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"The Real Meaning of Hamlet’s ‘There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio’"
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gggg gggg
Apr 3, 2022, 10:40:39 PM4/3/22
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Margaret
Apr 4, 2022, 4:01:11 AM4/4/22
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On Monday, 4 April 2022 at 03:40:39 UTC+1, gggg gggg wrote:
> https://interestingliterature.com/2021/04/hamlet-more-things-heaven-earth-dreamt-your-philosophy-meaning/
I was always taught that, in this context, "philosophy" means philosophia naturalis that's to say, science of the natural world, as then pertaining.
On the subject of ghosts, there were many ideas in the Greek science that Renaissance science grew on (as with maggots breeding in a dead dog...).
Plato says: “... if the soul is polluted and impure when it leaves the body, having always been associated with it and served it, bewitched by physical desires and pleasures to the point at which nothing seems to exist for it but the physical, which one can touch and see or eat and drink or make use of for sexual enjoyment… this bodily element is heavy, ponderous, earthly, and visible. Through it, such a soul has become heavy and is dragged back to the visible region in fear of the unseen and of Hades. It wanders, we are told, around graves and monuments, where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen, souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are therefore seen.”
> https://interestingliterature.com/2021/04/hamlet-more-things-heaven-earth-dreamt-your-philosophy-meaning/
I was always taught that, in this context, "philosophy" means philosophia naturalis that's to say, science of the natural world, as then pertaining.
On the subject of ghosts, there were many ideas in the Greek science that Renaissance science grew on (as with maggots breeding in a dead dog...).
Plato says: “... if the soul is polluted and impure when it leaves the body, having always been associated with it and served it, bewitched by physical desires and pleasures to the point at which nothing seems to exist for it but the physical, which one can touch and see or eat and drink or make use of for sexual enjoyment… this bodily element is heavy, ponderous, earthly, and visible. Through it, such a soul has become heavy and is dragged back to the visible region in fear of the unseen and of Hades. It wanders, we are told, around graves and monuments, where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen, souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are therefore seen.”
bookburn
Apr 4, 2022, 12:39:14 PM4/4/22
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Seems obvious that Greek idea of tragedy is explored in Hamlet.
Rather than an explanation for believing in ghosts, I would prefer to see Hamlet's reaction as Shakespeare's use of the Greek tragedy idea of nemesis, involving divine retribution and vengeance; and we do see the spreading rings of evil in Denmark as Hamlet puts on his dissembling spying mask and discovers rotten stuff.
Problem in the play for Hamlet in that getting involved with spreading nemesis is fatal. So-called "delay" in Hamlet refusing to act is thus explained by his "mask" of madness getting stuck on, but also as motive for not killing Claudius at prayer, but killing Polonius hiding behind curtain.
Thus we see fate resolving all in final scene, where Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet get theirs.
Might be some connection of Horatio with study of science and religion at Wittenburg, plus Elizabeth's admonishment against revenge and dueling?
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