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    Indifferent Honest Christian Reflections on Hamlet
    Indifferent Honest Christian Reflections on Hamlet
    Indifferent Honest Christian Reflections on Hamlet
    Ebook64 pages58 minutes

    Indifferent Honest Christian Reflections on Hamlet

    By Richie Cooley

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    About this ebook

    This booklet reviews the famous play from Shakespeare while interjecting Christian thoughts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichie Cooley
    Release dateNov 2, 2018
    ISBN9780463600337
    Indifferent Honest Christian Reflections on Hamlet
    Author

    Richie Cooley

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      Book preview

      Indifferent Honest Christian Reflections on Hamlet - Richie Cooley

      Indifferent Honest

      Christian Reflections on Hamlet

      Licensed by:

      Richie Cooley (November, 2018); [edited: (December, 2018); (April, 2020)]

      Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International

      Email: richieacooley@live.com

      Table of Contents

      Introduction: Why Hamlet?

      Act I

      Act II

      Act III

      Act IV

      Act V

      Citations

      Before getting started, let’s review a few notes that are common to my writings…

      *This work mostly uses British spelling, except for the quoted material, which often employs U.S. spelling.

      *Unless otherwise stated, Old Testament Scripture is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

      *Unless otherwise stated, New Testament Scripture is taken from the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament: Third Edition (ALT3). Copyright © 2007 by Gary F. Zeolla of Darkness to Light ministry. Previously copyrighted © 1999, 2001, 2005 by Gary Zeolla.

      *The ALT3 distinguishes between singular and plural second-person pronouns by means of an asterisk (*).

      *Divine pronouns are normally not capitalized, unless they appear that way in Bible versions or other quotes.

      *The terms LORD, GOD, and Hashem are all ways to describe the personal name of God, also rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah.

      *Words that appear in brackets within Biblical quotes are not found in the original texts, and were added by the translators or are my personal comments, etc.

      *Words that appear in brackets within quotes from Hamlet are explanatory in nature.

      *The text of Hamlet that I’m using is from the Folger Shakespeare Library. The editors for this edition were Barbara W. Mowatt and Paul Werstine. Since they’ve granted generous Creative Commons liberties, I’ve done away with their poetic capitalizations and some bracketing. Also, I insert colons after the names, and formed into paragraphs some of the longer speeches. Some of the dialogue tags have been renamed as well.

      Introduction: Why Hamlet?

      To answer the question of why, let me first dispel a few ‘why nots.’

      First of all, I understand that there is no place for pretension within Christianity. This booklet is not an attempt at snobbery. If someone was trying to look cool by quoting Shakespeare, he or she would do well to try to find some really obscure play. Discussing Hamlet—which is so well-known—isn’t off-beat enough to be trendy.

      Secondly, many may puff at the idea of making a big deal over a work of fiction. I’m not trying to contemn the valid distinction between fiction and non-fiction, but the difference can be vastly overstated. In reality, most decent fiction is largely non-fiction. When reading fiction, you normally find out about the author’s beliefs, culture, customs, phraseology, and geography (etc.). A boatload of factoids could be deduced from Hamlet, from the way guards used to operate unto the religious outlook of the very early seventeenth century. It’s naïve to call Hamlet fiction derisively, as if there is nothing meaningful and objective to learn from it.

      Even the fabricated words of fictional characters often speak of the author’s soulful reflections. This can be even truer for plays, since the philosophies of the writers must be sifted through the hearts of performing artists. What’s more, since Shakespeare is very celebrated, his words have value apologetically, just as the works of Aristotle or Seneca.

      Moreover, apart from the Bible, one may never encounter more sublime reflections regarding purpose than is contained within this play. Having gone through it many times, I figured it would be practical to try to use it more broadly in a writing. Many people become obsessed with this work, so why not try to preach the Gospel to them? Moreover, it is just plain satisfying to labour away at something that is a personal pleasure.

      Anyway, I will simply present the story of Hamlet in a summary form, adding direct quotes and Biblical illustrations here and there.

      Act I

      Scene 1

      The story begins in the dead of night. There is a changing of the guard among watchmen in the vicinity of the royal castle in Denmark. The kingdom is on high alert, for trouble has been brewing.

      First of all, King Hamlet had died two months before. He was a terrific warrior and an admired leader. Horatio, a friend of Prince Hamlet, will speak glowingly of his martial endeavours…

      …Such was the very armor he had on when he the ambitious Norway combated. So frowned he once when, in an angry parle [conversation, confrontation], he smote the sledded Polacks [Polish] on the ice… -- Act I, Scene 1, lines 71-74 (from now on, just 1.1.71-74, etc.; also, the Folger line references are quoted loosely, as my powers of simple computation are somehow worse than my prose)

      Moreover, apart for a sense of respect that the general populace had of him, he was incredibly admired

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