Shakespeare’s supernatural assignment

One reason why it can feely be said that Hamlet and Macbeth are two of Shakespearean greatest tragedies is that they have been written about more than any other of the tragedies, or even of all of Shakespearean plays. It has been said that Hamlet is the most written-about work in all of Western literature. Given the great interest, the fascination, even, which the two plays have had for scholars and critics down through the years, it is not surprising that every important character, every turn of plot, and every aspect of theme in them has been subject to different interpretations, sometimes wildly different interpretations.

This is certainly true of the supernatural elements in the two plays. The purpose of this paper will be to explore the forms and the roles of the supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth. I will take up the plays in chronological order, first Hamlet, first published in 1603, then Macbeth, first published in 1606. For each of the plays, I will begin by setting out the general beliefs about the supernatural held by Shakespearean original audiences (and, it is reasonable to suppose, probably by Shakespeare himself), for Hamlet, what they believed about ghosts, for Macbeth, what they believed about witches.

While some ghosts might be angels in spirit form, Protestants thought that ghosts were in general “ nothing but devils, who ‘ assumed’ … The form of departed friends or relatives, in order to work bodily or spiritual harm upon those to whom they appeared” (Wilson, 62). The king of England himself, James l, in 1597 (six years before e came to the English throne) published a learned treatise, Demonology, that set out this orthodox Protestant view of ghosts and that helped to prolong its life in England for another hundred years.

Although Just about every English man and woman of Shakespearean time was a Christian, either Protestant or Catholic, not everyone believed in the real existence of ghosts. James Xi’s Demonology was in fact written as an orthodox Protestant rebuttal of the ideas put forward in two works published thirteen years earlier, in 1584, Reginald Cot’s Discoveries of Witchcraft and Discourse upon Devils and Spirits. Scot believed in the existence of spirits but dismissed ghosts as either “ the illusion of melancholic minds or flat knavery on the part of some rogue” (Wilson, 64).

He accomplished this by making it recognizably Christian–the Ghost comes from Purgatory and not from the classical Hades, like Kid’s ghost and many others before and after–by involving it in the plays action, and by creating a spirit that is “ an epitome of the ghost lore of his time” as described by the age’s leading ghost authorities, Reginald Scot in his Discovery of Witchcraft with its “ Discourse upon Devils and Spirits” (1 584), and Ludwig Elevate in his Of Ghosts and Spirits walking by Night (1572, 1596) (West, 64-65; Mir, 121;

Wilson, 53, 63). What Wilson calls “ this unique creature of [Shakespearean] imagination” is not a bystander but “ a character in the play in the fullest sense of the term” (Wilson, 53, 52). Supernatural appearances in Hamlet The supernatural is not only a key element in the plot and atmosphere of Hamlet and Macbeth; it is a key element even though it appears in each of the plays only a very few times and most of its appearances are not for very long.

It is hard to believe that two professional soldiers, Marcella and Barnyard, should not know of the reason for their country inflammation, and therefore Marseille’s question is nothing more than a clumsy device of Shakespearean to get in some important plot information. Horopito suggests that the ghost’s appearance is to warn Denmark of the threat. At this moment, the Ghost suddenly reappears.

Horopito confronts it and, agitated, asks whether he can do anything to comfort it, if it is trying to warn the country of danger, or if it is restless because it buried treasure during its lifetime as Shakespearean contemporaries thought this was one of the reasons why a ghost might come to haunt people. The cook crows and the Ghost vanishes without answering.

Abruptly, the Ghost orders Hamlet to avenge his father’s “ foul and most unnatural murder” (25). To Hamlet’s horror, it goes on to relate how Claudia first seduced Gertrude (“ my most seeming-virtuous queen” [46]) and then poisoned his brother: “ Thus was I sleeping by a brother’s hand / Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched” (74-75), all this without King Hamlet having had the chance to confess his sins and receive the hurrah’s last rites that would have helped settle his account with God (76-77).

The Ghost again commands Hamlet to revenge (81), but this time puts the emphasis not on the murder but on the adultery: Let not the royal bed of Denmark be couch for luxury and damned incest. (82-83) And it goes out of its way to warn Hamlet not to harm his mother in the process but to leave her to be Judged by heaven and her own conscience (84-88). This seems to murder and was only guilty of adultery. Urging Hamlet to “ Remember me” (91), the Ghost vanishes. Hamlet passionately agrees to fulfill the ghost’s “ commandment” (105).

It is different from the others because only Hamlet sees and hears the Ghost. His mother does not, and she understand the speech he addresses to the Ghost as further proof of his madness. Is the audience supposed to think that this appearance is a hallucination, a product of Hamlet’s Lancelot, and the spirit of Act l, which Horopito, Barnyard, and Marcella also see, a “ real” ghost? Or has Shakespeare simply been careless? The stage time between Hamlet’s confirmation of Classis’s guilt and the Ghost’s appearance in the boudoir scene is short but it is filled with drama.

Hamlet has been called to see his mother, first by Reassurance and Guilelessness (111. 2. 324-325) and then by Polonium (Ill. Reassurance and Guilelessness to escort Hamlet to England (111. 3. 1-7), making it sound as though the reason for his order is the threat of Hamlet’s madness to his own safety and not Hamlet’s knowledge of his crime. Polonium has gone off to hide behind a tapestry in the queen’s apartment so that he might overhear her meeting with her son.