A Radical Restoration of ‘Hamlet’

"Hamlet," as edited and annotated by Gideon Rappaport.

Gideon Rappaport is on a mission to save a 400 year-old masterpiece. 

Why release yet another annotated edition of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” as Shakespeare expert Mr. Rappaport did last month? The answer, as he explains in the preface of “William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet,’ Edited and Annotated by Gideon Rappaport” is that “too many interpreters in modern times have missed the mark by substituting their own ideas for the meaning that Shakespeare has actually given us.”

In the same vein as Mr. Rappaport’s recent tome “Appreciating Shakespeare,” the veteran teacher and dramaturge here takes as his guiding interpretive principle the common-sense notion that to properly understand Shakespeare, we ought to see the Bard’s works in the way that Shakespeare and his audience did.

Despite its reasonableness, Mr. Rappaport’s approach is anathema in the world of modern mainstream literary criticism due to a principle called the “intentional fallacy.” The intentional fallacy is a bogus principle introduced by literary scholars in the 20th century. It states we cannot know—nor base interpretations of literary works on—what the author intended to communicate.

While it’s true that understanding the meaning of a work of literature is a more ticklish business than understanding, say, a business email, common assumptions apply to both: In both cases, we assume that there’s a thinking being on the other end of the text who has something to communicate. Otherwise, we wouldn’t read or write literature. The intentional fallacy is, itself, a fallacy.

We can improve our understanding of an author’s intended meaning by deepening our knowledge of that author’s worldview, historical situation, and starting assumptions. This is precisely what Mr. Rappaport’s new edition of “Hamlet” enables readers to do. He explains that—contrary to popular opinion—“Hamlet” is not a mysterious, inscrutable piece of obfuscation. Rather, its meaning was pretty plain to its original audience. According to Mr. Rappaport, modern audiences are puzzled by the play for two reasons: the language is old and, more importantly, the worldview of Shakespeare’s audience differs vastly from the worldview of modern audiences.

The first performance of 'Hamlet' by the Elizabethan Stage Society in 1881. Public Domain

Mr. Rappaport helps solve both problems through his introduction and the detailed annotations that appear alongside the play’s text. Incredibly, almost every line of the play receives commentary. He explains the meaning of words, provides background information, offers guidance for theatrical productions, and puts the meaning of the line into the context of the play as a whole.

Mr. Rappaport argues that in order to bridge the gap between Shakespeare’s meaning and our modern understanding, we must enter into the spirit and context in which the work was written.

“This edition is intended to clarify what the play meant in its time and thereby what it can still mean in ours. It will do so by assuming about man, the world, and God what Shakespeare and his audience assumed. When we start by knowing where Shakespeare’ audience started, the meaning of the whole will become clear and will resist being supplanted by the variety of often contradictory modern interpretations.”

Here, Mr. Rappaport highlights one of the problematic consequences of the “intentional fallacy” idea: When we, carte blanche, reject the natural interpretive path of aiming to understand the author’s intention, all that’s left for us to do is to foist our own ideas onto the work of literature.

Such, alas, has been the case with “Hamlet,” which has been eviscerated by contemporary interpretations that try to force the work into modern social and political frameworks that Shakespeare and his audience would have found quite alien. In response, Mr. Rappaport’s introduction to the text begins with this refreshing question: “What if we did not inject our own themes into the play but instead discerned Shakespeare’s?”

This is the approach that Mr. Rappaport takes in his introductory essay on the play as well as his exhaustive annotations that accompany Shakespeare’s original text. Since Shakespeare was a Christian and the plot exists in a Christian framework, Mr. Rappaport seeks to understand the play within that context. This method allows him to identify the interpretive key and dramatic linchpin of the whole work occurring in Act III, Scene III, when Hamlet chooses not to kill Claudius when he finds him at prayer. Hamlet makes this decision because he does not want Claudius to go to heaven. Building on the thought of Philip Thompson, Mr. Rappaport argues that this is the critical moment of moral failing for Hamlet that precipitates the play’s catastrophic and tragic unfolding from that point forward. I think, overall, Mr. Rappaport’s argument is quite compelling.

Through his insightful introduction and rich annotations, Mr. Rappaport does scholars, actors, directors, and casual readers a great service and helps rescue this luminous play from those who have misunderstood it and tried to obscure its light.

‘William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Edited and Annotated by Gideon Rappaport’  One Mind Good Press, Dec. 4, 2023 Hardcover: 402 pages

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