“Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.”
My first willful venture into Shakespearean drama, and what a delight it was. At the center of the play is the titular Hamlet, a fascinating character whose wit and insight pervades the text, and who provides the driving force of the work. He is a gorgeously fizzing enigma that has the rather strange quality of seeming to exist at a level of remove from the play, a level of outness and dimension beyond that of his fellows. He is intelligent, capricious, and conflicted, and he enjoys jesting and confusing other characters. The funniest parts of the play are when other characters fail to comprehend his actions or remarks, and the humor of the play, whether brought on by Hamlet or by others, was something I found greatly enjoyable. This is, however, a tragedy, and the events seen throughout fulfill that title. Offered here are commentaries on human folly and despair, on man’s will and his end. Many of these brilliant passages are delivered by Hamlet, but many are delivered by other characters as well, which brings me to the general quality of the writing, which I can only describe as extreme. The text is a treasure trove, and though it can be difficult to parse (explanatory footnotes in my edition aided me greatly in this), the absolute luminosity of Shakespeare’s technique is well worth working for. I had a wondrous maiden voyage through this Pelionic play, and I await my future adventures with it, be they on the page, or, strongly I will it, in a theater. This Prince, print or proscenium, I’ll cherish, and curse him to repeat his pois’nous perish.
Banner image: “Criss-Cross”. As the creator of this photo I declare it licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.