n  n    Book Reviewn  n
4 out of 5 stars to Hamlet, a tragedy published in 1600 by William Shakespeare. Buckle your seat belts, as I have a 38 page review to share... Just Kidding! Well, I do have a lengthy review I could include from a previous course on Shakespeare, but I will not do so here... chance are you've already read the play or seen some film adaption, perhaps even a staged version. I've seen a bunch of them and read the place 4 times (once in high school, twice in college and once just for pleasure). Here's the thing about this play: There is WAY too much to absorb in just one or two reads. Each time you read the play, you pick up on new interpretations, new meanings and new thought patterns. Each time you watch a new performance, the actors and directors choose a different angle or approach. Hamlet is all of us. And we will always take from it something we want to believe... likely based on what's going on in our life at that time. If you are having relationship issues, you'll probably focus on that aspect of Hamlet's life. If you feel depressed, you'll questions "to be or not to be." If you are happy, you'll root for him to do the right things. I'm not sure if that's how Shakespeare intended it to happen, but he certainly left it open on purpose. Maybe not to allow us to have completely widespread views and interpretations, but enough to choose the key things we want to focus on. I think maybe I need to read it again this summer!

n  n    About Men  n
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

خیلی عجیبه!
هنوز که هنوزه با وجود گذشت سال ها از مطالعه هملت شکسپیر، یه سری از دیالوگ های کاراکترهای فرعی تر داستان توی ذهنم هست.
این یعنی تاثیرگذاری این اثر و البته تنهایی هملت در اوج غرور و قدرت. ترکیب جالبیه و خب قطعا این اثر باید مطالعه بشه.

کتابی برای تمام فصل ها...سه چهاربارخوانده ام و بارها فیلم بسیارزیبای اقتباسی گرگوری کوزنتسف رادیده ام ..من ترجمه به آذین راخواندم.

n  The singular and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armour of the mind
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel
Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoined, which when it falls
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin.n

There is a mounting vileness once the Queen is dead. The Basilikon Doron is released, the son whose mother's head was cut off to ensure the peace of the realm is on the throne, and what has been gained through inveterate evil of colonialism has kept on gaining, but instead of that much pronounced Elizabethan, we have Jacobean. Instead of the gold of novelty, surprise after surprise of peace through scything after scything of populace, we may have the scythe, but not the wielder. Hated, unnatural, the bane of existence to many a man and a biting prick in the spine to the entire gender, but there was no betrayal that cut off the head too soon, no insipid frivolity that forced the island to swallow its own tail, no language of the conqueror to wriggle out from beneath and painfully make its way to light. There was just Elizabeth. And now she's dead.

With the need of a royal divorce came the gateway to a new, minimized, individualized religion. Poetry is the mediation a human requires to reconcile life and death, and over time the rhythms and rhymes have coalesced into many a ritual of speaking, singing, screaming, the random chance of natural selection resulting in such an example as the words spoken during the course of a Catholic laying to rest. What happens, then, in a particular corner of the world where Purgatory is no longer an incentive and prayers no longer a necessity and your beloved long departed may or may not be suffering ten-thousand years longer, an oversight in a change of scheme that names their transmutation nonsense. All of us are doomed to die, a universality garnering interest with a vengeance beyond twenty-five when the cell decay begins to outpace the cell renewal, but truth has nothing to do with individual experience. All you love are doomed to die, but each and every may only die once.

What of Hamlet I know now will make the return to King Lear all the more dire, for freedom's a baleful deity only because responsibility is so much worse. Your wars are won, your peace is gripped, and all there is left to do is provoke the self into an action guided by loss, propelled by rage, confined by that mewling and puking concept that is honor, that will bring the whole host of dependent selves down. A head of state's a nasty piece of work when fratricide is on the résumé, but put on the stage tens of thousands of revenge plots and you'll never accurately frame through scene and line of dialogue that creature that is civil war. Lear comes close, which is why, hard as it is for me to believe, I may come out of this class with a rearranged hierarchy when it comes to Shakespeare. But perhaps not. Unlike Hamlet, I have not yet seen the storm in the flesh, and the divide between words on a page and souls on a stage when contemplation's broken free off the footnotes must be given pause. I'm a reader through and through, but if all the world's a stage, the bodies fell first.

