Food for thought:
CLAUDIUS in "Hamlet" is a strange name for one of this play's central characters considering that this man was a Dane and not a Roman. WS did write about another actor called Claudius, but this one was Julius Caesar's servant and so the name, Claudius, seems apt there.
I have called Claudius, the 'Wicked Uncle' in the title of this blog but was he really such a bad man? It is true that he murdered his brother, the King Of Denmark - "a Hyperion to a satyr" to become king in his place and he also seduced the dead king's wife, Gertrude to become his wife. In addition, he is out to murder Prince Hamlet, but does this make him a 100%
evil villain?
Even though WS describes him as an "incestuous,murderous, damned Dane," "a vice of kings" and a cutpurse of the Empire,"
his love for Gertrude does appear to be genuine. At the end of Act IV he says in a long speech that
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul
That as the star moves but in his sphere,
I could not by her.
He is honest enough to recognise that his "offence is rank" and that it "smells to heaven" but that he will not mend his ways with God because he refuses to give up what he has gained from his murderous activities. He is willing to pay the price for what he has done. C.L. Stockton says that in some ways he is more heroic than Hamlet. He manipulates fortune, takes what is not rightfully his but remains unapologetic. In contrast, Hamlet's conscience is torn about killing Claudius and because of his anguished vacillation -"To be or not to be" - six innocent people die before he finally makes up his mind to remove his uncle from this"mortal coil."
Both Claudius and Hamlet believe that the end justifies the means and as Stockton says, they 'both ultimately sacrifice humanity and humaneness in the acquisition of their goals.'
However, the main difference between the two is that Claudius is wrong and Hamlet is right. It is Claudius who has deliber-ately murdered, lied and seduced to become king, whereas Hamlet, who has also murdered in order to achieve his aims, has done so at the price of his agonised conscience. In contrast to his step-son, who seeks contrition and absolves himself of guilt before he dies, Claudius has subverted his conscience, does not seek or receive any absolution and will burn in Hell. Hamlet will spend his eternal life in Heaven.
When we first meet Claudius, he seems to be a moderate and confident ruler. His speech is smooth, perhaps a little too smooth, too glib as he uses such phrases full of oxymorons such as: "wisest sorrow," "defeated joy and "with mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage." It is only in Act III that he reveals his guilt, and then it is only in a brief speech to Polonius:
Polonius: 'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The Devil himself.
Claudius: O 'tis true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my
conscience!
The harlot's cheek beautied with plastering art
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed, to my most painted word.
O heavy burden. (Act III. sc.i)
Claudius may be associated with Macbeth, another tragic hero and tortured king with a conscience. In Who's Who in Shakespeare, Peter Quennel and Hamish Johnson say that 'Claudius is Shakespeare's most complex, and subtly rendered, villain.'
Finally, in the original 12th century Historica Danica by the Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, Claudio was called Fengo and he incestuously married Agrippina. She then murdered him so that Nero could become the emperor. WS may have based his play on this or from one or several derivatives, such as Ur-Hamlet, possibly written by his contemporary, Thomas Kyd, but lost in 1594, or from a French play written in 1570, which appeared in Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques.
Next time: Comedies & Comic relief.
For comments: wsdavidyoung@gmail.com
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