sketchy hamlet.

Earlier on in the semester, I started doing sketches of what I was visualizing in my mind while reading Shakespeare plays. Dr. Burton told me I should post my sketches and drawings for any of you who would care to view them!

So, here they are. Tell me what you think, and what you would do differently. I'm also thinking that for the end of the semester I'll do one really detailed watercolor of something Shakespearean, so any ideas you have for that are welcome!

"I have heard / The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, / Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat / Awake the god of day, and at his warning, /  Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, / Th'extravagant and erring spirit hies / To his confine"
Horatio. Act 1, Scene 1

"O wretched state, O bosom black as death, / O limed soul that, struggling to be free, / Art more engaged!
 Help, angels! Make assay. / Bow, stubborn knees, and hear with strings of steel, /
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe! / All may be well."
King. Scene 3, Act 3.

"See what a grace was seated on his brow: / Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, / An eye like Mars to threaten and command, / A station like the herald Mercury / New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill-- / A combination and a form indeed /  Where every god did seem to set his seal / To give the world assurance of a man."
Hamlet. Act 3, Scene 4.

the firmament.

Last week I visited the library and grabbed several books on Shakespeare and various theories. A lot of the books I chose deal with the interest of science and in astronomy during the time of Shakespeare.

Last night I got into a book titled Shakespeare and Science . Although it is an older book, it gets right to the point without extra fluff and theory. Most of what I found to be interesting was how frequently, and even subtly, the heavens and the planets are mentioned in Hamlet. One of the chapters of the book dealt only with the sunrise and what it represents in Shakespeare's writings. "[the] dawn was the symbol of hope, freshness, youth, renewed strength, action, opportunity. It was the moment when man braced himself to meet his fate, be that good or bad." As I read this quote, I thought immediately of when the "cock crew" after the ghost of Hamlet's father disappeared again. After Hamlet spoke with the Ghost, he accepted to avenge his murdered father, thereby accepting his fate, which turned out to be pretty bad.

Another reference to the sun in Hamlet is when the prince is comparing his deceased father and his murderous uncle to his mother. Hamlet relates his father's image to that of Hyperion, the titan god of the sun.

Perhaps in Hamlet relating his father as the sun god, Shakespeare was able to manipulate King Hamlet as the center of all the events that occurred in the play. Bu then again, did Shakespeare believe in the Ptolemaic theory of the universe (earth as the center), or in Copernicus's model of the universe (sun as the center)? Either way, Hyperion was known and respected in the time of Shakespeare as  a pretty powerful god, deserving of praise and worship.

the prince and the queen.

I had a thought I wanted to bring up yesterday in class, but our time was spent rather quickly.
When I read act three, scene four earlier this week, I was trying to pay careful attention to why this scene is often adapted into a very incestuous exchange between Hamlet and his mother. It's true that there are many accusatory words placed on the queen by Hamlet, but think of how enraged you would be if your mother or father quickly fell in to the arms of another so soon after the death of your other parent. I think he was expressing his disgust at his mother's actions, but nothing more than that.
I had a brief discussion with my mom about the matter, and we came to an agreement that the incestuous adaptations of this scene came about at a time when there was a trend to read everything in an Oedipal light. Just like how many t.v. shows, plays, movies, etc., now have a homosexual read into it, there was also a time not too long ago when the public looked into incestuous relationships as the default psychological background.
I did think of another explanation as to why these adaptations of incest between Hamlet and the queen occur, and I think it comes with modernity and a better understanding of the psychology behind men who are rapist. The heated discussion between Hamlet and his mother could be seen as a need for Hamlet to prove his power, therefore forcing himself upon his mother who he sees as being "whorish" for so quickly marrying his uncle.
Anyway, I guess in order to look at the psychology behind different adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, we need to look at the psychology of the times in which the adaptations were performed.

the act of decay.

I live in Salt Lake, my mom lives in Salt Lake. She works on campus, and I go to school on campus (imagine that). So we carpool back and forth every day. We get a lot of talking done in those commuting hours, and the other night as we were headed back north, I read an essay out loud to her from last year's Criterion. It's titled "Something Rotten: Hamlet's Onto-Ecology." We were able to discuss several elements of Hamlet with each other as they came up in the essay. The essay focused largely on the body and the existence of the soul, and how human beings are a part from other creatures because we know and can ponder on our own existence. We sorted through that philosophy a little, and then we went off on another tangent about the conspiracy that Shakespeare was a closet Catholic in the very Protestant England. If you read Hamlet that way, as Shakespeare being a Catholic, there is a lot of underlying proof, mostly in respects to purgatory and the salvation of the soul.
Very interesting stuff.
The essay also focused largely on the theme of decay in Hamlet. Because of the death of his father, Hamlet was undoubtedly cornered by thinking of decay, and he mentions so frequently the matter of bodies lying in the earth becoming rotten and decomposed. After reading this mentioned essay on onto-ecology, I read more of Hamlet, and in act four, scene three when Hamlet is being questioned on where he put the body of Polonius, Hamlet tells his uncle that Polonius is "at supper...Not where he eats, but where 'a eaten." Then he goes on to say, "A man may fish with the worm that hath eat / of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that / worm." This quote right here illustrates the cycle of decay, and that once our souls separate our bodies, our bodies become sustenance to maintain other forms of life.
Anyway, I'm glad I read the ontology essay before finishing Hamlet so I was able to read in to the theme of decay and death.
After all, something was indeed rotten in Denmark.