"Hamlet'"s Mice, Motes, Moles, and Minching Malecho
Author(s): Ruth Stevenson
Reviewed work(s):
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 33, No. 3, The Book as Character, Composition, Criticism,
and Creation (Summer, 2002), pp. 435-459
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057735 .
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Hamlefs
Motes,
Mice,
Ruth
NLY
Hamlet
U^^"^V
of
Moles,
Malecho
and Minching
Stevenson
greatest
Shakespeare's
writes
plays,"
Helen
of the
this work
the poem
who has designated
I Vendler,
"is ruled by a single lyric consciousness."1 Words
V^>^
millennium,
this consciousness.
compose
They gradually quicken and spring to life2
and each
its own idiosyncrasies
in the poem,
each one exhibiting
In
patterns.
this
process,
to establish
with other words
out vivid combinations
working
unusual
something
fluid verbal
The
happens.
word
pat
terns gradually create a linguistic drama which
takes on a coherent
life
the
of its own. This drama of language
distinct
from
drama
of
(as
plot)
in
resembles
Stevens, writing of his own medium
closely what Wallace
of
in
"the
of
the
dual
and
fields
calls
poetry
linguistic
particular,
general
of
poem
the words":
the
idea
the
internal
primary
or
"Every
of
poem
is a poem
poem
the words."3
He
a
within
draws
they
Between
there
a
explains,
grows
and
"network
of
poem
to
attention
particular
of the poetry of the words:
of each word ... is to the other words,
describe."4
the
poem:
interactions
relation
actions
Vendler
the
and
the
"[In poetry]
not to the things
these words,
among
. . . ,a
referentiality
as Professor
that
does
to some putative real world as horizontally
a
to the inwardly-extensive
world of terms or images.
'Thinking of
Relation between
the Images of Metaphors'
Stevens
called
is
what
(as
it)
not so much
extend
all
poems
to Hamlet
as
of
Stevens's
Referring
antidramatic
or
I offer
outward
do."5
as
a
extreme.
It
is what
"poem"
To
may
and,
mitigate
a brief
I
does.
poem
Shakespeare's
some
strike
of
readers
to
hope,
this
essay
disarm
such
use
of
first,
explanation,
Shakespeare's
use
of
for
his
about
the
this
second,
poetry
implications
one doubts
the distinction of genres?no
audience.
Shakespeare upholds
that Hamlet is a play, a tragedy, written in blank verse?but
he does not
concern,
about
itself and,
generic rule. The first scene
tightly constrict his usage to any prescribed
no
a
meter
series of staccato questions.
but
opens with
regular poetic
dramatic blank verse builds successive cadences and becomes
Thereafter,
of the play within which subject matters of
the predominating
medium
various
dawn
subgenres
poem
of
poetry
(1.1.162-69),
emerge,
Horatio's
as
in the
pastoral
virtual
lyrics
(1.1.171-72),
of Marcellus's
Gertrude's
New Literary History, 2002, 33: 435-459
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436
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
Laertes' epitaph for her, and the self
(4.7.165-82),
elegy for Ophelia
reflexive elegies both of Laertes
and of Hamlet
(5.2.319-26)
(5.2.338
ballad
63). And there are real lyrics at crucial parts of the play: Hamlet's
the
ballads
and
her
(4.5.23-40),
following
Mousetrap,
Ophelia's
elegies
as well as the ballads
aubade
her complaint
(4.5.48-66),
(4.5.187-96),
and songs of the Clown. The blank verse accommodates
these forms and
maintains
narrative
as
momentum,
it did
in
the
blank-verse
of
plays
And, as in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (1593; A-text 1604, B-text
the conjuring
circle, an emblem of the lyric's inexorable
1616), where
so inHamlet
into
and
leads
deeper
spiral,6
deeper layers of consciousness,
the blank verse assimilates unto itself the circular interiority of the lyric
there is more. There
is prose. Shakespeare
gave to his
impulse. And
to any other of his tragic
Prince more prose passages
than he allotted
Marlowe.
and
heroes,
lines
these
fact, 5 lines of verse
fusion
prose.7 The
internal
verse
blank
and
organization
to be
the
as
prose,
of
poetry.
a matter
As
of
of Hamlet's
components
interaction,
figurative
of
printed as
these two
in Q2 were
consciousness
tragic
and
network
of
part
lines of verse
and 254
a single
into
assimilative
mediums,
seem
often
in Ql
comprises
the poetry of the play.
in the reception
There may, however, be crucial obstacles
of these
formal constituents
that would seriously affect the experience
different
of
an
In
audience.
the
of
progression
dramatic
can
who
enactment,
of figurative
interaction? The most
poetic
to
text may lie not
in
issue
significant generic
responding
Shakespeare's
so much
a drama and a poem as
in questioning
the difference
between
it. This
in discriminating
and reading
between
seeing a drama/poem
the intricate
detect
distinction
may
remain
process
reciprocal
as would
networks
static
by which
sometimes
be
the
have
course,
been
case,
be
play. This process would
and
different
play-going
aware
for
such
it also
the
and
audiences.
readers.
may
a kinetic,
provoke
form of seen play
from
derives
alternated
reading
of
but
some,
the primary
turns into or,
form
secondary
repeated
by
Shakespeare
various
Although
of
read
countless
of
would,
editors
and
critics who view his plays as exclusively
performance-based
carefully
no evidence
in preserving
that he was "interested
point out that there is
an authoritative
knew that his plays
text" (as Jonson was),8 Shakespeare
the time of his birth in 1564 until he died in 1616,
In the decade
twelve plays were printed.
preceding
found their way into print.9 Hamlet itself was printed
Hamlet, eighty-three
in Ql
with at least one more quarto
(1604-05),
(1603) and Q2
(Q3,
was
In
the
while
alive.
fact,
1611) appearing
Shakespeare
during
would
three
be read. From
hundred
Elizabethan
and
scripts remarks,
turned speedily
Jacobean
period,
as
an
expert
on
Elizabethan
manu
"[A] 11literary compositions
judged of wide interest were
into print chiefly for the sake of dissemination."10
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hamlet's
mice,
motes,
while
Nonetheless,
seventeenth
century
degrees of awareness
that
likely
those
and
moles,
437
MALECHO
the literate, play-reading
of the early
theatergoers
could have enjoyed and responded
with varying
to the internal interactions
of the poetic script, it is
saw
who
a
or who
of Hamlet
production
it once
read
not apprehend
would probably
the metaphoric
that I
permutations
trace in this essay. On the other hand, on
or
the
seeing
reading
play a
or
second time, such Elizabethans
with
those
the
Jacobeans?especially
acute
of
(the "giants
literary intelligence
Shakespeare's
contemporaries
the flood," as Dryden would
before
sense the
later call them)?would
force of the figurative network just as they would feel the resonance
of
its individual parts (such as the pervasive hendiadys
trope examined
by
see below).
the order of response
to the
George T. Wright:
Although
either
text,
must
in
three
to
see
or
performance
the ideal process
first,
parts:
actual
attending
be arbitrary,
and
in
for audiences
the
experience
the
reading
consist
might
words,
of these
dramatic
predominant
elements
of plot and character; second, to read and
identify the salient
elements of metaphoric
interaction;
third, to meld the rmdplay into the
seen play, so that it affects an audience with terrific subliminal force.
The read play?that
which provokes
the drama of language with its
the images of metaphor
and its directing
thinking of relations between
movements
of consciousness
in Hamlet
himself, and thus in the play/
this force through
the verbal relationships
poem as a whole?conveys
derived
from the most
in the play, the double
important metaphor
little
(1.4.24 and 1.5.170). This image has received
figure of the mole
a
attention.11
series
of
explicit
literary/critical
Surprisingly,
philoso
not
phers,
looking
at
directly
the
literary
function
of
the mole
and
thus
its subliminal
effect all the more
perhaps feeling
strongly, have turned
to this figure.
their attention
A recent essay by Margreta De Grazia in
Shakespeare Quarterly (1999),12
traces
the ways
that
these
writers
have
engaged
the
"old mole,"
use
of the term, his epithet
for the Ghost
Karl Marx, A. C. Bradley,
(1.5.170). G. W. F. Hegel,
Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida all, in examining
second
use
mole,
it not
social,
sophical,
nels
towards
steadily
the
as
of cultural
symbol
the
through
mole's
an
of
agent
awareness
lyric
manifest
and psychological
goal
of
absolute
consciousness
cessa-tion
of
work,
or
dramatic
Hamlet's
under
the
stage
Freud,
Sigmund
the figure of the
consciousness
a
as
but
tracts of philo
through
tun
thought. Briefly, Hegel's mole
various
while
consciousness,
draws
censorious
advances
Marx's
to revolution.13 A. C.
