In the Name of the Father: Revenge and Unsacramental Death in Hamlet
This essay argues that in Hamlet, Shakespeare extends the conventional logic of Senecan revenge—the revenger’s quest to redress crimes against kin through a course of retributive blood justice—to the matter of Old Hamlet’s unsacramental death, which leaves him without the last rites of communion, pe...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Johns Hopkins University Press
[2017]
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| In: |
Christianity & literature
Year: 2017, Volume: 66, Issue: 3, Pages: 422-443 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance KBF British Isles NBP Sacramentology; sacraments |
| Further subjects: | B
Hamlet
B Protestant Reformation B Shakespeare B last rites B lex talionis B Lord's Supper B revenge tragedy B Revenge B William B HAMLET (Play : Shakespeare) B Sacraments |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This essay argues that in Hamlet, Shakespeare extends the conventional logic of Senecan revenge—the revenger’s quest to redress crimes against kin through a course of retributive blood justice—to the matter of Old Hamlet’s unsacramental death, which leaves him without the last rites of communion, penance, and unction. Shakespeare scripts revenge in such a way that these denied sacraments feature symbolically in Hamlet’s revenge on Claudius. This unique form of retributive justice and the soteriological anxieties it produces are made more poignant in a play set in Catholic Denmark and performed in Reformation England. |
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| ISSN: | 2056-5666 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Christianity & literature
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/0148333117708260 |