Poisoned Ears and Parental Advice in Hamlet

Reina Green
Mount Saint Vincent University
Reina.green@msvu.ca

Green, Reina. "Poisoned Ears and Parental Advice in Hamlet". Early Modern Literary Studies 11.3
(January, 2006):3.1-31 <URL: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/11-3/greeham2.htm>.

1. The preponderance of ears and hearing in Hamlet has been well noted by
critics.[1] There are more references to ears than in any of Shakespeares other
plays and those ears are most often at risk of some form of violence: not only
are they literally poisoned, but they are also abusd (1.5.38), [t]ake[n]
prisoner (2.2.473), cleave[d] (2.2.557), mildewd (3.4.64), and
metaphorically stabbed (3.4.95).[2] While the play might be read as a text on
early modern beliefs about the anatomy and physiology of the ear as Peter
Cummings suggests (83), it can also be read as a manual on parent-child
relationships. The play presents several parent-child connections,
foregrounding those of Hamlet with his late father and uncle/step-father and
offering the parallel relationships of Laertes and Ophelia with Polonius, and of
Fortinbras with his late father and uncle.[3] Moreover, each father-son pairing
is complicated by the fathers death and the sons desire to avenge that death,
an event the son does not witness, but of which he later hears.[4] However, in
contrast to most early modern conduct literature on parent-child relationships,
in which the need for childrenwhatever their ageto listen to and obey their
parents is repeatedly emphasized, Hamlet presents relationships in which sons
and daughters are endangered by listening to and obeying fathers and father-
substitutes. I therefore wish to explore how inter-generational acts of listening
in Hamlet echo or distort the advice found in the conduct literature and how
attending to these acts of listening may affect the theatre audience.

Advising Parents and Listening Children

2. Many writers of early modern medical, philosophical, and religious treatises

describe listening as a dangerous necessity. They note that it is vital for social
interaction and for learning the truth (both earthly and spiritual), but that it
leaves the listener open to infiltration and potential corruption.[5] Sound is
often described in invasive and violent terms (Folkerth 108-10),[6] and while
listening was believed necessary for discerning the truth, it was recognised
that a listener could not reliably determine the truth of what was heard.[7]
Listening, as the precursor to obedience, also underpinned the social hierarchy,
and conduct literature frequently emphasizes the need for subjugated
individualsincluding childrento attend to those in authority. In his
 discussion of filial obedience, William Gouge cites Ephesians 6.1: Children
obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right, before declaring that
obedience is shown by a humble submission to hearken, that is, to attend and
give heed to the commandements, reproofes, directions, and exhortations
which are given to them (132-33).

