HAMLET, THE GHOST AND THE MODEL READER THE PROBLEMS OF THE RECEPTION AND A CONCEPT OF SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET Doctoral dissertation by András G. Bernáth Supervisor: Prof. Guido Latré, PhD Université Catholique de Louvain 2013 ABSTRACT In a comprehensive study of Hamlet and its reception, this dissertation offers a concept and interpretation of Shakespeare’s work as a complex literary work and play for the theatre. It is argued that the play, through a series of ambiguities, implies two main levels of meaning, which complement each other in a truly dramatic contrast, exploring the main theme of Hamlet and dramatic art in general: seeming and being, or illusion and reality. On the surface, which has been usually maintained since the Restoration, Hamlet seems to be a moral hero, who “sets it right” by punishing the evil villain, the usurper King Claudius, following the miraculous return of the murdered King Hamlet from the dead. At a deeper level, exploring the Christian context including King James’s Daemonologie (1597), the Ghost demanding revenge is, in fact, a disguised devil, exploiting the tragic flaw of the protagonist, who wishes the damnation of his enemy. Fortinbras, who comes from the north like King James and renounces revenge, is rewarded with the kingdom after the avengers, Hamlet and Laertes, kill each other and virtually the entire Danish court is wiped out through Hamlet’s quest of total revenge, pursuing both body and soul. The aesthetic identity of Hamlet is also examined. In addition to the mainly philological and historical analysis of the text, the play, some adaptations and the critical reception, theoretical concerns are also included. Epistemology and semiotics, in particular Kuhn’s notion of paradigm and Eco’s notion of the Model Reader, are applied to enhance the understanding of the two levels of meaning of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as well as the problems of the reception. The main purpose is to restore and explain Shakespeare’s work, so that it can be fully appreciated, again in its original complexity. CONTENTS 1.3 Introduction 1 1.4 1 The purpose of playing and other issues 11 1.5 1.1 The purpose of playing in Hamlet 11 1.6 1.2 The difficulties of interpretation 18 1.7 1.3 Hamlet, the Ghost, and religion 24 1.8 1.4 Hamlet’s delay and some further issues 28 1.9 2 Some problems of criticism, or Hamlet as a problem play 40 1.10 2.1 Early criticism: Moral hero? 40 1.11 2.1.1 Hanmer’s critique of Hamlet’s character 41 1.12 2.1.2 Johnson’s critique and the notion of poetical justice 44 1.13 2.1.3 Fielding on Garrick’s performance and its reception 48 1.14 2.2 The Romantic concept of Hamlet 51 1.15 2.2.1 Hazlitt on Hamlet’s moral perfection 51 1.16 2.2.2 Coleridge on Shakespeare’s intentions 56 1.17 2.2.3 Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister on Hamlet’s soul 59 1.18 2.2.4 A dissident voice: Steevens’ critique of Shakespeare 61 1.19 2.3. Hamlet as a problem play 64 1.20 2.3.1 The notion of “problem play” 64 1.21 2.3.2 Tillyard on the problems of Hamlet 65 1.22 2.4 Recent criticism: Hamlet? In Purgatory? 72 1.23 2.4.1 Hamlet as the most problematic play ever written 72 1.24 2.4.2 Greenblatt’s new historicist account of religion and the Ghost 75 1.25 2.4.3 Some other recent responses to these problems 92 3 What’s in a name? The text and the designation of the characters 96 3.1 The original texts and the designation of the Ghost 96 3.1.1 The significance of the original texts and their designation 96 3.1.2 The beginning of Shakespeare’s text: Names and themes 99 3.1.3 Enter Ghost 102 3.2 The meanings of “ghost” and the modern editions 105 3.2.1 The Oxford English Dictionary and some major critical editions 105 3.3.2 The Arden Hamlet and its annotations (2006) 111 3.2.3 Another meaning of “ghost” in the OED, and some further editions 118 3.3 Hamlet’s “addition” and the parallel of Macbeth 125 4 The aesthetic identity of Hamlet: Some issues and productions 132 4.1 Aesthetic identity, translation, and the loss of the text 132 4.1.1 The notion of “aesthetic identity”, and its relationship to translation 135 4.1.2 The possible advantages of translation: an example 140 4.1.3 Some questions on texts, adaptations, and the internet 142 4.2 Hamlet as a play for the theatre 148 4.2.1 Davenant’s Restoration Hamlet 148 4.2.2 Garrick’s Hamlet (1772) 156 4.2.3 The Royal National Theatre’s Hamlet (2000) 161 4.2.4 Hamlet returns to the Globe (2000) 169 4.2.5 Another Hamlet at the Globe and on tour (2011-12) 172 4.3 Hamlet as an opera 184 4.3.1 The significance of the opera and film adaptations 184 4.3.2 The French Hamlet opera (1868) 185 4.3.3 The MET Hamlet production (2010) 188 4.4 Hamlet as a film 192 4.4.1 Olivier’s Hamlet (1948) 193 4.4.2 Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990) 199 4.4.3 Branagh’s Hamlet (1996) 204 5 Hamlet in its historical context: Aspects of a complex play 213 5.1 Hamlet and his task 213 5.1.1 The role of history and historicist criticism 213 5.1.2 A complex era and task, with parallel characters 217 5.1.3 Succession, revenge and rebellion in contemporary Britain and Denmark 233 5.1.4 The Essex rebellion and the theatre 237 5.1.5 James, the King from the north 240 5.2 Spirituality, demonology and the Ghost 249 5.2.1 The character of the Ghost in Elizabethan ghost lore 249 5.2.2 The Ghost in the dramatic structure 262 5.3 Hamlet and the Ghost: The tragic flaw of the protagonist 272 5.4 The conclusion: Hamlet’s fall and the rise of Fortinbras 296 6 Hamlet in the light of theory: Two levels of meaning 302 6.1 Two concepts of Hamlet and the notion of paradigm 302 6.1.1 The significance of theory in the reception of Hamlet 302 6.1.2 Two opposing readings and the notion of paradigm 305 6.2 The limits of interpretation and the Model Reader 316 6.2.1 The notion of the Model Reader 321 6.2.2 Two levels of interpretation 322 6.2.3 Interpreting drama, or Hamlet in the theatre 327 Epilogue 335 Bibliography 341 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is the result of many years of research and studies at several universities and institutions in several countries. If Hamlet is a delaying avenger, I have also delayed the completion of my task for rather a long time, which can only partly be explained by the scope and the complexity of the topic, or the novelty of my approach. Therefore, I should apologise for the delay before expressing my thanks to all those who have helped me along the way. I wish to express my thank to Professor Guido Latré, my supervisor both at the Université Catholique de Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, for his generous supervision, the inspiring lectures and discussions on Shakespeare and related issues, and for his expertise on the contemporary religious texts and contexts concerning the English Reformation. I am also grateful for his patience with my work. I am indebted to Professor Agnès Guiderdoni and Ms. Valérie Martin for the opportunity to follow my supervisor from Leuven to Lovain-la-Neuve and present my doctorate there. My research in Belgium was made possible by a three-year doctoral scholarship from the Soros Foundation and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, for which I would like to express my thanks. I am grateful to Professor Béla Somfai, SJ, and the late Professor István Muzslay, SJ, for their expert advice on moral theology, as well as for their encouragement. I also thank Professor Ortwin de Graef for his seminars and expertise on literary theory. I warmly thank dr. Gergely Juhász, dr. Paul Arblaster and all other scholars for their help and encouragement in Leuven. The Collegium Hungaricum in Leuven was very inspiring for study and research alike. Among the numerous events there, a meeting with Otto von Habsburg was particularly memorable. Dr. Habsburg earned his doctorate at the Catholic University of Leuven or Louvain, well before the university’s split into two on linguistic grounds. He, like Hamlet, was a Prince who never became king: as the last Crown-Prince of Austria-Hungary, he witnessed the fall and disintegration of the Habsburg Empire, two world wars, the Cold War and the reunification of Europe; as the President of the International Paneuropean Union, he devoted his life to European integration and played a major role in the fall of the Iron Curtain. I would like to thank Professor György E. Szőnyi, my former supervisor at the University of Szeged, Hungary, for his inspiring lectures, seminars, advice and encouragement at earlier stages of my studies and research concerning my MA thesis entitled “Hamlet, Victim of the Evil Ghost”, on which this dissertation is based. I am grateful to dr. Attila Kiss, whose courses on Shakespeare, English literature and literary theory were equally inspirational; I owe much to his expertise in semiotics and particularly on the notion of the Vice; my reading of Hamlet is very much indebted to his.