I've taught this play many times and I'm still not sure if he's an immature and petulant child, forced by circumstances to mature, or a young man who's grief has caused him to come untethered from himself.
Oct 11, 2023·edited Oct 11, 2023Liked by John Halbrooks
Intriguing presentation, John, and commentary by others here has added much. My two cents: I've thought of the play _Hamlet_ and the character as a complex confrontation with evil. Although Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia raises questions of his own goodness, I’ve concluded Shakespeare created a man of high sensitivity who, when faced with the necessities of revenge, behaves imperfectly and only with certainty after the accidental killing of Polonius. Only then is he able to accept his destiny. Thus, the play’s climax occurs in act III when we get not only the “Mousetrap” play, the confrontation with Gertrude, the stabbing of Polonius, but also the “to be or not to be” soliloquy. One of the complexities of the play turns on the fact that madness is not at the core of Hamlet’s being. Instead, uncertainty in the face of evil is. That uncertainty, even in its imperfection, humanizes the man, the character and the brilliance of a character built on conflict with himself and the externals that all press the force of the play forward. Will post this here and also Restack one of your quotes to bring more readers to you.
Thanks, Mary. That's a compelling reading. And again, the temptation in the face of evil is to withdraw into the self. Don't like what's happening in the world? Just doom scroll and be snarky. But that's obviously not an adequate response. But then, what is?
This reminds me of Banned Books Week, with Johnson as the parent testifying that there should be no books at school with people (ahem, characters) behaving in ways you don’t want to see at school, and Coleridge smoking something lively and muttering “Keep It Real, Man.” I hadn’t really thought of these debates having these antecedents, but of course, the moral mission yielding to the expressive and mimetic ones would have been painful. Hmm. This is a great post for illustrating period differences in a snap! 🙌
Yes, Coleridge was certainly smoking something! (Or perhaps just sipping laudanum.) And yes, you can take that old debate back as far as Plato's and Aristotle's cage match...
Thanks for this analysis. I think the two takes on Hamlet's motivation for not killing Claudius when he is praying are complementary, not contradictory.
I do think Hamlet wants Claudius to suffer eternal damnation, and I also think he will grasp at any excuse to turn the matter over in his mind as long as he can bear to.
And in having Hamlet exit before that closing couplet, Shakespeare opens up the ambiguous space. We can question with Johnson (who is certain) whether blood vengeance (justifiable at all?) pivots on contrition (forgiveness is God's business) and we can conclude, too, with Coleridge that it's a rationalization, in any case, for inaction.
Agreed, and that moment also provides various potential readings of Claudius. In class, we watched the David Tennant version, with Patrick Steward as Claudius. One of my students remarked that in previous readings, she had always felt empathy for Claudius at that moment, because he seems to wish that he could be contrite, depending on the actor. But Stewart plays the moment angrily, defiantly, which makes him more unambiguously villainous.
I love Patrick Stewart. He gives my favorite performance of Macbeth's sound and fury monologue, while I've seen other notable Shakespeareans let themselves be ruled by the rhetoric into mere reading.
BTW I was just led by YouTube after that video to a very young Ian McKellen (of course) offering a master class on how to play that soliloquy. Fascinating.
Great essay. It's not relevant to your main point, but I do think you underplay just how unpleasant Hamlet is. He murders Polonius (though he doesn't know the identity of the man he's murdering) and murders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in cold blood. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
I've never seen him played as a sociopathic serial killer, but that is (amongst many other things) what he is. I seem to remember Gielgud writing that he played Hamlet as a nasty piece of work. Would be fascinating to know how far he went.
Thanks! Playing him as a total jerk—hmm… I would be interested in seeing Gielgud’s performance, since he was so great. The play seems to demand the audience’s empathy for him at least to some extent. Otherwise, listening to him yammer on and on would be unbearable.