3. There appears to have been no upper age limit for this sign of obedience.
Writers rarely distinguish between minor and adult children, suggesting that
the same rules apply, regardless of age.[8] Moreover, as the patriarchal
structure of domestic hierarchy was believed to reflect a divinely ordained
pattern of universal order, children were warned that failing to harken unto
their [fathers] instructions was like gaine-say[ing] . . . the will of God
(Primaudaye 539). According to Richard Brathwait, few children would ignore
their parents, because there is an inbred filiall feare in Children to their
Parents, which will beget in them more attention in hearing, and retention in
holding what they heare (English Gentlewoman 183). Nonetheless, just in
case children did not listen properly, Gouge describes exactly how they should
attend to their parents: The many exhortations given in Scripture unto
children to heare, hearken, give eare, give heed, marke, and observe the words
of their parents, doe imply the forenamed silence and patience: For they who
ought to be swift to heare must bee slow to speake. He adds that failure to
keep quiet, interrupting, fretting, murmuring, flinging or slinking away,
while parents are speaking are all signs of disobedience (437-38). Even when
parents are long and tedious, children must indure it (437).
4. In act one of Hamlet, the audience sees three father-son pairings in which sons
are required to listen to father-figures: first, Hamlet refuses to listen
respectfully to Claudius; second, Laertes attends deferentially to Polonius; and
third, Hamlet listens to a ghost claiming to be his father. In 1.2, Hamlet
murmurs and frets during his step-fathers speech (1.2.65; Hartwig 216), his
very act of speaking indicating that he does not regard Claudius as a father-
figure and is unlikely to listen to or obey him. He then pointedly pledges
obedience to his mother alone (1.2.120), further emphasizing his refusal to
accept Claudius as a father-figure. In contrast to Hamlet, Laertes is not only
respectful to Claudius, asking his kings leave and favour to return to France
(1.2.51), but he then patiently listens to Polonius long-winded advice while
his shipmates wait for him (1.3.55-81). Not only does Laertes show what
Gouge considers appropriate respect for his father by breaking off his speech
to Ophelia when Polonius enters, but he also listens to his father without
interrupting.[9] Only when Polonius signals the end of his speech, does
Laertes speak and then it is to humbly . . . take [his] leave (1.3.82; emphasis
added).
5. Polonius may not be aware that when dispensing his advice, he is uttering his
last words to his son, but his speech is intended to prepare Laertes for his
fathers absence. His advice may seem long-winded and contradictory to us,
but Shakespeares own audience may have considered Polonius a wise father
dispensing conventional, albeit ineffective, advice to his son, particularly as
his advice is similar to that of such prominent fathers as Lord Burghley, Sir
Walter Raleigh, and James I, whose works in the genre of parental advice
literature were sufficiently popular to run to several editions.[10] Both
Burghley and Raleigh instruct their sons not to lend money, to avoid those of
 inferior status, and to make friends with some great man . . . [and]
compliment him often (Wright 12), advice in keeping with Polonius counsel
to Laertes. They also offer guidance on listening and speaking, repeatedly
warning their sons about trusting others with confidences. James I acerbically
advises his son, Rather perswade thy selfe then thy friend to keepe thine
owne Councell (16), while Raleigh succinctly notes, He that keepeth his
mouth, keepeth his life, and that a man who speaks too much is easily
overcome like a city without walls (Wright 25-26). Raleigh specifically
advises his son to hearken much, and speak little (26), counsel that echoes
Polonius [g]ive every man thy ear, but few thy voice (1.3.68).[11]
6. Given that Polonius expresses principles similar to those of such court-wise
fathers as Raleigh and Burghley, Claudius counsellor may be deemed to have
a realistic understanding of the craft required of a courtier. While we might
think Polonius final exhortation, to thine own self be true (1.3.78), at odds
with his guidelines on how his son should behave, Shakespeares
contemporaries may have been more comfortable with the idea that certain
performed behaviours could be identified with a true self.[12] Burghley, for
example, tells his son that courtesy towards ones equals makes thee known
for a man well-bred (Wright 13). Too often, critics regard Polonius as a
bore and a foolish old man (Taylor 275), an assessment that echoes
Hamlets complaint that the counsellor was in life a foolish prating knave
(3.4.217), without considering Hamlets bias. As Claudius trusted advisor,
Polonius is Hamlets enemy; he has pledged allegiance to the man Hamlet
refuses to obey, and Hamlet is well aware that whether or not Polonius speaks
foolish words, he speaks them into the ear of a king (Hartwig 215).
7. An Elizabethan audience may have approved of Polonius fatherly advice and
Laertes patience, but Polonius inability to separate his courtly role from his
parental role may not have been considered so positively. Required to
eavesdrop on others as Claudius advisor, Polonius adopts the same practice in
the lives of his children and even uses them as decoys to gather information
(Taylor 276-77). As David Leverenz notes, Polonius cares more for his
position at court than for his daughters well-being, and he uses his paternal
authority to better his status as kings advisor (301). Seen by some as comic
relief, Polonius appointment of Reynaldo to spy on Laertes demonstrates the
methods he uses to gather information and suggests that he no more trusts his
own family than those who threaten the crown.[13] He has little faith that the
father-son bond is strong enough to ensure Laertes obedience.
8. Not only does Polonius manipulate, eavesdrop, and hire spies to inform on his
own children, but he also uses the same practices to assess Hamlets filial
obedience. In doing so, he ignores the danger inherent in such actions. Hamlet
does not expect to find a government official, a wretched, rash, intruding
fool (3.4.31) in his mothers closet, anticipating instead a family member, a
husband, albeit one who is a king. As Lisa Jardine notes, Polonius has no
legitimate place within the intimate space of Gertrudes closet; his presence
fatally confuses privacy with affairs of state (319). Polonius fails to consider
the risk of using political tactics in a private sphere, just as he fails to note the
risk of listening to conversations to which he should not be privy. That
