My child is homeschooled this year and we just finished Hamlet. I can't help but think about Seth when I read anything existential...and is there a more existential hero than dear Hamlet?

There are several places in the play illustrating breathtaking Sethian concepts. Perhaps not original to Will, but strange in relation to 17th century Britain where any kind of reflection on eternity or the meaning of human life must be couched in the Official Anglican Protestant Version of reality (as I like to call it: Catholicism 2.0) .

Of course, it is true: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (1.5) Science has STILL not explained all that is.

Hamlet is constantly thinking of death, if not murder, and then the physical results of Death: decay. More than once he philosophizes on worms and of dust to which we must return. He wonders (2.2)how it is that man, "in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals..." returns to dust. Is there not more to life?

It is Macbeth who says that life is "sound and fury, signifying nothing"(5.5.)...but here Hamlet, in the moments before the fatal duel, understands finally what he has been agonizing for over 4 hours, and what escapes Macbeth completely (5.2):

We defy augury. There is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't
to leave betimes, let be.

The readiness is all. A Good Life, Well-lived. Understanding. Hamlet knows that life is not about acquisition of power, like Fortinbras. He knows it is not about Lust, like Claudius and Gertrude. He understands that beasts live and die, "sleep and feed" without the gift of godlike "apprehension" and poor Ophelia and Polonius represent those qualities. Laertes was Hamlet's last grasp...is the meaning of life to accrue honor? Hamlet believed so at the end of Act 4 scene 4. Now, even that has dulled with the realization of the foolishness of this idea. Murderous Fortinbras, hot-headed Laertes and silly Osric convinced him.

Now he says to Horatio, "Let be". It doesn't matter when one dies, it only matters that one is ready.

When you leave, to quote another wise man: "you take nothing but your soul". Hamlet has moved past To Be or Not To Be...he no longer fears Death or what dreams may come. He is ready.

The beauty isn't merely that Shakespeare is profound, or that Hamlet is the bearer of profundity, but that in an era where suggesting that the meaning of life was anything but the Christian God's testing of a sinner's devotion, Will the Bard could reach out to both groundlings and the gentry and make them think as Hamlet did...and perhaps break the mold that constrained their thoughts. Many people did in 1601, for their letters show how profoundly Hamlet affected them. In its time it was a block-buster, and later published as an extended book with twice the words, words, words as the performance copy. The play was a block-buster, the book a bestseller.

I would not presume to name Shakespeare as a Speaker, but I would nominate him as a candidate based on this play alone...though given enough time I could write many essays about how the Truth was fed to the troubled masses, spoonful by spoonful, line by line by the man who held "the mirror up to nature" (3.2).

Hi AnnMarie

I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to whether Shakespeare was a Speaker, but its an interesting thought.
Have you come across any of the current theories that Shakespeare's works were written by Francis Bacon? I read a magazine article about it a couple of years ago but I can't remember any details ( I'm sure it will be 'googlable')

There are interesting 'things' in Goethe's Faust too:

Scene in the Witch's Kitchen spoken by the Witch

The lofty might
Of wisdom's light
From all the world is hidden.
The vacant mind
Has truth assigned,
It comes to him unbidden.


Not an answer I'm afraid, but hopefully an interesting add-on

Love, Max

Hi Max:

I remembered another one from Hamlet as I read your Goethe quote: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so".

As for Francis Bacon...yes, I have read many alternative Shakespeare books and some make convincing arguments. However, many of their ideas can be explained through Shakespeare's companions. The most fertile evidence that the Stratford Will is the author is all the local references to Warwickshire and the common people there (leatherworking and glove-making and wool that S was involved with before becoming a playwright), as well as spellings that reflect a Warwick dialect that the Oxfords, Bacon's and other gentlemen just would not have been exposed to.

I wonder if some of the great musicians and composers are Speakers as well. Maybe Beethoven and Mozart...Bach perhaps...the message doesn't always have to be in words, does it?

Hi AnnMarie



Perfect quote, one which I had forgotten until you posted it.

I'm afraid I forgot all I could of Shakespeare as soon as my O Level exams had finished. I love reading but don't like being forced. Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York, that about as far as my memory will stretch.

There could be an argument that some of the more brilliant, innovative, thoughtful minds could be Speakers and that wouldn't necessarily just be in the literary world. Food for thought.


Love, Max

Great post, Ann! You make Hamlet more interesting!

OMG...Hamlet...dull? LOL. My 14-year-
old daughter tells me that kids her age consider Hamlet the ultimate emo-kid. She says, "Hamlet probably stayed up all night reading gothic poetry and cutting himself" I have to laugh, but it is a sad laugh.