Though this be madness, yet there is method in't

Now we reach the point of no return for Hamlet - the pivot on which the rest of the play turns. And there is plenty of drama. Having toyed with the idea of murder in the previous scene, his is driven to murderous action in this one - before his father's ghost reappears. The scene opens with Polonius' antagonistic imperatives to the Queen - about how to speak to her son, in order to 'lay home' aspects of his behaviour and 'tell him' that it will no longer be tolerated (III.iv.1-2) - before Polonius secretes himself behind the arras. But a suggestion that Gertrude has mediated on Hamlet's behalf hovers on the air, that she 'hath screen'd and stood between/Much heat and him' (III.iv.3-4). Hamlet, though, is evidently unaware of any such intercession. When he arrives, the dialogue with his mother provides what is possibly my favourite exchange of the play.  Queen Hamlet, thou has thy father much offended. Hamlet Mother, you have m...

Schools closed on Friday afternoon due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our task of remote education now begins in earnest. We study one of the world’s most famous plays - when theatres around the world have been shut down to prevent the spread of the virus. We live in extraordinary times. Like Horatio at the appearance of Hamlet’s ghost during the opening scene of the drama, ‘it harrows me with fear and wonder’ (I.i.47). It is perhaps inevitable then, as I re-read the text, that images to do with infection surface and resonate more powerfully than they have ever done before; while we collectively experience ‘some strange eruption to our state’ (I.i.72). Even Hamlet’s ‘windy suspiration of forc’d breath’ (I.ii.79)  in his opening exchange with the queen now seems to rattle as an early symptom of coronavirus rather than the more usual interpretation as a criticism of the appearance of grief. And don't get me started on Laertes counselling of Ophelia, that ‘in the morn...