n  If thou didst ever hold me in they heart,
Absent thee from felicity a while,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.n

Hamlet, Hamlet. I will never muse enough.

n  Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do ye hear?–let them be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.n

---

1/2/2013

I first encountered Hamlet in comic book form, alongside many other Shakespeare plays portrayed with fantastical characters in all shades, poses, and degrees of perverseness. The strongest memory from that time consists of the titular character, blonde head posing with an innocent expression between a hawk and a handsaw. Some time later I was intrigued to learn that Shakespeare himself had performed in productions as the infamous ghost. Nothing else of his acting career stayed in my brain, which may have been a foretelling of the special place this play would come to hold in my heart.

The years rolled on, and with them came my favorite teacher of all time. Thanks to her, Hamlet, and a ten page essay discussing the symbolism of death, I began to see what all the fuss with Shakespeare was about.  As that year ended, so did my last English class, and it would be a long while until I rediscovered Hamlet, at my first live performance put on by the actors of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Now, it's true that I had loved the play in high school, but that had been through reading it at an extremely slow pace, constantly ferrying back and forth between text and explanation. Flash forward four years to the performance, years filled with equations, calculations, and engineering garble, leading up to a much quicker rendition of the work I had understood only through slow perusal and much hand-holding. What good would watching it do, if the scenes flew past my uncomprehending brain?

But I did know what was going on. I could follow every amusing quip and every stunning soliloquy. More importantly, I loved it as much as I had all those years ago, my first journey through lines of archaic prose to the shining and glorious wit that had composed it. And a week later the title Infinite Jest caught my eye, and the rest is history.

In short, Hamlet is special to me, for its beautiful prose and deceptively human themes as well as its constant presence throughout the years. It is a play whose value to me only increases as my life continues, with every new encounter inspiring increased understanding and appreciation of its existence. I could go on about the complexities seething in the mind of each and every character, the wickedly quick humor and scathing wordplay, the immense presence of death working its way throughout every aspect of Hamlet's world, the battle between ancient cultures raging through lines of debate. To be, or not to be. With so many beliefs, who can avoid the question? I could even drag out my aforementioned essay for public perusal. But I won't. A heartfelt recommendation, for now, is enough. The rest is for the future.

یه اعتراف می خوام بکنم:
من قبلاً از بین کارهای شکسپیر، هملت رو اصلاً دوست نداشتم. عاشق اتللو و مکبث بودم، ولی از هملت خوشم نمی اومد اصلاً و نمی دونستم چرا معروف ترین اثر شکسپیره.

همه ى اين ها، تا وقتى شنيدم "بنديكت كمبربچ" نقش هملت رو بازى كرده. قبلاً اجراى سينمايى "مل گيبسون" رو ديده بودم، و راستش چندان كمكى نكرد كه هملت رو بيشتر دوست داشته باشم. اما بنديكت كمبربچ ماجراى ديگه ايه. با سختى اين اجرا رو پيدا كردم، و: موسيقى بى نظير، طراحى لباس بى نظير، طراحى صحنه ى بى نظير، نور پردازى بى نظير... اما همه ى اين ها فقط زيورهايى عارضى بودن گرد جوهر اصلى: بازى بى نظير.

عادت شكسپير اينه كه تقريباً هيچ كدوم از حالات شخصيت ها و لحن ديالوگ ها رو نمى نويسه و همه رو واگذار كرده به كارگردان و بازيگر. كلماتش همه خشك و بى جان هستن، و يك كارگردان و بازيگر خوب نيازه تا روح درستى به اين كلمات بدمه. يكى مثل بنديكت كمبربچ كه با دم مسيحايى ش به تك تك كلمات، شخصيت متمايزى بده، روح مستقلى بده، و حالات چهره اى به نمايشنامه اضافه كنه كه مثل شارح يك كتاب قديمى، جمله به جمله شرح بده كه چطور بايد هر جمله رو فهميد.

