Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

How do we understand an allusion, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet using a play to catch the conscience of the king, like the prophet Nathan catching the conscience of King David? Especially after the New Critics, the "death of the author," and disillusionment with “old historicism,” there was a tendency to ignore many aspects of historical-cultural contexts in favor of only what is immediately clear in the text. This may have seemed a more objective, even empirical approach: If the text doesn't say "Nathan" or "David" or "Bathsheba," or use the same phrasing as the Bible, shall we assume there is no such biblical allusion present? The more subtle the allusion, the more reason to doubt it? What if we know that many other writers in Shakespeare's time were alluding to or retelling the David story? Did that allow for a kind of shorthand in making allusions? Last week’s post [1] noted that Shakespeare didn't always have to be explicit;...

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...