Polonius dies because he is in the ear (3.1.186) is reinforced by the fact that
he is killed for responding to what he hears when he cannot see what is
 happening.[14] His death also supports Raleighs argument that [h]e that
keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life.
9. While Polonius can only hear but cannot see in Gertrudes closet, the ghost is
first introduced to us as an apparition without a voice. Silent in response to
Horatios command that it speak, it can be seen but not heard. This silence
contrasts Polonius verbosity in the previous scene, but further connections
may be drawn between the statesman and the ghost. In ironic contrast to
Polonius who does not realize that his advice to Laertes are his final words to
his son, Hamlet Senior has no opportunity to instruct his son prior to his death.
Instead, Hamlet must listen to the ghost tell of that death. If children were
generally predisposed to listen to their parents, they were believed to be
particularly attentive to their parents last words. Gouge notes that, of all the
speeches a person might hear, [t]he words of a dying parent are commonly
most regarded: his last words doe make a deepe impression (577).[15]
10. The power of deathbed speeches, like that of farewell speeches, stems from
the knowledge that the body and voice of the speaker will soon be gone, and
this anticipated absence gives dying parents what Wendy Wall calls an
invisible moral authority (290-91). Wall offers the deathbed speech of Mary
Sidney, Philip Sidneys mother, as an example of such authority (290-91).
Holinshed reports that Sidney wounded the consciences, and inwardlie
pearced the hearts of manie that heard hir (1551), a reaction reminiscent of
Hamlets response to the ghost he calls father (1.4.45) when he hears that
ghost describe how his father died. If the words of a dying parent carry
particular weight, how much more authority might be granted to words
apparently uttered from beyond the grave by that parent?
11. There is no question that Hamlet admires his father and therefore would be
especially inclined to attend to an apparition that looks like the late king. He
describes Hamlet Senior as [s]o excellent a king (1.2.139), and [a]
combination and a form indeed / Where every god did seem to set his seal
(3.4.60-61), contrasting him to the mildewd ear of Claudius (64). However,
this contrast is equivocal. Hamlet puns on a mildewd ear both as an ear of
grain that can infect the grain around it and as a human ear that can be
infected. With this latter meaning, though, it is not Claudius, but Hamlet
Senior who has a mildewd ear as a result of the poisoning. Indeed, earlier,
Hamlet openly acknowledges that his father was less than perfect, noting that
he died grossly, full of bread, / With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as
May (3.3.80-81). Even the ghost declares that King Hamlet was [c]ut off
even in the blossoms of [his] sin, / . . . With all [his] imperfections on [his]
head (1.5.76, 79). Given these mixed descriptions of his father, Hamlets
insistence on distinguishing between his mothers two husbands as Hyperion
to a satyr(1.2.140), Jove to a pajock (3.2.277-78), appears unfounded
(Ferguson 296-97). While Hamlets deification of his father is in keeping with
Gouges admonition that children show reverend respect regardless of their
parents behaviour (441), others, both in Elsinore and in the theatre, have
difficulty seeing the contrast he makes between his father and Claudius
(Farrell 174-75). Indeed, it is no coincidence that the ghost appears in the
armour in which Hamlet Senior killed Old Fortinbras, a deed for which Young
Fortinbras now desires retribution.[16] Like Claudius, King Hamlet has
committed an act that a son seeks to avenge.
12. Both the late Hamlet Senior and the apparition that resembles him are
presented ambiguously, and Hamlet remains doubtful whether the ghost is a
spirit of health or goblin damnd (1.4.40).[17] Nonetheless, he identifies the
ghost as his father, declaring, Ill call thee Hamlet, / King, father, royal Dane
(1.4.44-45). Indeed, the ghost demonstrates the absolute authority of a king
and father; it is majestical (1.1.148), and its silent refusal to speak to Horatio
and its speech to Hamlet underscore its authority (Farrell 169). Its first words,
Mark me (1.5.2), are redundant given that Hamlet has just asked the
apparition to speak. The ghosts command is a sign not only of who controls
the conversation, but also of how Hamlet needs to listen: he must lend [his]
serious hearing (l.5.5; emphasis added). Hamlet responds by declaring that he
is bound to hear (6), an acknowledgement of his willing bondage to the
ghost. Hearing, as the ghost warns him, binds Hamlet to revenge (7), and the
ghost reminds him of his filial duty: List, list, O list! / If thou didst ever thy
dear father love (22-23), immediately before demanding Hamlet take
revenge. Unfortunately for Hamlet, what the ghost asks him to do is unlawful,
at least according to conduct book writers such as Gouge, and even though the
ghost later qualifies its demand to howsomever thou pursuest this act (84),
there is no doubt that it asks Hamlet to [r]evenge his [fathers] foul and most
unnatural murder (25).
13. In his long discussion of filial duty, Gouge considers what should be done
when parents demand that children avenge wrongs done to them. Generally in
accordance with the cultural tenet of filial obedience, he draws the line at
obeying a parental demand for vengeance. He insists that such a demand is
Heathen and that it is unlawful for children to seek revenge (488). He is,
however, aware of the pressure exerted on children in the quest for vengeance.
He writes, some presse [revenge] so farre upon children as they affright them
with their parents Ghost, saying, that if they neglect to revenge their parents
wrongs, their Ghost will follow them, and not suffer them to live in quiet, but
molest them continually (488). Hamlet, though, is not simply affright[ed]
by the threat of his fathers ghost, but is confronted by an apparition
resembling him. Still, Hamlet is not conduct literature and therefore one has to
examine whether Gouges criticism of the filial drive to revenge wrongs done
to parents has any relevance to Hamlets dilemma.
14. Stephen Booth argues that while Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, it constantly
draws on other frames of reference, including the Christian context that
underpins most conduct literature, to present conflicting value systems (154).
Even as the ghost demands revenge, it prohibits Hamlet from acting against
Gertrude by demanding that he [l]eave her to heaven (1.5.86), echoing the
Judeo-Christian belief that humans should not seek revenge (Leviticus 19:18;
