Hamlet

Comments like this remind me of how different Hamlet appears to all of us:

"We love Hamlet, but, it seems to me, we love him more because we see him not only at his best (when he tells Horatio, in the serenity of acceptance, “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” or when he exchanges forgiveness with Laertes, the brother of the woman he loved and whose heart he shattered) but also at his worst (when he bullies his mother and brings her to tears, or when he hesitates to kill Claudius at his prayers because, not content with taking revenge for his father’s murder, he wants to send his uncle’s soul to hell)." - The American Scholar

When Hamlet gives his "fall of a sparrow" speech, I don't think 'serenity of acceptance' - I think fatalism, a sense and premonition that events have come to a head and he no longer has control anymore. When Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius, I don't buy his 'I want uncle to go to hell' excuse. I just think that he felt it was not the right time - his anger had not run its course, there were too many things he still did not know and had not made clear (why his mother had married his uncle, for instance, and how she felt about all of this) - to kill Claudius in the midst of so many unresolved issues and so much uncertainty, it just didn't feel like the right time. So I do buy the 'Hamlet as man of thought instead of man of action' theory in the sense that I believe he could not take action until he's straightened out his world of thoughts. (But not in the sense that Hamlet is perenially unable to take any meaningful action.) Perhaps A.C. Bradley would disagree, his Hamlet being more warrior-like than mine.

I remember some scholar - I can't remember who - commented that the beauty of Hamlet the play is that Shakespeare leaves so many things unexplained. We never truly know why Hamlet did this or that and as a result, we are able to interpret Hamlet in our own different ways. Each of us is able to create and own a different Hamlet by projecting ourselves upon this slate that is not entirely blank but blank enough. I am 80% convinced that my interpretation of Hamlet reflects what I would have done in his place. But methinks perhaps Hamlet's motivations or even his personality are not quite the point of the play.

Hamlet the character is an elusive and charismatic one, and he is a constant source of fascination for me. I think this character is probably one of the best known in English literature, and much of the attention given to the play is focused on figuring out this personality, his motivations, and in some cases, figuring out whether he is 'good' or 'bad' or plain 'pathetic'. But if I don't remember wrong, till the 19th century Hamlet the character did not receive much attention from the literati. The play was seen as just one of the 'vengeance dramas' (my term), which was by no means an original plot, even during Shakespeare's time. I think some writer (Goethe?) suddenly found Hamlet the character to be pretty interesting and atypical, and suddenly everyone was debating Hamlet the character, and Hamlet the character took precedence over Hamlet the play.

Ok my account of the history of scholarship is not particularly impressive. (I'm old! My memory is fading! I knew this once!)

I have to confess, I love thinking about Hamlet the character as well. But I also think that Hamlet the play can be appreciated without much knowledge of Hamlet the character, and not just in a Hollywood blockbuster - murder and incest and sex and war - kind of way.

Whether or not Hamlet was a thinker or a warrior or an angsty spoilt teenage prince or misogynist, the range of emotions in the play is exquisite and exquisitely portrayed. The highlights for me:

- the despair and grief and bitterness of Hamlet: "Seems madam, I know not what seems"; "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into dew"

- his angry lashing out at everyone around him: his bitter wordplay with Polonius, his disastrous (relationship-wise) scene with Ophelia

- Ophelia's beautiful mad confused grief: "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died"

- Gertrude's subdued, poignant and pathetic (in a tragic sense) lament for Ophelia: "There's a willow grows askant a brook" is one of my favourite speeches from this play; "Sweets to the sweet, farewell. ... I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, / And not have strew'd thy grave" --> I was horrified when some stupid local desserts show on tvmobile called itself 'sweets to the sweet' or something to that effect.

- the self-centered (& perhaps guilt-ridden?) angry fight between Hamlet and Laertes in Ophelia's grave: "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers / Could not, with their quantity of love, / Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?" --> Seriously? You called her a whore, dumped her, killed her father and caused her madness, and now you disrupt her funeral and fight with her brother in her grave over who loved her more? One of Hamlet's lowest points for me.

- Hamlet's final realisation that it was all over: "The rest is silence." --> Another of my favourite lines.

- Horatio's lament for his prince: "Good night, sweet prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." --> Yet another favourite line. It's so poignant and yet ironic, given Hamlet's last words.

Ah I'd almost forgotten how much I love Hamlet the play. Chock-full of emotions and drama! Which is the way I think it should be appreciated. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on understanding and not enough on simply feeling.