I had the odd experience, when reading it for the first time after having previously seen a couple of fairly standard productions, of finding that i disliked Hamlet intensely. Is Polonius a sententious buffoon, as he's generally played? It's not evident from what he says, and no one else thinks so. It's just Hamlet, who Polonius is consistently kind and helpful towards, and who murders him. Hamlet's entirely unnecessary and unjustified murder of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and his subsequent lack of concern about having killed these two likeable, decent old friends is chilling. Then there's his behaviour towards Ophelia, which seems to have lead to her killing herself - though given his track record, I'd want to know where Hamlet was at the time of the alleged suicide. There are a handful of decent, kind people in the play, and it doesn't seem like an accident that Hamlet kills most of them.
On a number of occasions Shakespeare seems to go out of his way to make it clear that, yes, Hamlet is murderous scum. I got the unsettling feeling, reading the monologues, of being inside the mind of a monster - albeit a brilliant one. I believe it's generally abridged in production because of its length, but I wonder whether it's also because the play as written just doesn't fit with the view of it over the last 200 years as a star vehicle, and as a story of a romantic doomed hero.
It would be challenging to put on a production of Evil Hamlet (also known as Real Hamlet), but surely not impossible. I haven't seen many of the film versions - is it really the case that none of them lean in this direction? David Tennant would make an excellent Laertes as the hero, whose faith in humanity sadly makes him unable to see the true horror he's faced with. Patrick Stewart in Picard mode would be a wonderful Polonius, the wise, loving counsellor whose many excellent qualities just make Hamlet hate him more. Tom Hiddleston as Evil Hamlet? It's both the play Shakespeare wrote - and a better play than the one Coleridge and his romantic compadres have left us with.
Really enjoyed this space to pause and ruminate on Hamlet for a while. What a joy. This play keeps giving. I do think Stoppard’s R&G are Dead get at some of these ideas implicitly.
I've taught this play many times and I'm still not sure if he's an immature and petulant child, forced by circumstances to mature, or a young man who's grief has caused him to come untethered from himself.
Yes, I think that both readings are available, and I also think that they are not mutually exclusive.
Intriguing presentation, John, and commentary by others here has added much. My two cents: I've thought of the play _Hamlet_ and the character as a complex confrontation with evil. Although Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia raises questions of his own goodness, I’ve concluded Shakespeare created a man of high sensitivity who, when faced with the necessities of revenge, behaves imperfectly and only with certainty after the accidental killing of Polonius. Only then is he able to accept his destiny. Thus, the play’s climax occurs in act III when we get not only the “Mousetrap” play, the confrontation with Gertrude, the stabbing of Polonius, but also the “to be or not to be” soliloquy. One of the complexities of the play turns on the fact that madness is not at the core of Hamlet’s being. Instead, uncertainty in the face of evil is. That uncertainty, even in its imperfection, humanizes the man, the character and the brilliance of a character built on conflict with himself and the externals that all press the force of the play forward. Will post this here and also Restack one of your quotes to bring more readers to you.
Thanks, Mary. That's a compelling reading. And again, the temptation in the face of evil is to withdraw into the self. Don't like what's happening in the world? Just doom scroll and be snarky. But that's obviously not an adequate response. But then, what is?
Yes ...sadly.
This reminds me of Banned Books Week, with Johnson as the parent testifying that there should be no books at school with people (ahem, characters) behaving in ways you don’t want to see at school, and Coleridge smoking something lively and muttering “Keep It Real, Man.” I hadn’t really thought of these debates having these antecedents, but of course, the moral mission yielding to the expressive and mimetic ones would have been painful. Hmm. This is a great post for illustrating period differences in a snap! 🙌
Yes, Coleridge was certainly smoking something! (Or perhaps just sipping laudanum.) And yes, you can take that old debate back as far as Plato's and Aristotle's cage match...
Thanks for this analysis. I think the two takes on Hamlet's motivation for not killing Claudius when he is praying are complementary, not contradictory.
I do think Hamlet wants Claudius to suffer eternal damnation, and I also think he will grasp at any excuse to turn the matter over in his mind as long as he can bear to.
robertsdavidn@substack.com/about (free)
Yes, I think that both readings are certainly there, and they can coexist. So much depends on the actor in performance.