Romans 12:19). The ghosts conflicting demands that Hamlet avenge his
fathers death yet leave his mother alone may also be an acknowledgement of
Hamlets private and public motives for revenge. In his essay, Of Revenge,
Sir Francis Bacon considers revenge a kinde of Wilde Justice that the law
should weed . . . out. He admits, though, that revenge may be necessary for
those wrongs which there is no Law to remedy, and differentiates between
public revenge, which he considers exemplified in Julius Caesars death, as
for the most part, Fortunate, and private revenge, which is not so (16-17).
When a regicide like Claudius becomes king, the law may be incapable of
bringing him to justice. In Bacons terms, then, revenge of King Hamlets
 death would be fortunate. Still, Hamlet Seniors death is also fratricide, a
private affair linked to Claudius desire for Gertrude. This type of wrong,
Bacon notes, should be pass[ed] . . . over as that makes a person Superiour:
For it is a Princes part to Pardon (16).[18]
15. Hamlets hesitation, therefore, may not only be due to his doubts about the
truth of what he hears from the ghost, but may also stem from his inability to
determine his motive for revenge. If he desires vengeance for the death of his
king, his action may be acceptable, but if he is motivated to revenge his
fathers murder, then his action will be condemned. The consequences are not
based on the act itself, but on his motives. Thus, while bound to revenge
because he has submitted to the ghosts authority and listened to its tale,
Hamlet has difficulty fulfilling its commands, not only because they are
conflicting commands, but also because he understands the risk he faces,
unlike Laertes who rejects the consequences of taking revenge, declaring, I
dare damnation . . . / Let come what comes, only Ill be revengd / Most
throughly for my father (4.5.133, 135-36). Laertes readily acquiesces when
Claudius claims, Revenge should have no bounds (4.7.127), itself an ironic
reversal of the ghosts insistence that Hamlet is bound to revenge (1.5.6-
7). Moreover, just as connections can be made between Laertes father and the
semblance of Hamlets, so the two sons are associated in their predisposition
to listen to demands for revenge from characters who fill the role of substitute
parents.[19] Hamlet calls the ghost father and grants it filial obedience, but
he has no proof that the ghost is his father; as he admits, it could be the devil.
Equally, Claudius tries to act as father to both Hamlet and Laertes, calling one
my son (1.2.64) and the other a good child (4.5.148), but in both cases he
is clearly a substitute. These substitute fathers are also similar in that they both
tell substitute tales. Claudius is about to tell Laertes that Hamlet has gone to
England, unlikely to return, when he is interrupted by a messenger bearing
Hamlets letter. Laertes never hears Claudius initial plan. Equally, the ghost
tells Hamlet that it could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would harrow
up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, but then declares that this tale cannot be
told [t]o ears of flesh and blood (1.5.15-16, 22) and substitutes another.[20]
16. Nonetheless, this substitute tale provokes the same response in its listener as
the untold tale. It too freeze[s] Hamlet. This paralysing tale, which Hamlet
fears will stop his heart and cause him to age instantly: Hold, hold, my
heart, / And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, / But bear me stiffly up
(1.5.93-95), is of King Hamlets paralysing death, of how his blood coagulated
when hebona was poured into his ear. Neither was King Hamlets ear the only
one poisoned. The ghost notes that the whole ear of Denmark / Is by a forged
process of [the kings] death / Rankly abusd (36-38), abuse caused by yet
another substitute narrative: the tale that the king was stung by a serpent.[21]
If, as the ghost implies, ears are irrevocably poisoned by hearing a substitute
tale, then Hamlet is clearly at risk, even as he listens, of also being poisoned
and, like his father, he undergoes both an internal and external change because
of what he hears (Pollard 127).[22] Claudius, ever watchful of his nephew,
complains that nor thexterior nor the inward man / Resembles that it was
(2.2.6-7), and Ophelia notes that Hamlet does not simply look as if he has seen
a ghost, but that he now resembles a ghost: As if he had been loosed out of
hell / To speak of horrors (2.1.83-84), emphasizing how he has undergone a
paralysing corruption similar to that which killed his father.
17. While Hamlets exterior change is comparable to that suffered by his father, it
is also seen in another avenging son. Pyrrhus, like Hamlet, did the night
resemble (2.2.449) and, as he wreaks havoc in Troy, he becomes covered in
coagulate gore, / With eyes like carbuncles (458-59), a description
reminiscent of both the vile and loathsome crust (1.5.72) of the dying king
and the young princes two eyes like stars start[ing] from their spheres (17).
Pyrrhus also makes a first wide strike (2.2.468), a precursor to Hamlets
own misguided strike when he stabs Polonius. Both men also appear to
hesitate after their first attempt, Pyrrhus being momentarily paralysed by what
he hears. He is deafened by a hideous crash [that] / Takes prisoner [his] ear
(472-73), the sound being caused by the fall of Troy, the public ramifications
of his revenge. Hamlet, too, recognizes and perhaps hesitates because,
whatever his motives for revenge, there will be public repercussions thanks to
the position held by his fathers murderer. By seeking revenge against his
uncle, Hamlet commits treason against his monarch and risks being
condemned as a villain, just as Pyrrhus is considered the villain in Priams
death (Prosser 154).[23] Hamlet has already learned from the ghost how
rumours circulated after death can affect public affairs. With the account of
Priams slaughter, Hamlet is reminded of how a vengeful son can be labelled a
villain. It is little wonder, then, that he later insists that Horatio tell his story,
fearing what a wounded name, / Things standing thus unknown, shall I leave
behind me (5.2.349-50).
18. Hamlets willingness to listen to the ghost and Laertes ensuing openness to
Claudius suggestions parallel what Laertes considers his sisters too credent
ear (1.3.30). Prior to his departure, Laertes warns Ophelia that listening to
Hamlet may endanger her honour (29-32), while her father is even more
emphatic. Using the same analogy as Raleigh when he compares a talkative
man to an unprotected city, Polonius tells his daughter to [s]et your
entreatments at a higher rate / Than a command to parley (122-23), and then
insists,

