The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1811 Tuesday, 1 November 2005
[1] From: David Bishop <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Monday, 24 Oct 2005 19:40:03 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[2] From: Joseph Egert <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2005 20:10:05 +0000
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[3] From: David Basch <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 2005 19:37:48 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[4] From: Bill Arnold <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:48:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Monday, 24 Oct 2005 19:40:03 -0700
Subject: 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
I find it hard to avoid feeling that Hamlet has achieved a kind of
justice at the end of the play-and also, apparently unlike John-Paul
Spiro, feeling that that's good. Not justice in exactly our legal sense,
because the king in this monarchy has a special relationship to the law.
Claudius isn't tried and convicted in a court. That's one big problem
with monarchy, and a problem for Hamlet as well as for the play: what do
you do with a bad king?
Shakespeare seems to be operating under the assumptions that 1) it's bad
if the king is a tyrant, and good if tyrants are removed, and murder
punished; and 2) killing a king is a dangerous act, for the killer and
for the body politic, and should be publicly justifiable. Claudius
should be killed because he's a murderer and a tyrant, but only if his
murder and tyranny can be proved. They are proved by 1) the commission
suborning Hamlet's death; 2) the dying testimony of Laertes; and 3)
Hamlet' death. The murder that's proved, I would reply to Don Bloom, is
Hamlet's. It is for this murder that Claudius is, arguably, justly
served. If his death can also be taken as retribution for his brother's
murder, this element all but vanishes at the end. Shakespeare gets from
revenge to justice by, among other things, substituting Hamlet's murder
for his father's as the relevant crime, thus providing a publicly
justifiable reason for killing the king.
Is this end, as Ed Taft asks, the will of God? That seems to me too
vague a concept to be very useful-like "Renaissance humanism". One
aspect of God's will is clear: the Christian God opposes personal
revenge. But this, though an essential point about what's going on in
the play, and in Hamlet himself, is only a negative rule: a prohibition.
As for the positive outcome, if God wants what is right, then as far as
this outcome is right, or the rightest possible under the circumstances,
maybe it's the will of God--but who knows that save heaven? Hamlet
defers to special providence, and we may find the end providential. But
I think that depends first of all on what we decide about justice.
As a private person, Hamlet would, from his father's point of view, have
a duty to take revenge, and simultaneously, from a Christian point of
view, a duty not to take revenge. But as the Prince of Denmark Hamlet
also has a special duty to the state. He doesn't even like Claudius's
drinking, because it soils Denmark's reputation. How much less would he
like it known that a murderer sits on the throne? If he simply took his
private revenge he would have to, as Laertes puts it, "dare damnation."
But as a responsible prince he has, besides carving for himself, to
consider the sanity and health of the whole state. I don't think this
public role can be subsumed, as Joe Egert suggests, under his role as
son and as Christian, though they impinge on one another. The king is
the earthly representative of God, authorized to punish crimes as
private persons are not. Hamlet symbolically takes on this public role:
"This is I, Hamlet the Dane." There's no official coronation, as there's
no official trial. But with a little bending, Shakespeare fits the
requirements of justice into place.
Best wishes,
David Bishop
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2005 20:10:05 +0000
Subject: 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
(Hardy has pounced again. My post's last paragraph should read "online
tome" instead of "onlline to me.")
[Editor's Note: I don't remember doing this. Perhaps sinister forces are
at work.]
The clash of spirits inside HAMLET is crystallized in the sword oath
forcing silence on those witnessing, or "testi-fying" to, the Ghost's
existence. Others have noted the sword hilt's icon as cross. Yet far
older is the sword's emblem as testicled phallus-- in Christian terms,
the willful member of sin, recalling thigh oaths of old. In one striking
tableau the three are merged: Behold the Cross restraining Sword and Sin!
Or, does Shakespeare see the Cross masking the other two? Behind their
"seal'd compact", behind their Holy Cross, Kings Hamlet and Fortinbras,
Catholics and Protestants, sword in hand, rend and slaughter each other
like demon Tygers burning in the night.
Hallow's Eve "blessings" to all!
Joe Egert
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Basch <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 2005 19:37:48 -0400
Subject: 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Some on the list have trouble with the distinction between justice and
vengeance in Hamlet and the relation to political factors. Let me try to
clarify this.
The Bible recognizes the fact in biblical times that persons will
attempt to avenge the killing of a family member, even though
accidental. To curb the latter practice, the biblical law provided
"cities of refuge" for accidental killers to flee to for safety. But if
the killer were guilty of murder, the "cities of refuge" would not avail
him. Not only was the deliberate killer subject to capture and execution
by minions of the law but he also was subject to more likely being
killed by members of the victim's family. In such a case, the family
would not be liable for murder in carrying out its vengeance, which
would have been an act of justice. Hence, justice and vengeance can
very well coincide at times.
Applying this to Hamlet, it is Laertes who fits the description of the
"avenger of blood," the practice seeming to have survived in
Shakespeare's Denmark. Laertes is an example of the pure avenger that
wants revenge and cares not for the why and how of the killing of his
father Polonius. Hamlet tries to placate him, telling him that the
killing was a product of Hamlet's madness, and asks for pardon as
Laertes is a "gentleman," but does not succeed in placating the fixed
attitude of this avenger.
The situation of Laertes is different from Hamlet, who finds out from
the ghost that Claudius murdered his father. Hamlet is a good, moral man
and will not sweep to vengeance just to fulfill a meaningless and unjust
tradition of vengeance even when this would accrue to his own benefit in
gaining the throne. He is the kind of moral person who wants to know for
sure how the killing happened and whether deliberate murder was involved
before acting. Therefore, though he had suspected this same thing from
the start, he seeks earthly proof of the king's guilt and will not trust
to a ghost that could be leading him to damnation.