اوايل فيلم خیلی از دیالوگ ها رو متوجه نمی شدم به خاطر نثر قديمى شكسپير، و زيرنويس هم موجود نبود. به خاطر همین رفتم ترجمه ی "م.ا به آذين" (كه اتفاقاً از مترجم هاييه كه دوست دارم نثرشون رو) از نمایشنامه رو دانلود کردم. نمايشنامه رو باز گذاشتم کنار فیلم و همزمان فیلم رو می ديدم و ترجمه رو می خوندم، و به اين ترتيب بنديكت كمبربچ دست به دست م.ا به آذين، باعث شدن هملت با دوازده پله از قعر جدولِ نمايشنامه هاى محبوب من، به جايگاه صدرنشينى صعود كنه.

آنك من: شيفته و دوستدار هملت!

The most extra things that Hamlet did in the play, in no particular order:

I. Told his mother that no matter how much black he wore it could never really reflect how he felt inside.

II. Had a full conversation in a graveyard with a gravedigger about death and talked to the skull of a man he hadn’t seen in 23 years.

III. Wrote an entire play to frame his uncle for murder instead of just going to the authorities or killing his uncle like he kept planning on doing.

IV. Jumped into Ophelia’s grave to fight with Laertes over which one of them loved her more.

V. “how do I distract everyone so I can plan my uncle’s murder? Act fucking insane? Okay. That works lmao”

VI. Forged a letter from his uncle instructing the people in England to murder his former best friends instead of him.

VII. Stabbed Polonius and then said it was his fault for being too nosy.

VIII. Didn't take revenge on his uncle while he was praying because he didn't want him to go to heaven.

IX.
- Now, Hamlet, where is polonius?
- AT SUPPER.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, William Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1602.

Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «هملت»؛ «سوگنمایش هملت شاهپور دانمارک»؛ «تراژدی هملت : پرنس دانمارک»؛ «هملت شاهزاده ی دانمارک»؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: در روزهای ماه مارس سال 1972میلادی

عنوان: هملت؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: مسعود فرزاد؛ تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر کتاب، 1337، در 290ص؛ چاپ دوم 1346؛ موضوع سوگنمایش از نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 16م

عنوان: هملت؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: داریوش شاهین؛ تهران، جاویدان، 1344، در 278ص، مصور؛

عنوان: هملت؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: محمود اعتمادزاده (م.ا. به آذین)؛ تهران، اندیشه، 1344، در 288ص؛ چاپ دوم فروردین 1351؛

عنوان: سوگنمایش هملت شاهپور دانمارک؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ ویراستار: هارولد جنکینز؛ مترجم: میرشمس الدین ادیب سلطانی؛ تهران، نگاه، 1385، در 395ص، فارسی انگلیسی، شابک 9643513297؛

عنوان: هملت؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: آرش خیرآبادی؛ مشهد، پاژ، 1387، در 232ص؛ شابک 9789648904536؛

عنوان: هملت؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ برگردان: رضا دادویی؛ تهران، آدورا، 1391، در 275ص، شابک 9786009307135؛

عنوان: تراژدی هملت : پرنس دانمارک؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: بهزاد جزایری؛ تهران، انتشارات پلک، 1393، در 412ص، شابک 9789642353187؛

عنوان: هملت شاهزاده ی دانمارک؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: شیدا فروغی؛ قزوین، سایه گستر، 1393، در 48ص، شابک 9786003740082؛

عنوان: هملت؛ سروده: ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: مهرداد پورعلم؛ تهران، انتشارات ایران، 1394، در 191ص؛ شابک 9786005347593؛

نمایش‌نامه‌ ای تراژیک اثر «ویلیام شکسپیر» است که در سال 1602میلادی نوشته شده، و یکی از مشهورترین نمایش‌نامه‌ های تاریخ ادبیات جهان به شمار است؛ نمایش نامه از آنجا آغاز می‌شود که «هملت شاهزاده دانمارک»، از سفر «آلمان» به قصر خود در «هلسینبورگ دانمارک» بازمی‌گردد، تا در مراسم خاکسپاری پدرش شرکت جوید؛ پدرش به گونه ای مرموز به قتل رسیده‌، کس از چند و چون قتل شاه آگاه نیست؛ «هملت» درمی‌یابد، که مادر و عمویش با هم پیمان زناشویی بسته، و هم بستر شده‌ اند؛ وسوسه‌ ها و تردیدهای «هملت» هنگامی آغاز می‌شود، که روح شاه مقتول بر او نمایان می‌شود؛ روح به «هملت» میگوید که چگونه به دست برادر خویش به قتل رسیده‌ است، و از «هملت» می‌خواهد انتقام باز ستاند؛ «هملت» در گیر و داری اشتباهاً پدر معشوقه‌ اش «اوفلیا» را، به قتل می‌رساند، پدر «اوفلیا» در پشت پرده، مشغول جاسوسی بوده، و «هملت» اشتباهاً، او را «کلادیوس» پنداشته بود؛ «اوفلیا» از مرگ پدر آشفته می‌شود، و خود را در رودخانه‌ ای غرق می‌کند؛ سرانجام پس از درگیری با «لایریتس»، برادر «اوفلیا»، که به خونخواهی خواهر و پدر برخاسته بود، «هملت» انتقام پدر خویش را، از عموی خویش نیز می‌گیرد؛ و در پایان نمایش هر دوی آنها، به همراه «گرترود» و برادر «اوفلیا» کشته می‌شوند