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth

Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. (132-34)

Polonius thus gives contrasting advice to his children about listening. Laertes
may [g]ive every man [his] ear but few [his] voice (68), while Ophelia must
not listen to others, particularly Hamlet, because Polonius assumes that she
cannot distinguish truth from guile, and because listening will prompt her to
speak or parley.[24] In contrast to Polonius admonition to Ophelia, and
heedless of his friends warnings, Hamlet spends private time with the
ghost, giving it a free and bounteous audience (1.3.92-93). Moreover,
Hamlets desire to obey the ghosts commands echoes Ophelias obedience to
Polonius. In both cases, this obedience leads to their undoing. Ophelias
compliance with her fathers command that she avoid Hamlet appears to
provoke his attack in the Nunnery scene, and the isolation she experiences due
to his rejection, her brothers absence, and her fathers death contributes to her
madness. Like Hamlet, Ophelia is asked to obey contradictory commands. She
promises Laertes that his advice is in my memory lockd, / And you yourself
shall keep the key of it (1.3.85-86) yet, almost immediately, when her father
 asks what her brother has said, Ophelia tells him. Obedient to her father, she
must then be silent with Hamlet. She cannot even reveal the reason for her
changed behaviour. Hamlet, like Ophelia, is forced to keep what he considers
a parental command secret. [25] In contrast to Raleighs belief that He that
keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life, both Ophelia and Hamlet suffer for their
silence as these secret commands have disastrous consequences, akin to the
poison poured into King Hamlets ear (Farrell 166).

19. Both Hamlet and Ophelia die because they listen to and obey commands from
parental figures (Hartwig 217). Laertes also dies as a result of his obedience,
though initially he is anything but silent. He returns to Elsinore hot for revenge
when he learns of his fathers murder. However, he is too much his fathers
son to maintain his opposition to Claudius. Laertes, thanks to Polonius
tutelage, understands court politics and how one needs to be friends with
some great man as Burghley advises his son. Laertes tells Claudius that he
would give his life for his friends (4.5.145-47), a declaration that earns him
the new kings approval. The problem is that Laertes behaves like a good
child towards a man who is not his father, and while Claudius is king and
therefore must be obeyed, he is of course a substitute king. Both Laertes and
Hamlet fail to limit their filial obedience to their blood parents, granting it to
those who simply look or act like parents. Furthermore, their failure to
consider the substitute nature of the father figures to whom they listen
demonstrates the risk of listening when a speakers motives cannot be
determined. Polonius might claim, [T]o thine own self be true, / And it must
follow as the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man (1.3.78-
80), but there is no way of knowing if speakers are always true to themselves
and, therefore, whether they are being false to others. Claudius looks like a
king, but his true self is not kingly. Equally, Hamlet listens to the ghost
because it looks like his father, but he cannot discern the ghosts true nature.
These young men might be criticized for their inability to ascertain these
speakers intentions, but they are not alone in trying to determine what lies
beneath actions that a man might play (1.2.84).

