Humanity and the divine in Hamlet's Reformation context

¶ … Action Explored in Hamlet

The soliloquy, or "deep passage" is from Scene IV, Act IV and the paper explores, or analyzes, the human and the divine, considering the Reformation, just as the original instructions requested. The model paper also needed at least two sources per original instructions. These sources are Bloom and Blits. This is really a good model paper and a solid foundation.

William Shakespeare would have undoubtedly been a successful writer regardless of when he lived. His keen ability to capture the essence of man is unmatched. Hamlet stands as Shakespeare's most discussed character, his complex character arresting the minds of many. Since Hamlet was created during years considered "among the most exciting in English history" (Mowat xxviii), we should expect him to be complicated at the very least. He is borne from a time when society is releasing old worldviews and reaching toward new ones. Hamlet is a victim of society in this sense: his famous hesitation stems from religious undertones, reflecting a debate generated by the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance, each refusing to give way to the other. Hamlet reflects the signs of his times, wrestling with the notion of man being a rational, thinking, acting animal. When Hamlet returns from the sea, he is remarkably changed. He begins to realize that man has two elements to his character: his soul (the divine) and his life (his humanity). His soul is what sets him apart from the best and prevents him behaving like a beast at times. Awareness of these attributes keeps man living a balanced life and when the balance shifts, mankind suffers. Hamlet fails to grasp this notion and thinks without acting and acts without thinking, making him a prime candidate for the conflict that arises from within when man must grapple with his soul with the cost of his life. In the soliloquy in Act IV, Hamlet questions what it means to be human and how that coincides with the ability to think and act. He demonstrates the trouble involved with thinking and acting to the point of self-destruction. We are born human but Hamlet illustrates how difficult it can be to act that way during times of trouble.

Upon returning from the sea, Hamlet is compelled by his inability to act. Everything seems to tell him to seek revenge but he cannot bring himself to act. He is split and the division he experiences is taking its toll on him emotionally. He says:

What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd. (Shakespeare IV.iv.35-41)

Here Hamlet recognizes God's divine part in creation but he cannot place the soul in a place where he feels at ease. Hamlet's society reflects the "Neoplatonic wonderment at mankind" (xxviii), writes Mowat, a time of "intellectual rebirth and religious reformation in Denmark" (Blits). A significant aspect of this society involves pagan beliefs "rediscovered by the Renaissance and pursued by Hamlet" (Blits), emphasizing the "radical inwardness of the soul" (Levy). The struggle between new humanistic beliefs and traditional ones wear on Hamlet, forcing him to approach an impasse. Even as the Renaissance pushed new ways of thinking into the minds of man, religion still controls thoughts and beliefs. Blits writes, "Virtually all the characters in Hamlet still believe in purgatory, angels, saints, and ghosts, and take very seriously the rites of the Catholic church. Denmark is still a Catholic country" (Blits). Man posses a soul and that soul makes man a "rational animal" (Blits). Life is something man share with all other creatures of the earth; however, possessing a soul "distinguishes him from them" (Blits). This gives man incredible latitude, say Blits, and a man can be good or he can be a beast. He can use his "godlike reason" (IV.iv.40) and rise above his natural instincts when he needs to or he can fail in using his reason. In failing, he sinks to the level of a beast. This struggle presents a double for Hamlet, an "equivocal nature" (Blits), according to Blits. This duality gives man a purpose and "thinking and life have a single cause" (Blits), thus man is a "whole because his nature, though composite, is one" (Blits). Hamlet fails to keep the "soul's two functions together. He thinks without acting…and acts without thinking…even while he thus sets motion and thinking apart, Hamlet tends to collapse the former into the latter" (Blits). The failure breaks the man.

Harold Bloom agrees with this notion, adding that on his way to England an "abscess or cyst" (Bloom 68) breaks "inwardly" (68) in Hamlet's consciousness. The irony is visible in this scene, according to Bloom, but it is also worth noting Hamlet is taking a different stance than in most of his other soliloquies. In fact, this is the "most complex" (68) of the soliloquies in the play with his thoughts being "anything but bloody" (70). This is the moment, Bloom contends, that Hamlet's theatricalism and inwardness break from each other. Bloom writes, "Hamlet cannot believe that the proper use of his capability and godlike reason is to perform a revenge killing" (70). Bloom also believes that Hamlet has no desire to kill Claudius. Bloom also believes that something changes in Hamlet through the progression of the play. Hamlet is "confident of his soul's immortality" (Bloom 71) before the last act in the play but after he returns from the sea he "courts annihilation" (71) because, during that trip, he "dies, and perhaps the soul with him. For in Hamlet consciousness and the soul have become one" (71). Here we see how the soul, the divine, is still inked with the man even though the actions have separated the man from himself.