#hamlet’s age

[hamletthedane]

Hamlet’s Age

Not to bring up an age-old debate that doesn’t even matter, but I have been thinking recently how interesting Hamlet’s age is both in-text and as meta-text.

To summarize a whole lot of discussion, we basically only have the following clues as to Hamlet’s age:

Hamlet and Horatio are both college students at Wittenberg. In Early Modern/Late Renaissance Europe, noble boys typically began their university education at 14 and usually completed at their Bachelor’s degree by 18 or 19. However, they may have been studying for their Master’s degrees, which was typically awarded by age 25 at the latest. For reference, contemporary Kit Marlowe was a pretty late bloomer who received a bachelor’s degree at 20 and a master’s degree at 23.

Hamlet is AGGRESSIVELY described as a “youth” by many different characters - I believe more than any other male shakespeare character (other than 16yo Romeo). While usage could vary, Shakespeare tended to use “youth” to mean a man in his late teens/very early 20s (actually, he mostly uses it to describe beardless ‘men’ who are actually crossdressing women - likely literally played by young men in their late teens)

King Hamlet is old enough to be grey-haired, but Queen Gertrude is young enough to have additional children (or so Hamlet strongly implies)

Hamlet talks about plucking out the hairs of his beard, so he is old enough to at least theoretically have a beard

In the folio version, the gravedigger says he became a gravedigger the day of Hamlet’s birth, and that he’s be “sixteene here, man and boy, thirty years.” However, it’s unclear if “sixteene” means “sixteen” or “sexton” (ie has he worked here for 16 years but is 30 years old, or has he been sexton there for thirty years?)

Hamlet knew Yorick as a young child, and the gravedigger says Yorick was buried 23 years ago. However, the first quarto version version of Hamlet says “dozen years” instead of “three and twenty.” This suggests the line changed over time. (Or that the bad quarto sucks - I really need to make that post about it, huh…)

Yorick is a skull, and according to the gravedigger’s expertise, he has thus been dead for at least 7-8 years - implying Hamlet is at least ~15yo if he remembers Yorick from his childhood

One important thing sometimes overlooked - Claudius takes the throne at King Hamlet’s death, not Prince Hamlet. That is mostly a commentary on English and French monarchist politics at the time, but it is strange within the internal text. A thirty year old Hamlet presumably would have become the new monarch, not the married-in uncle (unless Gertrude is the vehicle through which the crown passes a la Mary I/Phillip II - certainly food for thought)

Honestly, Hamlet is SO aggressively described as being very young that I’m fairly confident the in-text intention is to have him be around 18-23yo. Placing his age at 30yo simply does not make much sense in the context of his descriptors, his narrative role, and his status as a university student.

However, it doesn’t really matter what the “right” answer is, because the confusion itself is what makes the gravedigger scene so interesting and metatextual. We can basically assume one of the following, given the folio text:

Hamlet really is meant to be 30yo, and that was supposed to surprise or imply something to the contemporary audience that is now lost to us

Older actors were playing Hamlet by the time the folio was written down, and the gravedigger’s description was an in-text justification of the seeming disconnect between age of actor and description of “youth”

Older actors were playing Hamlet by the time the folio was set down, and the gravedigger’s description was an in-text JOKE making fun of the fact that a 30-something year old is playing a high-school aged boy. This makes sense, as the gravedigger is a clown and Hamlet is a play that constantly pokes fun at its own tropes and breaks the fourth wall for its audience

The gravedigger cannot count or remember how old he is, and that’s the joke (this is the most common modern interpretation whenever the line isn’t otherwise played straight). If the clown was, for example, particularly old, those lines would be very funny

Any way you look at it, I believe something is echoing there. It seems like this is one of the many moments in Hamlet where you catch a glimpse of some contemporary in-joke about theater and theater culture* that we can only try to parse out from limited context 430 years later. And honestly, that’s so interesting and cool.

*(My other favorite example of this is when Hamlet asks Polonius about what it was like to play Julius Caesar in an exchange that pokes fun of Polonius’ actor a little. This is clearly an inside-joke directed at Globe regulars - the actor who played Polonius must have also played Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, and been very well reviewed. Hamlet’s joke about Brutus also implies the actor who played Brutus is one of the main cast in Hamlet - possibly even the prince himself, depending on how the line is read).

#hamlet #hamlet meta #hamlet’s age #this obviously does NOT imply anything about being 30yo btw #any age is a good age to be driven to madness by guilt and grief #It’s just very usual for shakespeare to describe somebody well past their apprentice age as a ‘youth’ SO MUCH #and that makes those lines very interesting #shut up e #willy shakes #posting this while EXHAUSTED going to see a million errors and tone problems tomorrow sorry in advance yall #**very unusual #long post #posting Hamlet meta like it’s 2014 hell yeah

[emotinalsupportturtle]

David Tennant being a lifelong Doctor Who fan who was inspired by the show to act, becoming the Doctor and Ncuti Gatwa who watched David Tennant and was inspired to act, playing the Doctor opposite David’s Doctor is the most beautiful thing