Substitution, Intention, and Interpretation

20. The play itself demonstrates the difficulty of being able to discern intention
from action, thought from speech, and the fencing match explicitly shows how
an event can be variously interpreted when the motives behind the action
remain hidden. Laertes sees the fencing match as a way to revenge the death
of his father, while Claudius regards it as an opportunity to rid himself of
Hamlet, whom he rightly considers a [h]azard and fear (3.3.6, 25).
Vincent Crapanzano argues that for Laertes and Claudius, the mimicking
game of fencing masks the mimicked reality, the fight-to-the-death (310);
they know that the match will end in bloodshed and death, while Gertrude and
most of the courtiers see the game as just that. Hamlet is aware that it hides
something less innocent, though he cannot see the precise villainy (5.2.317)
until Laertes tells him that the sword he holds is [u]nbated and envenomed
(323). According to Richard Flatter, Hamlet is not surprised that Laertes foil
is unbated, but he is surprised that it is also poisoned (141-42). Hamlet may
 see the unbated foil and he obviously both sees and feels his own wound, but it
is not until he hears Laertes words that he can fully understand what is
happening.

21. Throughout Hamlet, the audience and the characters onstage repeatedly see
something before hearing the information necessary to understand what has
been seen. As noted, the ghost appears in the first scene, but does not tell its
story until the end of act one. Claudius enters as king in the second scene, but
his confession remains unheard until act three. It is therefore no surprise that
Claudius and the rest of the court do not respond to the dumb show of The
Mousetrap; they must also hear the play itself (Anderson 306).[26] Both
Pollard and Tiffany point to Claudius reaction on hearing the play as
indicative of the power of speech to infiltrate a listener (Pollard 139; Tiffany
318). Certainly, Hamlet thinks that Claudius moves Upon the talk of the
poisoning (3.2.283). Still, hearing alone is also insufficient, as shown by
Polonius death, caused by Hamlet and the old counsellor reacting blindly to
what they hear. Paul Kottman believes that the sequence of spectacle followed
by speech presents (and inaugurates) theatre experience as shared spectacle
that suspends even as it impels and requires affirmation through speech (40-
51). In contrast, Bill Readings argues that the play demonstrates a certain
failure of representation in both visual display and the spoken word (47), and
Polonius experience demonstrates that listening is not enough, while the
ghosts appearance and the dumb show indicate that seeing a spectacle is
equally inadequate. As Andrew Mousley notes, characters try to discover the
truth behind what they hear and see so they can ascertain how to act (77).
Hamlet therefore tries to construct an understanding of events from the
repetitions and revisions that constitute the play, even creating his own re-
enactment with The Mousetrap and its dumb show, so he can determine a
course of action.
22. The problem is, as Steve Roth notes, that Hamlets plan fails to work (par. 9).
To begin with, the play is a substitute in a number of ways. It takes on an
alternate purpose as it is used not just to entertain, but to determine Claudius
guilt. The play is even given another title by Hamlet indicating this change,
The Mousetrap being substituted for The Murder of Gonzago. In addition,
Hamlet inserts a speech into it, substitute words that are never identified.[27]
Intended originally to depict the murder of the Duke of Gonzago, the play, at
least to Hamlet, comes near the circumstance / . . . of [his] fathers death
(3.2.76-77). The play also represents Hamlets desired revengethe murder of
his unclefor, as Hamlet is careful to point out, Lucianus is the Player Kings
nephew, not his brother, as would be expected if the murder of King Hamlet
were depicted.[28]
23. Despite the indeterminacy of events actually represented in The Mousetrap,
Hamlet is confident that Claudius will interpret the play as a re-enactment of
his crime and confess. Not only does Hamlet note that on seeing a play, the
guilty have been moved to proclaim . . . their malefactions (2.2.588), but he
also tells Horatio, If [Claudius] occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel in one
speech, / It is a damned ghost that we have seen (3.2.80-82). The problem is
that Claudius simply calls for lights and does not confess his crime within
Hamlets hearing. Nonetheless, Hamlet interprets the spectacle of Claudius
rising as a sign of his guilt, even though, in Hamlet itself, verbal commentary
 is shown to be vital for a complete understanding of previously seen spectacle.
Hamlet ignores that visual spectacles, dumb-shows, can be inexplicable
(3.2.12), whether performed by an actor or an audience member. Despite
Hamlets conviction that his uncle leaves Upon the talk of the poisoning,
Claudius movement does not indicate whether he is distressed or angered by
Lucianus speech, his action, or Hamlets commentary, all of which occur
immediately beforehand.[29] The audience eventually learns that Hamlet is
right to believe his uncle guilty, but it also knows that his assumption is based
on the wrong reasons (Hartwig 219-20). Indeed, in the next scene, when
Claudius guilt is revealed to the theatre audience, the potential for
misinterpreting a visual display or dumb show is simultaneously shown.
Hamlet, seeing Claudius in an attitude of prayer, assumes he is praying and
determines that to kill him now would be insufficient revenge. In contrast, the
audience learns from Claudius that despite appearances, he cannot pray, that
his performance is literally a dumb show: [His] words fly up, [his] thoughts
remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go (3.3.97-98).
24. The Mousetrap, like the fencing match, is a mimicked reality, a
representation of other events (whatever they may be), and the audiences
understanding depends on knowledge of those events. Moreover, the play is
not only a representation and revision of the ghosts story of King Hamlets
poisoning through the ear, but it is also a re-enactment and result of the
metaphoric poisoning posited (and performed) by the ghost. The speech
Hamlet inserts into The Mousetrap echoes the many other substitutions
occurring in Elsinore, its indeterminacy echoing the mystery surrounding King
Hamlets poisoning and the enigmatic nature of the ghost. Visual spectacle
may not provide sufficient information, but the spoken word, at least as used
in Elsinore, is open to multiple interpretations, and the truth beneath it, like the
proof Hamlet seeks, is evasive (Mousley 79). While writers of parental advice
and conduct literature generally agree with Polonius that sons, unlike
daughters, can distinguish the truth in what they hear, and that it is therefore
safe for them to [g]ive every man [their] ear, Hamlet reveals that neither
sons nor daughters are able to accurately identify the truth even when they are
listening to authority figures and substitute fathers, for such figures cannot
always be distinguished from unworthy counterfeits. Laertes cannot discern
Claudius self-interest any more than Hamlet can find incontrovertible
evidence of the ghosts honesty.

