“The issue is not, I think, simply random inconsistency. There is, rather; a pervasive pattern, a deliberate forcing together of radically incompatible accounts of almost everything that matters in Hamlet. Is Hamlet mad or only feigning madness? Does he delay in the pursuit of revenge or only berate himself for delaying? Is Gertrude innocent or was she complicit in the murder of her husband? Is the strange account of the old king’s murder accurate or distorted? Does the Ghost come from Purgatory or from Hell?–for many generations now audiences and readers have risen to the challenge and found that each of the questions may be powerfully and convincingly answered on both sides. What is at stake is more than a multiplicity of answers. The opposing positions challenge each other, clashing and sending shock waves through the play.”
In this book Stephen Greenblatt presents the basic question: So Hamlet’s dad…what’s up with that?
Less basic, Greenblatt is trying to determine in the world of Hamlet (and in the wider world of Shakespeare, and in the wider world of the world) what exactly is happening to the Ghost in Hamlet. The Ghost tells us in the opening Act that he’s made to walk to Earth at a set time each night, but the Ghost also is able to move throughout the castle to some extent and even changes clothes. We also can’t really take the Ghost as a figment, since Horatio and the castle guards also see the Ghost, but it gets a little confusing later on because there is a scene where Hamlet, possibly insane, sees the Ghost, while his mother doesn’t.
The book explores the history and cultural representation of Purgatory (as in the transitionary stage between Earth and Heaven for dead Catholics (and Hamlet is a Catholic play, more or less) who sinned, but not mortal sins. Then, the book looks at Shakespeare’s own uses of Ghosts in various of his plays with Hamlet’s father and Baquo being the two most prominent, but not sole versions. And looks at other things the plays have to say about Ghosts, spirits, and even “indulgences” (ala The Tempest), for further exploration.
And since Hamlet is a play about ambiguities, well, we get the kind of answer that I posted above.
