DRJ #1: Hamlet, Act I

Shakespeare’s mastery of dialog is thrilling in its brevity and powerful in purpose.  Within the course of a single line, even a few words, he conveys such depth of meaning.  It feels as if he has a fountain of wonderful lines, but doles them out carefully to specific characters, lending them his voice to charm the reader.  Some characters, like King Claudius, are given boring and mundane lines, turning the reader away and building in a sense of the antagonist.  The hero, of course, is given the best turns of phrase: “A little more than kin, and less than kind!”  Hamlet’s classic line is the soul of sarcasm.  His snide retort offsets the fluffy and meaningless dialog spoke just prior by his uncle, conveying both Hamlet’s offense at his uncle’s recent marriage to Gertrude and internal, deeply personal woe.  Within this, only his second line, we already clearly see Hamlet’s contempt for his uncle, the King, and foreshadow the conflict to come.

Almost every line Hamlet speaks is filled with sharp turns and quick wit.  Only a few stanzas later, we are given a short soliloquy with not less than three of the most famous lines in all of English drama. First a bitter definition of depression, mourning and self loathing: “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt / … / How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world!”  Followed next by a marvelous simile extolling the grace of his father: “So excellent a king; that was, to this, / Hyperion to a satyr;” which, by its contrast, enhances Hamlet’s internal pain.  And followed closely by a classic pronouncement of anger toward his mother: “— Frailty, thy name is woman!”  Hamlet quickly progresses through the classic series of reactions to grief within a single page.

Shakespeare meters out his wit, allowing secondary characters a moment to shine, at least when he wants the reader to empathize with the character.  Polonius, for example, gives the classic speech on fatherly advice as Laertes prepares to return to France.  “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; / Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.”  And, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; / … / This above all: to thine own self be true, /” help the reader to feel compassion for Polonius.  This amplifies the meaning of his death at Hamlet’s hand to come, allowing us to understand another twist in Hamlet’s psyche, leading inevitably to tragedy.

Each time I read Shakespeare, the dialog becomes easier to understand and more powerful.  I began by carefully reading each of the footnotes in the Bedford text.  Most provided new insights that helped me understand the text.  But soon, they became ponderous, breaking me out of the flow of the dialog.  After a few pages, I stopped reading them entirely, focusing instead on the rhythm of the prose.  I’m curious to know if others found the footnotes similarly distracting?