Redefining What It Is to be Human

Autumn (winter?) 1599: The Globe Theatre was up and running on London’s South Bank. William Shakespeare, newly established in his new digs nearby, was at work writing and revising Hamlet, redefining what it is to be human.

“In terms of plot, Hamlet is Shakespeare’s least original play”—he took it from an older play by now familiar, perhaps shopworn. This may have been partly indifference: plot was never Shakespeare’s strong suit. Or it may have been that he wanted an old, hackneyed plot, precisely to challenge the novelty of his approach. For the play-within-a-play, he added an overblown bit of bombast. Again, this might have been mere inattention—or it might have been a bit of intentional nostalgia for the old ways (one remembers Cervantes’ use of Amadis de Gaul). He rewrote, and reconsidered: “sallied flesh,” or “solid flesh?” He tried both.

Most important, Shakespeare perfected the soliloquy: for the first time, we have a fully realized inner life. Hamlet speculates; he considers; he criticizes; most important, he argues with himself. Shakespeare well understood the need for conflict to make a play: think York and Lancaster, or Capulet and Montague. But never before had he achieved a character who could bring it off so well in his own mind.

I glean all this (including the quotation) and a lot more from A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro (link). The title makes it sound like a literary conceit, but it is a lot more: think of it as one volume in a (hypothetical) 20-volume set, where the author gets to consider each play at leisure, as a problem, and a solution to a problem, and a way station in a path of development. Surely the best Shakespeare book I’ve read in a long while—best since, perhaps, The Genius of Shakespeare, by Jonathan Bate (link).

I have of late—but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Fn: Yes, it was in Hair. Sadly, I don’t seem to be able to come up with an audio clip.