Hamlet is the least sympathetic character in the major plays, the prototype of every entitled, scolding, overeducated prig with a Twitter account. I root for Polonius, though in Act V, Scene 1, Hamlet almost redeems himself. It begins with two clowns digging Ophelia’s grave and arguing the finer points of Christian burial for a suicide. Their mock-erudition leads to the posing of a riddle:
First Clown: “What is he
that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?”
Second Clown: “The
gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.”
A suitable introduction for
the death-haunted arrival of Hamlet and Horatio. The First Clown uncovers the
first of many skulls and throws it from the grave. The scene is made for broad,
grim, Beckett-like humor. Hamlet speculates on the identity of the previous
occupant of the skull:
“That skull had a tongue
in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician,
which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?”
Another skull is unearthed,
giving Hamlet the chance to again display his witty eloquence:
“There's another. Why may
not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his
cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to
knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his
action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land,
with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his
recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries,
to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of
his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of
indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box;
and must th’ inheritor himself have no more, ha?”
I love these comic riffs;
in this case, playing on legalese. I realized I wasn’t sure about quiddits,
though I assumed it was related to the old Scholastic notion of quiddity
– whatness. In his Dictionary, Johnson defines quiddit as “a
subtilty; an equivocation. A low word.” Johnson also gives us the related word,
quillet: “subtilty; nicety; fraudulent distinction.” The popular sense
that lawyers are sophists playing with words has a long history. Robert Browning
uses quiddit and rather tackily rhymes it in the twentieth stanza of “Old Pictures In Florence”:
“Give these, I exhort you,
their guerdon and glory
For daring so much, before
they well did it.
The first of the new, in
our race’s story,
Beats the last of the old;
’tis no idle quiddit.”
Soon comes the scene
everyone’s waiting for. Hamlet gazes at the skull of Yorick, the king’s jester
when the prince was a boy. I always liked that Olivier turns his head when speaking
to Horatio. He smiles. That little touch always gets me. Other actors never take their eyes off
Yorick's skull, but Hamlet loses me again when he and Laertes engage in a grief competition.
4 comments:
I quite like Hamlet. He is an observer, a reader, a writer, a student. I feel his helpless indignation. Even today we live in a Claudius world. How would Hamlet respond to #BLM or #MeToo?
As for Browning, I like his instinct for words although he gets them wrong ("nun's twat" from Pippa Passes). He is self-absorbed but he tries to be careful. Macbeth is ambitious; Othello is credulous, Romeo is careless and not as lyrical as Juliette. Poor old Lear has misjudged the characters of his daughters--a fatal miscalculation. His poetry and wit are unparalleled in Shakespeare's tragedies.
I don't see Hamlet on Twitter: I see him dismissing it as tripe. As he says, "I once did hold it....a baseness to write fair, and labored much how to forget that learning, but sir, now it did me yeoman's service." He has learned not to fall for trends.
"His poetry and wit are unparalleled in Shakespeare's tragedies."
I assume you mean Hamlet, not Lear?
Among Shakespeare's characters, I think Hamlet and Macbeth are the most intelligent.
"I don't see Hamlet on Twitter: I see him dismissing it as tripe. As he says, "I once did hold it....a baseness to write fair, and labored much how to forget that learning, but sir, now it did me yeoman's service." He has learned not to fall for trends."
I agree. Whatever you think about Hamlet, he's intelligent, he sees through everyone and doesn't learn for trends. He's cold and unpleasant, but he's right about everyone.
"How would Hamlet respond to #BLM or #MeToo?"
I can imagine.
"I feel his helpless indignation."
I also agree. Patrick, I think you're too harsh on Hamlet.
Having said all that, I don't like Hamlet that much. He is unpleasant and often cruel, especially to Ophelia.
Polonius is an ass though.
Geez, I meant: doesn't FALL for trends.
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