Hamlet in Purgatory

Rating:
Summary: Fun...
Review: "Hamlet in Purgatory" is a wonderfully written, thoughtful, and enlightening book. But it is less than I would have hoped for and probably less than most readers will expect.

Greenblatt's exposition of the history and literature surrounding the rise and demise of belief in Purgatory in England from 1,100 AD to 1,500 AD is enthralling. This history and literature highlights the basic human desire to connect with, remember, and perhaps even continue the work of the dead. Hamlet faces just such challenges as he struggles with the demands of his father's ghost. And yet Greenblatt fails to delve into these universal issues. Nor does he provide a context for understanding the ghost's injunction as one of the many profound issues in the play. To approach such fascinating issues without exploring them in full is a disappointment.

"Hamlet in Purgatory" starts with a wonderful Prologue. Greenblatt tells how his own father's passing away made his study of Hamlet and purgatory personally relevant.

The first chapter reviews "A Supplication for the Beggars" by Simon Fish written in 1529. This tract is a letter to then King Henry VIII arguing that the church is using the concept of Purgatory to exploit believers. Greenblatt wonderfully sets the stage, explaining how over the course of the preceding 400 years "Purgatory had achieved both a doctrinal and a social success" (p.14). This tract by Fish was the start of the Protestant effort to challenge the legitimacy of Purgatory, an effort that had succeeded by the end of the sixteenth century. So that when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1601 Purgatory was doctrine that was rejected by the Anglican Church.

The second chapter explores Purgatory as an artistic creation, and shows that the "dream" of Purgatory reveals our uncertainties about how to deal with the dead. Greenblatt nicely observes that in the case of Purgatory we can see how a "religious" concept develops. Unlike the concepts of Heaven and Hell, Purgatory was a relatively recent development, and could be seen to meet several needs: it provided a way to Heaven, albeit indirect, for those who were not evil but had not fully cleansed their souls before death, it provided the church a powerful mechanism for garnering continuing support (facilitating the path of those in Purgatory to Heaven), and it provided the living a way to stay connected with their dead.

The third chapter reviews two works preceding Hamlet that dealt with Purgatory. The first is the story of The Gast of Gy, which describes a visitation from a husband to his wife and the dialogue that ghost had with the local prior. Greenblatt next reviews a tract by Sir Thomas More called "The Supplication of Souls." In this tract More argues for Purgatory speaking, he claims, on behalf of "the voices of the dead burning in purgatorial fire" (p. 137).

Chapter four moves to a discussion of the various ways that ghosts were staged in late sixteenth century theater. Most of the playwrights of the time, particularly Marlow and Jonson, showed little interest in using ghosts as characters (p. 154). It is to Greenblatt part of Shakespeare's genius that he saw the dramatic opportunity in the ghost, and Greenblatt goes on to describe the use both of ghosts and of dreams in Shakespeare plays such as Comedy of Errors, Richard III and Macbeth. The breadth of what Greenblatt wants to cover is expanding nicely: "The deep link between ghosts and the power, pleasure, and justification of the theater is the thread that runs through the contradictory materials we have been examining: false surmises, panicky mistakes, psychological projections, fairies, familial spirits, vengeful ghosts, emblems of conscience, agents of redemption" (p.199).

And so we come to the fifth chapter and Hamlet. Greenblatt has touched on some exciting material: the desire to stay in touch with the dead, the commonality between Purgatory and the dream world and the theater. But rather than bringing this material into a robust and balanced treatment of Hamlet, Greenblatt, at least for this reader, backs away. Greenblatt describes the power that Shakespeare creates by shifting the challenge of the ghost to "Remember me" from the "Revenge me" of the source material, and tries to explain the probable basis for this shift. Next, he shows how Shakespeare "went to the edge" in terms of what the censors of the day would allow with respect to placing Old Hamlet in Purgatory.

As far as it goes this is elucidating. But here we are with this profound insight that part of Hamlet's challenge is the challenge of remembering. And what does Greenblatt do with this? Rather than place this in the landscape of our most basic needs, fears and desires, which is to move closer to the fundamental appeal of the play, he brings it back to the discourse between More and Fish about Purgatory in the sixteenth century. While this was likely an influence on Shakespeare, to limit the discussion to these historically specific feuds is to miss the broader issues that Greenblatt comes so close to. Alas, I would recommend other books, perhaps Kitto's, Mack's, or Eissler's treatments of the play, to be exposed to the broad expanse that this drama covers.

Rating:
Summary: It depends on what you're looking for
Review: As an unique insight into Elizabethan culture, it's fascinating. As an analysis of Hamlet, it's lacking. Many of his points are unsupported by textual evidence and much of his excellent historical information unconnected to the play itself. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone with a love of Shakespeare that goes beyond the word and into the period as it is a great read.

