Religious Themes in Hamlet - Blog Entries

27/10/09
On holidays at last, and I get to catch up on Hamlet. Act I Scene iii features the departure of Laertes for France. He warns his sister Ophelia to mind her honour with Hamlet, but she's a sharp one, reminding him to practice what he preaches, giving Shakespeare a chance to get in a dig at hypocritical clergy who don't follow their own teaching. Ah the timelessness of it!
" ... But, good my brother
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads"
I have found that saying farewell to family members going on long journeys is a special but sometimes painful experience. Laertes recognises how much of a blessing it can be, especially as he gets a chance for a second farewell:
"A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave".

18/10/09
Finally I get to Hamlet. As I'm doing this with a 5th Year English I thought I'd reflect on the religious references that abound in the play. When he sees a ghost (Hamlet's father) in Act I Scene i Horatio, Hamlet's friend, on seeing a ghost declares "Before my God, I might not this believe /Without the sensible and true avouch /Of mine own eyes." - this reminded me of the apostle Thomas not believing in Christ's resurrection until he could feel the wounds. The ghost disappears when the cock grows for dawn leading Marcellus to say that there's a legend that approaching Christmas the cock crows all night long so that ghosts can't appear at all, even at night: "Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes/Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, /The bird of dawning singeth all night long; /And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad". In Scene ii Hamlet is heartbroken that his father is dead and his mother remarried to his uncle Claudius. He won't however commit suicide as it's against God's law: "O … that the Everlasting had not fix'd /His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!" Needless to say Hamlet is shocked to hear that his father's ghost is appearing, and reckons it's a sign that evil has been afoot, but will be revealed: "Foul deeds will rise, /Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes". To be continued ....