Yesterday at the Church picnic I was asked what comes before and after "Words, words, words" in Hamlet. I remembered Hamlet's frustration with words, but not the exact context. So today I reread that part of the scene and it gives me more questions than answers about words and mental turmoil. I am also thinking of similarities between Chris McCandless and Hamlet. By the way, the movie Into the Wild either chronicles Chris' poetry or poetically speculates the nature of Chris' thoughts, which I find similar to Hamlet's, or at least springing from a similar source. Chris deals with the turmoil differently though (see again the warning in the last post about it being rated R. I wish I'd known the number of scenes to fast forward so that I would have kept the remote more handy).
Back to Hamlet, I am intrigued by this statement,
HAMLET Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here
that old men have grey beards, that their faces are
wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and
plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of
wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir,
though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet
I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for
yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab
you could go backward.
I suppose Hamlet is leveling the playing field. He is worried about slandering his elders, but is denying that decrepit age makes them above the law.
I also found some interesting and concise interpretations of Hamlet here. I like this one by Professor Ross the best, even though the feminist and post-modern ones also intrigue me. Lord have mercy.
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