What
to Do About Hamlet
Hamlet is scary.
How
in the world can I write about this play, this incomparable giant in the world
of English literature? What can I write that others more
knowledgeable and scholarly haven’t already analyzed inside and out? Googling
Hamlet, I get 54 million hits. Googling
“analyzing Hamlet”, half a million hits come up. I’ll get lost in the jungle!
How can I
possibly approach the immensity of Hamlet’s cynicism, pain, bitterness, and enthrallment
with death? How can I delve into the depths of the characters of Ophelia or
Gertrude or Claudius?
I
already have a relationship with Hamlet
of course. Anyone growing up in an
English speaking world can recite half the play by heart without knowing it,
simply by saying the hundreds of quotes that have become everyday expressions:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; to thine own self be true; something is
rotten in the state of Denmark; the time is out of joint; what a piece of work
is man; to be or not to be; to sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub;
get thee to a nunnery; the lady protests too much, methinks; I must be cruel
only to be kind; alas, poor Yorrick. I know him, Horatio; the readiness is all;
the rest is silence; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead; of death put on by
cunning…etc. etc. Whole books have been written about the “To be or not to be”
soliloquy alone!
I
have read the play in its entirety at least twice, once in Swedish. I have seen
Branagh’s film five or six times and at least as many other versions once or
twice.
So
my awe in facing the monumental force of Hamlet
is not for lack of familiarity. On the contrary. That is one of the problems.
I’m all too aware of the enormity of the play.
I can’t even say, “OK, I’ll just write about my first spontaneous
reactions” because they were many readings/viewings ago.
But
come on! It’s just a play! It won’t bite! Just choose one of the five million
aspects of the play that are fascinating and write about it! Never mind that
everyone else has already written about it – it will be Ruby’s take on it and
therefore relevant enough.
Hamlet is like the universe. It can
absorb whatever is thrown at it. It can survive whatever nonsense or profundity
is offered.
So
just do it. Come on, it won’t hurt. Well,
yes it will, but it will feel good when it’s done.
OK.
There. Hamlet, here I come.
I’m…ready for
you.
Yeah,
right.
