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To challenge Bloom on Hamlet feels like heresy. What do you think?
As if Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote isn't charming enough on its own, the book (or Vintage edition, at least) is opened by a preface by Grossman on translation and an introduction by Harold Bloom that is both insightful and slightly rambling.
I have read Hamlet once and watched it twice, and have barely read *about* it. Bloom is ... well, you know. And yet, I couldn't help utterly disagreeing with one comment he makes. He writes this:
> Cervantes ... presumably never heard of Shakespeare, but I doubt he would have valued Falstaff and Hamlet, both of whom chose the self's freedom over obligations of any kind.
Surely, when it comes to freedom vs. obligation, Hamlet and Falstaff are polar opposites? Falstaff is a bon vivant who generally subordinates obligation to his own enjoyment. Hamlet is stalked and tortured by his obligations and consistently oppresses his "self's freedom". While Hamlet indulges the freedom of his intellect at points throughout the play, he closes resolving to carry out the burdens of his filial duty in taking up the role of the noble avenger: "This is I, Hamlet, the Dane!" If Hamlet's encounter with the Ghost at the play's beginning is, as Bloom says, like the Archaic Age facing the High Renaissance, does Hamlet by the end not shed his Renaissance temperament (his "self's freedom") and opt for the "hot blood" of revenge (his "obligations")?
Interested in your thoughts...
As if Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote isn't charming enough on its own, the book (or Vintage edition, at least) is opened by a preface by Grossman on translation and an introduction by Harold Bloom that is both insightful and slightly rambling.
I have read Hamlet once and watched it twice, and have barely read *about* it. Bloom is ... well, you know. And yet, I couldn't help utterly disagreeing with one comment he makes. He writes this:
> Cervantes ... presumably never heard of Shakespeare, but I doubt he would have valued Falstaff and Hamlet, both of whom chose the self's freedom over obligations of any kind.
Surely, when it comes to freedom vs. obligation, Hamlet and Falstaff are polar opposites? Falstaff is a bon vivant who generally subordinates obligation to his own enjoyment. Hamlet is stalked and tortured by his obligations and consistently oppresses his "self's freedom". While Hamlet indulges the freedom of his intellect at points throughout the play, he closes resolving to carry out the burdens of his filial duty in taking up the role of the noble avenger: "This is I, Hamlet, the Dane!" If Hamlet's encounter with the Ghost at the play's beginning is, as Bloom says, like the Archaic Age facing the High Renaissance, does Hamlet by the end not shed his Renaissance temperament (his "self's freedom") and opt for the "hot blood" of revenge (his "obligations")?
Interested in your thoughts...
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