Rating:
Summary: It depends on what you're looking for
Review: As an unique insight into Elizabethan culture, it's fascinating. As an analysis of Hamlet, it's lacking. Many of his points are unsupported by textual evidence and much of his excellent historical information unconnected to the play itself. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone with a love of Shakespeare that goes beyond the word and into the period as it is a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Look at Shakespeare & the Concept of Purgatory
Review: I happened to be browsing through books the other day (as I am often wont to do) when the cover of this book caught my eye. It is detail from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch who happens to be one of my favorite painters. Then, when I saw the book was about Shakespeare, Hamlet and the concept of Purgatory, I was sold.

Of course, need I mention the cliche about judging books by their covers and so on? There was no guarantee that I was going to like this book despite my attraction to its superficial accouterments. Still, sometimes you get lucky. This is a wonderful book.

As a Catholic, the concept of Purgatory is an integral part of what I was taught about the afterlife. It was very interesting to see how the Christian view of the nature of Purgatory changed through time and how that view influenced (or, what is more likely, was influenced by) the literature of the Middle Ages. Greenblatt examines a number of ballads and other pieces from as early as the 11th & 12th centuries to show the change of Purgatory from a relatively restful place of waiting into a vicious hell with a time limit.

By Shakespeare's time, of course, the Protestant Reformation had taken issue with the many abuses of the Church with respect to Purgatory (particularly indulgences) and all but eliminated Purgatory as part of the revised dogma. Still, as Greenblatt points out, the concept and the human feelings it addresses with respect to the afterlife cannot be eliminated by religious pronouncement. It finds its way into many of Shakespeare's plays in various guises. The spirits and ghosts that populate many of the plays are an instance as is the mention of chantries and "poor in yearly pay" of Henry V to name but a few. The clearest and highest development, however, is the appearance of the ghost in Hamlet.

Greenblatt develops his ideas about the ghost in Hamlet in the last chapter of the book but this is just the peak of a wonderfully perceptive analysis of this aspect of influences on English literature. Anyone with any interest in the development of religion, the development of early English literature and/or Shakespeare should definitely take a look at this book.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Writing and Scholarship
Review: This is an excellent book--excellent scholarship. I highly recommend it to anyone generally interested in medieval and Elizabethan accounts on purgatory, or to those who have an interest in Shakepeare studies. Even for those who don't, this is an excellent book, and my interest in it grew with every turn of the page. It is rich and well-written.

Chapter Two: "Imagining Purgatory" discusses various philosophical and medieval connections (via manuscripts) to Shakespeare's texts (also see the classic, "The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy"). Chapter Three: "The Flights of Memory" (oddly enough, also see Derrida's The Gift of Death/U Chicago Press, Staten's Eros in Mourning, Derrida's The Work of Mourning, and E. Scarry's Body in Pain) is highly interesting material on the poetics of pain and suffering. Chapter Five: "Remember Me" is brilliant (also see Derrida/Levinas on the 'adieu' issue--U of Chicago and Stanford UP titles).

Also see: Fish, How Milton Works (Harvard UP); Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton UP); Staten, Eros in Mourning (Johns Hopkins). I also recommend Robert Bell's dissertation on the harrowing of hell (English/U of Maryland/CSULB Emeritus).

Rating:
Summary: Superb Writing and Scholarship
Review: This is an excellent book--excellent scholarship. I highly recommend it to anyone generally interested in medieval and Elizabethan accounts on purgatory, or to those who have an interest in Shakepeare studies. Even for those who don't, this is an excellent book, and my interest in it grew with every turn of the page. It is rich and well-written.

Chapter Two: "Imagining Purgatory" discusses various philosophical and medieval connections (via manuscripts) to Shakespeare's texts (also see the classic, "The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy"). Chapter Three: "The Flights of Memory" (oddly enough, also see Derrida's The Gift of Death/U Chicago Press, Staten's Eros in Mourning, Derrida's The Work of Mourning, and E. Scarry's Body in Pain) is highly interesting material on the poetics of pain and suffering. Chapter Five: "Remember Me" is brilliant (also see Derrida/Levinas on the 'adieu' issue--U of Chicago and Stanford UP titles).

Also see: Fish, How Milton Works (Harvard UP); Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton UP); Staten, Eros in Mourning (Johns Hopkins). I also recommend Robert Bell's dissertation on the harrowing of hell (English/U of Maryland/CSULB Emeritus).

Rating:
Summary: Fun...
Review: Yeah, the reviewer from Santa Monica is on the mark. Good book, plenty of interesting historical tidbits, some connections to mull over, but Greenblatt doesn't really use his historical conclusions to much purpose in his analysis of Hamlet. Some of his literary points are strained ("the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns" means Hamlet has forgotten about the ghost; when Ophelia says that Hamlet looked as though he "had been loosed out of Hell" she of course means Purgatory instead of Hell, the rabble who follow Laetres against Claudius represent Protestants attacking the Catholic Church, etc.) but a couple are interesting, such as the play's disconnect between body and spirit mapped onto Elizabethan views of the Eucharist. But there are a good 150 pages (more than half the book) before we enter this dicey realm. Chapters 1-3 get five stars, and chapters 4-5 get three point five.