The Attending Audience

25. The emphasis on attending to the advice of dying parents and the possibility of
being seduced through the ear must have resonated strongly in a nation ruled
by an aging queen with no clear successor, and which feared such coups as
that attempted by the Earl of Essex. It is under these conditions that
Shakespeare writes a revenge tragedy clearly influenced by societal attitudes
towards parental advice.[30] Conduct book writers repeatedly emphasize the
need for filial obedience, and Gouge appears to be the only one to suggest that
there may be times when parents commands should not be obeyed.
Shakespeare explores both the validity of parental dictates and the
consequences of granting someone parental authority. In Elsinore, obedience
 to parental directives, whether given by an actual or substitute parent, has
horrifying consequences. Ophelia obeys her fathers seemingly reasonable
charge that she not spend time alone with Hamlet and ends up isolated and
insane. Hamlet, accepting the ghost as the spirit of his dead father, struggles to
obey an inappropriate command, fulfilling it only through circumstances
arranged by his fathers murderer. His own father having died in service to the
king, Laertes follows Claudius plan in order to gain revenge, and dies in part
because of his loyalty to his father and the king and his inability to detect the
kings purpose.

26. The problem in Hamlet is that nothing is quite what it seems. The king is not a
king but a murderer, a fact that makes his loyal counsellor a knave, at least
according to the rightful kings son. The disruption of the link between word
and object as represented by Claudius usurpation permits all words to be open
to interpretation and arbitrary assignation. As a result, listeners must struggle
to gather meaning out of a speakers words. They become like Ophelias
hearers who botch the words up fit to their own thoughts (4.5.10), as both
the onstage and offstage audiences discover. The theatre audience struggles to
determine the meaning behind Barnardos opening question, only to be
confused by Franciscos reply. He speaks, but fails to answer his comrades
query. The audience feels, as Booth notes, unexpectedly and very slightly out
of step with the action presented on the stage (140). Claudius appears in the
following scene with all the ceremony associated with a king, and the
audience is comforted by his explanation of events, that is, until Hamlet
interrupts and gains the audiences ear. As the princes confidant, the audience
is in the same position as Hamlet himself, a listener to someone enigmatic,
who possesses that within which passes show (1.2.85).
27. By repeatedly speaking directly to the audience members, Hamlet transforms
them into primary, involved listeners, thereby underscoring the usual role of
audience as unseen observer and eavesdropper, a position that, given Polonius
experience, clearly poses risks. While the audience laughs at Polonius
misguided belief that Hamlets antic disposition (1.5.180) is due to his love
for Ophelia, it is also guilty of assuming it will find / Where truth is hid
(2.2.157-58), even though its assumptions are just as arbitrary as the old mans
(Booth 159, 163). The audiences self-awareness is further emphasized by the
play within a play. In his advice to the players, Hamlet notes that an actors
speech and gesture should hold the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her
feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form
and pressure (3.2.22-24). He claims that anything overdone, while it makes
the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve (25-27), and that a
good actor disguises the artifice of playing by using natural speech and
gesture: [s]uit[ing] the action to the word, the word to the action (17-18).
Jane Donawerth notes that Hamlets advice echoes a contemporary shift in
acting practice, a shift apparent in Shakespeares more restrained use of
gesture in his tragedies than in his earlier history plays, and which led to
characters becoming more individualized by gesture and voice (88-91).
28. Hamlets advice to the players may reflect a shift in theatre practice towards a
more natural representation, but it also emphasizes the importance of
listening. Terence Hawkes notes Hamlets highest praise is reserved for . . .
the good listener and that what he and, in the background, Shakespeare want
 from the audience is a form of enhanced receptivity (116-18). Nonetheless,
Hamlet also acknowledges the risks of such listening. The prince, even as he
lies dying in the final scene, echoes the ghost as he speaks directly to an
audience already astonished by what it has seen and heard. He notes that while
those [t]hat are but mutes or audience to this act already look pale and
tremble at this chance (5.2.340, 339), the tale he could tell if he had time
would be even more horrifying. Unable to tell his own tale, and aware of how
an ear can be by a forgd process . . . [r]ankly abused when a murderer is
deemed a king, and a murder a snakebite, Hamlet insists that Horatio [r]eport
me and my cause aright / To the unsatisfied (5.2.344-45). Hamlet, like
Laertes, is too much his fathers son. He fears that he, like Pyrrhus, will have a
wounded name (349) and wants to right such wrongs. However, his story is
much like his fathers as it too has a potentially unreliable narrator. Horatio
does not know all the details (Roth par. 22-23), and the tale, if told, would also
freeze . . . young blood, being of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, / Of
accidental judgements, casual slaughters, / Of deaths put on by cunning and
forcd cause (5.2.386-88).
29. The English Ambassador hints at the power of Hamlets tale to paralyse its
hearers when he states, apparently in reference to the prince, The ears are
senseless that should give us hearing (5.2.374). The Ambassadors speech,
though, may equally apply to members of the audience whose ears have been
paralysed or made senseless by what they have heard. Even the
groundlings in the audience who are capable of nothing but inexplicable
dumb shows and noise (3.2.11-12) can be said to have senseless ears in that
they do not sense anything but spectacle and sound. Furthermore, as the
Ambassadors speech refers directly to a dead mans ears, to ears that have
heard the tale of a dead man, it further emphasizes the lethal nature of
listening to an audience that is itself attending to a dead mans tale. If Hamlet
is endangered because he listens to a mysterious ghost, Hamlets own audience
may also be at risk, for he is equally inscrutable. It is not just in Elsinore that
the king is not a king; such disconnection between what is heard and what lies
beneath is also present in theatrical practice. Playing depends on concealing
reality, as Hamlet points out.
30. While Hamlet emphasizes the importance and dangers of listening, both
within the play and within the theatre, it is not unique in its emphasis on the
power of speech, and particularly of speech heard in a theatre. This was also a
primary concern expressed by antitheatricalists (Pollard 136). Stephen Gosson,
while he rails against plays and what might enter by the passage of our eyes
and eares into the soule, underscores the aural aspect of theatre-going, noting
that plays are the doctrine of the Deuill; the Counsell of the vngodly (B7v).
Even in his complaint about wanton Italian bookes, he emphasizes the role
of the ear in allowing this poyson to enter. He writes, none are so
pleasaunte or plausible as they, that sound some kinde of libertie in our eares
(B6r). Frustrated by peoples preference for plays over preaching despite the
remonstrance of godly preachers such as himself (B2r), Gosson emphasises
the inability to trust the speech of an actor. He asks that his reader, if anye
Player belie me in your hearing upon the stage, . . . would rather consider of
the person than of the speach, for a Player is like to a Marchants finger, that
standes sometime for a thousande, sometime for a cypher, and a Player must
stand as his parte fals, sometime for a Prince sometime for a peasant (A5r).
 [31] However, if performance must oerstep not the modesty of nature
(3.2.19) as Hamlet desires, then it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish
the actor-prince from the rightful prince, the actions that a man might play
from that within, even when one listens closely. And, as Hamlets
experience demonstrates, the inability to determine the nature of a speaker not
only raises questions about how one determines the validity of what one hears,
but also the very performance itself can leave one open to potentially
corrupting speech.
31. I am not claiming that Shakespeare is a closet anti-theatricalist, but he does
appear to echo anti-theatrical discourse in Hamlet through the suggestion that
listeners are always at risk of being corrupted by what they hear, even when
they listen to apparently appropriate figures of authority.[32] He does not,
though, place the onus for such corruption solely on the speaker, but also on
the listener. When Gertrude hears that Ophelias listeners are interpreting her
speech in accordance with their own preconceptions, she worries that the
young girl may strew / Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds (4.5.14-
15). Gertrudes concern is based on both facets of verbal communication:
Ophelias speech and the listeners own prejudices. She understands that
Ophelias words are most dangerous when heard by certain people.
Shakespeare, then, even as he notes the potential for listeners to be infected
diseasedby what they hear within the theatre, as they botch the
[playwrights] words fit to their own thoughts, trying to discover [w]here
truth is hid, returns the responsibility for any corruption (real or imagined) to
the listening audience by suggesting that the problem is not simply the
speakers words, but the ill-breeding minds of the listeners. Shakespeare
likely wrote Hamlet several months before February 1601, when a play about
Richard IIlikely Shakespeareswas performed at the request of some of
the Earl of Essexs followers the evening before his rebellion.[33] While the
rationale for the performancewhether the intention was to inspire
themselves or othersis unknown (Barroll 453-54), Shakespeares prior
abdication of responsibility as a playwright suggests that he had his defence
already prepared should any ill-breeding minds cause trouble about this or
any of his other plays in such politically fragile times.

Notes

I wish to acknowledge the helpful advice of Christina Luckyj, John Baxter, and Ron
Huebert on previous drafts of this work. An abbreviated version, titled Poisoned Ears
in Hamlet and Its Audience, was read at the 2004 annual meeting of Association of
Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) in Winnipeg,
Canada.

[1] Critics who examine ears and hearing in Hamlet include Mary Anderson, Peter
Cummings, Tanya Pollard, and Mark Robson. Robert Wilson discusses ears in relation
to narrative and narratees; Kenneth Gross discusses ears and hearing in connections
with slander; and Bill Readings and Grace Tiffany consider the relationship between
spectacle and languagewhat is seen and heard in Hamlet, Tiffany arguing that the
play presents a Calvinist perspective on the power of speech, while Readings
deconstructs the gap and connections between seeing and hearing. Bruce Smith and
Wes Folkerth consider hearing in relation to sound and its impact in the broader
context of early modern theatre and drama. The work of both Smith and Folkerth
influence my examination of Hamlet.

[2] All references to Hamlet are to the Arden edition, edited by Harold Jenkins
(London; New York: Methuen, 1982).

[3] In his introduction, Harold Jenkins notes that in 1.2, Claudius deals with three
sons: Fortinbras, Laertes, and Hamlet, the circumstances of the others being designed
to echo Hamlets problem in particular ways (133).

[4] Eric Rasmussen notes that Hamlet includes five sets of murdered fathers and
avenging sons. These are King Hamlet and his son, the elder Fortinbras and his son,
Polonius and Laertes, Achilles and Pyrrhus, and Marcus Junius Brutus and his son, the
latter being evoked by Polonius memory of having played Julius Caesar who was
killed by Brutus (463).