شخصیتهای نمایش عبارتند از: «کلادیوس: پادشاه دانمارک و عموی هملت»؛ «هملت: پسر شاه پیشین، و برادرزاده ی پادشاه کنونی»؛ «گرترود: ملکه ی دانمارک و مادر هملت»؛ «پولونیوس: لرد چمبرلین»؛ «اوفلیا: دختر پولونیوس و معشوقه ی هملت»؛ «هوراشیو: دوست هملت»؛ «لایریتس: پسر پولونیوس»؛ «کورنلیوس، روزنکرانس، گیلدسترن: دوستان هملت»؛ «مارسلوس: افسر»؛ «برناردو: افسر»؛ «فرانسیسکو: سرباز»؛ «رینالدو: خادم پولونیوس»؛ «شبح: پدر هملت»؛ «فورتینبراس: شاهزاده نروژ»؛ «گروه بازیگران دوره گرد»؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 11/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 26/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Have seen and taught this play many times and may at some point write a review, but this is widely seen as one of the four great tragedies of Shakespeare including Macbeth, Othello and King Lear. Many great screen adaptations exist including that of Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Brannagh and others. Tremendous characters, and memorable speeches.

I write this here now because under the worldwide restrictions internationally I saw online a wonderful (zoomed) reading of the play managed by a Hong Kong theater company, with actors reading the script in Hong Kong, LA, NYC, Chicago, and Milwaukee, including a friend of mine. On the right you could read the same script they were using, and I tacked back and forth between the reading and the lively inventive production that sometimes allowed for minimal costumes and props (Yorick was raised from the grave as a roll of toilet paper; how's that for improvisation with a nod to contemporary circumstances!?). Many such live productions are now available online; now how to get them paid!

I have finally read what is known by many as Shakespeare's greatest work (and his longest), and also by some as the greatest play and piece of literature of all time. With that reputation, it had a lot to live up to, and in many respects it delivered.

Hamlet is a fantastic exploration of descent into madness, both as a play but also as the central figure, but this also places a lens on the philosophy of 'blood begets blood', as essentially it is pursuit of vengeance and an escalation of events that causes all to lose.

I think Hamlet, the King and the Queen, as well as Laertes and Polonius were very well fleshed characters, with their own worked out psychologies that brought life and a reality to this play. It created tension, and allowed that 'willing suspension of disbelief'.

As well as these characters, I thought every scene with Hamlet himself was fantastic. The crafting of his relationships and the contrast between how he talks to those such as Horatio, and ten Ophelia, revealed so much about his character and personality in a very accomplished and subtle way that was just classic Shakespeare.

On the flip side, I think that some of the supporting cast were weaker than those in Othello or Macbeth, and so these scenes without Hamlet sometimes pulled me out of this evolution of events. His 'friends' were an example of this in my opinion.

Hamlet is a play I would recommend all fans of Shakespeare to read. I do not know how it has taken me until now to finally read it, but I am glad that I have. It was very enjoyable, with some of Shakespeare's most quoted and iconic scenes, and the culmination of events in Hamlet is a fantastic crescendo.