#This is a fanboy moment of immense proportions #Also they are both so silly it’s perfect #Dw spoilers #Doctor who #david tennant #ncuti gatwa #10th doctor #14th doctor #15th doctor #I’m just thinking of “I saw a regeneration scene on tv aged 3 and decided to be an actor” tennant #And ‘I watched David Tennant”s hamlet before drama school and realized that’s what an actor should be and what I should aspire to” ncuti #And that hug is so wholesome #it’s really come full circle #Also we can’t forget Mel for being the no 1 hype woman there

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustrations from Shakespeare's Hamlet by John Austen (1922)

#john austen #art #illustration #art nouveau #1920s #1920s art #vintage art #vintage illustration #vintage #english artist #british artist #books #book illustration #shakespeare #shakespeare art #hamlet #golden age of illustration #classic art

[brokenyouth]

i feel so silly reading classics and feeling surprised when something unexpected happens like the entire world already read this and i'm sitting here in shock like "wdym hamlet just killed polonius⁉️😧"

#txt #shakespeare #hamlet #the other day my phone died i just thought it'd be a good idea to read some of the books #i bought ages ago for either school or college lol

[dreams-shape-the-world]

More of my love for Elizbethan Crowley -

In the midst of their conversation, Crowley makes this small speech that comes of the Shakespeare play of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra.

"Age does not wither, nor custom stale in his infinite variety"

Crowley speaks of Aziraphale, and that through the ages he has always found a way to charm him. Always finding a way to bring his guard down while they are together. Crowley might complain, but deep down he cares so much for Aziraphale. One could almost say that his was a love confession of sorts, since he will always remain fascinated by him and that love for him is growing. No, he will never leave his angel, no matter what that angel does to him.

#crowley #good omens #aziraphale #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #good omens spoilers #aziracrow #innefable husbands #good omens season 2 #david tennant #michael sheen #hamlet #age does not wither #anthony j crowley #crowley good omens #aziraphale and crowley

[itsoneinthemorning]

a fruit by any other name innit

#it's more likely than you think #shakespeare #gay #lgbtq #literature #i made this ages ago lmao #i can't tag all the plays this applies to cuz i'd have 38 tags #but y'know #hamlet

[thegoosiestlucy]

i finally watched andrew scott’s hamlet, and god he plays hamlet so young; but then you see the gravedigger scene and hamlet’s actually been alive for thirty years and then it’s just: oh. we never do escape being a child when we’re around our parents, do we; we can leave, play at being adults, but the minute we come back we will always be ten twelve fourteen eighteen and our parents are flawed and perfect and broken and untouchable; and all of a sudden thirty doesn’t seem that grownup at all

#seen a lot of discourse about the incongruity of hamlet’s textual age and his behavioural age #so i thought i’d stick my oar in a little #in case anyone is listening #hamlet #hamlet 2018 #andrew scott #shakespeare #william shakespeare #the goosiest lucyverse

[2nd-mushroom-circle]

WAIT

in the second mad scene, where ophelia comes in singing funeral songs and strewing flowers. there’s a connection to be drawn, here, to the song sung by the man digging her grave, and the flowers gertrude strews on it. you lay flowers at a grave, don’t you?

and in this play, this tragedy of tragedies. hamlet seems to know what he is, sometimes. to feel some premonition of his doom. what if ophelia does, too?

she enters with her flowers, humming a dirge. this is the first time laertes sees her since returning, and he is struck to the heart. i like the thought that she goes straight to him. sings that first song snippet right to him, cradling his face like she’s singing a lullaby. barely notes his own words. leads him to a spot on the stage and sits him down, and bids him farewell like she’s really saying goodbye. like she’ll never see him again. like the spot he sits is his grave.

“You must sing ‘a-down-a-down-a’,” she urges horatio and a servant (some productions have horatio onstage during this scene, which i love), and when she is insistent, they join in a hesitant round. she pulls horatio to the center of the stage and guides him to kneel.

as she goes around the stage giving out her flowers, she takes each person’s hand and leads them to a spot. she does not hand the flowers to them, but lays them at their feet, as if paying respects to a grave. she speaks the words to the ground.

her own rue she clutches on to desperately. “we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays.” she says, later, too: “God ‘a mercy on his soul - and of all Christian souls, I pray God.” I’ve always felt something pleading in that line. if she already knew she would take her own life, at a time when suicide was seen as a sin enough to warrant no Christian burial (maybe it still is i’m not christian), wouldn’t she have need to pray for mercy? for grace?

i can imagine many ways to sing the last song. i especially like her singing the first line directly to horatio, her back to the audience, as he kneels center stage. i don’t know how obvious we need to be about it, but there is a pause at the line “go to thy deathbed.” a look around. the audience, ideally, won’t know why she put them in these spots until the end of the play. maybe the backdrop is even different, maybe it’s made to look like a different room in the palace. but each of these characters will end the play in the exact spot that ophelia has left them.

i just think that would be fun.

