That's another great moment of tortured oratory by Hamlet, bleachededen. I had forgotten about that one. Now, the dangerous question: do you think the genders pretty much split when it comes to this play? It's far from a scientific sample, but I have never heard a woman say she likes this play, as in "a lot." Whereas I and other males are likely to say this is perhaps the most powerful of Shakespeare's plays. Could it be that, since Oedipal feelings are said to underlie it, naturally it makes a deeper impression on men? Or is it that vengeance and retribution are not such a great hang-up for women? Please excuse the clumsy stereotyping.

I can't say anything about the sex-split on Hamlet, but I don't recall getting Oedipal from Hamlet. Do you think you could supplement that with s few lines? This topic is often discussed, but I’ve yet to read or watch Hamlet and think “Oedipus.” I’m genuinely interested. :]

The Oedipal idea seems to stem from how upset Hamlet seems to be at how quickly his mother remarried, and many people like to read into it that Hamlet has this anger toward his mother because he has some sort of desire for her, and since his father is dead, and he would have naturally become king had his uncle not married the queen, there seems to be a sense among scholars that he wanted that position not only to be rightful king, but to either have his mother as queen or at the very least and most modest read, to keep her chaste and not marry anyone after his father's death. I honestly think that this Freudian interpretation of the text is imposed upon the play and not necessarily apparent in and of itself. Of course Shakespeare would have known Oedipus Rex, as it was and is one of the most famous of all the Greek plays, and Shakespeare very much drew from their techniques, but I don't think he wrote Hamlet with the Freudian Oedipal complex on purpose. It may have been in the back of his mind, as Freud says it always is, but I don't think it is is as obvious in the text if one comes to it without that idea in mind. As you said of Don Quixote, DWill, I think that reading Hamlet as an example of the Oedipal complex is adding a modern psychological viewpoint that is not plainly seen in the text on its own. I could certainly be proven wrong about this, but that is how I feel about the play. I have read and seen Oedipus Rex performed many times and performed in it myself in a very avant garde performance of it in college where the "chorus" was literally a chorus and sang their lines instead of speaking them, and every time I read it, I cringe at the irony and at Oedipus' pride, Jocasta's desperate attempt to keep Oedipus from knowing the truth, once she realizes it, and the shame and agony that follow Oedipus into the ending, and even further into Antigone, which is about his daughters. I cannot bear the irony in that play, but in Hamlet, although I wish everyone didn't die, I do not cringe as much or feel the same shame and disgust as I do when reading Oedipus.

While I do feel the sexist split that I mentioned in an earlier post, I am at least one woman who can say that she loves Hamlet, and really mean loves. But then you may have to make the argument that I am not a typical "woman," and I do understand the need for vengeance and retribution, and would have it on some people who have wronged me if it weren't against the law. When I say I am not a typical woman, I should explain a bit, I suppose: I hate what they call "chick flicks," with the exception of a few that may have an actress or writer I really like or just a general fondness to because I grew up with it or something, and would much rather watch a sci-fi or a horror film than a romantic comedy, and absolutely hate mushy love stories and sex scenes (but that's a different issue ), I don't get my nails done and am terrible at painting them, I hate chick lit, I never know what's in style at the time but follow my own thing and am known to wear men's clothing if they fit my style for that day, and I absolutely hate gossip and prefer to go to the restroom alone, and feel awkward whenever girl friends ask me to go with them. I speak my mind and don't just agree with whatever guys say, and although my parents say I did once when I was very young, I never play dumb just to get in good graces with a guy I like or have liked, or pretend to share interests with someone just because I liked them. There's more I could explain, but I'll get back to Shakespeare.

So now that you know what defines an a-typical girl like me, I don't feel Shakespeare being sexist in Hamlet because Hamlet isn't really about women or even man's relationships with women, it's about Hamlet and his revenge on Claudius, and to some extent Gertrude, because, let's face it, if my dad were to die (god or whatever forbid) and my mother married his brother (or even anyone else at all) within a month of his death, I'd be pretty pissed at her, too, and would say meaner things than Hamlet does in the "Thou hast thy father much offended" scene. It may be for this reason that I don't see the Oedipal complex as strongly as others, because I understand Hamlet's anger and would want the same vengeance myself, were we in a different governmental system that would allow it. I agree that the female characters in Hamlet are pretty weak, Gertrude, as we have already said, marries Claudius very soon after her husband has just been murdered (come on now, how could she not know? seriously! did it go like this:
Claudius: Hey, Gertrude, so sorry you lost your husband, my brother, he was such a good man and a wonderful king, oh how sad I am to see this day...wanna get married?
and Gertrude responds: Oh, I am so sad for my dear dead husband Hamlet, but ok, let's get married.
Was it that innocent? Did she really not know? Sometimes I read it and think she knew more than she let on, and sometimes I think she was a dolt. I don't know.)

