Nota Bene Roundtable Discussion of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Act One with Commentary by Nigel Beale
(Sunday Salon: I'm in the midst of reading Hamlet today, and hosting a roundtable discussion of it. Here's the introduction, and summary/commentary on Act One):
Dear members of the round table, and anyone else reading this,
Welcome to this first of hopefully many discussions of great works by Shakespeare and other outstanding members of the world's literary community.
Here are this Roundtable's participants:
Act 1: Nigel Beale Notabene Books
Act 2: Ed Champion, Filthy Habits:
Act: 3 Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
Act: 4 Amateur Reader, Wuthering Expectations
Act: 5 Anne Fernald, Furnham
Each participant will provide a reading of one of the play's five Acts. Feedback will follow in the body of the posts by roundtable participants, and in the comments section by site visitors interested in the discussion.
Please find my take on Act 1 of Hamlet below. First a brief :
Act I SUMMARY
(for those so inclined, please listen here to my conversation with the wonderfully enthusiastic and erudite Prof. Joseph Khoury on Hamlet, Acts One and Two)
Something's rotten. King Hamlet is dead. Denmark is in a state of high alert bracing for possible war with Young Fortinbras of Norway. A ghost resembling the dead King is seen on a platform before Elsinore Castle. Claudius, has assumed the throne, and precipitously taken King Hamlet's wife, Gertrude to bed as his new Queen.
Claudius, fearing invasion, sends ambassadors to Norway to urge restraint. Young Hamlet is melancholy. King and Queen don't understand why, two months on, he continues to mourn his father's death. In his first soliloquy, Hamlet expresses anger over the haste with which mother and uncle have coupled.
Laertes, son of the Lord Chamberlain Polonius, protective of his sister Ophelia, warns her about Young Hamlet; don't believe his expressions of love. He wont marry you, he just wants to get into your pants, you'll only get hurt. Polonius chimes in with the same story; orders her not to stop seeing him.
Hamlet sees the Ghost of his father, follows it, on his own, and is told by the Ghost that he, Hamlet's father was poisoned by Claudius. The Ghost tells Hamlet to avenge his death but not to punish Gertrude for remarrying; conscience and heaven will judge her… Hamlet swears Horatio and Marcellus to silence about their seeing and his meeting the Ghost.
QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY NIGEL BEALE
A reading of the play informed by the text, led by the citation of quotes either for their inherent spinetinglingness, power, beauty, aesthetic brilliance (B) and or their thematic importance (T). In the case of the former, little commentary is required, other than, at least on my part, the occasional marveling smile, sigh, tear, head shake, or shriek of despairing envy. As for (T), this is where thoughts are laid out, and where I hope combined interpretations will meet mingle, and form hybrids. (Q) represents questions raised by the text that you may wish to consider/address.
T "war-like form" The ghost is dressed for battle. This could suggest that as King he spent most of his time playing the warrior, possibly to the detriment of his marriage. Also that he is advocating violence.
B Shark'd up a list of lawless resolute
B But look, the morn in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill
Q How is it that Horatio knows "This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him [Hamlet]" And why wont the Ghost speak to anyone but Hamlet?
B The whole kingdom "…contracted in one brow of woe"
T Laertes: "My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France" This is the first use of the word "bend," I've noticed that it appears frequently in the play, as 'round' does in Anthony and Cleopatra. Not sure of its significance yet. Claudius subsequently talks about bending Hamlet to remain in Denmark.
B Hamlet's Soliloquy: O! that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into dew" Evidence of Hamlet's suicidal state of mind. His isolation. That he is a perceptive, sensitive soul. Inward-looking. Aware of his own consciousness.
T God's canon 'gainst self-slaughter.'
This I think touches on one of the most important themes in the play: God's will, and who we should obey when making decisions in life. The Ghost calls for Hamlet to revenge his murder. God and the Bible, the new testament at least, frowns on this. Who should Hamlet obey? He has the urge to kill himself, God's canon says no. Ophelia is in love with Hamlet. Her father tells her not to see him. What should she do? Follow her heart, or her father's wishes? These kind of difficult decisions about authority, and life choices, are at the heart of the play. It's no coincidence either that Hamlet is studying in Wittenberg, Luther country. Clearly revenge and suicide go against the teachings of the Church.
