| Mousetrap in Hamlet |
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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0136 Friday, 26 March 2010
[1] From: Conrad Cook <
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[2] From: Nicholas Clary <
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[3] From: John Cox <
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[4] From: Hardy M. Cook <
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[1]----------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Waugaman < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > wrote:
>Stuart Gillespie wrote that Shakespeare may have borrowed Well, I got in trouble the last time I broached this subject. But look: It doesn't put Hamlet in the role of God at all, as he does not knowingly send his only begotten son to get slaughtered. The _Mousetrap_ is indeed a trap, but it snaps closed on the wrong person -- Polonius. "What ho, a rat!" Polonius is hiding in the skirts, err tapestries of Gertrude when Hamlet penetrates them with his rapier. Hamlet ends that scene by admonishing Gertrude not to allow Claudius to paddle her neck with his damned fingers, and calling her his MOUSE... Right. Mouse-trap. Snaps closed on Polonius. Polonius is Christ. One of them; there are three. He's the old one. He's the one who Mankind, Hamlet, slaughters, thinking he's got the snake Claudius. Polonius played Julius Caesar in the capital. Brutus killed him. Different play, same script. Polonius tells Gertrude, "I pray you, be ROUND with him." The scene is about rebirth. In this crazy-insightful retelling of the Christian story, mankind is reborn into sin by perpetrating the crucifixion. That sin won't be washed clean until he trades forgiveness with Laertes, the young Christ, in the typologically inverted image of Pauline doctrine. And where does Polonius end up? At supper. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. And that's explained to Claudius in a short passage about fish and kings that you might want to re-read if you're interested in theological readings of _Hamlet_. Claudius hears the news with horror, of course. I mean, it's real clear. People don't see it because they don't want to see it, in my opinion. Conrad.
[2]------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, others have seen the connection between the "Mousetrap" play in Hamlet at St. Augustine's trope in Sermon 130. I cite separate studies by Roy Battenhouse (1969), Herb Coursen (1969), and John Doebler (1972) in my own essay on the play scene: "'The very cunning of the scene': Hamlet's Divination and the King's Occulted Guilt," Hamlet Studies, 18:1 (1996): 7-28.
Cheers,
[3]------------------------------------------------------------- The lines of inquiry that Richard Waugaman mentions were pursued in 1969 by Roy Battenhouse, in Shakespearean Tragedy: Its Art and Christian Premises.
Best,
[4]------------------------------------------------------------- I recently saw the video of the Tennant/Stewart Hamlet that I had seen in Stratford two summers ago. The video confirmed my memory of the Mousetrap staging. If I were ever to have gotten the chance to direct _Hamlet_, I would have directed the Mousetrap play within the play as it was done in this production. Patrick Stewart's Claudius does not emotionally lose it as it were, maintaining the character's position of being a worthy antagonist to the Hamlet character, who has been called the most intelligent character ever created for the stage. I don't have time now but I will take screen captures from the video and put them into a PowerPoint presentation in which I will explain my ideas about the staging of the Mousetrap. More to come.
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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.
_______________________________________________________________ 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.
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