Hamlet's Biblical Soliloquy

Abstract

THE verbal parallels shown by Dennis McCarthy between North’s translation of Guevara’s Dial of Princes (1557) and Hamlet’s ‘To be, or not to be’ (NQ 254.1.57–60) are indeed impressive, but while he glances at other possible parallels in the writings of Montaigne and Seneca, it is surprising that he makes no mention of the many more parallels in their common Biblical source, not least in the Book of Job. Such Biblical parallels, and others from spiritual writings of the time might have been found in my Biblical Influences in Shakespeare’s Great Tragedies (Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1987). Among these parallels I mention no fewer than thirteen from the Book of Job, which I find echoed no fewer than fifty times in the play as a whole (28–31). As for parallels from the spiritual writings of the time, special mention may be made of Robert Southwell’s writings as also examined by John Klause in his recent book on Shakespeare, the Earl and the Jesuit (New Jersey, 2008), where he says, ‘One can in fact construct most of the soliloquy from the vocabulary of Southwell’s chapters’ in the Epistle of Comfort, before proceeding to detail the echoes, while adding further examples from the poems (168–70).