T/B "Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married.
In addition to its sheer beauty, this line speaks to Hamlet's anger and shame. 'Incest' was more widely defined in Elizabethan times. Although the court doesn't seem to object to this hasty marriage between brother and sister-in-laws, Hamlet's objection may have something to do with a nagging fear that first, the two were having sex while King Hamlet was still alive…and, although a stretch, possibly early enough to include the possibility that Claudius might be Hamlet's biological father. " A little more than kin, and less than kind." Could be read this way, although the more obvious interpretation is: I'm not the kind of loser you are. Also, the Ghost speaks not of Gertrude's virtue, but her 'seeming' virtue.
B Ham: "Thrift, thrift Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables."
Laertes as protective older brother is a lovely scene. Telling her that Hamlet isn't serious, he's just trifling with her: "The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more." Don't lose your heart he admonishes. Fear losing your chaste treasure.."And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire."
T Be wary then; best safety lies in fear."
Here we see another key theme of the play I think: that of Trust. Watch out for Hamlet, you can't trust him. Few of the characters in this play trust each other. Laertes and Polonius distrust Hamlet, Polonius distrusts his own son Laertes, he sends someone to spy on him in France; Hamlet doesn't trust anyone, save for Horatio. Ophelia and Gertrude I think are trusting…and look where that gets them…then again…doesn't really matter does it… everyone dies.
B Ophelia comes back with one of the great lines in the play: "Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede. "
Polonius then piles on with "When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows…Do not believe his vows" Stop seeing him. The fact that Ophelia obeys him, and the impact this has on Hamlet, is one of the great tragedies of the play.
T Scene 1V: back on the platform at night looking for the Ghost. When he comes there is talk of Angels and ministers of grace defending them, of heaven and hell. All this I think feeds into the fact that what the Ghost eventually calls for, revenge, is ungodly. Goes against the commandments. In fact this is the very word the Ghost uses when exhorting Hamlet on to "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder."
B "The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown."
Hamlet then, not only doesn't say anything to his men about what the Ghost has said, he also swears them to secrecy about even having seen this apparition.
Q An interesting question about Act 1 I think is, why use the Ghost…why not just have Hamlet waking up one night after seeing the Ghost in a dream? Or having witnessed what actually happened in a dream? And why did the others have to see the Ghost?
Apparently ghosts were more widely accepted as real back in Shakespeare's time. But still. Just a device, like the Three Witches, to foreshadow the carnage? Or something more? My take is that it has something to do with the belief in and supremacy of God and the Church. Perhaps the fact that the Ghost isn't simply a figment of Hamlet's imagination, but rather a bonafide entity, seen by others, gives him the same level of legitimacy as Jesus, or The Savior, in Hamlet's mind and the minds of the audience.
Good start, Nigel. Lots to think about. The purpose of the ghost is a serious question. Many commentators would greatly prefer that only Hamlet sees him, as in the scene with Gertude (III.iv), so the whole thing can be psychological. Too bad for them. Not only do Horatio and the others see the ghost, and even try to attack it, but Horatio seems to know how ghosts operate (“I have heard,/ the cock, that is the trumpet to the morn” etc, I.i.). How this leads to his certainty (“upon my life”) that it will talk to Hamlet I don’t know.
So the ghost is real, but there’s still the question of what it actually is. It claims to be “thy father’s spirit,” temporarily free from a hellish Purgatory, and though Hamlet at first calls it “an honest ghost,” he later expresses his own doubts (e.g, “It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen” III.ii.). Even if the ghost is legitimately Hamlet’s father, is its desire for revenge morally legitimate?
Hamlet himself has no thoughts of revenge until inspired by the ghost. The vitriol of the “too too solid/ sallied/ sullied” speech (I.ii.), is almost entirely directed at Hamlet’s mother: “a beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourned longer” seems even more vicious to me than “frailty, thy name is woman.” Towards Claudius, Hamlet is contemptuous (“no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules.”) But it’s the language about Gertrude, the sexual language, that tells us where Hamlet’s thoughts have been. Hamlet does not even suspect murder, so it’s just his mother who is at fault. A brutal speech. Do some of the later cruelties towards Ophelia have echoes here?
