What Happens in Hamlet

The title of this post comes from the title of a book written by J. Dover Wilson.  The book had been recommended to me long ago by the same person who started me on this blogging venture.  His comment:  "[For] any Hamlet freak, it's 300 pages of pure pleasure."  When I found a copy at a local library, I decided to pick it up and perhaps to read it over a school break.  Once I started it, though, I found that I could not put it down.  It seems odd to call such a book a page-turner, but this one certainly is.

The first chapter of the book is an open letter to W.W. Greg, the author of a previous work, entitled "Hamlet's Hallucination."  I did not realize until I opened Wilson's book that it was tied directly to a previous post (11/11/13).  That roped me in immediately.

Wilson suggests jumping ahead to Chapter V, which I did.  It is excellent!  It discusses "The Mousetrap" in depth.  Much consideration is given to the dumb-show and to why Claudius does not react.  I found Wilson's hypothesis to be both unique and entirely plausible.  Exceedingly interesting was his description of how he would block the scene were he the director.  That has given me a standard by which to base future productions that I will see.

Once Chapter V was concluded, I returned to the beginning of the book and read the rest in order (giving Chapter V a second perusal).  The entire book is an analysis and explanation of the plot of Hamlet.  As Wilson states repeatedly, Hamlet is a drama to be acted and not merely a book to be read.  He treats it as such, and his discussions center on the staged performance of the play.  For as much as I have read of Hamlet and for all of the versions that I have seen, I learned quite a bit from Wilson.  He does a tremendous job of helping a modern-day student of the play to understand what an Elizabethan audience would have taken for granted.  His discussions of Elizabethan politics and spiritualism were particularly illustrative.

Chapter VI is another highlight.  In it, Wilson discusses the mystery of Hamlet's melancholy.  We know that Hamlet is not well, but we are never given an exact cause for his disorder.  The description provided by Wilson reads as a diagnosis of manic depression.  As Wilson states repeatedly throughout his book, though, Hamlet is a fictional character in a fictional play.  To attempt to take him out of context and to analyze him as if he were a real person is "wrong in method and futile in aim" (Preface to 3rd Edition).

Chapter VII left me thinking one word:  Bravo!  Wilson dissects the duel, explaining Elizabethan fencing terminology in a manner that is both understandable and informative.  Much of the context of the scene is lost on modern-day students, and the manner in which the scene often is staged causes considerable confusion.  As with his treatment of "The Mousetrap," Wilson describes in depth how he would block the scene as a director.  Reading the chapter made me realize that I have never seen the duel as Shakespeare might have intended it and as Wilson would stage it.  As Wilson comments, "How different an atmosphere from that of the modern theatre!" (287).

I noted one very interesting and ironic footnote in the book.  Although it has nothing to do with Hamlet, it definitely struck me.  The first edition of the book was published in 1935.  At the beginning of Chapter VI, Wilson makes the following comment:  "Whatever may be thought of the Nazi movement, it offers plenty of first-class material for future dramatists, or film producers" (200).  If only Wilson had known how prescient those words would be!

As Wilson concludes at the end of Chapter VI, "There are as many Hamlets as there are actors who play him..." (238).  I already have seen many of those, but this book does a masterful job of hypothesizing how Shakespeare intended his Hamlet to look.  It is bar none the best Hamlet reference that I have encountered.  I already have purchased a copy to add to my own bookshelf and to return to many times.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  I believe that Harold Child has described this book best.

"Your Ideal Spectator for this purpose would be a very thorough and intelligent Shakespearian who knew Hamlet well but (to his shame) had not read What Happens in "Hamlet"--if anyone could be said to know Hamlet well without having read your book."

Wilson, J. Dover.  What Happens in Hamlet.  3rd edition.  Cambridge University Press, 1956.

Benny as Hamlet

After viewing Mel Brooks' take on Hamlet in To Be or Not To Be, I was able to find a copy of Ernst Lubitsch's original film of the same name.  It provided an occasion to see Hamlet (such as it was) one more time as well as to compare and to contrast Brooks' and Lubitsch's works.

