Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

"So critics want to see Shakespeare as early modern and secular, but Shakespeare is also Late Medieval and Christian. And tragedy for Shakespeare is, I would say, essentially the same thing it is for 15th century, 16th century vernacular drama: tragedy is the failure of a sinner to repent. Whereas for Aristotle, tragedy is something very alien to a Christian sensibility. Aristotle doesn't really care about moral character. [PF note: in the context of his poetic, though he does care about moral character in his ethics]. What Aristotle means by 'hamartia' is not sin, but something more like a mistake. And what he means by 'anagnorisis' is not repentance, but something more like a discovery, like a correction of an error as regards to matters of fact. So for Aristotle, tragedy is amoral: it's like the process of legal discovery that occurs in a court of law. Nonetheless, I think many critics continue to use Aristotle's terms to describe Shakespeare's...

Shobha Pawar is a translator and former English professor and department chair from Pune, Maharashtra, India, who has long been a collegial acquaintance on LinkedIn, and for this, I am most grateful. Last week I posted about Aristotelian poetics, ethics, and politics in Hamlet , and Shobha asked some helpful questions and made good observations. Her comments inspired this week's blog post. Shobha wrote, "Paul, taking the cue from Aristotle I think anagnorisis is the decisive factor in defining tragedy. How would you view Hamlet's journey in the light of this?" Great question. There used to be a series of books called Where's Waldo , in which there were detailed pictures of crowds, and the task on each set of pages of the open book was to find Waldo, who always wore the same clothing. The task Shobha's question suggests is to approach Hamlet and to ask, "Where's anagnorisis?" Edit: I should note early that Shobha does not believe Hamlet is...