Hamlet proves to his own satisfaction (but apparently not to the
satisfaction of many learned commentators on the play) that Claudius had
murdered his father, having observed the king's guilty reaction to a
play reenacting the crime and even checking his reaction with that of
Horatio. The two would have brought a persuasive case if Hamlet, the
then heir apparent to the throne, were brought before a tribunal in the
setting of a public that adores Hamlet and believes in him. Hence Hamlet
feels strongly in the right and entitled to act against Claudius as
agent of justice and as avenger, combining both roles. David Bishop
seems to want to consider this situation within the modern context of a
U.S. court trial with all the legal safeguards of our time instead of
the period of the play in which strong feelings of justice and
reasonable evidence suffice for action.
As it happens to Hamlet in the play, his own scrupulous righteousness,
his over righteousness, trips him up. Finding Claudius at prayer,
thinking him penitent about his crime, Hamlet delays action. So powerful
a factor is Hamlet's over righteousness that he throws all caution to
the wind, determined to catch the king in an unworthy act that has "no
relish of salvation" to it in order to achieve perfect justice, an exact
measure for measure: since Claudius had murdered Hamlet's father before
his father had had a chance to repent his evil deeds, so would Hamlet
dispatch Claudius in a likewise condition in a perfect act of justice
and vengeance.
As we know, Hamlet is foiled when, thinking Claudius is spying on his
conversation with his mother that reveals Hamlet's dangerous thinking,
Hamlet is forced to strike, only to discover that it is Polonius behind
the arras. (Hamlet's interpretation of the event is that Heaven had
designed events to make him, in effect, its "scourge and minister" in
killing Polonius, a man that had probably participated in numerous
political crimes that Heaven had now seen fit to punish, with Hamlet
used here as the unwitting agent. The context in the play that Hamlet
assumes is that the eye of Heaven overlooks human events and brings evil
to justice directly or indirectly through seeming accidents.)
With Hamlet's violent intentions now exposed, this made it necessary for
him to pose as a madman to escape the king's punishment and to await a
new opportunity to bring the king to justice. This opportunity is thrust
upon him in the last act when he finds that he has fallen into
Claudius's trap that had also ensnared the queen. The dying Laertes
reveals this plot to all assembled. Too late to save himself, Hamlet
then acts as an agent of justice, Claudius getting his overdue death
sentence.
Notice, Hamlet's last request to Horatio is that Horatio live to tell
Hamlet's story, namely, the disclosure of Claudius's murder of his
father and Hamlet's own characterlogical failures that brought him to
ruin, confirming Ecclesiastes' warnings against "over righteousness" and
being "wise over much" as sure recipes for self-destruction.
The play also confirms Ecclesiastes' insight about chance that speaks
against the wisdom of being "overly wise," the thinking that one can be
clever enough to call the shots on future happenings with 20/20
accuracy. Truly, as Ecclesiastes 9:11 observes, "the race is not to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither ... to men of
understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance
happeneth to them all." Hamlet surely had not counted on the
interference of busy body Polonius nor that avenger Laertes would not be
appeased. He also misreads the meaning of chance that had just recently
favored him as infallibly pointing to Divine predestination without the
need that he take initiative and due caution in confronting his
circumstance to his best advantage. He ignores the humble Horatio's wise
counsel to avoid the duel with Laertes ("the wisdom of the poor is
despised, his words are not heard") and he steps into the king's trap,
learning his lessons the hard way.
That Hamlet is headed for defeat is telegraphed at the midpoint of the
play in the incident in which he looks up at the clouds with Polonius.
As Ecclesiastes notes (11:4), "he that regardeth the clouds shall not
reap." Indeed, Hamlet regards the clouds and does not reap.
The clues provided by the scores of parallels to Ecclesiastes throughout
the play are so apparent and clear that I remain baffled as to how this
factor continues to be overlooked by commentators as a source for the
play and its message, explanatory of the nature of the tragic elements
in the play. Obviously, this insight runs counter to cherished theories
and beliefs about the poet and his play, making this insight anathema,
to be rejected out of hand and the obvious observable parallels noted
(with many more not mentioned) to be not seen. Perhaps some on the list
will be good enough to explain why this is overlooked.
David Basch
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bill Arnold <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:48:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1799 Hamlet: Revenge or Justice?
John-Paul Spiro writes, "Hamlet does eventually accept that he's gotta
do what he's gotta do, and his acceptance of his fate is also, as David
Bishop implies, done in a state of possible madness. In a sense, he
stops caring about whether or not the act is just or beneficial, and he
just does it because it has to be done. There are parallels to this
kind of thinking in Ecclesiastes, but I don't think Ecclesiastes
suggests that one should not be concerned with justice."
When I started this thread, I invoked the western literature masterpiece
on justice: Plato's Republic. So, I ask again: aside from the dig into
the concept of madness, which is one writer's opinion about the matter,
are the *acts* and *thoughts* of Hamlet taken in toto the acts and
thoughts of revenge or justice?
Edmund Taft writes, "In fact, the turning point of the play seems to be
the stabbing of Polonius, which occurs spontaneously, under high emotion
and extreme stress, and which seems to be an act of pure aggression."
Have we forgotten *where* in the world the act of the killing of
Polonius took place and under *what* circumstances and *when* in the
play? Is not the concept of *a man's home is his castle" apllicable
here in terms of concepts of justice? Are they the *acts* and
*thoughts* of revenge or justice?
Bill Arnold
http://www.cwru.edu/affil/edis/scholars/arnold.htm
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.
|