"To be or not to be that is the question:"

Is this the most famous line in Shakespeare? It is certainly a contender. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is Shakespeare's longest and most ambitious play, taking over four hours to perform in its entirety. Written at some point between 1599 and 1602, it has such an extensive vocabulary and expressive range, that Shakespeare was emotionally drained afterwards, and was incapable of writing anything for two years. It was not only one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime, but it has been hugely influential, inspiring countless adaptations and retellings, and is still among his most-performed plays world-wide. People have joked that it is a series of quotations from end to end, and certainly maxims such as,

"Give thy thoughts no tongue"
"Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar"
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be"
"To thine own self be true"
"I must be cruel only to be kind"
"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all"
"... it is a custom
More honoured in the breach
than the observance"

have entered the English language so successfully, that people sometimes mistakenly think they are from a holy book. Many of the characters in Hamlet are inclined to philosophise. Here is Claudius, racked with guilt,

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

But none more so than the eponymous character of Hamlet. His remark to the courtier Rosencrantz,

"For there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so"

is subjectivist. It has its philosophical basis in the Greek Sophists, who argued that nothing is real except in the mind of the individual. Therefore there is no absolute truth, only relative truth. Hamlet's most famous soliloquy, the "To be or not to be" speech, is a clear example of existentialism. Hamlet is considering "being" - or continuing in his life and therefore acting on his knowledge, as against "not being" - where he would not live any more, and therefore not take any action. Yet as all true philosophers are, Hamlet is both open-minded and sceptical. On seeing the ghost, he reassures his friend,

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

In addition, Shakespeare has made this brilliant, perceptive young man, the most skilled of all the characters at rhetoric, frequently using metaphors, puns, and double meanings. Surprisingly, this style of language still works well in a modern theatre, and is also comparatively easy to understand in this play. Other phrases such as,

"Frailty, thy name is woman!"
"Murder most foul"
"To sleep: perchance to dream"
"A little more than kin, a little less than kind"
"Sweets to the sweet"
"In my mind's eye"

and many more, are present in our culture. They are common sayings, frequently "borrowed" by other authors to be the titles of their books and plays. Shakespeare's language can sometimes be difficult to understand for contemporary readers, as it uses highly elaborate and complex witty discourse. Yet such is the skill of our greatest playwright, that he has coined these timeless and memorable quips in this play. For, as wise Polonius says,

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

There are many long speeches and soliloquies, but often it is these shorter phrases which have the most resonance.

Shakespeare created the title role of Hamlet (as the play is usually referred to) for the leading tragic actor of the time, Richard Burbage, and the tradition of "wanting to play Hamlet" has remained the pinnacle of many actors' careers for 400 years. In modern times, some female actors have also expressed a desire to play the role - and a few now have.

Shakespeare rarely invented his stories, and the source material for this one was probably the legend of "Amleth", from the 13th century. This was later retold by François de Belleforest in the 16th century. There is also apparently an earlier Elizabethan play, known today as the "Ur-Hamlet", although it is no longer extant. The author of the "Ur-Hamlet" is not known, and may well have been Shakespeare himself.

The play starts with a supernatural episode, guaranteed to grip the audience. It is approaching midnight, a cold winter's night outside Elsinore, the royal castle in Denmark, where the play is to be set. With the very first words,

"Who's there?"

a ghostly figure has appeared to the guards, while they are awaiting a relief patrol.

As the guards and the audience begin to anticipate more appearances by the ghost, we learn of the political situation through the discussion between the soldiers. There has been a long-standing feud between Denmark and Norway, a neighbouring country. The Norwegian prince, Fortinbras is expected to lead an invasion. This also neatly leads to an introduction of his counterpart, the title character and protagonist, Prince Hamlet of Denmark, whom the soldiers admire. Hamlet's father (who was also called Hamlet) has recently died, and his widowed mother, Gertrude, has married the deceased king's brother, Claudius, who immediately succeeded him to the throne. This is obviously an interesting topic of discussion, both in terms of both the domestic and the international political situation.

The action moves to within the castle, and a scene introducing the characters mentioned. We become instantly aware of the young Prince Hamlet's dislike of his uncle Claudius,

"My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules"

Indeed, he later refers to him as,

"that incestuous, that adulterate beast"

Hamlet seems confused, and consequently distanced from his mother, whom he views as having made an over-hasty marriage,

"Frailty, thy name is woman! -
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:"

...

"within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!"