Bradley,
attention
critical
of
to Hamlet's
to the
delay, while Freud transfers the cause of delay from consciousness
molish underground
realm of the unconscious.
to
De
Grazia,
According
the
"route,"
illuminate
"trajectory
the nature
of
of
desire,"and
the
"elusive
"winding
paths"
phallus,"14
of
Lacan's
and Derrida,
mole
whose
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438
NEW
deconstructive
methods
values
the mole-Ghost
scene,
"for
justice
as
such
dualisms
life nor death)
(neither
one
the
HISTORY
as life and death,
and extols the old-mole
interrelate
emerges
LITERARY
undeconstructibie
term,
the
one
to escape
and only absolute
the discursive"
dualities.15 As this survey
a cultural emblem,
for these men, becomes
the "old mole,"
indicates,
a
a
to
historical
part of
symbolism
contributing
progressive
allegory
and function
reside outside of the verbal patterning
whose meaning
of
the play. For them, in fact, the phrase leaves the play and experiences
on a
to the linguistic
of ideas external
changes dependent
progression
source.
to the drama of words rather than the drama of
In turning my attention
culture, I hope to provide a very different account of the mole, one that
its own linguistic action and in
explores how the poem works within
cor
its
how
particular
metaphoric
language
instigates and disseminates
relative
metaphors
whose
interactions
the
shape
of Hamlet
consciousness
(1) From the first lines of the
through four principal aesthetic activities.
out
to
stir
other
words
and
stretch
words
that acquire metamorphic
play,
momentum.
and
This
affects the drama of
power
develop
significantly
force
of
with
the
agents
increasing
play's action, such as
plot by directing
itswar imperative. Such direction,
for example, necessitates
the deaths of
Rosencrantz
and
not
Guildenstern
as
simply
results
of
ment but also as logical results of figurative mandate.
of literary allusions
the linguistic process
extends
nature
sources
of Hamlet's
(3) As
emotions.
it does
so,
narrative
develop
the use
(2) Through
and illuminates
the
it presses
towards
primitive
that traverse Hamlet's
mind
and eventually
alter his
This
carries
the
(4)
process
imagination.
metaphoric
play past its dra
not to a progression
of cultural history but to a far
matic plot boundaries
more
of
life
impassive,
inhuman
celebration
of
metamorphic
force.
Mobilization
The
"unfold,"
opening
"King,"
language
"bed,"
of the play
"bitter
cold,"
is terse and simple:
"sick
at heart,"
"Who's there?"
"mouse
stirring,"
"good night" (1.1.1-12).16 Each of these words or phrases will move, gain
resonance
as they and their implications
circulate
impetus, and add
the
continu
opens
"unfolding"
through
play. Questions
proliferate;
of
becomes
that
and
the
issue
of
ously;
dynasty; the
"Kingship"
empire
"bed" will hold seeds for gardens, will carry the animal fat of enseamed
sheets, and will become a series of graves; "bitter cold" starts the slightest
tang of taste and the coldness of death that spreads; "sick at heart" will
a disease
that wracks not only feeling but every specimen
become
of
will
become
Claudius
the
Polonius
the
"mouse"
(in
thought;
Mousetrap),
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hamlet's
mice,
and
moles,
motes,
439
malecho
and "Good night" by
("call you his mouse");
(the "rat"), and Gertrude
the end of act 5 will bring us all to tears. These words will spawn verbal
that produce more and
that grow and exfoliate as metaphors
offspring
as
more metaphors,
Hamlet
will
(3.2.237). The "old
say
"tropically,"
from one word.
in such a process, which develops
mole" participates
The
"old
as
starts
mole"
a mouse.
In act 1, scene 1, a pattern starts to grow, guided by alliterative sound.
in the little mouse, joins "most like" (to describe
The letter m, unobtrusive
to come), strengthens
the Ghost, the old mole
between
the resemblance
in
the Ghost and the majesty who died. The military m gains power
"smote the sledded Polacks," resumes its "martial stalk," and finally, with
the m can neglect
the now well
the royal military
line fully established,
war-related
established
A mote
the mote,
it is to trouble
the most
In
Did
As
graves
stood
squeak
stars with
and
Upon
Was
almost
and
sun;
to
the
sheeted
in the Roman
fire
and
dews
dead
streets;
of blood
the moist
star,
Neptune's
with
empire
and
influence
whose
sick
Julius fell,
tenantless
gibber
trains of
in the
Disasters
calls for special attention:
eye.
of Rome,
state
palmy
to a new
turn
and
"smote,"
which
the mind's
and
high
A little ere the mightiest
The
s of
the
shed
words,
a metaphor,
use, establishing
doomsday
stands,
eclipse.
(1.1.114-23)
To
Horatio
a
"mote,"
the
speck
appearance
that
impedes
of
the
or
ghost
alters
becomes
This
vision.
a
metaphorically
is
comparison
because
it shrinks "this portentous
into
(1.1.112)
figure"
of time and space
tiny. Yet the mote has its own dimensions
as they
three worlds. The first for the guards to envision
containing
an
is
listen to Horatio
ancient Roman graveyard, which has thrown up its
streets, an omen said to
ghastly specters that rage through the Roman
unexpected
something
the fall of the mightiest
has integrated military
Julius. Horatio
elements?the
martial ghost and the Roman general?into
his figure,
but he muddles
the comparison
of portents:
in Rome,
the supernatural
the fall of Caesar;
in Denmark,
the ghost of
foretold
phenomena
a
has
Hamlet
itself
become
omen,
presum
mightiest
King
supernatural
to the great Roman. But
the fall of a figure comparable
ably intimating
such a figure does not exist at this point in the play and will come into
soldier, Fortinbras.
being only partially, in the one-dimensional
create
The non-matching
portents
disjunction, which proves to be the
foretell
basis
of Horatio's
second
world,
trains of fire and dews of blood"
that
of
disrupt
celestial
chaos
the heavens.
where
stars
This world
"with
displays
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440
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
violence
but still does not adequately
summarize
what
impressive
Horatio on the cold battlement
in Denmark
force
feels to be the morbid
of the ghostly portent. Drawing
back to military
reference,
therefore,
Horatio
presents a final world that combines
heavenly bodies, war, and
a world
disease,
blood")
that beckons
with
doomsday
night,
out
moist
the moon
star,"
moon
Horatio's
eclipse."
with
(moist
us
reminds
of change,
and especially
apocalypse,
the
"the
where
"dews
of
the sea empire of Neptune
"flood" [1.4.69]
(the oceanic
the Danish
but
"sick almost to
beneath
falls
ramparts),
rules
of
all of which
the
powers
grow
of
through
play.
the
asked to do a lot. Shakespeare,
activating
an
his
the
the
of
of
mind's
audience,
eye,
presents
imagination,
image
a
a
mote
been
hindered
The
itself
whose
has
eye
sight
by mote,
speck.
The
then
"mote" has been
swells
range
to
a condensed,
contain
to the end of time. The
almost
in space
a
are
time
and
three-tiered
violence
too
for
savage
that
allegory
raging within
the
stretches
the mote
microscopic
and
enclosure
its
of
a hard consonant.
final t closes the word
tightly with
see a word used to express this principle
of blight and
the twill have slipped into an /, creating a "vicious mole"
not only the force of distortion
but also a new power of
speck whose
When we next
expansion,
accorded
locomotion.
and Metaphor
Momentum
court while he
from afar the revels of Claudius's
Hamlet, witnessing
turns from disgust at Denmark's
wide
and Horatio
await the Ghost,
of
of
distortion
because
such
loss
of
wassailing?a
reputation
spread
about
how
national
honor by motelike
speculation
impediment?to
small viral force can mysteriously
spread through and corrupt men:
So
for
cannot
o'ergrowth
down
breaking
some
by
form
of plausive
I say, the
of nature
of
the
are
they
choose
that
habit,
men
particular
mole
wherein
their
By
Oft
The
vicious
birth,
nature
(Since
Or
some
in their
As
in
it chances
oft
That
his
complexion,
and forts of
pales
too much
o'leavens
of one
His
virtues
be
As
infinite
Shall
in the
general
these
manners?that
stamp
or Fortune's
livery
as man
they
guilty
origin),
some
Carrying,
Nature's
Being
else,
in them,
not
as pure
may
undergo,
censure
take
reason,
men,
defect,
star,
as grace,
corruption
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hamlet's
mice,
motes,
From
that
Doth
To
all
The
dram
substance
scandal.
441
malecho
fault.
particular
the noble
own
his
and
moles,
often
of
evil
dout
{Enter Ghost)
(1.4.23-48)
as a
Starting
of nature
force
mysterious
in some
the mole17
men,
at
has
least two modes
of activity. The first proceeds
animation
by cancerlike
or aspect of human
of "some complexion"
and overgrowth
psychology.
the force of military assault, this expansion
and extension break
Gaining
not
over
only
human
of
demarcations
of its defense,
that which
with
thought.
its force
and
over
habitual,
An
preserves
view
the mole's
unremarkable
sour
of
this
human
it,
spreading
faculty of
of
insinuation,
corrupting
"forts"
the
exposes,
operation
conduct
a
over
it as a primary
of
powers
also
but
"pales,"
and defends
alternative
range^
or
"o'erleaven"
its
reason,
along
creeping
to
slowly,
inexorably
over
influence
or
the process is so strong that it overwhelms
through it. In both examples
with corruption
the most pure and infinite of that man's virtues, his
moral strength and masculine
of
power {virtu). In a succinct restatement
this molezation,
as
to
unable
Hamlet,
the mole
describes
a
"dram
of
Claudius's
forget
evil,"
that
is, a
nearby
carousing,
of
"evil,"18
liquor-drop
which does "dout" or douse all the noble substance
(what "stands" from
"below" and individualizes),
about scandal
(from skandalon,
bringing
the
snare), that which
traps and destroys honor and aspiration. Unlike
mote that contains powers of violent
itself becomes
the mole
disruption,
the agent and expression
of mobility
that propels
such disruption.
In the next scene (1.5.148-81)
itmutates
into animal life, becoming
the "old mole."
In the cellarage,
the Ghost, darting from one spot to
orders
another,
addresses
the
guards
to "swear
by
his
sword"
and
(1.5.161),
Hamlet
"Well said, old mole. Canst work in the earth so fast? / A
worthy pioner!" A pioner was originally a footsoldier who used a spade
to dig, like a miner working
in deep, dark holes under the earth. This
mole,
him:
carrying
vicious mole's
moving
overtones
of Horatio's
ominous,
destructive
underground,
a
"pioner,"
mote
military
mobility,
a miner
or
and
soldier,
the
dramatizing
here has become
burrowing
a
digger
to
plant
explosives. As a miner setting devices to blow up the enemy, he sets in his
an image of the
son's mind
his words will become
for
explosives
Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.
