"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" - Hamlet II.ii

This post title is one of the many lines in Hamlet that ring so true to me that I want to cry.  Going through a really rough patch right now…  Need to find a way to tweak my thinking.

I promised you all Hamlet.  Well, I have been absolutely saturated with it this past month, so even though the post might be a bit tardy, you are about to get a very large dose.  I will warn you all, too much Hamlet can be dangerous to one's health.  Side effects may include depression, suicidal thoughts, madness, mania, and other sundries like verbally abusing your mother and jumping into graves.  Not to mention murder.  Hooray literature!  Someday I may make an argument that few other fields of study wreak quite as much havoc on the psyche.  I'm also in the process of reading Titus Andronicus for the first time, which makes this play seem like a warm and fuzzy lullaby to put your kids to sleep to.  Yeesh.

Where does one even begin with Hamlet?  How can one even make a dent in the topic?  After the Bible, Hamlet is the work of literature most studied, written about, and published on.  It's HUGE.  There are tons of versions, not to mention a Disney film based off of it (why couldn't someone in Denmark tell Hamlet about "Hakuna matata"?).  It doesn't always translate perfectly... There's a great ethnography called "Shakespeare in the Bush" where a woman tells the Tiv of Africa the story of Hamlet and, due to the values and expectations in their culture, they completely reinterpreted it.  They didn't credit the ghost at all, and they thought Hamlet was messed up since it's only proper in their society for the brother of a dead husband to marry his widow.  Claudius became the good guy, Hamlet the freak.  But even for all its interpretations, there is still something about Hamlet that affects many people, that has stuck with them for centuries and is still an alluring topic of mystery, speculation, and inquiry today.  If you ask me, that's pretty fucking cool.

My fabulous, absent-minded professor for my revenge plays class mentioned a great theory of Greenblatt’s that provides one explanation for the centuries-enduring allure of Hamlet.  Basically, Shakespeare strips away all the explanations, rationalizations, whats and wherefores surrounding why Hamlet does what he does.  He creates a grand mystery, a complex situation and character that is nonetheless open to interpretation.  His gift to his audience is the mystery that haunts, puzzles, and enchants us even to this day.  In this day and age so much of the old magic of mystery is being lost.  Science is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but there are sacrifices made as we accumulate more knowledge, more explanations.  Hamlet is the perpetual mystery, comforting in its ambiguity, something we can try to solve as much as we like as we delight in knowing that we never will.

I was interested to hear my classmates’ opinions on Hamlet, and very surprised to find that most of them didn’t like the character of Hamlet very much.  They said they found him annoying – lots of whining, musing, flipfloping, hesitating, and all for no good reason.  I found myself getting extremely defensive over him.  First of all, we’re talking regicide here; while it may not be the “primal eldest curse,” it’s up there with one of the worst crimes/murders you can commit.  If it were me, I’d want to be damn sure that I had evidence to back my case up, more than the word of my dead dad (who, if I went to school in Protestant Wittenberg, I wouldn’t believe could exist since purgatory doesn’t exist in my religion… but I digress!).  Second of all, one doesn’t just stab a king.  There’s a protocol to be followed, which I agree doesn’t involve killing him in secret while he appears to be praying.  It’s hard enough to say you can justify regicide; it’s quite another to explain why you felt it necessary to off him sneakily in the house of God.  NOT cool.  Moreover, there’s something beautiful in the way Hamlet contemplates and plans everything.  It would not be much of a play if the ghost said “Whack your incestuous uncle” and Hamlet said “Right-o, Pops” and ran Claudius through.  It’s like people get annoyed at Hamlet acting human.  Humans procrastinate.  They hem and haw, weigh options, worry and fret, are at a loss for what to do, question what they really know…  If Hamlet were decisive, he would lose all depth.  I love watching his journey… from hurting, to afraid, to manic, to resolved, to depressed, to rejuvenated, to aggressive, to accepting, and finally to a kind of peace.  What’s more, this progression can change depending on what version you use.  There’s the “bad Quarto,” where the “To be or not to be” soliloquy happens before the “catch the conscience of the king” idea, which has a pretty linear progression from inaction and depression to acting and committing to a concrete plan.  However, in the other version Hamlet gets the idea of the play-within-a-play and seems to be resolved, but then “to be or not to be” comes after and reveals his vulnerability, how he’s still on shaky ground, with fears and doubts.  I think the former version seems more logical, but the latter is more of a challenge for a richer, more complex character arc that is wonderful to explore.  Some people might find this annoying; for me, it sounds like FUN.

Even though I enjoy the open interpretation, I have been asked by more than one assignment to develop my own argument about why Hamlet procrastinates the way he does.  Is he just a melancholy Dane?  Is he a perfectionist?  Is he a coward that secretly resents his dear departed daddy for putting this on him?  There are tons of possibilities, all with evidence to back them up.  So here’s my notion to add to all the others.  Maybe I have a bias for drama, being so passionate about acting, but I think the key to Hamlet is understanding his theatricality.  All the stuff with the madness is a grand performance that he revels in.  I believe his character is illuminated by his reactions to and interactions with the Players.  He comes alive when they visit, more so than he has been in a very long time.  He obviously loved watching them, and is very knowledgeable about theatre, giving them all sorts of nit-picky (and most likely unwanted) advice about acting, and even attempting a performance himself.  He thrives in the role of director, and I believe he craves the same power and product from his revenge.  He wants the grand reveal, the confession of guilt, the witnesses to validate him.  It might not be what he’s explicitly planning, but I think that’s his fantasy.  I believe he does get it in the end with the fencing scene, and so contrary to some people claiming that he never really achieves his revenge, I think he gets his quintessential revenge fantasy, which even his own death sickly strengthens.  I know that there are issues with this; for example, he’s ready to kill Claudius in the bedchamber, away from the public, “dead for a ducat” and all that, which isn’t very open and theatrical.  I kind of think it’s because he’s carried away in the surprise of it all; however, I will often cite this as well as the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as evidence that Hamlet does have the cajones to kill.  So that’s my Hamlet; manic, dramatic, striving for the ultimate scene combining confession of guilt and exaction of justice.  Who wouldn’t want that?

My favorite versions have had theatrical Hamlets, like the Kenneth Branagh and David Tennant versions.  I recently saw the Tennant/Stewart version for the first time and LOVED IT.  Not only is Tennant wonderful at showing emotional depth and variation, Patrick Stewart is the strongest Claudius I have ever seen.  His portrayal is… well, almost revolutionary.  He manages to make Hamlet look like a petulant child at the end of the play-within-a-play scene when he calmly walks away, shaking his head.  He has great calm and poise; even in the face of death and guilt, he grabs the tip of the sword, shrugs and drinks voluntarily when Hamlet commands him too.  He’s nothing short of impressive, which makes a lot of sense for Claudius.  This is a man who knows what he is, what he wants, and what he’s done; it can only plague his conscience so much when he’s willingly, and actively, instigated it all.  An amazing job well done, Captain Picard.


Because this is the technological age and I'm supposed to know something about this, I want to leave you with two youtube videos that really capture the essence of common opinions on Hamlet.   Enjoy:
The Hamlet that many people wish for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCVc5TaPpe8
And you thought I'd forgotten about Ophelia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnvgq8STMGM&ob=av3n

Alright, I’ve packed enough Hamlet into one post.  Next up, similar in vengeful theme, I’ll tackle Titus and let the mindfuckery commence.  As commence it will.  YEEEEEESH.