For the common weal

Abstract

While much of recent Hamlet criticism is heavily invested in foregrounding Catholic-nostalgic aspects in the play, I argue that the purgatorial Ghost can also be read as a caricature. Comedic and parodic depictions of Roman Catholic doctrine and beliefs were fairly common in the popular writings of Shakespeare’s age. I situate Shakespeare’s Hamlet within contemporary Protestant culture and its literary aesthetics as well as populist appeal. Finally, I read Hamlet’s mocking of the Ghost at the end of Scene 1.5 along with a popular pamphlet, Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie (1590). Both, I argue, caricature Purgatory to induce community reinforcing Protestant laughter.

Human Empire

“…As with the restoration of balance in the body natural, so the aim of physic in the body politic was a restoration of "auncient wealthe" and social equilibrium; the commonwealth's ills did not require a radical change of regimen but were to be "redressed … with lest daunger or alteration of thinges." 122 Debasement had set off a chain reaction, pulling one group after another into hardship: Ordering Multitudes: The Commonwealth and the Body Politic…”