Nigel Beale
The fact that the Ghost adamantly pushes for revenge against Claudius, and begs clemency for Gertrude I think just heaps another level of conflict atop the pile already sitting in Hamlet.
As for Claudius's behavior toward Hamlet in Act One (Act Two to be explored in next post), I think it's harsh and provocative. Typical of one who knows nothing about depression. Not to say anyone knew much back then; but clearly an unsympathetic, unloving response. '…impious stubbornness; unmanly grief; a will incorrect to heaven, a heart unfortified, a mind impatient, an understanding simple and unschooled…' What a jerk. Sure, we all know that everyone dies. We should all also know that the response to the death of a loved one is in many cases beyond one's control. Perhaps here it as much Danish society's lack of death rituals, as Claudius's inhumanity that hurts.
“Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off/ And let thine eyes look like a friend on Denmark” is Gertrude’s first line. In the scene that introduces Hamlet (I.ii.), Gertrude and Claudius both admonish the Prince to give up mourning for his father, and to stop wearing mourning clothes (“my inky cloak”). As Nigel asked about the ghost, I wonder to what degree the Elizabethan audience found shocking not just the haste of Gertrude’s remarriage, but the violation of the customary mourning period. Maybe it wasn’t as long as it later became (a year, typically). Still – two months, less, must have seemed very short.
The King and Gertrude try to – what? reason? bully? – Hamlet out of mourning. Their arguments are banal: “But you must know that your father lost a father,/ That father lost, lost his” says the King, who offers to be Hamlet’s new father. Here’s Gertrude: “Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die,/ Passing through nature to eternity.” Hamlet replies with “Ay, madam, it is common,” his third pun in three lines.
My favorite discovery on this reading is that the characters on stage for these lines are Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, and Laertes, virtually the entire casualty list. Polonius and Laertes could have been shuffled off stage (their piece of the scene is done), but Shakespeare keeps them around to hear this. ‘Tis common; all that lives must die.
Nigel Beale
So, why is Claudius so hard on Hamlet's mourning. After criticizing his behavior Claudius follows hard with a request that Hamlet think of him 'As of a father,' and that the world take note that he is 'most immediate to our throne,' he also imparts on Hamlet the same nobility of love which dearest fathers bear their sons, and beseeches him, ' 'bend' (my favourite word) you to remain in Denmark.' The only answer I can think of: the general attitude toward melancholy at the time may have been one of intolerance, where the stiff upper lip, pull up your socks school of thought prevailed. As for his protestations of love: the exchange takes place in front of the court, Hamlet is popular, what else would Claudius say.
Another question remains: Why is the Ghost made ‘real,’ seen by others, and not just presented as a figment of Hamlet's diseased mind, an apparition. In this regard, I note that the word ‘seems’ is used quite often in the play. Nothing is what it seems? Other than adding some kind of legitimacy, a level of believability to what the Ghost says, it's hard to say why others see this apparition. To show that Hamlet isn't bonkers?
More than anything, this is just another example of the mystery and uncertainty that shrouds the play, of the many 'problems' and questions it raises, of why it has over the centuries attracted so much attention from critics. It's difficult not to want to keep on speculating. Why was the Ghost a public one in Act One, and private, to Hamlet alone, in the later bedroom scene with Gertrude? Again perhaps it's to show that there is some objective validity to what the Ghost is saying. That vengeance is as valid a response to murder as the more Christian forgiveness.
Speculating on motives, thinking about love, sex, family, truth, authority, friendship, consciousness, death, mortality; wondering what ails and blocks Hamlet as he struggles to live with himself…relating to his torn indecisiveness, living with a haunting sense of evil hovering above ones head…this is Hamlet's life. In reading and thinking about Shakespeare's words we make them real.
