Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

“...there's not a hair on [his] head but 'tis a Valentine.” Two Gentlemen of Verona (3.1.195-195) This line is spoken about Valentine, one of the two main characters in the play. Two Gentlemen of Verona is an early Shakespeare play based on a Spanish source among others. It also contains many elements that show up in his later plays: - A woman (Julia) disguised as a man (Sebastian), an element also found in Twelfth Night , As You Like It , The Merchant of Venice , and Cymbeline ; - A character who (sometimes) goes by the name Sebastian (as in Twelfth Night ); - Talk of a couple eloping with a rope ladder (sort of like Romeo and Juliet ); - Couples escaping to the woods (also a theme in As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream ). - A resolved love triangle: Proteus who had been engaged to Julie thinks he is in love with Silvia (similar to Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , who had been in love with Helena, but who thinks he loves Hermia, and Hermia’s love, Lysande...

OPHELIA'S VALENTINE & CLAUDIUS.... In Shakespeare’s time, it was widely assumed that the martyr St. Valentine (d. 269 AD) was executed under orders from the Roman Emperor Claudius II, an idea not lost on many in his early audiences when Ophelia sings her Valentine song. They would make the connection: Claudius II ordered the execution of St. Valentine; Claudius of Denmark secretly ordered the execution of Ophelia’s Valentine, Hamlet. CONSIDER: Some form of “Valentine” occurs 70 times across seven Shakespeare plays [1]. “Saint Valentine” is mentioned only twice: once in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , and once in Hamlet . The only St. Valentine’s Day song is sung by Ophelia (taken from a familiar folk-song of the time) with interjections from Claudius. The pagan precursor of Valentine’s Day, Lupercal, is mentioned twice in Julius Caesar. It is often claimed that Pope Gelasius I disliked the pagan feast, and in 496 AD, set the feast of the martyr St. Valentine to be on February 14 to...

Instead of reading Ophelia’s love for Hamlet as unwise, too “free” [1], and viewing Gertrude as adulterous [2], it is possible to read both characters very differently. We might be nudged in this direction by certain feminist readings, one being a book by Cristina León Alfar called Women and Shakespeare's Cuckoldry Plays: Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal [3]. Although the focus of her book is not Hamlet, many of her insights apply. Alfar’s focus involves six plays in which male claims of female adultery play a central role. These include Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Winter’s Tale. Alfar carefully tracks a trend: Men (at times misled by men like Iago and Don John) make false claims of women’s infidelity, claiming wives or fiances have made them “cuckolds.” But these claims are fictions or lies based on male anxiety. Women, often with help of female allies, can shift these narratives, accusing the men of slander for their false claims. In ...

VALENTINE'S DAY not only makes sweethearts, florists, chocolatiers and greeting card manufacturers happy: It is also associated with various Christian martyrs... one of whom was beheaded [1] by order of Claudius II (r.268-270). NOTE: Hamlet escapes the beheading order of Claudius; Ophelia sings of Valentine's Day. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT. TAKEAWAY: Make sure your Valentines don't include orders for your beheading from a guy named Claudius! ALSO CONSIDER: St. Valentine's day was probably more of a Catholic and popular feast (taken over from paganism) than a Protestant church feast in Shakespeare's time, because although it included a tale of martyrdom and divine "caritas" love (a theological virtue), it is transformed in popular culture into a feast of Eros or human and romantic love. Scripture does describe the church as the bride and Christ as the groom, and yet perhaps some Protestants or Puritans of Shakespeare's time may have frowned up...