As an "old mole" who is a digger, he is, of
the blind mole,
course,
literally, a small mammal,
burrowing
through
darkness. As he burrows for earthworms
and bulbs he will become part
of the food chain that obsesses Hamlet
in act 5. As a digger the mole
invites
of
attention
consciousness
the grave-hills
to
and
gardens
where
paternal
the slaughtered
graves
roots
Polish
as well
as
spread.
He
and Swedish
to
underground
makes
molehills
areas
like
soldiers will fill in the
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442
NEW
plot of land too small to bury
old
mole?"Remember
them
in act 4. The
me"?repeated
by
LITERARY
final
Hamlet
HISTORY
command
three
times,
of the
spreads
through his son's mind,
taking him back in time to personal memories
in
that the play discloses more and more about and that, in fact, become
some ways the principal
text of the poem.
The mole and the old mole are parts of each other. The originating
and spreads with force that mutates
like a virus, multiplies
into
mole,
and
the mole-animal
reprograms
associations
viral,
the
mole
primary
too.
The
out
sends
it and
itself, making
of
initiating
not
mysterious,
only
its metaphoric
corrosive
itself
reproduces
force
that
"old
("mole,"
the play,19 accentuating
the
mole") but also begins to spread throughout
movement
of its linguistic parts.
in present participles
The syllable ing, for example, begins to operate
In act 1 alone it stretches fifty-one different words out into
and gerunds.
a final, progressive
of the
ing. A second incidental but logical emergence
occurs
in the pervasiveness
in
into a continuous
rippling
progression
one
two
of
number
because
is
static
and
marks
Hamlet
the
two, probably
of movement
that signifies conflict
the beginning
(the basic element of
drama), that drives metaphor
(one thing spills into a second thing), and
that motivates
itself.20
thought
"Twoness"
signals
even
expansion
as
it strives
for
balance.
Shakespeare
uses a specialized figure to emphasize
this feature, the trope of hendiadys:
idea by means
of two nouns joined
"one in two": a single
by the
rather
and
conjunction
a noun
than
qualified
by
an
an
In
adjective.
of this figure inHamlet, George
essay on the prominence
award-winning
than twice as many
T. Wright
identifies sixty-six specific examples, more
instances
The
in any
than
to
attention
other
of
of this figure
function
the
Shakespeare's
in Hamlet,
plays.21
characteristic
"doubleness
toWright,
according
of
the
whole
is to draw
. . . , a
play
stylistic means
disjunction,
provides
the play's themes of anxiety, bafflement,
of underlining
and the falsity of appearances"
(H 178). Wright generously
a table quoting
I find
in each a
the sixty-six examples.
a
successiveness,
two"
rather
than
a case
of
of molish
extension,
degree
in two."
of
"one
the
strict
translation
"one
Here
becoming
are
three
In "shot and danger of desire" (1.1.57), the firing and
by Wright.
a shot of hot desire
of danger.
In
lead to developments
of
sharpness
the morn grows tangible and
"morn and liquid dew of youth" (1.3.41),
and
fluid: it spreads out and can be licked. In "Hath oped his ponderous
marble jaws" (1.4.50), the image of the sepulchre with its great weight of
like a mouth
after the entrance of the corpse
coffin and vault, opened
found
and
then
adjective,
dirt
slammed
shut,
"ponderous,"
to be
shoveled.
suggests
"Marble"
associations.
successive
engenders
the heavy door
recalls
statuary,
an
The
initial
of the vault and of the
additional
weight
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of
a
hamlet's
and
moles,
motes,
mice,
443
malecho
bust with jaws containing white, hard teeth; it also suggests the
of its jaws to
skeleton, which will result from the worm's movement
devour the flesh.
the mutable
These doublings, with the second extending
implications
the
of the first, serve several purposes.
(1) They illustrate repeatedly
to
the
of
tilt
of
and
and
absolute balance
words
elusiveness
tendency
then fall or flow into differentiation
and change.
(2) Through
doublings
as
to perceive
of metaphor
leads his audience
changes
Shakespeare
statement.
successive instances of expanded
(3) At
thought and refined
human
same
the
the
time,
can
"twoness"
work
not
It does
expansion.
against
are threes
in the play but never those
into "threeness"
(there
develop
to the principle
but rather draws attention
evolving out of doubleness),
of the play derives in part from
of arrest and frustration. The bleakness
this
even
pattern
more
of
in
that
expansion
the
simultaneity
becomes
fusion
and
or
thwarted
the
of
and
constricted,
one-two
which
pattern,
action of generation
the mole's
something
beyond bleakness:
produces
is part of its action of degeneration.
This ebb and flow and merging
that themselves
provoke metaphors
most
The
and
interact
with
each
other.
of these is
expand
comprehensive
war. War has its own flow of victory and defeat and marks the play from its
first scene
the
to its last. Military
of
signals
sound
intermittently.
imagery, as in the Players'
"takes
The
prisoner,"
tragedy,
and
the
revenge,
abridged
"falls
influence
the main
character
reflex.
unplanned
"roasted
sword,"
goals of war
but
revenge
The
epic.
of the first act,22 and
and
kettledrums,
trumpets?
the literary references
of the play, military
narration of the fall of Troy, figures strongly:
arms,"
"bleeding
expansive
revenge
form,
"sable
slaughter,"
most
occupies
ordnance,
Within
"Priam's
diction
war?cannons,
itself
prevalence
Fortinbras
in wrath
on
and
Priam,"
no
"fell
"mincing
the genre
has
fire,"
sword,"
sword."
of the play. Hamlet
is a
discernible
of
strategy
as an
against
place
of war
drives
towards
another
literary
as he
an
is the hero,
sharks
up
army
Claudius
takes
under the nose of his uncle the King of Norway, beguiles money
from
a flanking
maneuver
the king,
calculates
that takes him
through
to Poland, circles back to become King of Denmark,
Denmark
regains
land lost by his father, and adds the tributary state England.
In this
father in
pride" (1.1.86) of Fortinbras's
no
to
Hamlet
combat
originally daring King
brings
tragic repercussion
but stimulates instead the mole-driven,
imperial energies of the son. The
to Fortinbras
in the play is, of course, Hamlet. War
figure parallel
but
actions, as was the case
expands strangely
inexorably not by Hamlet's
Norwegian
history,
with Fortinbras,
Shakespeare
develops
and
the "emulate
but within him.
traces this movement
expands
forces
at
first
to show how
dim
within
the impetus
the
main
of act 1
character.
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444
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
has thought about courtly, military duties before
the events of
the play, as he tells Horatio, when practicing
(5.2.206?
swordsmanship
"I
07), but his language about warlike activity is not at first militaristic:
or the
with wings as swift / As meditation
of
love
/ May sweep
thoughts
Hamlet
to
my
(1.5.29-31).
revenge"
to him.
His
personal
As
against."
military
assault:
"the thousand
assault
Such
When
and
prises"
the
arrive, Hamlet,
to utter
the
of grisly execution,
and
Dumbshow
arrows,"
"slings
the war
sweeps
beyond
human
of
view
expansive
of
great
military
recreate
that
is heir
moment."
directs
growing,
's "enter
Pyrrhus
and creates with
two more
controlling
and
pitch
impulses
and he arranges
Mousetrap,
to be"
[clash of arms] / That flesh
words
very
natural
and
metaphor:
shocks
more
or not
"To be
progresses
a more
"enterprises
accompanies
them
primary
seems
language
beginning
soliloquy
to convey
natural
the Players
helps
his
encounter
specific
to."
as
armament
incorporates
arms
"take
3, war
act
By
meditation
enactments
them
of
the
death.
Guildenstern.
long he himself learns to kill: Polonius, Rosencrantz,
As Hamlet
the military
aim of war,
kills, he grows closer to kingship,
Before
as war
just
summon
is
royalty's
Hamlet
of power.
When
mother's
Rosencrantz
he
closet,
and
uses
Guildenstern
the
royal
plural
and when he leaps into the grave to confront
Laertes,
his kingship:
the Dane!"
"This is I / Hamlet
(5.1.250-51).23
(3.2.325),
proclaims
the
agent
to his
moment
he
that
to
"signet"
seal
the
narrates
order
use
his
for
the
of
his
he
At
father's?Denmark's?
of
execution
Rosencrantz
and
he effectively becomes
then exclaims,
king: Horatio
"Why,
is this!" (5.2.62). Hamlet becomes
increasingly authoritative
in Ophelia's
and assertive. His assault against Laertes
grave and his
of Laertes reflect direct, public
subsequent duel with and fatal wounding
to his eventual
action and give momentum
slaying of Claudius. As king
Guildenstern,
what a king
of
Hamlet's
Denmark,
dying
"for
words,
Fortinbras,"
name
a
single
throne. The final duel, the cannon
and
come
"with conquest"
from Poland,
commotion
of Fortinbras
the
warlike volley, the march of soldiers with drum and colors, and Hamlet
as the
"like a soldier" "with rite of war" and peal of ordnance
borne
minded
warrior
soldiers
shoot,
heir
all
to the
serve
to
center
the
vocabulary
together, tragic and epic threads
a process of internal military
has undergone
kills him.
