Hamlet:
Getting Inside the Between:
Interiority
Picking up where we left off:
Why all the apparent emphases on transitions in
Hamlet?
• Hamlet within literary history:
– Birth of modern psychological realism in
drama
• Hamlet within Shakespeare's literary career:
– Written around 1600 (First, "bad " quarto,
1603 - Second, "good" quarto, 1604)
– "Early" vs. "Late" Shakespeare?
• Cusp between the 16th and 17th centuries.
– Succession issue a persistent cause of
anxiety.
#1: The Birth of Interiority:
Hamlet as a transition toward a modern notion of
consciousness or subjectivity as interiority.
• From the very opening, Hamlet stands apart as
spokesman for an authentic individual identity
constituted out of continuity and differentiation or
hiddenness: FILM CLIP OF HAMLET'S FIRST
APPEARANCE (OLIVIER) – 8 1/2 mins.
• Hamlet rejects identity as something that is exterior,
like clothes, that can be put on and taken off:
Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not "seems."
. . . I have that within which passes show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
(1.2.76, 85-86)
• Hamlet proposes identity as unique, as continuous,
and as interior.
Individuality, Continuity, and the Specter
of Suicide:
The repeated word in Hamlet's initial
exchange with Gertrude and Claudius is
"common."
• if Hamlet agrees that death is common, he
denies his own individual identity.
• Hamlet thus must hold on to the memory
of his father in the past in order to maintain
his own sense of individual identity in the
present.
Hamlet's First Soliloquy
pp.14-15; 1.2.129-159
Hamlet’s lament that his mother has failed
properly to remember the past--his dead
father--necessarily takes the form of an
urge to terminate his self in the present.
But there is an editoral dispute over this
first soliloquy:
•
•
Quarto 2 (1604) reads “O that this too too
sallied [sullied] flesh would melt / Thaw,
and resolve itself into a dew.”
The Folio (1623) reads “O that this too
too solid flesh would melt / Thaw, and
resolve itself into a dew.”
Which do you think is the best editorial
choice?
A) “sallied”? or
B) “solid”?
The Ghost of a Self:
Hamlet's second long soliloquy:
The idea of remembering his idealized
father resurfaces in response to the
ghost's commandment for revenge:
p. 31; 1.5.92-112
• FILM CLIP Of OLIVIER'S RESPONSE
(3 mins.)
Hamlet's Second Soliloquy,
p. 31; 1.5.92-112:
The ghost’s parting line before Hamlet’s
soliloquy is:
“Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.”
Could someone come up and write out on
the board a possible rendering/meaning of
the three repeated words that begin this
line?
If Hamlet wipes out the “tables” of his past,
what is he wiping out?
A)
B)
C)
D)
E)
His Danish history
His humanist education at Wittenberg
His diaries about himself
His reliance upon food
His mathematical calculations
Hamlet's Second Soliloquy, In Sum:
• Here, Hamlet’s past ideal rushes into his present
and defines his future for him.
• But the irony is that the ghost's demand for
revenge itself requires a kind of suicide.
• Hamlet must collapse his identity into the
standard mold of the revenge hero: a figure that
is absolute and extreme and everything opposed
to a Christian courtier (molded by his humanist
education at Wittenberg)
– see Ur-Hamlet (1580s) source for the play,
probably by Thomas Kyd, author of the
popular revenge tragedy, The Spanish
Tragedy (c. 1587)
Hamlet’s Age
Hamlet, in response to the ghost’s
commandment, says “my sinews, grow
not instant old.”
How old is Hamlet?
A) 18-21
B) 25
C) 30
D) 35
E) We don’t know for sure
More Delaying, and Delaying, and
Delaying
• Hamlet does not immediately erase his
youthful self, grow instant old, and carry
out his revenge in remembrance of his
father; he delays.
• and in Act 3, scene 1, the idea of suicide
resurfaces in his famous "To be or not to
be" soliloquy.
The View from Inside: The (K)not of Being
(pp. 63-64; 3.1.56-89)
This speech "To be or to be" is itself a delaying
speech.
Two Versions:
1a and 1b) FILM CLIP from ETHAN HAWKE
PRODUCTION (set in year 2000 New York) – 4 mins.
2) FILM CLIP from KENNETH BRANAGH PRODUCTION
(set in a 19th century world) – 5 mins.
Which did you like best?
A) Hawke
B) Branagh
Which of the following words in ll. 56-68 of
this speech do not connote the idea of both
being and not being?
A) “suffer / The slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune”
B) “end”
C) “consummation”
D) “sleep”
E) “shuffled off this mortal coil”
Hamlet’s Conclusion
"Thus conscience does make cowards of
us all."
What does “conscience” here mean?
A) Consciousness or thinking
B) Wakefulness
C) Moral awareness
D) A and B
E) A and C
The Problem
• The problem is that for Hamlet acting
responsibly involves sorting out both sides
of his inner being--the avenger and the
humanist--yet the very process of sorting
them out mixes them.
• That is the very problematic K(not) of his
inner Being