Belief in Ghosts v. Blaming Hamlet's Madness
This past week, three sources came together to nudge me toward thinking in new ways about the ghost in Hamlet . [Images: Left: Screen-shot of headline and Ian McKellen from Michael Billington article in The Guardian (see below). Fair use. Right: Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice , directed by Tim Burton, 1988, warner Brothers, image via IMDB . Fair use.] The first was an article in The Guardian by critic Michael Billington regarding a new film called The Hamlet Within . It mentioned productions of the play that portray the ghost as an inner voice of Hamlet rather than the manifestation witnessed by the sentinels and Horatio in the opening scene. The second was when Shobha Pawar sent a link to an excellent YouTube video by John Berger from the 1970s, about how our experience of art and of its meanings changes over time , especially after technological changes that allow mass replication of famous art images. The third was a “Speaking of Shakespeare” video on Shakespeare and th...