Fortinbras
on
Hamlet
and
Hamlet
strangely mingled.
that effectively
expansion
Allusions
a rhythm
The mole-like military progression,
in act 4 (the death fields of Poland)
march
that builds into a blood
act 5 (the violent
and
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hamlet's
of
extinction
fashion.
the Danish
martial
The
and
moles,
motes,
mice,
also
in literary allusions
regularly
that
contexts,
military
otherwise
range
proceeds
steady
and
low
in doing
that,
pace,
engaging
in but are not
high
through
and
a
at
in a steady
the play
through
that originate
and present,
past
pictures,
works
court),
cadence
445
malecho
to
confined
culture,
and
poems
in Hamlet
so, expose
emotions.
inexpressible
These allusions
spread out like dreams. The words create stories that
move
to other words and, in doing
the
so, intensify and illuminate
to
the
connection
emotions within
the play. They present
superficial
more
initiate
mole-like
immediate
context,
but,
they
interestingly,
extension
in a subterranean,
the whole
The allusive words
story of the allusion and its associations.
emotional
of
which are metaphors
unfolding
implications
themselves,
the
surface
off
touch
context,
full
allusion's
mole-ish
context,
to
way
that
connectives
revealing
Hamlet's
of
parts
the mind
activate
otherwise
store
that
the
within
words
undisclosed
preoc
his audience
for a series of such
prepares
cupations.
Shakespeare
in
this
allusions by using Polonius,
reliable
(and only this) context as
someone with experience
in the theater.24 When
Polonius
introduces
the actors, he praises
them for their multi-genred
("for
capabilities
comedy,
tragedy,
history,
pastoral,
historical-pastoral,
pastoral-comical,
as in "scene indivisible,
and so on [2.2.393-95])
tragical-historical,"
or for plays written
in Seneca or Plautus (2.2.395-96),
poem unlimited"
"for the law of writ and liberty [limited by rules as well as free from
The broad meshing
of genres, of invoking
them]"
(note to 2.2.397).
both
drama
and
drama,
come,
each
and
of
of which
a
consciousness
tors.
These
beginning
fusions
with
tertiary revisions,
Hamlet's
of
poetry,
elasticity
Roman
becomes
complex
follow
rules
in
to
reference
of dramatic
the
metaphor
an almost
context
fusing
of
diversions
literary
the
emotional,
orderly
rhetoric,
poetry,
announce
mole-like
to Polonius
as
"Jephthah,"
for
to
or Hamlet's,
play's,
fac
antagonistic
intensification,
texts which tap and merge
into secondary
original
each of which
invites interpretation.
reference
and
example,
draws
and
on
source
in Judges 11 and its lyrical restatement
in the popular
new
Elizabethan
ballad,
intitled,
[sic]
"proper
Jepha
Judge of Israel,"
starts to sing (note to 2.2.410).
In the immediate
which Hamlet
context,
as an insult to Polonius,
alludes to Jephthah's
sacrifice of his
Hamlet,
an act
to Polonius's
(to win military
honor),
daughter
comparable
himself
sacrifice of Ophelia
in Claudius's
(to entrench
court). Other
elements
of the biblical story resemble
court as
actions in the Danish
its biblical
well: Jephthah's
shame for his mother's
harlotry correlates with Hamlet's
of Gertrude; Jephthah's
indictments
strife with his brothers echoes
the
to
Claudius
between
and
the
be
relationship
King Hamlet;
political glory
won reminds us of the fierce cultural ambition of almost all the Danish
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446
NEW
and Norweigian
himself brings
HISTORY
male characters; and the military prowess of Jephthah
to mind
the heroic feats of King Hamlet.
this,
Beyond
there
however,
LITERARY
a
lies
into
reach
the
consciousness
of
the
victim,
for Hamlet
(the Ophelia
daughter
figure, with implications
Jephthah's
own
sacrifice
but
in the
allows
her
who
himself),
asks, notably
willingly
to
for
time
that
Hamlet
"bewaile
and
"to
song
my virginity"
sings,
bemoan
The
heaviness."
my
daughter's
experience
pregnancy
and
correlates
to
later
reveal.
dreams
Ophelia's
word
of
imagined
amorous
of
notions
Hamlet's
out
stretches
"heaviness"
in the wilderness
allusion,
to
Jephthah's
lost passion
union
and
then,
and
loss
that
meta
exposes
emotional
strains of his own life and suggest latent
phorically major
for
powers of empathy
Ophelia.
the principal
Similarly, the warlike Pyrrhus story drawn from Virgil,
source of Hamlet's
has
request for "Aeneas's tale to Dido" (2.2.442-43),
a clear emotional
in the immediate dramatic context, and this
purpose
into expanded
signals of Hamlet's
unspoken
feelings. The
on
to feel the
Hamlet's
need
Hecuba
emphasis
gratifies
superficial
contrast between
the Trojan Queen's
for her husband
vivid mourning
tears for hers. This emphasis,
is
and Gertrude's
however,
hypocritical
of the original text because Hecuba's
itself an extension
lamentation
for
Priam does not appear in Virgil's text, in his sources (Homer's Odyssey or
or The Trojan Women), or in the English adaptations
of
Euripides' Hecuba
and
William Caxton, John Lydgate, George Peele, Christopher Marlowe,
Thomas Nashe
(note to 2.2.442). What does appear in Virgil isHecuba
for their son Polites, whom Pyrrhus has
and Priam's mutual mourning
in
their eyes. Polites
stalked and slain before
is, like Hamlet,
caught
set
sets
of
have
in
but
he
both
which
motion,
parents
inspires
machinery
modulates
them what Hamlet
lacks, namely demonstration
by
poignantly
of love for their son and grief for his suffering.
a mindless
in both Virgil and the Players'
lines represents
Pyrrhus
battle force. In Virgil he is a snake "Which winter had kept under
from
both parents
ground,"
vicious
a mole
figure,
that
mole,
Homeric
Pyrrhus's
means
"mole,"
both
brutal
and
name,
"new
"Neoptolemus,"
act
warrior."
By
insinuating
and
"smash[es],"
"batter[s],"
5,
like the original
out"
"hew[s]
an
containing
Hamlet
has
gaps.25
of
anagram
a
become
new
one of the "incensed points / Of mighty opposites"
(5.2.61-62)
on the
and
"ready" (5.2.218), but hardly with real military force,
poised
brink of war.
occur
in the
Elsinor
of war within
The mimetic
reproductions
warrior,
and
Dumbshow
the
Mousetrap,
texts
melodramatic
where
battle acts for the court itself to interpret. The
means
of the Dumbshow
of Gonzago"
by
explicit
Murder
adaptations
seems
to
refer
in
context
to
strategic
become
allusion to "The
and Mousetrap
devices
intended
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to
hamlet's
mice,
motes,
and
moles,
to Ophelia's
r?ponse
question
this?" (3.2.135),
draws on and
Claudius's
guilt, but Hamlet's
"What means
the Dumbshow,
expose
about
in
articulates
an
form
compressed
447
malecho
undercurrent
of
repressed
communi
cation and feeling when he answers, "This ismincing malicho"
(3.2.135).
This enigmatic phrase, glossed by Jenkins as "sneaking mischief,
stealthy
to mind
the mincing
of Priam's
limbs by Pyrrhus
iniquity," summons
and the way the gods would have "made milch
the burning
(2.2.510),
a
mote-stars
of
is
transformation
of
the
of act 1
heaven
(2.2.513)
eyes
"trains of fires and dews of blood" to sources of milk
that
tears
of
lamentation.
malicho
becomes
The blend-word
(Hecuba's)
association.
reinforces
the milch/milk
Also, the spelling of the word,
malecho both in traditional editions
since Malone
and in present ones
as
such
edited by Wells
and Taylor, offers
the Oxford
Shakespeare
their
with
another
of
anagram
offers a dreamlike
and
sorrow
enigma,
of male
and
as well
"mole"
as
of
"male."
and
The
intimations
encapsulating
malevolent
mole
two-word
of female
phrase
lactation
growth.
to Claudius's
reaction
is itself
flight from the Mousetrap
enigmatic. Having
trapped his mouse, why doesn't he, at the very least,
instead, does Hamlet
expose Claudius'
guilt? Why,
sing a little song?
let
Str?nken
deer
The
heart
the
/
go
weep
"Why
ungalled
play, / For
some must watch while some must sleep, / Thus runs the world
away"
Hamlet's
The
(3.2.265-68).
song
in context
seems
to refer
to an
assaulted
female
("hart") who
by an "ungalled" male
simply plays. Females
(because of the syntax) must either be alert or on the prowl ("watch")
are to
while the males must either relax or die ("sleep"). The references
("deer")
Gertrude
tone
The
and
is not
Claudius
vengeful
next
part
just
but,
of
the
in
the
represented
seems
wistful
introduces
an
instead,
song
but
Mousetrap,
and
resigned.
to the
allusion
Hamlet's
two
texts
tone. "For thou dost know,
which reinforce and clarify the unexpected
was / Of Jove himself and now
O Damon dear / This realm dismantled
The first text, Richard
(3.2.275-78).
reigns here / A very, very?pajock"
Edwards's rhymed play, "Damon and Pythias" (1571), contains violence
one friend
of arrest, charges of spying, threat of execution,
offering
himself as security for the other, and an enlightened
pardon for both
offered by the head of state. Battle strategies here melt
into yearnings
for friendship
and reconciliation
and for a state whose king is still, like
the sun of act 1, in "russet mantle
clad" (1.2.171-72)
rather than
"dismantled
of Jove himself."
