I received a very strange birthday present from one of my daughters: The Autobiography of Shakespeare - A Fragment, edited by Louis C. Alexander. This book was first published in 1911, and purports to be a hitherto unknown autobiographical fragment. The edition I have is from the 1970 reissue.

While the book claims that it is a bona fide autobiographical fragment, it appears to be one of those works where the author claims to be the editor. It is a very charming read, with most of the fun coming from "imaginative" descriptions of Shakespeare's work habits and carousings with friends (e.g., Ben Jonson), both in London and Stratford. Just the stuff that Shakespeare scholars and fans have wished for for over 200 years! And it answers the question of Shakespeare's activities in his early years in London.

The claims for the spiritual and artistic infulence of Shakespeare's paternal grandfather, Thomas Little, a "little Jew from Utrecht," are also fascinating/amusing (don't ask why the paternal grandfather's surname isn't "Shakespeare"...) As far as concordance with the few historical facts known about Shakespeare, I don't think the book worries too much about that stuff, as the "editor" states in his foreword.

I highly recommend this as an amusing diversion, but for old folks like me, there is a risk of forgetting that "facts" they've accumulated about Shakespeare's life and work might not be coming from an entirely reliable source!

Reading Hamlet - Outta my head

Shakespeare uses madness very effectively in Hamlet. The feigned madness of Hamlet and the real madness of Ophelia contrast with and complement each other in many ways. Here are just a few.

After the first meeting with his father's ghost, Hamlet warns his companions that he may "put an antic disposition on", and has them swear to not give out by any hint that they know more about it than they are willing to tell, etc. His plan seems to be to trick the court into thinking he is mad for love of Ophelia, and use his madness as a cover to behave in ways that will unnerve the guilty Claudius, and throw the latter out of his smooth demeanor, proving his guilt. He succeeds in tricking Polonius, who announces to the king that Hamlet is mad from unrequited love. However, Gertrude suspects that the madness could be due to her untimely marriage to Claudius (revealing her feelings of guilt), and Claudius is also not at all convinced. Claudius clearly thinks there is something more dangerous going on, and eventually, with the additional work of the players, falls into Hamlet's trap.

Ophelia, truly mad, uses hints and allusions (echoing Hamlet's warning to his companions about revealing the source his own "antic" behavior), and communicates that she senses that more is happening than she has been told. I don't see any "policy" behind this though, unlike the actions of Hamlet feigning madness. Ophelia isn't "using" madness to express herself in ways that have been denied her; she is mad, and is expressing herself as mad people do, in contrast to Hamlet's carefully controlled "madness". I don't know enough about Elizabethan literature to know if Ophelia's mad speeches are simply a hackneyed turn rescued by Shakespeare's poetry, or an acute insight by the playright. I suspect the former.

Polonius' interpretation of Hamlet's madness, as the result of the lost love of his daughter, is a foreshadowing of Ophelia's madness. It is hard not to imagine that at least part of Ophelia's mourning is for the loss of Hamlet - some of her songs are clearly sexual in nature. And further irony is added in that Hamlet, supposedly mad for love of Ophelia, kills Polonius, who promptly goes mad, from love, filial and sexual, lost.

While important in the development of the characters and the action of the play, the speculation about the nature of madness that comes from watching these characters adds to the fascination with the play as a work of art. It also provides one of the themes that serves to unify the play, from Hamlet's suggestion that he may "put an antic disposition on" in the first act, through the burial of mad Ophelia in the last act.

I'm sure there is much, much more that can be said on this subject, even if limiting the discussion to Hamlet and not the rest of Shakespeare's plays. But I hear that bell ringing and I gotta catch a train.

Reading Hamlet - The Ghost under the stage

One of the aspects of reading Shakespeare that gets me thinking are the elements in the play that seem gratuitous, out of place, or just weird. Were the sensibilities of the audience at that time so different from ours? (Or am I the only one who thinks that these things are weird?) Were these elements inserted by other authors, or by Shakespeare to appeal to the crowd, groundlings and all. Or was Shakespeare following his sources closely, and included something that gave him a kick, without worrying about how it would play in one reader's head on the MTA.


For an example from Hamlet, in Act I, Sc 5, after Hamlet has chatted with the ghost of his father, he asks his companions to swear an oath of secrecy. As Hamlet goes about setting this up, the ghost, from beneath the stage, apparently, hollers out, "Swear!" It appears that Hamlet keeps shifting where he and his companions are standing to get out of earshot of the ectoplasmic buttinsky, but the ghost follows them. Hamlet expresses admiration for the underground tunneling skills of the ghost, the oath is sworn, and the act ends.

So ... what's up with that? To me it seems like a bit of slapstick comedy introduced at a moment of high drama. But did Elizabethan audiences, more prone to believe in ghosts than even the average US citizen, find this blood curdling and totally in line with what has come before? Did Shakespeare include this for that effect, to scare the heck out of the audience. Is the action also a chance to develop Hamlet's sardonic nature, as the ghost chases him around the stage and he makes somewhat flippant remarks in response to what might have seemed truly horrifying to the audience - a ghost that can chase you under the ground - shudder!!!

In the absence of contemparary theater reviews, we'll never know. However, I am interested in how modern directors treat this scene when staging Hamlet. I confess to never having seen the play performed, live or on film, as far as I can recall (45+ years of riding on the MTA can do that to you). I guess I'll have to go rent/buy videos/DVD's of the famous productions on film to answer the question.

Although Shakespeare probably wasn't writing his plays for the ages (the sonnets seem to be another story), and probably didn't much care about our sensibilities, I guess the directors have to face the dilemma of editing the text to prevent loud guffaws at inappropriate places during the play, or to present the text as accurately and completely as possible.

So - no answer. Which is great, and the reason I don't do crossword puzzles instead of reading Hamlet.

Shakespeare on the MTA

Sorry to disappoint! This blog is not about performances of Shakespeare on the MTA. It is the repository of random thoughts about the plays of Shakespeare. The thinker of those thoughts has no deep formal education in Literature, and no particularly fine, innate sense for poetry, either (no idiot savant, he). He is sort of in the Grandma Moses, autodidact school of fans of the Bard.

However, all are welcome! Comments banal, academic, mis-spelled, are all welcome, as long as they are polite and relevant. And what isn't relevant to Shakespeare? Well, this is not a forum for discussions on the identity of Shakespeare - take that somewhere else. Shakespeare is, trust me, the person or persons who alone or in collaboration with others wrote the plays now known as "Shakespeare's plays". You can take that to the bank!

So why MTA? Well, the subways of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which manages the public transit for New York City, among other things) is where the random thought thinker does most of his reading and musing. And when it comes to the MTA, boy and man, he has nigh on 50 years experience to fall back on. So at least that part of the title should not be a disappointment!

Currently, the RTT (Random Thought Thinker) is fiddling with Hamlet, so you can expect (with anticipation or trepidation) some RT's on that work shortly.