William Shakespeare has certainly exerted enormous influence upon me and my own writings. My own novel Amontillado drew heavily upon the works of Shakespeare. My favorite plays of Shakespeare are the ones that I understand the best: Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. I have read Hamlet perhaps 4 times now and I always find that I learn something new. I understand that for some people Shakespeare is very difficult, if not impossible to understand. My experience of Shakespeare is the complete opposite: I do not find him daunting or difficult, especially when I read Hamlet (recall I have read it 4 times) I know the plot very well. But as I just said, I always learn something new when I read the bard. One thing that I picked up on in Hamlet was Shakespeare’s use of double, Shakespeare just about goes to town on the number 2 in Hamlet. Take the example of Ophelia’s madness, there are two instantiations of her madness in the play. I certainly understand the reputation Shakespeare has earned today for being very difficult to read and understand.But because I love Shakespeare so much, I thought I would put together this piece to help you read and understand one of my all-time favorite plays. I hope you find it very helpful. I am convinced that Hamlet is a play that debates the great questions of epistemology (the study of knowledge), ethics, metaphysics, death, philosophy and even madness.
In what follows I will detail a number of different movements pertaining to the plot of the play. However, I will not disclose how the play resolves,because of course there would be many of you who have never read the play. My hope is that for those of you who find Shakespeare very challenging, that the following synopsis and notes on the play will demonstrate to you that the bard can certainly be worked out and understood. Because I certainly believe that is the case. At the end of the post, I will also show you a photo of the particular edition of Hamlet that I was reading. I was reading the RSC Shakespeare which would have to be my personal favorite edition to read. The RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) Shakespeare is great because of the footnotes that are provided at the bottom of the page that explain how certain words are used. I highly recommend the RSC Shakespeare as edited by Bate and Rasmussen.
Gertrude: Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly color off. And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy veiled lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know’st tis common, all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”
Hamlet: Ay, madam, it is common.
Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, when she says to Hamlet ‘cast thy nightly colour off’ Gertrude is pointing out how forlorn and sad Hamlet looks. But also, Gertrude is reminding us all that ‘all lives must die, passing through nature to eternity’. This won’t be the first instance where we have an encounter with death in Hamlet though. As we shall see, Bernardo and Marcellus will see Hamlet’s late father up on the battlements late one night.
Horatio: Two nights together had these gentlemen Marcellus and Barnado, on their watch In the dead waste and middle of the night, Been thus encountered. A figure like your father, Armed at all points exactly, cap-a-pie[head to foot], Appears before them, and with solemn march Goes slow and stately: by them thrice he walked.
There are many times where things are said that I have to confess I do not take the meaning. In these instances I resolve to make up my own mind about what I think is being said. Take for instance what Pollonius says, he gets a fantastic line:
Polonius: This above all: to thine own self be true.
And:
Polonius: Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
And last but certainly not least, my all-time favorite line goes to Hamlet himself:
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
What does it mean to be true to yourself? I think it means different things for each person. What it would mean for me to be true to myself would not at all mean the same thing as what it means for you to be true to yourself. For me, it would mean taking good care of my health, studying, learning, working, writing, showing love, compassion and forgiveness. And there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, what does that mean? For what it is worth I do not pretend to offer the one true meaning of this beautiful and timeless reminder.
It reminds me that there is so much I do not know, that there will always be more to learn. Don Davis, who plays Major Garland Briggs in the TV series Twin Peaks also says the same thing if my memory serves me.
You might be surprised to know that many things we say today come from Shakespeare and his plays. Consider a few examples below:
1. Mark — today we say “mark my words”.
2. The mind’s eye — I think this refers to our imagination, but it could also refer to the way in which, when for example, we are away from home and using our mind’s eye we visualize our path back home: walking through the door, and seeing the overall layout of the house.
Hamlet: My father, methinks I see I see my father
Horatio: O, where, my lord?
Hamlet: In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
Horatio: I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
Hamlet: He was a man, take him for all in all: I shall not look upon his like again.
3. That there be a ‘method to the madness’ also derives from Shakespeare.
Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t — will you walk out of the air, my lord?
4. I am sure you have heard it before:
‘To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s Contumely, [F: poore]
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, [F: dispriz’d]
The insolence of Office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear, [F: these Fardels]
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o’er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment, [F: pith]
With this regard their Currents turn awry, [F: away]
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons
Be all my sins remember’d. ”
Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t — will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Returning to the plot, we find that Hamlet has undergone some sort of transformation (does Hamlet undergo multiple transformations?). According to the present king of Denmark, who is in conversation with Guildenstern and Rosencrantz who are two courtiers and former school mates of Hamlet.
King: Something you have heard Of Hamlet’s transformation, so I call it, Since not th’ exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him So much from th’ understanding of himself.
And what exactly is Hamlet’s transformation? According to Polonius:
Polonius: Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: your noble son is mad: Mad call I it, for, to define true madness, What is’t but be nothing else but mad?
Wait a minute Polonius, what is madness again? Are you having us believe that madness is madness? Initially I thought that Polonius’ reasoning in the above was fallacious, however upon much closer examination of what Polonius was saying I think Polonius was being tautological. Initially I thought he was using circular reasoning in the above. How did I work that out? I worked it out by seeing that Polonius was not making any sort of argument in the above.
As someone who loves writing, who loves studying philosophy, as someone who loves reading Shakespeare, I read Hamlet philosophically. But also not just philosophically, Hamlet is a fantastic psychological drama that invites us to think of life, death, suffering, and mental illness anew: is death a bad thing to be suffered, or even feared? Is there nothing funny or humorous about death and dying? Can a tragedy be beautiful? Can a tragedy offer us comfort? I write the former 3 questions out as open-ended questions. Do I have the answers to such questions? I have my own answers and my own interpretations of those questions. But how will you answer these questions?
Life, life and more life! 