In Pursuit of Life and Love: The Universal Themes of Hamlet and Ecclesiastes →

Published in Thoroughfare 6.1 Fall 2013: 6-9. Print.

Introduction

           Although it was written in the seventeenth century, many scholars[1] regard Hamlet as a modern or even a postmodern drama.  The existential questions Hamlet asks are ones that we often ponder in our society—a society heavily influenced by the numerous philosophical movements that have occurred since Hamlet was written, as well as the advent of psychoanalysis.  Some might say, then, that Hamlet is the one of the first postmodern texts.  Yet these same questions can be found in the Book of Ecclesiastes, written well before Hamlet.  Perhaps these philosophical questions, rather than being modern existential angst, are a universal and timeless part of human anxiety.

           This article sets out to demonstrate key parallels between the two texts which mark the movement of the key figures from the abstract to the concrete.  From the establishment of this movement, a better understanding is gained concerning why Hamlet and the Preacher at last move from the philosophical to the physical.  Understanding the movement from the abstract to concrete then in turn answers the question of whether or not Hamlet and the Preacher can freely love.

Parallels

           Briefly, the Biblical book Ecclesiastes is narrated by “the Preacher,[2] the son of David, King in Jerusalem” (Eccles. 1.1).[3]  Early scholars believed the Preacher to be Solomon, but more recent research lends to “Ecclesiastes [being] a work of wisdom literature influenced by Hellenistic culture, composed probably in the third century b.c.e., {sic} half a millennium afterthe monarch’s lifetime” (Ostriker 7). 

           Whether Ecclesiastes is indeed one of the numerous works produced during theHellenistic Judaism movement or not, Alicia Ostriker notes that the author of the text “seems torepresent God the way Hellenistic philosophers do in the same period, as some combination of abstraction, personified force, and actual divine being” (7).

            Ecclesiastes begins with the Preacher stating, “Vanity of vanities…all is vanity.  What remaineth unto man in all his travail, which he suffreth under the sun?” (Eccles. 1. 2-3).  The Preacher has searched for meaning in wisdom and in folly, work, riches, bacchanalian living, and has found it all meaningless.  He desires to know what purpose life serves.  “[The Preacher][4] in effect invents for western civilization the thrill of disillusion” (Ostriker 8).  Several of his existential dilemmas have parallels in Hamlet’s soliloquies.

            For example, the Preacher’s world weariness, — “All things are full of labour: man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, not the ear filled with hearing.  What is it that hath been? That that shall be: and what is it that hath been done? That which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Eccles. 1.8-9) — is echoed by Hamlet:  “Oh God, God, / How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (Ham. I.ii.132-134).

            To both the Preacher and Hamlet, humans are animals.   The Preacher states, “For the condition of the children of me, and the condition of the beasts are even as one condition unto them.  As the one dieth, so dieth the other: for they have all one breath, and there is no excellency of man above the beast: for all is vanity” (Eccles. 3.19).  Hamlet maintains, “What is a man, / If his chief good and market of his time / Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more” (Ham. IV.iv.34-36).   

            The Preacher questions life and death:  “Wherefore I praised the dead which are now dead, above the living, which are yet alive.  And I count him better than them both, which hath not yet been: for he hath not yet seen the evil worked which are wrought under the sun” (Eccles. 4.2-3).  While the Preacher has felt those already dead are more fortunate than the living, perhaps, he speculates, it is the unborn who are the most fortunate for they have neverexperienced the misery of living.

            Death is not truly a comfort for the Preacher. “Who knoweth whether the spirit of man ascend upward, and the spirit of the beast descend downward to the earth? Therefore I see that there is nothing better than yet a man should rejoice in his affaires, because it is his portion. For who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?” (Eccles. 3.21-22). The Preacher does not know with certainty what happens after death.  It is better to rejoice during life for that is the sure thing.

            Hamlet ponders similar issues as he contemplates suicide.  Suicide may be an answer to ending life’s pain, but then again, there is the unknowable afterlife:  “To sleep, perchance to dream.  Ay, there’s the rub, / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,  /  Must give us pause” (Ham. III.i.66-69).

            These selections of passages reveal a similar mindset between the Preacher and Hamlet.  The world is tiresome, humans are little more than beasts, and it would be better to be dead if it were not for unknowability of the afterlife.  It is at this point of despondency that Hamlet and the Preacher shift perspectives.

Abstract to the Concrete

            For much of the play, Hamlet thinks.  He, like the Preacher, has found, “For in the multitude of wisdom is much grief and he that encreaseth knowledge, encreaseth sorrow”(Eccles. 1.18).  In Act V, we see Hamlet shift from the abstract to the concrete.  He forgoes the endless mental chatter and spurs into action.  While Shakespeare does not directly tell us why Hamlet the Philosopher becomes Hamlet the Dane, a reason can be gleaned from Ecclesiastes.

            Hamlet’s change occurs after he holds Yorick’s skull in the graveyard.  Yorick was his father’s court jester, and Hamlet remembers Yorick from his youth.  Referring to the skull, Hamlet asks Horatio,                                                                                           Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’ earth? … To                                                                         what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may   not                                                                                         imagination trace the noble dust of  Alexander till ‘a find it                                                                                     stopping a bunghole? … Alexander dies, Alexander was                                                                                         buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth                                                                               we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was                                                                                           converted might they not stop a beer barrel? Imperious                                                                                         Caesar, dead and turned to clay, / Might stop a hole to keep                                                                                 the wind away (Ham. V.i. 197-198, 202-204, 209-214).