The plot of this film is much the same as Brooks' re-make.  It revolves around a Polish theatre company in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.  In this version, the lead characters are Joseph and Maria Tura, played by Jack Benny and Carole Lombard.  Bronski, the lead in Brooks' film, is a secondary player in the troupe, although his imitation of Hitler is spot-on.  The actors use their dramatic wiles to escape from Poland in much the same fashion as the remake, although the Schindler-esque rescue of exiled Jews is absent from this version.

The appearance of Hamlet in this film is slightly modified in the remake.  Tura is the lead in a full-fledged production of Hamlet, not a shortened remix.  As in the remake, though, we are not able to see much beyond the opening of the soliloquy.  It still is distracted repeatedly with members of the audience departing the theatre.

The humor of Lubitsch's original is much more understated than the over-the-top slapstick of Brooks' remake.  Both are enjoyable, but each in its own way.  The original does provide one wonderful quote that did not appear in the remake.  As a die-hard Hamlet fan, I could still relate.

"Even Shakespeare couldn't stand seeing Hamlet three nights in succession."

Hamlet As Archetype

Hamlet has been characterized many times in many different descriptions.  Robert Ornstein's essay "The Mystery of Hamlet:  Notes Toward an Archetypal Solution" summarizes these and adds a new variation on the theme.  The essay, found in the collection Hamlet:  Enter Critic, is the topic of this week's post.

Previous descriptions of Hamlet as recounted by Ornstein have included the following.

• Gay and debonair Elizabethan courtier
• One curled in the fetal position on Ophelia's lap
• Malcontent
• Lunatic
• Ideal Prince
• Neurotic
• Ritual Scapegoat

Ornstein asserts a new role for Hamlet:  juvenile delinquent.  His justification of this description includes much favorable evidence.

• Truancy from school
• Victim of an unsatisfactory home environment
• Stepfather is a tippling criminal.
• Mother is a shallow, good-natured creature too easy with her affections.
• Unable to communicate with his parents and seeks affection outside of the home.
• Maladjusted and emotionally unstable
• Has bad dreams
• Moody, hostile, withdrawn, cynically contemptuous of authority
• Homicidal and suicidal tendencies; carries a knife and knows how to use it
• Abnormally preoccupied with sex
• Incapable of returning love of girl he sadistically maltreats
• Dresses in black and affects a casual slovenliness
• Deprived of status in society
• Seeks attention through violence
• Creates a scene and is sent away for radical therapy

If we grant this description of Hamlet, then the remaining characters of the play fall into other archetypal roles.  Polonius becomes the stool-pigeon.  Ophelia is the "long-haired kid from the next tenement."  Laertes is the "hot-tempered, mixed-up younger brother."  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are "crooked social workers."  Fortinbras is "a reformed delinquent."

Ornstein uses T.S. Eliot's verdict to summarize.  Hamlet is a "rebel without a cause, consumed with an unfathomable hatred of a world in which he never had a chance."  He delays action because he knows that it will in turn destroy him.  "[When] harmony is restored in family and state, the juvenile delinquent ceases to exist."

The Other Mel as Hamlet

While looking for a copy of Sam Peckinpah's film, Straw Dogs, at the local library, I noticed a film entitled To Be or Not To Be.  Maurice Hindle had mentioned it in his book, Studying Shakespeare on Film (see 11/9/14 post).  The DVD I found was not Ernst Lubitsch's original, but rather Mel Brooks' 1983 remake.  I figured to give it a try.  (As the librarian commented, "He's great, isn't he?"  She meant Mel Brooks.)

Set in WWII Germany, the film depicts a Polish actor, Frederick Bronski (Brooks), leading a scheme to escape the Nazis who have just overrun Poland.  As we discover, one of Bronski's trademark dramatic performances is a short work entitled "Highlights of Hamlet."  It begins with Act III, Scene 1, as one might suspect from the title of the film. We never get to see much of the performance, though.  Every time Bronski gets into the soliloquy, someone gets up and walks out of the theatre.  There are reasons for this, but to say any more would spoil the plot of the film.

Although this is by no means a full-blown Hamlet, I will still give it a mention in the blog.  Even the other characters realize that the on-stage treatment of Hamlet is painful.  As a Nazi officer describes it, "What he did to Hamlet, we are now doing to Poland."  (Ouch.)  The film is rather humorous, and it has given me incentive to find the original to compare.