The Five Faces Of Hamlet
I wouldn’t say that I ever disliked Hamlet, or if I did it would only be for ornery effect among a group of Shakespeare nerds. Obviously Hamlet is a great play, one that I’ve enjoyed quite a bit ever since reading my little Shakespeare picture book as a kid. But it has historically been more of the, let’s say lower-end-of-the-upper-tier of Shakespeare plays for me? I would’ve probably safely put it in the teens in a pre-2024 ranking. I won’t publish my actual ranking until I’ve read or seen everything1 but I’ll spoil that Hamlet is now at about #8.
That’s almost entirely because of something I learned from the lectures of Paul Cantor (from UVA, delivered at Harvard) I watched last year. And specifically, he provided a lens that reframed the entire play for me in a much more energetic, engaging, and structurally fascinating lens. That is, Hamlet is a play about the contradictions of the (literal) Renaissance man, and that contradiction is in part expressed through how Hamlet compares to his similarly aged peers.
The Challenge
I’m not gonna do the entire analysis (in part because I can’t remember all of the details, lol) but the thing the crystalized it best for me is to think about the central inciting incident of Hamlet: Hamlet is visited by the Ghost of his late father, who tells Hamlet that he was killed by his uncle, and making Hamlet swear to get revenge. But Hamlet is equally charged that despite his mother marrying his uncle, he must not get revenge on her, nor should he “taint thy mind”2 in the course of his revenge.
The legend of Amleth, the ancient Scandinavian myth that the play is based on3, has a similar initial situation (minus the ghost), in that Amleth’s father is killed and usurped by his uncle, who marries his mother. The two stories even feature much of the same beats and structure: Amleth feigns madness to avoid being seen as a threat and getting murdered himself, he kills a hidden eavesdropper, he is sent to England with instructions to be killed but changes the instructions to kill those traveling with him, and he returns to kill his uncle.
But while the initial situation and many of the beats are the same, the conflict of the story is not. In Amleth’s case, it is driven by: how do I survive and kill my uncle, when my uncle wants to kill me. The conflict comes from navigating the physical realities of the situation. It’s an action thriller.
Hamlet’s conflict is primarily internal: how do I simultaneously avenge my father while not abandoning my ideals? I think it’s no surprise that one of the hallmark scenes of the play is not a big battle scene, and is unique to the Shakespeare version: the mousetrap play-within-a-play. This is a major set piece that does not really serve any practical or logistical purpose to the goal of “kill Claudius”, but is designed to help Hamlet convince himself it’s okay to kill Claudius. In fact, the one practical purpose it could serve is helping prove Claudius’ guilt to others, and Hamlet doesn’t take advantage of that at all! But that is not the goal: it’s a big physical spectacle to help literalize a conflict entirely internal to Hamlet.
Why is the conflict of Hamlet internal as opposed to external like in Amleth? Because of the change of setting: the Ghost’s challenge ends up being the perfect crucible for someone like Hamlet who attempts to embody all the aspects you would want from a ideal “modern” man: he is supposed to be educated, clever, Christian, worldly, political, loyal to his family and to his country, virtuous, strong, and brave (among others.) The Renaissance as an artistic and philosophical movement was the rediscovery of Ancient Greek and Roman art, history, and texts, but incorporating it into a European Christian world, so the literal Renaissance man is supposed to be the perfect blend of the pagan Homeric/Hellenistic hero with the learned Christian.
How can someone react to the Ghost’s challenge without failing at least one of those elements? If he kills Claudius, he will have committed murder at the urging of a spirit, about as un-Christian, un-virtuous, and un-intellectual as you can get. If he refuses, he will have abandoned his loyalty to his family and his country, and end up an accomplice of sorts to murder and incestous adultery. If he decides to kill himself to free him of this no-win scenario, then he’s committed yet another sin, one even more unforgivable than murdering Claudius.
Amleth does not exist within this contradictory world, and is not remotely philosophically or emotionally or spiritually troubled by his course of action: this is deliberate, calculated self-preservation and revenge, befitting a pagan legend. But if you transplant that same circumstance to modernity, you have to contend with the contradictory values of modernity, that both require action and bravery and loyalty and revenge, as well as virtue and mercy and Christian spirituality. No wonder Hamlet might actually go crazy for real, you try having to be an Ancient Viking Prince in modern Denmark!
The Five What-ifs?