Such a state would
present profane
"pajock" (peacock)
act 1, is not sacred and whose
long,
male
The
17-61.
rather
display
pastoral
peace.
points to Virgil's Eighth Eclogue, especially
that tells of the love of two children
Damon-Story
second
The
than
not have a king like the
crowing, unlike the cock in
expanded,
gaudy feathers
signify
whose
allusion
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lines
in an
448
NEW
subordination
the
orchard,
to
marriage
the
These
the maiden,
to
Nisa,
Damon's
Mopsus,
unspeakable
of the sex-crazed
drowning.
of
LITERARY
the
consequent
and his preparation
elements
events
of
for suicide
emotional
prime
her
Amor,
recognition
chaos of the world,
comprise
god
HISTORY
by
impor
as they blur together: Nisa is both
and
Ophelia
is
Damon
is
Hamlet
and
becomes
Claudius,
Gertrude, Mopsus
Ophelia.
at this point is isolated, not identified with the human
Only Claudius
tance
ness
even
in Hamlet
of
character.
another
In
in his mother's
the allusion/dream
this
sequence
apartment,
isolation changes. Hamlet
holds up pictures of his father and Claudius
to see how different
for his mother
of
they are. The dreamwork
causes
Hamlet's
here
his
father
language
initially
ekphrastic
virtually to
as Hamlet
in
and
radiant,
sublimation,
military
hyperbole
disappear
to
in the Damon
him (as he was compared,
compares
Jove) to
Story,
Mars,
Hyperion,
nightmare
comparable
and
increasingly
growing
to that into which
wholesome
he
brother,"
on
Claudius,
Mercury.
a "moor"
becomes
the
other
a
becomes
hand,
like the Ghost: he is a "mildewed ear,"
the poison was poured.
"Blasting his
on which
can
Gertrude
"feed
"as
and batten" as she used to do while hanging on her earlier husband
if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on" (1.3.143). Claudius
The old mole
Hamlet
have merged.
and the Ghost/King
(in "whole
some,"
another
of
anagram
"mole"),
or
the
Hamlet,
Ghost/King
has
lost
and become
("blasted") again, while his wife ingests
exploded
fat ("battens"), perhaps pregnant with the new
("feeds") and becomes
to her advanced
heir. Hamlet's
reference
age (3.4.68-70)
may derive
context
but
in
about maternal
it
from filial squeamishness
sexuality,
seems to be also oblique
surmise about her childbearing
with
potential
force,
her
new
sire,
activity
ing metaphors
growth,
about
that
gross
and
detonation,
provokes
his
most
sexuality,
disease:
"rank
horrified
bad
smells,
sweat
of
fantasies,
foul
an
food,
combin
horrid
enseamed
bed"
love"
"Stew'd in corruption"
(3.4.93),
(3.4.92),
"honeying and making
"rank
"ulcerous
in
the
(3.4.149),
(3.4.93),
"nasty sty" (3.4.94),
place"
"infects unseen"
(3.4.150),
(3.4.150),
"mining all within"
corruption"
on the weeds"
(3.1.153). These metaphors
(3.4.151),
"spread compost
are variations of moles,
and fertility driving beyond
full of overgrowth
expansion
and
extension
to
eruption.
Eruption,
Vegetation
the eruptive
force. When
of course, precipitates
The mole/Ghost,
to the guards he feels its power:
Horatio hears of the ghost's appearance
to the state" (1.1.72). Later we feel in
"this bodes some strange eruption
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hamlet's
motes,
mice,
and
moles,
449
malecho
his description
of omens preceding
Caesar's death the same eerie force
when corpses erupt (1.1.117),
and there are "disasters [unstarring]
in
own rousing the heavens
the sun" (1.1.120) ,26Claudius's
till they "bruit
is a
again"
tame
but
echo,
when
encounters
Hamlet
the
at
Ghost
guard post, he feels the irresistible pressure from the underworld:
deeds will rise though all the earth o'erwhelm
them" (1.2.256).
These emanations
receive explicit sexual emphasis
for Ophelia.
are
words
but
Laertes',
is
she
their
crescent"
"nature
object:
the
"Foul
The
(1.3.11),
"the shot and danger of desire" (1.3.35), "calumnious
strokes" (1.3.38),
and "contagious blastments"
(1.3.42) all threaten. Her father speaks of
to Ophelia,
"blazes" (1.3.117).
Such extreme diction attached
echoing
act
the
of
makes
her
1,
unmistakably
eruptions
early
sexuality of distinct
an
interest, while
simultaneously
linking it to the Ghost,
unexpected
scene Hamlet's
contact. In the following
if
Ghost brings
the
wondering
or blasts from hell"
to his
"airs from heaven
contributes
(1.4.40)
which
disorientation,
mounting
threatens
that
to the ghost's
and his reference
(1.4.46),
cerements"
(1.4.47-48)
"horridly shak[ing]
the
reveals
the Ghost
When
thy
of
power
alludes
could
soul,"
the
"make
subterranean
force
to a tale whose
thy
two
and
in
"burst
ignorance"
stars
(1.4.55)
disposition"
its effect
start
their
"burst
having
on
"lightest word would
like
eyes
he
bones
our
from
the
prince.
harrow
their
up
spheres"
and one's hair stand up "like quills upon the fretful porpentine"
the eruptive power of the ghost grows. Its horrid
internal
(1.4.20),
version features the mortal poison erupting on his skin "most lazar like,"
(1.4.15)
cutting
off the king
seem
that
The
strangely
sensual,
"even in the blossoms
and
perfumed
eruptive
of my
continues
phrasing
sin" (1.4.76),
swellings
lustful.
when
Polonius
thinks
of
"the flash and outbreak of a fiery mind"
to
(2.1.33) that he attributes
Laertes. In repressing
the sensual suggestions
of the Ghost and his own
at
revulsion
becomes
out
the
sexual
the Ghost
of hell"
(2.1.82).
union
himself
The
of
his
mother
in Ophelia's
explosion
and
eyes,
reaches
Hamlet
Claudius,
"as if he had been
an
overwhelming
loosed
climax:
"a
. . .did seem
to shatter all his bulk and end his being" (2.1.94-95).
sigh
violent
climactic
diction
used by
Ophelia's
terminology
anticipates
Hamlet
that correlates
and
the
horrid
of
sex, disease,
eruption
squig
gling new creatures, when he speaks to Polonius about the sun breeding
"as
"maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion" (2.2.181-82),
(2.2.185). The aggression
your daughter may conceive"
against Polonius
becomes more personal when Hamlet describes old men's eyes not "like
stars starting from
their spheres,"
but "purging
thick amber
and
that thickens and creates stickiness.
plumtree gum" (2.2.198), a discharge
to "old hams." Hamlet
There
follows reference
is deriding
Polonius,
taunting
him
about
his daughter's
and his
sexuality
in the context
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of
450
NEW
of
the purging
of virile
performance
force
eruptive
orgasmic
literary
history
amber, with
(discharging,
exuding)
that
has
become
foul and
strength
diseased.
The
in
increase
eruptions
with
violence
Hecuba's
"burst
of
clamor"
at Pyrrhus's mutilation
own sexual
of Priam, and with Hamlet's
a
must
"I
like
whore
heart"
(2.2.581).
self-loathing:
unpack my
Ophelia
as "blasted with ecstasy" (3.1.162), and he describes
to
describes Hamlet
Horatio how he will have the "engineer [s] / Hoist on their own petard,"
blown to bits as he delves, like his father the "pioneer," the "old mole,"
(2.2.511)
Rosencrantz
below
eruption
dead,
and
he coldly
(5.1.73-74)
excavated
the
thrust
has
A correlative
into
internal,
of sexual
development
about
metaphors
turned
to vomit:
vegetative
throws
When
growth.
the
one
up
Hamlet
skull
smells Yorick's
rises"
"my gorge
automatic
The
(5.1.181).
reaction.
and death
eruption
Hamlet
an
the moon,"
of act 5, even among
gravedigger
(5.1.95-96).
starts
he
cranium,
eruptive
as
and then another
to
them
"blow
In the graveyard
continues
eruption
to
Guildenstern
controls.
on
early
emerges
reveals
his
in
anxiety
when he bursts forth in act 1 about the "unweeded
to
seed" (1.2.135-36).
Here
there is destruction
that
of
garden"
"grows
and
of
and
Weed
seed.
pattern
beauty through phallic growth
dispersal
(3.2.251),
progresses
through "midnight weeds"
"compost
terminology
on the weeds"
In apparent
and "weedy trophies"
(3.4.153),
(4.7.173).
reflect innocence
and pathetic
the floral blooms of Ophelia
contrast,
about
sexual erection
of
ceremony
garlands,"
/ That
purples
The
even
But
loss.
contain
Ophelia's
with
growths
phallic
liberal
reverberations
shepherds
of
war
death
innate
give a grosser
and
continuum
her
wreaths,
such
force,
name"
of
"fantastic
as
the
"long
(4.7.168-69).
and
eruptions
floral
in the play and attest to a
every male
The
warclad
Ghost
is apprehensible
only
preoccupation
not
to
him
in her chamber),
mind
is
males
(Gertrude's
receptive
by
in the dead of night at the play's
the guards and Horatio
namely
on the ramparts in act 1 and during his fury
Hamlet
both
and
opening,
in act 3. The eruptive charges that pervade
the
in Gertrude's
chamber
outbursts
play
and
in Hamlet
touch
with maleness.
the
sexual
impression
underlying
act 1 place alarmed
vulnerability:
and
bulks";
overtones
they
evoke
reinforce
of raw male energy. Laertes'
on habitual male
emphasis
in blood";
"toy
"soil nor
cautel";
"primy
"doth
nature";
besmirch";
a
words
assault
"nature
"chaste
recurrent
if
to Ophelia
in
and
crescent";
treasure
female
"thews
open";
of desire";
"infants of the spring"; "buttons be
dew
of
youth"; "puffed and reckless libertine."