Much later, Gertrude has begun to recognise her behaviour in Hamlet's dramatic representation, and objects,

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

but at this point she seems unaware of his judgement of her.

We are introduced to Hamlet's circle of friends, his good friend Horatio, his romantic interest, Ophelia, her wise father - and the Lord Chamberlain Polonius (source of many of the timeless quotations), and her brave brother Laertes. The soldiers have consulted Horatio about the apparition's strange resemblance to the old king, and the Prince Hamlet decides to investigate.

From now on, the play becomes increasingly tense, with thrills, madness, mayhem, suicide and murder at every turn. One of the greatest bloodbaths in the whole of Shakespeare is in this play. The ghost tells Hamlet,

n  "the serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown"

"Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:"n

urging Hamlet to,

"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder...
Murder most foul!"

"O, horrible! O, horrible!" most horrible!"

"Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me."

Hamlet is mentally tortured by the knowledge of what the ghost has told him. He is driven to question the worth of his very existence, dissembling to many of his loved ones by assuming an air of madness. A genuine insanity takes hold of Ophelia, mainly because of Hamlet's behaviour and actions, particularly one which resulted in the wrong victim. He uses his brain to outwit the one he now knows to be the murderer,

"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!"

"... the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King."


and a remarkable piece of theatre, a play within a play, is the result.

This is a favourite device of Shakespeare, a literary conceit in which one story is told during the action of another story. It is both enjoyable in its own terms, yet it also reveals traits of character in those watching - just as that in, for instance, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The twist in this play, of course, is that such reactions are being searched for by one of the characters, who is watching the others like a hawk. This a nice self-referential touch.

When Hamlet is banished, although he does not know the whole of the devilment in store for him, he turns circumstances to his advantage.

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't"

"with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge"

Yet he feels persecuted, and the audience sense that he is doomed. This is a tragedy, after all. And Hamlet himself seems to feel the omens,

"The time is out of joint - O cursed spite!
That ever I was born to set it right!"

There are twists and turns in the play which come as a shock to the audience, and critics have debated the interpretation of the events ever since. There is cold-blooded murder, desire, jealousy, ambition, and calculated revenge. There are complex ethical and philosophical issues which have had varying significance depending on the time the play is performed.

In the early 17th century Jacobean drama, when themes of insanity and melancholy were fashionable, the play was very popular. By the middle of the 18th century, Gothic themes became popular, so audiences appreciated not only madness in the play, but also the mystical and ghostly elements of Hamlet. In the 19th century, Romanticism blossomed, and readers and audiences began to admire internal and individual conflicts, so the focus shifted to an interest in Hamlet's characters and internal mental struggles. This tradition has continued into the 20th century, and even today.

A modern audience may have an even deeper psychological approach, and look at Hamlet's unconscious desires and motivations, which may not be merely the ones he expresses. Additionally, on each performance, or reading, a reader may understand different points about the play. Consider just a few paltry examples from the hundreds of questions the play raises; here are a few alternative interpretations to those which seem the more obvious ones:

Was Gertrude actually "guilty" of anything? A respectable woman of this time would be classed either as a maid, a wife, or a widow. Whores were considered to be clearly unrespectable. Yet Hamlet perceived his mother as a whore because she did not remain faithful to his father, the king. But wasn't she a woman trapped by convention, in the tradition of marrying her brother-in-law, to protect the kingdom? Or were there baser desires, as Hamlet suspected? Or alternatively, was Hamlet disgusted by his mother's "incestuous" relationship with Claudius because he himself had Oedipal desires?

What was the true relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia? Was she an innocent? Or could Ophelia's madness after her father's death also be given a Freudian interpretation. She clearly loved her father - but was this in all innocence as a daughter? Why was she apparently so completely overwhelmed by his death that this drove her insane?

And why did Hamlet's disgust at his mother's behaviour lead him to lose faith in all women, so that he treated Ophelia as if she was being dishonest - and as if she too was a whore? Was Hamlet himself mad, suicidal, hormonal, confused, or psychotic? It is interesting that in a play which sees so much action, it is in the soliloquies that Shakespeare shows us Hamlet's motives and thoughts. Why did he seem so inconsistent? Is this to lead the audience astray? The play focuses on confusion and duality, in all things. Was he a true hero?