But what really makes me love the play now is what happens when you think about Hamlet’s similarly aged peers: Laertes, Ophelia, Horatio, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern (one unit for the purposes of this analysis), and Young Fortinbras. These are characters who do not share Hamlet’s contradictions, and to me, it seems likely that if any of them were in Hamlet’s shoes, the play would be over rapidly.
Laertes and Ophelia are the easiest: we know exactly what Laertes would do if told someone had murdered his father, because it happens! After Hamlet kills Polonius, Laertes is consumed with righteous rage and he challenges Hamlet with every intent to kill him and avenge his father’s death (doubly so after the death of Ophelia.) If he were in Hamlet’s shoes, Claudius would be dead (or Laertes’d die trying) by the end of Act One.
Similarly, Ophelia, grimly, does what Hamlet can only muse about: after the murder of her father (by her scorned lover), she kills herself. There is a certain capital-R Romanticism in both of their reactions that, despite the play preceding that movement by several centuries, makes all the sense in the world that they (Ophelia especially) would become fixtures of Romantic-era painting4.
Horatio does not have the same parallel circumstance as Laertes and Ophelia, but we see enough of his belief system to know what he would likely do: nothing. Horatio is literally a Stoic, as in Stoic philosophy countenancing rationality and self-control5. He would not succumb to the passions that drive Hamlet to act and react, and so would not. The ending does show that he’s not a complete Stoic, in that he clearly has deep affection for Hamlet to the point of wanting to kill himself (“More antique Roman than a Dane6”, ie literally associating himself with Hellenistic beliefs around life and death and suicide and renouncing the Christian commandment against it.) So maybe were he in Hamlet’s shoes he could be similarly swayed by affection for the late king or whatever, but then based on the ending of the play if that were true he would’ve just killed himself before the Ghost showed up! Either way, there would be none of Hamlet’s internal conflict.
Rosencrantz/Guildenstern and Fortinbras are a little harder to nail down compared to the other three, in part because they’re much more minor characters and we get less opportunity to see them act in similar circumstances to Hamlet. But while I can’t as easily predict what they would do the same way I can with Laertes (revenge), Ophelia (suicide), and Horatio (stoicism), I think you can predict how they would think about it.
To which where Laertes and Ophelia are two sides of a Romantic coin, and Horatio the Roman Philosopher, I think both are shown as Political animals, but of different eras or styles of politics: R&G are modern courtly politicians and diplomats, working with words and willing to lie and spy their way to success, whereas Fortinbras is a wartime, guns and glory style of politician, wanting to achieve political success through battle and daring and heroics. So my answer for what they would do were they in Hamlet’s shoes is basically: whatever is most politically expedient, through the tools they prefer to wield. To pick out of a hat let’s say R&G start playing a court game against Claudius (or for Claudius, now that they have useful information!) while Fortinbras starts a rebellion to try and usurp. Less satisfyingly clear-cut than the other three, but again these are minor characters7. Perhaps in fact the story of Hamlet-but-it-was-Fortinbras may just be the actual legend of Amleth, given he seems to essentially be Laertes but with better cunning and political self-control!
But Hamlet is all five of them, at various points. And every time he attempts or explores one aspect, it causes harm to another. Any one of these strategies can be “successful” (scare quotes because, obviously, it is not a success to kill yourself!! That’s bad!!) but they are, to some degree, mutually exclusive strategies. Hamlet tries to do them all, to be the ideal Renaissance man, and it destroys him.
To me, that’s a really good play!!!!!!!! And much more interesting than a play about how “Hamlet just thinks too much and never acts”, which was definitely my prior read on the situation that I now no longer believe!!
Missing Timon of Athens, Two Noble Kinsmen, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, + Edward III if we count it
The line is actually “taint not thy mind”, but the “not” doesn’t flow here
Though not directly; it’s believed to be based on a lost earlier 1580s/1590s British play, colloquially called the “Ur-hamlet” that is based on either the legend or a more contemporary retelling of it.
Also interesting, now that I’m noting it, that both Laertes and Ophelia are Greek names. Unclear what that means other than yet another example of the mega-mashup of Hellenism + Christianity that is the Renaissance, but probably something there!
As Paul Cantor points out “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy” is not rhetorical, it’s literal.
And in fact, Horatio is a Roman name!
Again with the names, interestingly Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are (with Hamlet) the ones that are Scandinavian in origin, and Fortinbras (despite being the most “could be ripped from the pages of the Norse legend” of the lot of them) is a constructed French/English name for “strong arm.” Huh, maybe this essay should’ve been about the names after all!