Ophelia is, of course, the female character we remember most from Hamlet, and she is certainly not a headstrong or saucy girl, but does what she is told, swinging from believing that Hamlet loves her to listening to her father, and is driven mad by Hamlet's insults because she doesn't know he is mad, and Hamlet cannot tell her his madness or else he'll give himself away, because he knows that she tells her father everything, and since he can't just ignore her, he tries to get her to hate him, and because he truly does love her (at least, I think), he tells her to "get thee to a nunnery" so that no other man may have her. But of course, in grand ol' 17th century fashion, his words drive her mad, because she believed him to be one man and he turned out to be another, and everyone trying to use her to get to the root of Hamlet's madness, because they think it may be his love for her that has driven him crazy (at least Polonius does), and her father's death being the absolute last straw, she goes crazy, because what else can she do? Everyone who was ever kind to her is gone, Hamlet's nuts, her father's dead, Laertes hasn't come back yet, and so she just loses it. Can you really blame her? She didn't have girl friends like modern girls do to tell her to forget that bastard Hamlet and have a night on the town to console her with, and no one to comfort her in mourning her father.

So yes, I see poor Ophelia as being 100% in the hands of men, and when they fail her, so fails her mind and then her life, but I don't see the rampant sexism here that I see in other plays. A young girl in her situation in any century may have been treated the same way, because we are not yet free of sexism and male protectiveness of females, especially young girls, so I don't think of this play as being anti-woman, just that its focus is on Hamlet and not Ophelia.

So, yes, I believe that this very long seat of my pants analysis of Hamlet answers your question, DWill, and as I said, if you didn't know any before, you can now say you know a woman who "likes Hamlet a lot."

Ah, okay. So there's no textual example unless you read into it... I honestly hope there wasn't, just for my sanity. I grew up thinking the Lion King was based on Hamlet... I think it would kill me if Simba had an Oedipal thing for his mom.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be."

Just thought I'd throw my favorite Midsummer quote in there.

Genocide wrote:Ah, okay. So there's no textual example unless you read into it... I honestly hope there wasn't, just for my sanity. I grew up thinking the Lion King was based on Hamlet... I think it would kill me if Simba had an Oedipal thing for his mom.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be."

Just thought I'd throw my favorite Midsummer quote in there.

The Lion King is roughly based on Hamlet, good call in recognizing that; I know a great many people who don't realize that, while it always seemed quite obvious to me. And no, there is nothing concrete in the text that shows that Hamlet wanted to sleep with his mother, it is the ideas of literary critics who always like to read things with a particular spin that add the psychological readings that we have come to take as part of the Hamlet package. Some stories lend themselves more easily to certain psychological readings, such as Hamlet lends itself to a Freudian reading, while others do not and any psychological perspective on the story seems forced and unnatural, like trying to show the Cervantes was ridiculing Christianity in Don Quixote when there is no textual evidence within the novel for such a reading, only external ideas forced upon it.

So no, there is no need to fear that Simba wanted to sleep with his mother. Besides, he had Naala. Who needs mom when you have a sane and sassy lioness to start a pride with?

My Shakespeare worship for the day:

The "Queen Mab" speech from Romeo and Juliet, performed by John McEnery as Mercutio in the 1968 Zefirelli film.

Enjoy!

I see Queen Mab hath been with you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZZ-5Q3zPHc

Going back up a few lines, from the same scene as the "rogue and peasant slave" speech, I present Hamlet's musings on "what a piece of work is man," which he tells to his traitorous friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

***

from Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

***

Part of this speech is used in the musical Hair.
You can preview the track here: last.fm/music/Company%253B%2BRonald%2BD ... B2003%2529

It's not a very long preview, but there are other versions on that site that might be more complete. Just something interesting to listen to if you like Shakespeare (and the 1960s ).

Something a little different, but still classic, iconic Shakespeare. I had to memorize this speech once in high school, and although I recited it then with flying colors, I can no longer remember anything past the first two lines, proving that memorization by rote is not an effective teaching method.

***

from As You Like It, Act II, scene vii

JAQUES: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

***

It had to happen sometime, and no better time than the present, so here it is, Shakespeare's most famous soliloquy, Hamlet's "To be or not to be."

***

from Hamlet, Act III, scene ii

HAMLET: To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

***

The best ending speech ever, as far as I'm concerned, comes from a play I don't even like very much. Here, I give you the final lines of A Midsummer Night's Dream, spoken by the mischievous Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, which he mentions at the end of the speech.

***

from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V, scene i

PUCK: If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumb'red here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

***