"liquid
language beginning with his first soliloquy exhibits powerful
unlike Laertes' cautioning
but its tone ismorbid,
erotic suggestiveness,
but vividly sensual terminology. The first two lines, "O that this too, too
"shot
and
danger
disclosed";
Hamlet's
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hamlet's
sullied
(1.2.129)
and
moles,
motes,
mice,
451
malecho
["solid"] flesh should melt / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew"
express a death wish, but the words of this wish?"sullied
a wish
"dew"?intimate
"melt,"
flesh,"
"solid"]
[Quarto:
a retreat
equally
from
harmless, hidden from
sexuality,
not the
to danger. A "dew" is liquid, but it has become
and immune
to the
but
the
wished-for
of
diminishment?virtually
ejaculation
product
male
that his male
the flesh
of annihilation?of
point
in Hamlet
clear
is that
often
pervasive
the mole
male
peculiarly
flow,
itself. What
military
references
pornographic
a normal,
traditional
to male
but especially
seems to lie beyond
flesh become
becomes
expansion,
not
simply
point
increasingly
eruptions,
to maleness
and
as
and sexual potency,
agent of military
aggression
as
a
so strong that it
in
and
of
itself
force
sexuality
even male
to produce
control
and therefore
We
anxiety.
receive
of
glimpses
Hamlet's
to
attitude
such sexuality in his relationship with Ophelia.
The raw sexual currents of the royal court and the verbal network of
to women?to
allusions
literary/historical
Jephthah's
daughter, Dido,
wards
Helen
of
tion. The
Troy,
about
words
wife,
Gonzago's
exact
consummation
Nisa?imply
of the text reinforces
language
something
Lord
"touching"
and
this implication.
Hamlet
and
her
destruc
Ophelia's
to
reference
imply her physical awareness of him. That Hamlet
that
he
in physical disar
appears before her (2.1.77-82)
"importunes,"
own
in
his
about
erotic
and that he
dumbshow
assault),
ray (acting
a "groaning
to
in
her
his
letter
and
tells
her
that
it
would
take
"groans"
to take off my edge" all point to his sexual intensity, as do all of his
Hamlet's
"tenders"
remarks
the
during
"country
accusation
[cunt-ry]
about
to
reference
grimaces
aggression
made
groans
of
his
and
to
by
previous
men
of
during
sexual
ends
his
to the humiliating,
infidelity, but especially
and
make
you
horns
"lie
attractive,"
He
(3.2115).
"monsters
cuckolds'
more
"metal
Mousetrap:
matters"
these
[wise
men]"
suspicion
he
insults,
lap,"
an
a
Gertrude's
rush of bestial
In contrast
here
with
(3.1.139),
about
unpreventable
coitus.
in your
remarks
to
assigns
the male
powerful
to females
but even more
their
through promiscuity
through
males
and
thus
them
into
arousing
turning
ugly, helpless,
copulating
animals, and for laying the "swallowed bait" that leads to the perjured,
murderous,
bloody, savage lust of Sonnet 129. In this context, Hamlet's
of loathing for seductive "paintings" of women derives not so
expression
much from aversion to the artificiality of female coyness as it does to the
agency
use
of
cosmetics
that
automatic
provokes
male
reaction
and
instigates
the bestiality.
in sexuality. His love song to Ophelia
Hamlet
does not take pleasure
no
as a poem, as he
and
is
deficient
("I
expresses
passion
acknowledges
am ill at these numbers"
the play is
[2.2.119]). His language throughout
laden
with
sexual
reference,
but
suggests
no
erotic
emotion,
on
the
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one
452
NEW
hand,
or
sions
of
on
incapacity,
the
other.
he
Rather,
LITERARY
worries
about
HISTORY
the
compul
about
sexual
itself, about what
sexuality,
appetite
triggers
arousal and causes the fierce,
to
irresistible
with.
He
is
surges
begin
worried about the mole within himself. When
the King rises during the
Hamlet
"What, frighted with false fire?" (3.2.260).
Mousetrap,
queries,
False fire is blank discharge
of weapons,
fire without
shot (note to
as
war
The
directed
has lost its
Claudius,
3.2.260).
against
by Hamlet,
seems
to
as
He
think
of
with
almost
himself,
satisfaction,
potency.
of
force.
beyond desire, incapable
driving
Hamlet
knows no sexual bliss. Nor does his father the Ghost, who
refers to his former bed as "celestial" (presumably
erotic
transcending
pleasure),
and
who
who
notices
reveals
no
play?the
guards,
Cornelius,
Osric,
asexual.
"glow worm" with
and
Polonius,
5, Hamlet
of
memory
Rosencrantz
Claudius
Only
act
By
the pale
recent
erotic
discerns
and
"its ineffectual
fire,"
men
Other
joy.
of
Guildenstern,
and
the
and
Voltemand
Fortinbras,
Norway,
finds
sexual
Horatio?seem
delight.
that
accepts
Gertrude's
to
commitment
secret but by
she confirms not by revealing Hamlet's
moments
she
"The
Claudius's
before
dies,
Queen
using
language
carouses to Hamlet"?is
as inevitable as that of the Player Queen
to the
as that of Fortinbras
as
to
his
and
Claudian
conquest,
poisoner
"gifts,"
to
of
that
daughter
virginal dreams of erotic and maternal
Jephthah's
as that of Ophelia
to sucking the honey of Hamlet's
sweet
experience,
Claudius?which
vows,
for
wishing
Hamlet's
"keenness"
is
their
mutual
reactions,
him
think
again
of
Ophelia
sexual
acts
the father
Lucianus
becoming
who will
becoming
Gertrude,
Hamlet
seethes
and
of
and
of
through
cousin
merging,
becoming
force
Hamlet
his mind,
and
devilish
mother
the
get
becoming
everything?mental,
own
his
which,
in
reacts
he
how
and how his father and uncle
merging,
father,
nephew
reminds
from
put
mother's
merging,
becoming
mole
his
in each allusion,
interact,
which
cannot
keenness
The
attraction,
he
which
more
and
information
play never gives definite
matters
because
what
physical relationship
"worse" keenness
(3.2.243).
about Hamlet
and Ophelia's
turn,
sexual
make
and
again
react and how
son,
becoming
they
uncle
the
(4.4.52), Hamlet,
love of the king's wife,
himself
female.27 The
physical,
sexual,
personal.
intimations
of the rampant energies of the vicious mole, of
Hamlet's
the indifferent and implacable
life force, and of the eruptive, disruptive
of
old
the
father
the
realize themselves
mole,
powers
deep in his mind,
as
more
and
his
and more
clearly
powerfully
play of consciousness
and
progresses
he
painfully
revises
his
first
accusatory,
moral,
and
instincts. The mole
does not originate
in
"by chance"
nor
to
is
it
confined
the
"vicious
mole"
men,"
"particular
metaphorically
emotional
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HAMLET'S
or
seems
essentially
to and
force
sheer
and
propels
into
proliferates
that
that
and
mole
sends
women,
above
has
of
even
defies
seminal
rampant
emanations
all mutates
its
male
control,
causes
and
power
vitality
and
that
mutation.
it, is
through which we understand
that developed
within and from the first
"moles" that catapult verbal
force to become
means
the
analogue,
The mobilization
Its closest
that
male,
453
MALECHO
The
manifestations.
"old mole"
the
that
AND
MOLES,
MOTES,
MICE,
language.
words of the play gathers
the play.
charges throughout
Continuation
far can the mole
How
How
can
a
play
force
on
that,
the
go
one
such as a poem?
in a literary artifact
hand,
intimates
the
natural
apprehen
in metaphor,
sion of the infinite28 and proliferates
while, on the other, it
that constrict,
counters
with forces of military expansion
this movement
such a play,
ambitions
that
within
and
with
kill,
personal
along
political
forces play
how can these opposing,
dualistic, mutually
antagonistic
forces of constriction
out? The
themselves
naturally
by definition
to extinction
if heartrending,
solu
the expected,
and death,
diminish
tion to all tragedies. These cancerous, morbid mole forces do not pose
a
artistic
major
for
problem
But
Shakespeare.
mole
creative
forces
do.
such energy go? Does Shakespeare
simply let it die at the
in his artistic consciousness
end of this drama, allowing it to lie dormant
some provocation
to produce
another
until it shoots forth through
Where
poem,
does
the
making
an
concept
allegory
of
his
own
art?
Or
is the mole
to Hamlet}
of this play find the mole, by its
Does the mentality
peculiar
the
definition
within
very
play, incapable of cessation? If the sexual urge,
source
of
the energy of living, expands with insatiable
and
prime
primal
crave
to
and
abhor
death and its shudder of consumma
both
appetite
states
of
of
its
alteration
tion,
being, if this urge leads to death and more
then?
what
death,
Or,
in
terms,
metaphoric
after
the
mole
force
has
an infiltration of all life and even as the mole ghost
spread
a permanent
infiltrates and becomes
part of Hamlet's mind and both
manifest
and rank male
aspects
coiling eruption,
imperial conquest,
of
mechanical
bodies
what
repetition
piled on
beyond
aggression,
does metaphor
itself go? Since it never totally
bodies
is there? Where
and since it is a continual
becomes what it represents
energy of change
can
new
even
it be constrained
and
life, how
by death, and,
imaginative
in a limited
if not constrained,
how does it work, how can Shakespeare
that fulfills and exceeds
space and time find a cessation
tragic conven
to become
tion of death?
Hamlet
considers
the
problem
in two
statements
about
the
imagination.
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454
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
its boundary-passing
activity, which he acknowledges
in my imagination
it is.
he confronts Yorick's skull: "how abhorred
not
at
I
I
know
that
have
it.
Here
those
kissed
rises
My gorge
hung
lips
The forces of sexuality and procreation
how oft" (5.1.181-83).
operate
even in death.
Yorick's
"ab
In Hamlet's
skull becomes
imagination
to
that stinks (5.1.194) and causes him violently
like a whore
horred,"
not
to
He
tremble
from;
horrere,
shudder).29
{ab,
experiences
only
The first tells about
when
as his
convulsion
and
veins
and
the
and
To
of
his
that which
read
actual
here
starts
stomach,
has become
to heave,
but
as of
distended,
interest
sexual
between
as a child and Yorick
Hamlet
death
as his gorge,
rises.
organs,
contents
the
gorge,
also sexual nausea
sex?the
subterranean,
is out of the question.