As with all classic works, there are myriad interpretations. None of the situations are simple; none of the characters one-sided. It is a play which can, and should, be read and watched over and over again.


"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
...
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue."

...

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will..."

It is only when I read and compare across languages that I realise what a hard and thankless job translation is, especially older texts and more so when there's a significant cultural distance between languages. Shakespeare's diction is so profoundly poetic and idiomatic that it might be thought untranslatable, even when it is rendered into modern English idiom, it loses its antique beauty when tampered with, like those monuments reconstructed from history that look like originals but actually are not.

And so reading Shakespeare in Urdu was always going to be a fascinating experience. I commend Firaq Gorakhpuri's consummate skill in recreating Hamlet in an idiom that recalls the dying days of the classical dialect mixed in with sufficient modernist invention to keep it coherent, but without employing too many calques and direct borrowings which would have grated on my nerves. I also like that the translator did not depart from the prose-poetry form of the original.

All in all, this translation of Hamlet may go down as one of the finest examples of how to translate classical English literature, and not just Shakespeare, in a language that is fast losing translations from other cultures.

December '16

چه کسی پدر هملت را کشت؟
یادداشتی بر نمایشنامۀ هملت بر اساس نظریۀ هنری فروید

فروید و هنر
فرويد بر اساس نظريات روانكاوى خود، ديدگاه جالبى راجع به هنر و اسطوره دارد. از نظر فرويد هنر و اسطوره مختص افراد روان‌رنجور است که نتوانسته اند به طور کامل امیال دوران کودکی خود را سرکوب کنند، در نتیجه همچنان نفرت به پدر و میل جنسی به مادر در آن‌ها وجود دارد، اما از آن جا که نمی‌توانند این امیال را به طور مستقیم ابراز کنند، از ابزار هنر و اسطوره استفاده می‌کنند، تا با همذات‌پنداری با قهرمان، لذت كشتن پدر و جمع شدن با مادر را هر چند به صورتى خيالى و ناقص، بچشند. هنرمند شرايط داستان را طورى مى سازد كه قهرمان به دليلى موجه پدر هيولا صفت خود را بكشد و با مادرش جمع شود، هر چند نه فيزيكى. چرا كه هنرمند مى خواهد بدون بر هم زدن اخلاقيات مرسوم، با قهرمان خود همذات پندارى كند.

فروید و هملت
اما فرويد به شكل عجيبى در تحليل هملت از اين نظر خود عدول مى كند (بدون اين كه ادعا داشته باشد از نظرش برگشته) و "هملت" را انسانى روان رنجور مى داند، نه شكسپير را. او هملت را قهرمان روان رنجوری معرفی می کند كه نمى تواند عموى خود را بكشد، چرا كه با عمویش، كه آرزوى روان رنجورانۀ هملت را برآورده كرده -كشتن پدر، جمع شدن با مادر- همذات پندارى مى كند.

تحلیلی جدید از هملت
سه كليد در نظريۀ تحليل هنرى فرويد هست که ما را به تحلیل درست روانکاوانۀ هملت راهنمایی می کند:

کلید اول
از نظر فرويد "هنرمند" روان رنجور است، نه قهرمان. قهرمان از لحاظ عقده هاى جنسى، به ظاهر سالم تصوير مى شود. هنرمند اصرار دارد كه قهرمان را سالم و موجّه و مطابق اخلاقيات مرسوم تصوير كند، تا به اين شکل ميل جنسى روان رنجورانۀ خود را بپوشاند.

با در نظر گرفتن این کلید، اين "شكسپير" است كه روان رنجور است، نه هملت. هملت كاملاً سالم است: نه از پدر خود نفرت دارد، و نه هیچ میلی به مادر خود دارد. يا حداقل شكسپير اصرار دارد او را اين گونه بنمايد.

کلید دوم
از نظر فرويد اين "قهرمان" است كه پدر خود را مى كشد، و با مادر جمع مى شود. قهرمان اصلى اثر هنرى، پدركش است. نه ضدقهرمان يا شخصيت هاى فرعى.