Agree and think this highlights Shakespeare’s genius in writing the nuances of truth into his plays.
And in having Hamlet exit before that closing couplet, Shakespeare opens up the ambiguous space. We can question with Johnson (who is certain) whether blood vengeance (justifiable at all?) pivots on contrition (forgiveness is God's business) and we can conclude, too, with Coleridge that it's a rationalization, in any case, for inaction.
Agreed, and that moment also provides various potential readings of Claudius. In class, we watched the David Tennant version, with Patrick Steward as Claudius. One of my students remarked that in previous readings, she had always felt empathy for Claudius at that moment, because he seems to wish that he could be contrite, depending on the actor. But Stewart plays the moment angrily, defiantly, which makes him more unambiguously villainous.
I love Patrick Stewart. He gives my favorite performance of Macbeth's sound and fury monologue, while I've seen other notable Shakespeareans let themselves be ruled by the rhetoric into mere reading.
https://youtu.be/HZnaXDRwu84?si=DqIlpmh3ulG62SHC
BTW I was just led by YouTube after that video to a very young Ian McKellen (of course) offering a master class on how to play that soliloquy. Fascinating.
Fantastic!
Insightful and helpful!
Great essay. It's not relevant to your main point, but I do think you underplay just how unpleasant Hamlet is. He murders Polonius (though he doesn't know the identity of the man he's murdering) and murders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in cold blood. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
I've never seen him played as a sociopathic serial killer, but that is (amongst many other things) what he is. I seem to remember Gielgud writing that he played Hamlet as a nasty piece of work. Would be fascinating to know how far he went.
Thanks! Playing him as a total jerk—hmm… I would be interested in seeing Gielgud’s performance, since he was so great. The play seems to demand the audience’s empathy for him at least to some extent. Otherwise, listening to him yammer on and on would be unbearable.
I had the odd experience, when reading it for the first time after having previously seen a couple of fairly standard productions, of finding that i disliked Hamlet intensely. Is Polonius a sententious buffoon, as he's generally played? It's not evident from what he says, and no one else thinks so. It's just Hamlet, who Polonius is consistently kind and helpful towards, and who murders him. Hamlet's entirely unnecessary and unjustified murder of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and his subsequent lack of concern about having killed these two likeable, decent old friends is chilling. Then there's his behaviour towards Ophelia, which seems to have lead to her killing herself - though given his track record, I'd want to know where Hamlet was at the time of the alleged suicide. There are a handful of decent, kind people in the play, and it doesn't seem like an accident that Hamlet kills most of them.
On a number of occasions Shakespeare seems to go out of his way to make it clear that, yes, Hamlet is murderous scum. I got the unsettling feeling, reading the monologues, of being inside the mind of a monster - albeit a brilliant one. I believe it's generally abridged in production because of its length, but I wonder whether it's also because the play as written just doesn't fit with the view of it over the last 200 years as a star vehicle, and as a story of a romantic doomed hero.
It would be challenging to put on a production of Evil Hamlet (also known as Real Hamlet), but surely not impossible. I haven't seen many of the film versions - is it really the case that none of them lean in this direction? David Tennant would make an excellent Laertes as the hero, whose faith in humanity sadly makes him unable to see the true horror he's faced with. Patrick Stewart in Picard mode would be a wonderful Polonius, the wise, loving counsellor whose many excellent qualities just make Hamlet hate him more. Tom Hiddleston as Evil Hamlet? It's both the play Shakespeare wrote - and a better play than the one Coleridge and his romantic compadres have left us with.
Really enjoyed this space to pause and ruminate on Hamlet for a while. What a joy. This play keeps giving. I do think Stoppard’s R&G are Dead get at some of these ideas implicitly.
Thanks for some Shakespeare wisdom today.
Thanks, Kathleen. I haven’t read Stoppard in years, and I’ve never seen it on stage. I should go back to it…
I do not get to the theatre a lot but was lucky to see Daniel Radcliffe in a production of R&G! Was brilliant