But the tremors of
forces
that
the vicious mole
instinctive, pervasive
subconscious,
burrowing
mole
activate?trigger
memory
conflicting
simultaneously
images. "Here hung
those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft" joins the indelible image
on his father with
"did hang"
from act 1 of how Gertrude
(1.2.143)
now personal
This
and
of
memories
Yorick's
gentleness.
gibes
playful
in
that
allusions
like
those
the
of
elements,
implied
merging
disparate
is finally put
and mature appetite,
innocence
interrelated both youthful
in Hamlet's
into words
Second,
mole
himself.
by Hamlet
he expresses his realization
that
perceives
traces
and
that the creative
continual
is itself a
process
change:
not
may
"Why,
it stopping a
imagination
its
with
(5.1.196-98).
"ing" signals part of a
"Stopping"
bung-hole?"
not
the arch
of
the
will
that
Alexander,
process
stop. Physically
body
trace
agent
tion,
of
including
filled with
place
imperial
even
dust of Alexander
the noble
conquest,
one
that
recurrent
suffer
may
composes
the
vital spirits. Metaphorically,
as Hamlet
creative mind
speaks,
the
till a find
cork
elemental
that
plugs
imaginatively,
speed
destruction
and
transforma
a wine
casket
takes
this process
associative
power
of
the
and dust without
pause.
fusing imperial
kinds of
different
finds more
than death by presenting
Shakespeare
of
is
the
at
which
end
of
within
the
the play,
death
principle
preserved
these
but
movement.
of multiple
is the mole-product
There
corpses,
bodies present not static rigor mortis but a flow of mortal
activity and
the graveyard,
interaction.
(1) The garden of act 1 has literally become
in the gravedigger's
where a "live" mole
song and inside the grave "Hath
mole joins the
in his clutch"
clawed me
(2) This mole/old
(5.1.71).
little mouse of act 1 as they both become part of a jingle that
antecedent
even today: "the cat will play, the dog will have his day"
endures
at the mercy
of the cat
the mouse
These
activities place
(5.1.287).
the day for the dog;
playing with him, and the mole deliciously makes
sex force of women
both enter the food chain.
has,
(3) The alluring
turned
and
Hamlet's
its
with
from
mother,
Ophelia
continuing
impetus
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HAMLET'S
AND
MOLES,
MOTES,
MICE,
455
MALECHO
as
to a living skull, addressed
the simultaneous
result
"Lady Worm,"
cause
death.
The
and
of
Worm
(4)
(bone)
(worm decomposition)
Lady
has lost her maiden
head, her "mazzard" (head as well as wild sweet
often
cherry,
This
spade.
sexes,
as
used
macabre
stock),
grafting
creature
as
defloration
including
a
struck
roughly
therefore
experiences
and
castration
"Lady"
to actual decapitation.
addition
(5) Hamlet
own
a
midst
of his
revival causing,
bones,
our
of
recollection
Alexander,
mote
the
by
sexton's
of
mergence
as a
both
in
"Worm,"
reconsiders
Yorick in the
with
of
along
thoughts
act
from
figure
1,
"Imperious
and together
of the
Caesar"
(5.1.206),
they regain life in the midst
as
their remains have undergone,
their bodies
dreadful disintegration
alter to the degree that they become us all: they undergo decomposition
in their use as dust to stop the bung hold of a
and shrinkage resulting
that could hold the liquor that any of us might
beer barrel (5.1.198-205)
drink.
death
itself takes place several times. (1) He leaps to his
he enters the grave with Laertes. He would feel then the soil
Hamlet's
death when
around
him
even
as his
own
now
shoes
"Never
(3) Hamlet's
("Must
"If Hamlet
Hamlet";
questions,
I remember?"
from
("Hamlet
.
corpse
so on
the
Laertes?";
[5.2.229-35]).
to speculation
this mean
may
the
as he uses
wronged
."; and
out
opening
"What
on
dance
from himself
himself.
previously
[1.2.143];
or
trample
of Ophelia.
disembodied
(2) He becomes
third person
five times in seven lines
...
and pain
to
our
shake
the reaches of our souls?" [1.4.51
/ With
disposition
thoughts beyond
in act 5 numerous
56]) become
(over fifty), literal, and answerable;
they
are
rhetorical,
satiric.30
conversational,
inquisitive,
[5.1.65-6]
("Has this fellow no feeling for his business?"
),
Feeling
becomes
is
(Laertes's
bombast),
(Osric's
prettified
exaggerated
elegiac
or is turned into murderous
artificial jargon),
indifference
(Claudius's
dies
of
abandonment
from
more
view
not
only
ominously
Hamlet's
Gertrude).
in the
in his
virtual
growing
death:
"How ill all's here
mole's
definitive
likewise
passion
disappearance
awareness
of
of
the
evocative
recedes
almost
allusions
imminence
of
but
passion's
about my heart" (5.2.208) .31
When Hamlet
tells Horatio
the duel scene that "If it be
just before
now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, itwill be now; if it be not now,
he makes his final statement about "it," an
yet itwill come" (5.2.216-18),
neuter
indefinite
force,
pronoun
signifying
unstoppable,
including
not
to
of
set configuration
but
limited
that
of
word's
course,
death,
letters. Hamlet no longer either seeks "it" as he had earlier in his act 3
soliloquy, as a form of serene sleep, nor resists it as a field of menacing
dreams. Rather he accepts
it as part of the mole
continuum
that does
can accept finally but life: the
not stop. It is not death
that Hamlet
actions
of
coexistent
generation/degeneration
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and
456
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
It belongs not only to the past but also to the
degeneration/generation.
future. Like the paradoxes
death
posed by poets such as John Donne,
it
subsumed
life.
Unlike
those
becomes
death
in the
dies;
by
paradoxes,
as
not
life
becomes
Christian
play
through religious ideas (such
redemp
with an amoral, irresist
tion) but through its own inextricable mingling
life force that is presexual,
ible, metamorphic
premilitary,
prereligious,
can follow, equal, and
that
the
of language
and
only
permutations
reproduce.
the conclusion
of the play, as the soldiers of Fortinbras
release
comes full
echoes of guns and peals of ordnance,
the mole metaphor
circle. From the real and potential
assaults in act 1 by both the martial
it has in a flanking movement
Ghost
and the militaristic
Fortinbras,
At
in the military
culminated
instances
progressive
of
of act 5, working
rapprochement
expansion
in narrative,
extension
and
through
dramatic
and turning to the impact of these on Hamlet's
mind,
developments
not only by making
them go further
which creates and alters metaphors
but also by having them sink more and more painfully
into questions
of
his
own
manhood,
circling
around
repeatedly
issues
of
human
male
of sexual
the origin,
examining
impact, and perpetuality
psychology,
in its most widespread
that simultaneously,
and destructive
action,
causes, justifies, and exalts the drama of military action and
application,
that, in its richest and most creative impact, propels the drama of words.
Hamlet
the
does die and the "rest is silence," his life through
and through
his consciousness
words of the play which have comprised
the words
that Horatio will use to tell his story in a perpetual
future
as
itself a subliminal mole,
read
fuses
into
the
becomes
spreading
play
When
seen
play
audience
of
past,
dramatic
present,
enactment
and
to
to
be
part
of
the
psyche
of
every
come.
Union
College
NOTES
18 April
1 Helen
New York Times Magazine,
Vendler's
1999, p. 123. Professor
Vendler,
show "how each verse doth shine" (Herbert)
books, essays, reviews, and lectures on poetry
a theorist,
as would
even as they reflect her power of conceiving,
of lyric
"of the whole
(Wallace
poetry and of telling us about it from the center of [her] immense
perspectives"
Stevens
theorists,
[New York,
1989], p. 286). Her published
describing
Opus Posthumous
and The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge,
work in general
Mass.,
1997) in particular,
and her generous
conversations
classes at Union
lectures, her master
College,
to poetry otherwise
for me ways of responding
quite beyond my hopes.
possible
of words, which not only reflect but also
the stir and mobility
2 Poets have long enjoyed
movement.
of Horace
Catullus
rallies his
(in the translation
actually experience
Gregory)
out
to
all
far
armies
in
time with
"Come
me,
/
my
my poems,
troops:
flung
Marching
to theRenaissance,
eleven bitter syllables"
{Latin Poetry in Verse Translation from the Beginnings
her public
have made
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HAMLET'S
MICE,
MOTES,
MOLES,
AND
MALECHO
457
ed. L. R. Lind
[Boston,
1957], p. 36). For Drayton,
"My verse is the true image of my
still desiring
/ Ever in motion,
mind,
{Idea: In Sixty-Three Sonnets, lines 9-10 in The
change:"
Renaissance
in England,
ed. Hyder
Rollins
and Herschel
Baker
[Boston,
1954], p. 427).
Seamus Heaney
lick around
that "my words
knows
/ cobbled
[and] go hunting"
quays
Trial Pieces,"
Selected Poems, 1966-1987
6, from North in Seamus Heaney:
("Visiting Dublin:
in the shadows,
[New York, 1990], p. 74). For Octavio
Paz, "Words glitter
/ and the black
tide of syllables / covers the page, sinking / its ink roots / in the subsoil of
("A
language"
Draft of Shadows,"
in Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987,
ed. and tr. Eliot Weinberger
[New York,
1987], p. 433).
3 Wallace
in On Extended Wings: Wallace Stevens' Longer Poems
Stevens,
by Vendler
quoted
(Cambridge,
4 Wallace
5
6
Vendler,
As Helen
ground
of
Mass.,
Stevens,
Wallace
1969), p. 1.
The Practical
(New York,
1983), p. 9.
