John Yamamoto-Wilson on "Quietus" and Suicide in Hamlet
One of my favorite things about the following video by John R. Yamamoto-Wilson is that he challenges prevailing scholarly and performance assumptions about what Hamlet means in his “To be or not to be” speech, and in particular, that he expands popular understanding of what Hamlet means by “quietus.” (3.1.64-96; 3.1.83.). [1] John points out very clearly that Hamlet already considered suicide in Act 1, scene 2: O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! 1.2.133-136 Later, in Act 1, scene 5, Hamlet had already promised the ghost that he will avenge his murder, so there is little dramatic purpose in Act 3 to considering suicide yet again. Importantly, John points out that the word “quietus” has a more primary meaning as found in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) than the one Shakespeare scholars and directors often assume. They wrongly assume that the phrase,...