Nigel Beale
The cavalier manner in which Hamlet Sr.’s death is treated by both Claudius and Gertrude is of central concern when analyzing the issue of trust in the play. It's an insult to Hamlet, to his father's reputation: the inadequate respect paid to his father's memory, Gertrude's lack of mourning, her hyper fast nuptials, the couple's lack of sympathy for Hamlet's suffering; the absence of a sufficiently dignified communitarian process that echoes Hamlet’s personal sense of loss — living in a culture that had 'gutted' public mourning rituals — all of these combine to shock, dismay and paralyze Hamlet. It is his mother’s whorish, in his opinion, behavior, , which I think tips Hamlet into unhealthy melancholy, and which explains his distrust not only of everyone, save Horatio, but of every thing…real and imaginary. It also informs his treatment of Ophelia, and his opinion of women in general.
The base actions of his parents crush his faith in humanity. He feels isolated in the world (he's an only child), surrounded by people who lack empathy; who are in fact, his enemies. How can he trust anyone if he can’t even trust his mother to do right by his father, a man she supposedly loved, indeed worshiped. What chance is there that he will find genuine, honest faithful love in the world, love that he can trust and rely upon? There is no chance.
When love is thought to be impossible, when the prospect of it seems hopeless, this is when people turn to suicide.
***
And now that we're on the topic of suicide and trust: look what kills Ophelia: conflict between her heart and the authority of her father. What renders Hamlet paralyzed? Conflict between competing authorities and sets of rules. Which to obey: his father's wishes, the Church's strictures, his own sense of decency, right and wrong? Hamlet's father was plucked from this earth without receiving last communion, or delivering a deathbed confession. He sits in purgatory, at least as the Catholics would have it, waiting to be cleansed for heaven, and yet pleads to be remembered? Demands that his son commit an atrocious sin? There's something rotten here. Hamlet worries about it. Can he trust the Ghost? Maybe it's a devil. No wonder he was driven mad, or close to it.
Another approach, or two, to Claudius, and his attitude towards Hamlet. First, Claudius feels guilty about murdering King Hamlet.We don't learn this until III.iii ("My words fly up, my thoughts remain below", and the long speech before he prays). Hamlet's mourning is a constant, public reminder of his crime, a prick to Claudius's conscience.
Second, Claudius can be seen as genuinely concerned about the fate of his nation. What if he is a good king? In his very first speech (I.ii.), we see him diplomatically avert a pointless war with young Fortinbras (pointless – see IV.iv – "We go to gain a little patch of ground/ That hath in it no profit but the name"). Even Claudius's intial plots against Hamlet have a basis in public safety, since Hamlet is apparently a lunatic who just murdered the King's closest adviser.
I won't push the argument all the way to the end – by then, Claudius has entangled himself in some appalling business. My point is, given Hamlet's age (30? – see the gravedigger in V.i. "I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years" and other clues) and lack of siblings, it is likely that Hamlet will remain the only heir to the throne. In Act I, Claudius may in part be managing the heir in the service of the state.
Are there any hints about the age of Claudius?
Nigel, I've never been convinced that Hamlet actually goes mad. That subject will cover the whole play, so I'll defer, but I'll be interested in your arguments.
Nigel Beale
AR, Those who contemplate suicide seriously, if not mad, must at least be ill. A healthy mind does not preach its own destruction. When skewering Polonius, Hamlet may have been temporarily insane, if not certifiably mad. But I agree with you. I think he maintains control of his faculties for the most part during the play. He has to be sharp, and ruthless, to catch and dispose of Ros and Guild ('Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd') in such cool fashion. But as you say, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Need to wait for Ed and Sarah to set the stage.
Nigel Beale
A commenter raises a useful point about 'historical', or 'psychological' fallacy, suggesting that without direct evidence from the text, my depiction of Claudius as a jerk is naive philosophizing which leads to no valuable understanding of the work, only wishful rewriting…I agree with this. However I also thing this: My reaction to Claudius's words obviously comes from the 21st century, as each reader's must from the age within which he or she lives. It has to. One of the most interesting aspects of criticism is how reader responses change over the centuries; indeed how responses of the individual change as works are read at different times in life.