Imagination
Chosen Out of Desire (Knoxville,
1984), p. 54.
of poetry must
lie
"[I]n the perpetual
explains,
self-halting
a form of
It insists on a spooling,
attraction.
repetition,
Stevens: Words
Vendler
its peculiar
of a groove,
the
the
the returning
all
traced. Lyric poetry?for
upon an orbit already
reinscribing
its plot, its logic, its conclusions?is
unlinear."
"Introduction:
profoundly
Contemporary
American
Book of Contemporary American Poetry, ed. Helen
The Harvard
Vendler
Poetry,"
Mass.,
1985), p. 2.
(Cambridge,
7 Milton
Crane,
Shakespeare's Prose (Chicago,
8 G. Blakemore
Evans,
Text,"
"Shakespeare's
I, pp. 198-99.
1963), Appendix
The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed.
(Boston,
1997), p. 56.
9 W. W. Greg, A Bibliography
to theRestoration,
vol. 1 (London,
of theEnglish Printed Drama
from 1564 (beginning
with no. 38) to 1616 (no. 349) are on pages
1939). Entries
114-92;
from 1590 (no. 93) through
1600 (no. 175) are on pages
170-282.
10
Michelle
P. Brown,
A Guide
toWestern Historical
Scripts from Antiquity
to 1600
(Toronto,
1990), p. 3.
11 R. W. Dent
Neville
in 1964 of the "old mole" with
identification
questions
Coghill's
the subsequent
of this reading
Prosser
(1967) and
acceptance
by Eleanor
defends
the
128-29. Battenhouse
(1969) in Notes and Queries, 215 (1970),
Roy Battenhouse
"old mole/devil"
145-46. Richard Mallette's
article,
reading, Notes and Queries, 216 (1971),
the devil
and
"From Gyves to Graces:
on
comments
(1994),
Hamlet
and Free Will,"
Journal of English and Germanic Philosophy, 93
as indication
that Hamlet's
(1.4.23-38)
passage
is "severely dichotomized"
between
"a human
for sin" and "elements
thought
propensity
for humanity
that argue for essential
are
to the mole
freedom"
references
(346). Other
on Hamlet
s
in Barbara Rogers-Gardner
passing. The opening
chapter
Jung and Shakespeare
the "vicious mole"
treats Jungian
111., 1992) vividly
(Wilmette,
in Hamlet
nature"
himself
that deterministically
conflict,
drew
mentioning
him to death
the
"vicious
because
death grip" (38).
"grow up and split with the parental
De Grazia,
12 Margreta
and the 'Old Mole,'"
"Theology,
Delay,
Shakespeare
offer special thanks to liana Eck, a delightful
and invaluable
(1999), 251-67.1
mole
of
he could
not
Quarterly, 50
student and
assistant at Union
for finding
and making
for me Professor
available
De
College,
I use in this paper.
essay as well as scores of others, many of which
13 See Peter Stallybrass,
"'Well Grubbed
Old Mole': Marx, Hamlet
and the (Un)Fixing
of Representation,"
Cultural Studies, 12 (1998), 3-14. Cited by De Grazia,
"Theology,
Delay,
research
Grazia's
and
the
14
De
15
De Grazia,
Kamuf
'Old Mole,"'
252, fn. 9.
fn. 71, 72, 76, and 84; in her discussion
of Jacques
Grazia,
Lacan,
"Theology,"
"Desire and the Interpretations
tr. James Hulbert
of Desire
in Hamlet,"
in Literature and
ed. Shoshana
Felman
(Baltimore,
1982), pp. 11-52.
Psychoanalysis,
tr. Peggy
"Theology,"
(New York,
fn.
102,
in her discussion
of Jacques
Derrida,
Specters ofMarx,
1994).
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NEW
458
LITERARY
HISTORY
16 William
ed. Harold
Hamlet, Arden
Edition,
1995); all
(London,
Jenkins
Shakespeare,
to Hamlet
in this essay are from this edition
of the play; hereafter
cited in text
scene, and line number(s).
references
by act,
"Mole"
17
denotes
a small
cakes
strewn
on victims
1600)
on human
growth
at sacrifices as well
skin or
stain on
as false abortive
in the allusion
that surface
later in the play, especially
meanings
a blind mammal
to come
The "old mole"
denotes
who
(1.5.170)
and eats insects and worms.
cloth.
It also means
(by
in the womb,
conception
to Jephthah's
daughter.
burrows under
the earth
crux in
choice
for "eale," the most
famous
Jenkins's
Shakespeare.
Mole
1.3.11-16,
1.3.37-38,
1.4.19-22,
continuously:
metaphors
spread
1.4.90,
1.5.36-38,
2.1.40-41,
2.1.94-96,
2.2.181-82,
2.2.348-49,
1.5.62-73,
18
19
3.1.166-69,
3.2.251-54,
4.1.21-23,
20 There
4.1.40-43,
are many
3.2.380-81,
4.3.69,
3.3.2,
3.3.36-38,
3.4.64-65,
4.4.27-29,
4.7.113-14,
4.7.122,
"two" and
(1) the words
1.4.52-54,
3.1.161-62,
3.4.147-50.
3.4.89-90,
4.7.139-43,
"twice": 51
5.2.69.
5
times; "double":
examples:
"two
"either,"
times; "both" and "second": 3 times; "twain," "pair," "two-fold,"
"couplets,"
at least 1 time each.
thousand,"
(2) repetitions
("all in all," "abord
"twenty thousand":
shadow," "hille, ho, ho; hille, ho, ho," "to be or not to be," "ear and ear,"
abord," "shadow's
of siblings,
of nephews,
of pictures;
of rank,
etc.)
(3) pairs of characters,
parallels
status.
and
dualisms
of every
deed,
(4) abstract
etc. (5) issues of sexual coupling
that affect almost
philosophical,
and Hamlet," PMLA, 96 (1981),
T. Wright,
21 George
"Hendiadys
to this article.
in text as H. Professor
Vendler
drew my attention
motivation,
sort?religious,
moral,
everyone.
168-93;
hereafter
cited
I: "my watch,"
Act
"warlike form,"
"honest
"assail," "fortified,"
"armour,"
soldier,"
of war," "combat,"
"martial stalk," "brazen cannon,"
"combatted,"
"smote,"
"implements
it with my partisan,"
"warlike
state," "unfortified,"
jointress,"
"slay," "strike
"imperial
"solemn march,"
"armed at point,"
"truncheon's
"cannon,"
length," "armed," "beaver up,"
"entreatments."
"in arms," "shot and danger,"
"pales and forts," "watchman,"
22
23
Eric
as evidence
that Hamlet
is
reads
this statement
like many
critics,
a purpose
him to achieve
himself
authentic
[that] enables
beyond
through
in the nutshell
of the first-person
His sense of identity is no longer bounded
not the Inward Man': The Problematics
of Personal
("'Nor th' Exterior
Identity
P. Levy,
"identifying
self-assurance.
paradigm"
in Hamlet,"
life
University of Toronto Quarterly, 68 [1999], 724). To the contrary, Hamlet's
of the play, has experienced
the single lyric consciousness
range until
dynamic
language,
as he does here,
to irresistible
It is at this point
that his
forces.
he succumbs,
war/regal
as it does
in act 5, his language
becomes
bounded
when,
increasingly
identity becomes
royal, deterministic.
public,
"I did enact Julius Caesar"
(3.2.102).
tr. C. Day Lewis
TheAeneid,
(New York,
1952), p. 49.
Virgil,
of the
tells of was,
in fact, the explosion
tell us that the star Bernard
26 Astronomers
"The Stars of Hamlet,"
Don Olson, Marilynn
See R. L. Doescher,
nova, Cassiopeia.
Olson,
Sky and Telescope, 96 (1998), 68.
24
25
27
"Unpregnant
of my cause" (2.2.563),
"like a whore unpack
lungs" (2.2.569-79),
See 1.4.34; 2.2.255;
28
me the lie in the throat / As
as to the
deep
"gives
a
"like
drab"
heart"
(2.2.582).
(2.2.581),
very
my
5.1.179.
2.2.304;
"Hamlet's
Ear," Shakespeare Survey,
Berry,
Phillipa
Hamlet.
"The chief
of sound puns throughout
elasticity
. . .but in his
not in his semantic
puns
richly suggestive
29
between
[such as "abh?re,"
F. Otten
("Hamlet and
words
Charlotte
[1994],
graveyard
40)
confirms
to Leminius's
"whore"]
the Secret
association
the grave/sex/stink
description
in order
Miracles
of
the effects
501
reveals
(1997),
interest of Hamlet's
the enormous
lies
quibbling
of homophonic
resemblances
to expand
their significance"
(57).
use
of Nature,"
Notes
she compares
when
of venereal
and Queries, 239
the stench of the
disease.
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HAMLET'S
30
138,
MICE,
MOTES,
See 5.1. 66, 79, 85, 96, 98,
141,
145,
148,
151,
153,
AND
MOLES,
101,
155,
103-6,
158,
163,
MALECHO
106-8,
170,
459
108-10,
176,
191,
112,
185,
196-98,
186,
201,
115-16,
248-50;
126, 130,
5.2.
2, 27,
82, 122, 122-23,
127, 141, 151, 161, 167, 219, 229, 233, 262, 288, 314.
of lyric consciousness
in Shakespeare's
As
poetry
speak from emotion.
it in writing
of Sonnet
there is no eventual
97, "for the mind
point of rest,
37, 63-68,
68-70,
31 The bearers
Vendler
puts
are
since mental
in continual
corrective
of
frames, driven by feeling,
engaged
replacement
each other"
has ceased to make
such corrective
Sonnets,
(Art of Shakespeare's
p. 417). Hamlet
can
us that Hamlet
is losing his capacity for
the surest mark Shakespeare
replacement,
give
life.
and thus for his own poetic
feeling
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