            In a similar vein, the Preacher states,                                                                                                                                                                                    For the wise mans eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in                                                                            darkness: yet I know also that the same condition falleth to                                                                                   them all. Then I thought in mine heart, ‘It befalleth unto me, as                                                                             it befalleth to the fool.  Why therefore do I the labour to be                                                                                   more wise?’ And I said in mine heart, that this also is vanity.                                                                                   For there shall be no remembrance of the wise, nor of the fool                                                                             for ever: for that that now is, in the days to come shall all be                                                                                 forgotten.  And how dieth the wise man, as doeth the fool?                                                                                   (Eccles. 2.14-16).

            Reflecting upon the “fool’s” skull, Hamlet contemplates upon Alexander the Great and Caesar.  In the end, death treated Yorick the Jester and the two renowned generals the same. Like the Preacher, Hamlet realizes, “‘[Death] befalleth unto me, as it befalleth to the fool.  Why therefore do I the labour to be more wise?’” (Eccles. 2.16).  This awareness releases him to act, and Hamlet turns his internal tumultuous drama into external cathartic action. 

           While the Preacher changes, we do not see his conclusion put into action.  However, he too proposes to live an active life rather than continuing to brood.  He states, “Then I beheld the whole work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is wrought under the sun: for the which man laboureth to seek it, and cannot find it: yea, and though the wise man think to know it, he cannot find it…Go, eat they bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a cheerful heart: for God now accepteth they works” (Eccles. 8.17 and 9.7).  In other words, the Preacher is saying that you cannot understand everything taking place under the sun, so eat and drink with a joyful heart, knowing God has accepted your actions.

Ophelia

            Hamlet has misogynistic moments (as well as self-hate and misanthropy).  When speaking of his mother’s infidelity and hasty marriage to Claudius, Hamlet makes a sweeping generalization, “frailty, thy name is woman!” (Ham. I.ii.146). During a confrontation with Ophelia, he tells her, “Get thee to a nunnery, farewell.  Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, forwise men know well enough what monsters youmake of them…You jig, you amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance” (Ham. III.i.138-148).

            The Preacher shares a similar outlook:                                                                                                                                                                                 And I find more bitter then death the woman whose heart is                                                                                 as nets and snares, and her hands, as bands: he that is good                                                                               before God, shall be delivered from her, but ye sinner shall be                                                                             taken by her.  Behold…this have I found, seeking one by one                                                                               to find a [conclusion]: And yet my soul seeketh, but I find it                                                                                   not: I have found one man of a thousand: but a woman                                                                                         among them all have I not found. Only lo, this have I found,                                                                                   that God hath made man righteous: but they have fought                                                                                     manic inventions (Eccles. 7. 28-31).

           In contrast to these misogynistic statements, in the final act, Hamlet says, “I loved Ophelia” (Ham. V.i.209-214). The Preacher, near the end of Ecclesiastes, says, “Rejoice with the wife whom you hast loved all the days of the life of thy vanity, who God hath given thee under the sun…” (Eccles. 9.9).  Can we believe Hamlet and the Preacher, given their previous negative sentiments?

         The fact that the positive statements occur after their changes from the abstract to the concrete give substance to their being genuine.  While Hamlet and the Preacher are wrestling with the meaning and purpose of life, they react negatively to the symbols of life’s continuity: women, marriage, and children.  When they at last act, that negativity is removed and they are free to love.

Conclusion

          By comparing elements of Hamlet and Ecclesiastes, we see the questions we often ascribe to modernity actually transcend period labels.  This notion does not dispute the modern or postmodern elements of Hamlet, but rather deepens the context of his yearning by showing that the desire to find meaning to life in general, and purpose in one’s personal sphere, is a core facet of the human quest for knowledge.  It is interesting, then, that Hamlet and the Preacher find more meaning to their lives when they act, rather than when they are pondering the meaning of life.

[1] The briefest of searches for Hamlet  and Modernism will pull up numerous sources.  For a reinvigorated view of Hamlet, I recommend Margreta de Grazia’s work, Hamlet Without Hamlet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

[2] In other editions of the Bible, the narrator is called Qoheleth, rather than the Preacher.   Preacher is a translation of the Hebrew.

[3] Biblical quotes come from the Geneva Bible.  It was published in 1560, and was the first mass-produced Bible written in English.  William Shakespeare, and many other English writers of the sixteenth century, used this edition of the Bible. I have modernized the spelling by using s for f, or u for v, etc. when appropriate. Punctuation remains unchanged.

[4] Ostricker refers to the Preacher as Qoheleth throughout her essay.

Works Cited

The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition.  Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,                                             1969.  Print.

Ostriker, Alicia.  “Ecclesiastes as Witness: A Personal Essay.”The American Poetry Review 34.1                                         (2005): 7-13.  Web. 6 June 2012.

Shakespeare, William.  Hamlet.  1603.  The Necessary Shakespeare.  Ed. David Bevington.                                            3rd ed.  New York: Pearson Education, 2009.  Print.