a possible allusion to Francis of Assisi, who also had father issues, and whose monasteries spread all over Europe and to England, where hundreds of monasteries were "dissolved" during the reign of Henry VIII - a nice way of saying land was stolen to be sold off by the crown and for political favors. [April 12, 2024 note: We may also observe that, just as Francis of Assisi had father issues - and famousely sought to separate himself from an abusive father in favor of a heavenly one - Bernard of Clairvaux was famous for having said to have had a dream in which he was fed on milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary, a vision portrayed in various paintings....