SHAKSPER 2002: Re: The Currency of Prayer

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 06/28/02 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.1581  Friday, 28 June 2002

[1]     From:   Bruce Richman <RichmanB@health.missouri.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 09:53:32 -0500
        Subj:   RE: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

[2]     From:   John D. Cox <cox@hope.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 11:10:55 -0400
        Subj:   Prayer

[3]     From:   Tom Dale Keever <tdk3@columbia.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 13:11:50 -0400 (EDT)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

[4]     From:   Nick Clary <nclary@smcvt.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 15:08:03 -0400
        Subj:   RE: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

[5]     From:   W. L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 17:01:49 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

[6]     From:   Sam Small <samsmall@globalnet.co.uk>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 22:32:54 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Bruce Richman <RichmanB@health.missouri.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 09:53:32 -0500
Subject: 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer
Comment:        RE: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

Re. Bob Rosen's comment about Claudius at prayer. Hamlet does not want
to kill Claudius at prayer because he fears his uncle's soul may thereby
avoid the fires of Hell. The episode does not suggest Hamlet's
conversion to a more generous frame of mind -- it describes a hardening
of his heart, a plan to evade the redemptive powers of prayer, and a
determination to insure that Claudius experiences eternal torment.

Bruce W. Richman
Dept. of Surgery
University of MIssouri School of Medicine

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           John D. Cox <cox@hope.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 11:10:55 -0400
Subject:        Prayer

Bob Rosen’s comment on Claudius’ prayer is mistaken in one detail:
Hamlet does not overhear Claudius’ admission that his prayer is empty.
Hamlet spares the king because Hamlet believes the king is praying, but
Hamlet exits BEFORE the king’s admission.  Far from moving Hamlet, then
the king’s admission makes Hamlet’s gesture empty and ironic.  Hamlet
spares the king believing that what he sees is what he thinks it is, but
it’s not.

John Cox
Hope College

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Tom Dale Keever <tdk3@columbia.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 13:11:50 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

>Words without thoughts never to heaven go. --William Shakespeare
>
>As I recall, King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, prays and senses that his
>crimes preclude divine solace. Therefore his words have no effect,
>because there is no excuse in conscience that could validate those words
>of prayer. They can have no redemptive meaning. Yet Hamlet, who secretly
>witnesses those empty words, spares Claudius' life at that moment. So
>Claudius's prayer does have a moderating effect -- not upon Claudius's
>spirit -- but on Hamlet.

Does Hamlet "witness those empty words" or merely observe that the King
seems to be praying?

In Q1 (1603) on page G1v and in Q2 (1605) on pages I1v - I2r Hamlet
enters after Claudius has finished his soliloquy and does not hear what
he says at the end because he has exited.  (Come to that, it wouldn’t be
a soliloquy if Hamlet was onstage with him.)  In Q1 Claudius says only
“My words fly vp, my sinnes remaine below.”  Only in Q2 does he add the
line you quote to complete the couplet, but by this time Hamlet has
left.

The Folio on page PP1v also has Hamlet entering after Claudius has
finished the body of his speech and leaving before the final couplet,
but complicates matters with the possible addition of an Irish
sidekick:  “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.”  Whether or not
Pat overheard the King’s guilty confession we can only guess.

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Nick Clary <nclary@smcvt.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 15:08:03 -0400
Subject: 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer
Comment:        RE: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

Rob Rosen writes: “As I recall, King Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, prays and
senses that his crimes preclude divine solace. Therefore his words have
no effect, because there is no excuse in conscience that could validate
those words of prayer. They can have no redemptive meaning. Yet Hamlet,
who secretly witnesses those empty words, spares Claudius’ life at that
moment. So Claudius’s prayer does have a moderating effect—not upon
Claudius’s spirit—but on Hamlet.”

I’d check the scene again. You’ll notice that Hamlet doesn’t enter until
after Claudius has expressed his thoughts about what he hopes to gain in
prayer.  And Hamlet leaves before Claudius utters his closing lines.
What do you make of Hamlet’s rationale for not killing Claudius right
then and there? It doesn’t seem to me that Hamlet has been moved by the
King’s praying to spare him gracefully. Dr. Johnson and others
considered the end of Hamlet’s soliloquy too horrible to be uttered. So
troubling was this soliloquy that Garrick omitted it in performance, as
did Kemble, Phelps, Kean, Macready, and Irving.

Nick Clary

[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           W. L. Godshalk <godshawl@email.uc.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 17:01:49 -0400
Subject: 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

Bob Rosen writes:

>As I recall, King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, prays and senses that his
>crimes preclude divine solace. Therefore his words have no effect,
>because there is no excuse in conscience that could validate those words
>of prayer. They can have no redemptive meaning. Yet Hamlet, who secretly
>witnesses those empty words, spares Claudius' life at that moment. So
>Claudius's prayer does have a moderating effect -- not upon Claudius's
>spirit -- but on Hamlet.

Yes, Hamlet misinterprets what is happening in Claudius's head. He
thinks that Claudius is sincerely praying.

But why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius? I’m not sure that we are
witnessing the “moderating effect” of prayer.  Hamlet wants to send his
uncle’s soul directly to hell—not to heaven.  So he decides to bump
Claudius off when the king is drunk, raging, sleeping with Gertrude, or
gambling and swearing. Is he serious about killing Claudius when the
king is having intercourse with Gertrude? In any case, Hamlet’s thought
is pretty Oedipal.

Yours, Bill Godshalk

[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sam Small <samsmall@globalnet.co.uk>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 22:32:54 +0100
Subject: 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.1577 The Currency of Prayer

Bob is so right to highlight this moment in the great play.  A
theologian would have to answer his question, however.  There might be
another way of looking at this vital incident.  If Claudius represents
Real Politic, so brilliantly reported by Machiavelli, then Hamlet is
once again, not undecided, but in a dilemma.  There two things are very
different.  Some dilemmas are almost impossible to solve, even for the
most decisive.  Hamlet knows that to kill Claudius as a criminal he does
good - to kill him as an able administrator of the state of Denmark is
bad.  The world is wicked indeed.  And so with our own times.  Is it
right to do bad to achieve good?  Hamlet couldn’t work it out and died
trying to take the awful world with him.

SAM SMALL
http://www.passioninpieces.co.uk

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