با در نظر گرفتن این کلید، اين "هملت" است كه پدركش است، نه عموى هملت يا هر كس ديگر. اما هملت كى و كجا پدر خود را مى كشد؟ اين ما را به كليد سوم مى رساند كه مهم ترين كليد نظريه فرويد است:

کلید سوم
از نظر فرويد هنرمند نمى خواهد و اگر هم بخواهد، به دليل روان رنجورى نمى تواند اخلاقيات مرسوم را زير پا بگذارد، در نتيجه از تصريح به "كشتن پدر" و "جمع شدن با مادر" – که آرزوی درونی خود او هستند – توسط قهرمان طفره می رود و آن را در لفافه مى گويد، یا به گونه اى موجّهش می کند كه اخلاقيات مرسوم را زير پا نگذاشته باشد.

با در نظر گرفتن این کلید، باید دید شكسپير روان رنجور چطور هملت را به كشتن پدر و جمع شدن با مادر وا مى دارد، بدون آن كه اخلاقيات مرسوم را زير پا بگذارد؟ چطور از تصريح به "پدركشى" هملت طفره مى رود؟

اول: به جاى پدر، مى گويد "عمو". عموى هملت، با خصوصيت شاه بودن، با گفتن اين عبارت كه "ما را پدر خود بدانيد" كسى نيست جز پدر هملت، كسى كه شكسپيرِ روان رنجور با كشتن او به دست هملت مى خواهد آرزوهاى روان رنجورانۀ خود را ارضا كند. اما از آن جا كه نمى تواند به صراحت بگويد "هملت پدرش را مى كشد"، به ظاهر مى گويد: هملت نمى خواهد پدر خود را بكشد، تا او را از "پدركشى" مبرا كند، بلكه حتى بيشتر، هملت را تقديس مى كند و مى گويد: هملت مى خواهد انتقام پدرش را بگيرد. يعنى نه تنها تلاش مى كند او را از اتهام نفرت به پدر مبرا كند، بلكه از او چهره اى پدر دوست مى سازد.
اما اين عمو همچون پدر فرویدی در ديد هملت منفورترين شخصيت است، و چرا؟ چون با مادر او جمع شده، چون مرتكب "زناى با محارم" (اين واژۀ پر بسامد در سرتاسر نمايشنامه) شده. درست همان دليلى كه كودك را به نفرت از پدر مى كشاند: چون او مى تواند با مادر جمع شود، و من نمى توانم.
و براى اين كه كسى از اتهامى (زناى با محارم) مبرا شود، چه راهى ساده تر از آن كه آن را به ديگران نسبت دهد، و به اين ترتيب خود را در صف مقدم منتقدان آن قرار دهد؟ فرويد اين نوع تطهير را، "فرافكنى" مى نامد. شکسپیر نیز برای تطهیر هملت، دست به فرافکنی می زند و عموی هملت را پی در پی زانی با محارم می خواند تا فراموش شود که این خود هملت است که آرزوی زنای با محارم در سر دارد.

دوم: هملت به طور فيزيكى با مادر خود جمع نمى شود. اما نشانه هايى از "نزديكى" هملت و مادر در نمايشنامه هست. اولاً از بين پدر-عمو و مادر، مادر تنها كسى است كه هملت با او جدى و به دور از اهانت و مسخرگى سخن مى گويد و حرف دل خود را به او مى زند. ثانياً، اصلى ترين گفتگوى هملت و مادر جايى است كه هملت مادر را به خاطر "زناى با محارم" محكوم مى كند، و او را متقاعد مى كند كه ديگر با پدر-عمو به بستر نرود. مى توان حدس زد كه شكسپير روان رنجور تا چه اندازه از اين پيروزى قهرمانش لذتى ممنوعه و روان رنجورانه برده است: كودكى كه بالاخره بر پدر پيروز مى شود و نمى گذارد با مادر جمع شود.

هر چند نبايد در اين راه افراط كرد، چون نشانه هاى كمى از جمع شدن هملت با مادر هست، و محور اصلى نمايشنامه، بر "پدر-عمو كشى" است، و نه جمع شدن با مادر.




در انتها تذکر این نکته ضروری است که مطالب این نوشته، از جمله روان رنجوریِ شکسپیر، الزاماً مورد باور من نیست. من تنها از دیدگاه فرویدی به نمایشنامه نگاه کردم، و تحلیل فروید از هملت را که به نظر با دیدگاه خودش متناسب نبود را اصلاح کردم.