Also prompted by the commenter's suggestion to further explore 'Truth' as an abiding theme: I'm reminded of Arnold Bennett's line on burglars: "What leads to the permanent sorrowfulness of burglars is that their principles are contrary to burglary." The Ghost is exhorting Hamlet to act against his principles, against his 'truth;' he exerts a powerful, parental pressure, guilting/blackmailing Hamlet, demanding he to do something that his conscience tells him is wrong. This conflict results in procrastination, indecision; a questioning of the validity, the truth of what the Ghost/father is saying. Ophelia obeys her father's edict, and acts in opposition to her true love of Hamlet. The play depicts life as a series of conflicting truths emanating from different authorities, including the self, of varying trustworthiness, which must be chosen from and acted upon (Freud's Ego, Id and Superego). Life as the process of aligning internal principles, chosen from various authorities, with external actions.
Nigel Beale
Kant wrote that humans, like animals, are governed by their desires, that behavior is determined by wishes, passions, appetites. Practical reason supplies the means to attain what we want. But unlike animals we also act on principles, even when they go against our immediate desires. Ophelia does this when, obeying her father's wishes, she stops seeing Hamlet. Hamlet struggles with it too, trying to do what his Ghost/father has told him to do. Honour they parents is the maxim both have used as a guide to action. Neither of them are genuinely autonomous. Both have adopted the belief that honouring, and obeying your parents is the right way to live. Ophelia does this blindly, goes mad and commits suicide as a result. Hamlet struggles with it throughout the play, it drives him close to mad; killing Polonius results in the fight with Laertes, which ends in his death. The play hinges on this tension between internal and external authority sources; portraying the devastation that occurs when authority sources fail to jive with those universal truths which best guide us to happier lives.
According to Kant, a set of principles and judgements form our understanding of the universe. Math, geometry, cause and effect, nothing comes from nothing, etc. He called knowledge of these truths 'synthetic a priori knowledge.' Without this, no understanding or meaningful experience would be possible at all. This a priori knowledge cannot be falsified by experience. So just imagine what happens when Hamlet sees and talks to the Ghost: something from nothing: first this synthetic a priori knowledge is blown out of the water, then two important maxims collide, Honour thy Father and Thou shalt not Kill. No wonder Hamlet couldn't make sense of anything.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:32 PM
*Hamlet* initiates a debate regarding Purgatory, a Catholic belief. Protestants had rejected Purgatory, and yet the Ghost is in Purgatory. Hamlet enacts the debate, perhaps?
JK
May 9th, 2008 at 7:42 AM
A terrific idea to do this:. Thank you Nigel. I think the ghost is a beautiful literary device, partly a character and partly a projection, perhaps unconscious, of another character. In Hamlet, the ghost is wonderfully ambiguous. This is emphasized by four hypotheses as to its meaning in Act 1, Scene 1: (i) a sign of possible war with Norway "strange eruption to our state" … "list of lawless resolutes," (ii) an indication of an unfortunate astrological conjunction, i.e. of events beyond deliberate human intention, "disasters in the sun; and the moist star," (iii) a sign of something uncompleted and problematic in life, "If thou has uphoarded in thy life …" (iv) the idea of an unquiet soul, "extravagant and erring spirit." So because of this ambiguity, a ghost is not like an ordinary character in the play, but also not entirely a projection: because in Act 1, though not later, it has a public rather than a solely private presence. As well as setting a mood, the ghost is a foreshadowing: there are later resonances and continuations of all four hypotheses: as to (i) Norway does invade, as to (ii) the play is a story of unfortunate events "accidental judgments … purposes mistook," and as to (iii & iv), there is for Hamlet the deeply troubling question of why his mother should remarry so soon after his father’s death.
May 11th, 2008 at 9:28 PM
One thing that the play never explores far as I can remember (appropriately enough, it being about poor Hamlet) is whether Gertrude had much choice in marrying Claudius and deciding who she could marry next and when they should set the date.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:24 PM
Hi Imani,
Interesting idea. If this was forced upon her by custom for example, and had Hamlet been aware of it, no doubt he would have avoided some of the angst.
Speaking of spouses, I wonder what happened to Polonius’s better half