Hamlet's Question

 

Years ago in college, I took an English literature course about adaptations of Shakespeare. In a sense every production even on stage is an adaptation, but often we focus on movie adaptations. I recently watched a video by one of my favorite cinema Youtubers arguing that the greatest movie of all time is Kenneth Brannagh's 1996 adaptation of Hamlet. I saw the movie when it first came out and like it, but have generally prefer the 1948 version with Lawrence Olivier. The video may be consider watching the 1996 version again. "Don't worry that's just the murdered prime minister's daughter hitting the walls of her room." genius.

How quiet things seem compared to four years ago, at least in my soul. The election mattered much to me. I found myself asking why it should matter so much? I spent much of the year convinced Trump would win, but all the while knowing that as Election Day approached, I would lose that confidence because the reality of it would, well, trump any of my expectations and desires.

God will take care of things, I told myself, as far as the outcome. The Spirit would move people in the right way. Worrying was pointless. Anxiety nothing but a distraction.

But what about voting? What advocacy? What about telling other people who I was voting for? I have been politically aware, and active in expressing political opinions, since I was a young child. What was the point? Do such worldly things matter?

I recognized this as the same question every man must confront at various times in his life. It is, in essence, the same question that Hamlet famously asks himself in Act II Scene 2 of the Shakespeare play, the most famous words of English literature.  There are as many versions of it as there are human beings, and an infinity times that, because it can be asked in an infinite number of circumstances in one's life.

To this day, whenever I watch a movie, I will call out Hamlet's Question when it appears in the story, at the point the hero is confronted by the type of choice found in Shakespeare.

Of course Hamlet is speaking about his particular circumstances within the story, and refers to a literal "death" but as great literature it evokes a universe of possible meanings. Should one go to war as a soldier, and possibly kill to defend one's homeland, or refuse to participate in it? Christian tradition has endorsed the idea that at times it is necessary to do so---with humility and prayer (see Our Lady of Victory, funny how the date of that has been now usurped by commemoration of a more recent war, one that I care to steer very clear of).,

My resolution before Election Day this year was that no matter what happened, I would not let it wreck me up, as it did four years ago. Even if it was blatantly stolen again (and certain races were almost certainly stolen), I would not let it disturb my inner peace. 

Ironically I noticed that people I know were much more into the outcome than four years ago, expressing the sentiment that this was a Flight 93 Election, that if we did not prevail this time, we would lose America as we know it forever. We would never get another chance. I believed that. I believed that four years ago too, and then watched the nightmare unfold. We felt like outlaws, pariahs. We had to build from scratch. We got another chance, and we won.

I love to watch old broadcasts of election night coverage on Youtube, both from lifetime and before I was born. I have been doing this frequently for my weekly podcast with my audience, because being a time machine traveler seems to be what I do well, and the audience likes it. I did a series of shows about the 1968 election, which is slightly before my awakening to the world of current events, but I remember being the most recent American election. 

In the old news coverage, there was much less punditry and more factual reporting of the myriad results. But every news room during an election cycle had the "old guy" they would trot out to give opinion based on their decades of experience. For example in 1980 on NBC, John Chancellor and Tom Brokaw were the younger "blow by blow" anchors of the coverage. The "old man" was played by David Brinkley, who had once been an anchor, but who now came out several times in the evening to give his "veteran perspective" from a more detached historical slant. I delight in noticing such things about the past and telling my audience about them. 

I think if I posed Hamlet's Question to my audience in regard to the election, even the ones older than me (I don't know if any young folks ever watch my show), I would get a solid answer of "take arms against a sea of trouble." Otherwise they probably wouldn't be watching my show. It's the gist of the "network" on which I broadcast, and I am ever conscious of the show business aspect of what I do, to the point of being a comical throwback at times.

As a note about Shakespeare is that Hamlet never answers his own question. He seems to do so,  by his actions in the rest of the story, but ask yourself: how does the story end? What was the answer after all?  Such is life on the Earthly plain, both on a personal level, and in the history of nations. Give me that man who is not passion's slave.

I have an affection for the old Signet Classic paperback editions of Shakespeare's well, and first read Shakespeare using these. They first appeared din 1963 and used to be plentiful on the shelves of  used book stores for less than a dollar. They had the splendid typography and design of that era, and later editions show the decline of such quality in our civilization. As such it is harder to find the older Signet Classics editions and whenever I find one, they are more expensive than the original cover price. I snapped up my copy of Hamlet during a trip to New Mexico last year, in a little general store next to the Albuquerque museum, which had a shelf of "free books."