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| Screen capture from here. |
I have read, seen, or taught Hamlet countless times--not countless because I can't count that high, but because I can't remember how many I've seen or read or taught. The safe guess is that I've gone through that play, in one form or another (not counting The Lion King, my favorite of the Disney Renaissance films of my childhood) at least fifty times. I always get something out of it, I always realize something new, I always feel there's more to explore. Hamlet is a well from which I can never overdraw, as it is like Juliet's love: Infinite (Romeo and Juliet 2.2).
How did Shakespeare pull this off? Part of it is that he allowed himself to luxuriate. Though he has some lengthy plays, nothing has the scope of Hamlet. He keeps the play tightly focused on a single locale, which is Elsinore (there's a bit with pirates later on, but we only hear about that action; nothing is staged). The timing is compressed: Even when it's clear that some time has passed between scenes, we never feel as though the play is dragging through copious amounts of time (like in The Winter's Tale or Pericles). His characters are distinct...except for when they aren't (Cornelius and Voltemand are, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, interchangeable by design), and that's always because of the control that Shakespeare has in this play.
But it's more than luxury. Macbeth shows Shakespeare is equally capable of inexhaustible imagination and power in that play, which is briefer than any other tragedy penned by the Bard. By the time a full staging of Hamlet is ready for intermission, Macbeth is burning through the final act. So it isn't just that Shakespeare, when giving himself room to write, can deliver stunning material. He can do it on a crunch, too.
It's also more than simple technical skill. Shakespeare fumbles through plenty of plays (Two Gentlemen of Verona, anyone?), but when he's really at the top of his craft, his ability to generate multifaceted possibilities in the text are without peer. In the case of Hamlet, he puts so many potential layers of interpretation (and whether he did this deliberately or intuited his way into it we'll, sadly, never know) that one can comfortably assign a reading to the play and be justified. You want a play about espionage? Hamlet can foot that bill. One about overthrowing tyranny? The same. What about one that considers the frustration of an adult child being treated like a young child by a stepfather who is out of touch with emotions and feels that violence is the only real Manly Thing a fellow can do? That's Hamlet. What about a play on the dangers of sacrificing one's true desires in order to please people and the inevitable tragedy that leads to? Well, Hamlet can give you grist for that interpretation.
So it's little surprise that every time I approach this play, I can read it a little differently. After all, I'm a different person now than I was the last time I read this play (back in May, for those keeping track at home). And don't we always say that everyone looks at something a little differently? This is the concept of "you never step in the same river twice" idea, but with the text that you think you know.
And the thing is, Hamlet is a microcosm of the whole that Shakespeare does. I'm teaching an "Adult Roles through Literature--Shakespeare" class this year. And by reading a play with a new lens (how does this story and these characters help my students become good adults?), I gain new insights. I've never enjoyed Romeo and Juliet as much as I have in this pass through, trying to encourage and coach and guide the students through the potentially difficult waters of relationship, courtship, and marriage.
So, yeah...if I had to pick a word that describes Shakespeare's writings, it would have to be indefatigable.