#hamlet #ophelia #shakespeare #can't believe i've never mentioned this on here i've had this staging idea for ages #gotta talk about the ghost in hamlet's memories sometime too

[blossoms-and-petrichor]

every age interpretation of Hamlet is solid. mid 30-40s? existential crisis as the world you created for yourself dramatically collapses. teenage? existential crisis in a time of immense uncertainty about your future + reckoning with who you want to be in relation to your family. 80s? Grasping for remembrence and meaning as the spectre of death starts becoming too real. 20s? Facing instability in relationships and trying to break out of the stagnancy of youth but feeling drawn to old mistakes. you can't go wrong

#the queer interpretation of hamlet gets better as he ages #bcs more delicious isolation #hehehe #hamlet #shakespeare #the classism undertones really hit for 20s-30s hamlet tho #and the familial angst really gets fleshed out with teenage hamlet

[stupitunclehal]

thinking about the way rufus talks to dimitri. becoming very sad. the absolute brutality that is inflicting this treatment on a twelve year old child for six years when you are the last living relative he has, when he’s not allowed to leave your line of sight, when you’re either actively supporting or turning a blind eye to attempts on his life, when he’s literally losing it and every paranoid and self-loathing impulse is being reinforced by worsening psychosis.

the fact that this is something dimitri internalizes and something that becomes a core facet of how he perceives himself. it’s reinforced in everything from how felix speaks to him (yes, ofc, I understand felix himself is processing some horrific things as well) to how he’s treated by bystanders even when he’s putting his best foot forward.

a few snippets in 3hopes show that, even when he’s generally popular and he’s a very good and proper young man, people are still afraid of him (largely bc of his brute strength and status). note that and then the way he behaves throughout the academy phase in 3houses and what you’ll see him say in side iterations (some of the quotes in heroes, for instance). he offers to help with manual labour, errands, anything that benefits from his strength that is not related to killing.

fuck you, rufus; he didn’t but dimitri should have torn your head from your shoulders in AM. fucking cocksucker.

#the vocal delivery on the last few lines he has (right before dimitri cuts his head off) is real nice real good real nice #spext: femblem #fe3h #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #nothing profound here but god I just fucking hate rufus GOD what a piece of shit the first third of AG was so fucking good #sucks so hard that it crashed and burned but gahddamn!!!! hamlet off the shits in that first part!!!!!!!

[jorrated]

desperately trying to NOT fall into a christian/ demonology mythology study hyperfixation again i cant take it

#and it unfortunately usually coincides with classical literature hyperfixation #IT TAKES SO MUCH TIME TO GET SERATONIN #*flashbacks to 12 year old me reading Shakespeare and actually enjoying it* #girl once i made a Hamlet! sonic AU and delivered it to my teacher as a portuguese assigment at like age 13 #you couldnt waterboard this out of me in real life #please please please brain just make me obsessed with some game or smth #or keep making me insane with STC please #dont make me read dantes inferno i beg of ye #*sighs* ^ tag written while the audiobook is on the next tab over

[bookholichany]

David Tennant is actually just a couple of years away from being able to play lear.

He might need to start looking his age though. But just thinking about it... Ughhhhh

#shakespeare #david tennant #macbeth #hamlet #much ado about nothing #king lear #literature #he just needs to start looking his age really

[transsexualcoriolanus]

actually i love that no one is entirely sure how old Hamlet was actually supposed to be. one of the best things about Hamlet is how relatable the character is and i love that a 16 year old or a 22 year old or a 30 year old can all go “omg he’s me” and they’re all right. i just read Hamlet and i can’t imagine him as anything other than a teenager. maybe when i reread it in my thirties i’ll realise that he’s actually thirty. Hamlet is however old you want him to be and i love that

#schrodingers age #hamlet #hamlet prince of denmark #shakespeare

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustration from Shakespeare's Hamlet by John Austen (1922)

#john austen #art #illustration #art nouveau #1920s #1920s art #vintage art #vintage illustration #vintage #english artist #british artist #books #book illustration #shakespeare #shakespeare art #hamlet #golden age of illustration #classic art

[la-belle-histoire]

Ophelia, Alexandre Cabanel. 1883.

#art #aesthetic #ophelia #hamlet #hamlet art #art history #historical art #Victorian art #1880s art #Ophelia art #hamlet aesthetic #Victorian hamlet #1880s #gilded age #gilded age art #I’m so used to the Millais painting so this is a nice fresh alternative #shakespeare #Shakespeare art #Shakespearean art #pseudo medieval art #neo medieval art? #not sure what to call imitation medieval art lol #women in art #medieval art

[brother-emperors]

When I was a teenager I read Macbeth, and the part where he s haunted by Banquo never left my soul. The way you write about hauntings has unlocked a critical part of my brain.

you with macbeth 🤝 me with hamlet: shakespeare's impact on teenagers and hauntings is unparalleled

#i didn't come to appreciate julius caesar until Later. i was a hamlet guy 110% #that said. cassius & 'how many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unknown and accents yet unknown' #sometimes feels like a haunting and a curse #ask tag #someday.....someday i will draw the spooky noir version of shakespeare's JC that exists in my head.........someday...........