Shakespeare

[Madiel]

There's a whole spectrum of tones. Including the so-called 'problem plays' that people have found difficult to classify. The original coiner of that term did not include Hamlet in his official list but did reference it.

I can't say I've ever found Hamlet funny, though. Only in a very wry sense that doesn't make me laugh, beyond maybe a little snort. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is funny.

[Mandryka]

Up to a point, yes. Hamlet would certainly have seen through Iago's deceptions, but even Othello could not have just committed an act of regicide against Claudius solely on the word of a ghost. As the play makes clear, Hamlet knows the ghost could have been a demon from hell, and he needs some way of testing the veracity of the ghost before he can possibly act: "The spirit I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape, and out of my weakness and my melancholy abuses me to damn me." That's why he puts on the play, and not just to waste time indulging in some amateur theatricals. Claudius's behavior during the play scene is the evidence Hamlet needs to corroborate the ghost's accusations. Unfortunately Hamlet blows everything immediately afterwards by killing Polonius, and this gives Claudius the excuse he wants to ship Hamlet to England with the plan of having Hamlet executed there.

Doesn't he blow everything by not doing it pat?  I must say, I find the "Now might I do it pat" speech utterly, totally, barbarian, alien, unchristian. Does he not know about The Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.


On the point about shipping him to England, I wonder why Claudius forbids Hamlet to leave Elsinore at the start of the play. After all, it's already clear to all the world that he doesn't exactly fit in.

[JBS]

Doesn't he blow everything by not doing it pat?  I must say, I find the "Now might I do it pat" speech utterly, totally, barbarian, alien, unchristian. Does he not know about The Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.


On the point about shipping him to England, I wonder why Claudius forbids Hamlet to leave Elsinore at the start of the play. After all, it's already clear to all the world that he doesn't exactly fit in.

I presumed it was a case of keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. It's certainly not unheard of for the late king's son to decide he wants to oust his uncle from the throne even if the uncle is not responsible for the late king's death.

And of course he may have done it to keep Gertrude content and not needing to worry about what trouble her son might be getting into at school.

Hamlet after all is in his late teens/early twenties. Prime age for princes at loose ends who've lost out on succeeding their father on the throne to cause trouble.