[5] Michel de Montaigne comments on the inability of the deaf to learn earthly truth:
because they [can]not receive the instruction of the world by their eares (2: 150-51),
while several Protestant ministers take the Pauline doctrine (Romans 10:17) that faith
is by hearing literally and argue that deafness is a sign of Gods displeasure (Harrison
23; Wilkinson Aviir), and that the deaf are in a dangerous or desperate case, because
the Word is the sauour of life vnto the right hearer, and the sauour of death vnto him
that heareth not as hee ought (Egerton A7r).

[6] For the dangerous properties of sound, see Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum 43, Crooke
609-10, Par 24. In his poetic description of the human body, Phineas Fletcher
describes sound as an unwelcome guest (V.39.7).

[7] For examples of the concern about distinguishing truth from falsehood, see
Cornwallis 213, Erasmus 193, and Jonson 43.

[8] As evidence of continued obedience and respect for parents by adult children,
Elizabeth Carys biographer notes that Cary always treated her parents respectfully:
her own father and mother she always used with very much respect; so far, as for the
most part (all her life), to speak to her mother (when she was sitting) on her knees,
which she did frequently for more than an hour together; though she was but an ill
kneeler and a worse riser (Weller and Ferguson 199).

[9] Gouge defines breaking off speech when a parent enters the room and remaining
quiet while a parent is speaking as the two branches of silence required of children
(437).

[10] James Is Basilikon Doron was first published in 1599, with a second edition in
multiple imprints following in 1603 when he succeeded to the English throne. His
Fathers Blessing was then published in 1616 and went through four editions before
1633. Lord Burghley wrote his Certain Precepts for the Well Ordering of a Mans Life
in the early 1580s, but it was not published until after his death. It first appeared in
1617 and went through four editions in twenty years. Sir Walter Raleigh likely wrote
his Instructions to His Son and to Posterity after he was committed to the tower in
1603. The text was first published in 1632, with five editions appearing by 1636
(Wright xvii-xx).

[11] James I is more circumspect when advising his son about how to listen, telling
him, Beleeue not all that is told, nor tell not all that thou hearest, for if thou doe
though shalt not long be without trouble, but shortly without friends (18).

[12] Ramie Targoff examines ideas about public worship to argue that performance
and interiority were considered more connected than suggested by critics such as
Katharine Eisaman Maus, hence the concerns expressed by many anti-theatricalists
about the impact of theatrical performance on both actors and audience.

[13] Polonius inability to remember what he intends to tell Reynaldo (2.1.50-52) is

often cited as support for Hamlets view of Polonius as a foolish prating knave.
Harry Levin suggests it is a sign that Polonius bores himself as much as his listener
(25), and the general assumption is that he is either forgetful or distracted by
something inconsequential. Ophelia, though, speaks less than thirty lines later and
Polonius could well be troubled by the appearance of his distressed daughter as she
enters. Being an obedient child, she does not interrupt her father, and he dispatches his
manservant before dealing with her.

[14] Hamlet also reacts blindly when he hears Polonius cry for help and stabs at the
arras. Anderson notes that these and other events in Hamlet emphasize the need for
combined visual and auditory perception and that information only received by the ear
is shown to be malignant, while that received only by the eye is shown to be
ineffectual (302). In contrast, Tiffany argues that the play presents spoken language
as being morally superior to and less deceitful than visual images (308-09).

[15] Gouge notes that it is a parents last duty to give children good instructions
and goes so far as to advise parents to prepare their final speech beforehand (576-77).

[16] Rasmussen notes that Fortinbras demand for revenge is redirected by his uncle
Norway so that Hamlet presents two subplots in which one son (Laertes) seeks to
avenge his fathers death, while another (Fortinbras) does not. This same balance is
also reflected in the two classical allusions to sons whose fathers are murdered:
Pyrrhus and Brutus. Hamlet, then, is presented with the choice between these
oppositions (463).

[17] It is beyond the scope of this article to engage in the debate about the nature of
the ghost. Eleanor Prosser and Stephen Greenblatt have already done admirable work
in contextualising how the ghost may have been interpreted by early modern
audiences. Greenblatt points out how the sentries regard the ghost as a spectacle, a
fantasy, a dreaded sight, an apparition (1.1.26, 28, 31; Greenblatt 208-09).
Barnardo states (twice) that the ghost is like the King (1.1.44, 46; emphasis added),
and Horatio notes that the ghost usurpst the form of the king (49), suggesting that
the sentries are fully cognizant that whatever else the ghost may be, it is not the late
king.
[18] Prosser notes Elizabethans condemnation of revenge, and points to Bacons
unequivocal condemnation of private revenge under any circumstances . . . . He
condemns all types as flatly wrong (20). Prosser, however, does not examine Bacons
suggestion that public revenges are for the most part fortunate.

[19] Critics disagree over Hamlets predisposition to listen. Cummings argues that
Hamlet is figuratively hard of hearing as a result of his own very fertile and noisy
mind (86-87). In contrast, Kenneth Gross claims that the prince has a capaciousness
of ear and is predisposed to listen to everyone (13).

[20] Not only is the account of King Hamlets poisoning substituted for the secrets of
[the ghosts] prison-house (1.5.14), but the ghost then revises and abbreviates this
narrative when he notices the incipient dawn (58-59).

[21] It is difficult to ignore the allusion here to the serpent that stung Eves ear in
the Garden of Eden, a serpent that raised questions about Gods command and offered
an alternate tale instead.

[22] Pollard notes that Hamlet is obsessively interested in the interior of the body
(124), and that the ear is shown to be a vulnerable entrance to the bodys interior. She
argues that in this scene Hamlet is not merely at risk of being poisoned, but that the
ghost intentionally poisons him (127).

[23] Jenkins notes that Pyrrhus presents a monstrous and horrific figure in which the
alarming potentialities of both murderer and revenger are contained, mirroring both
aspects in Hamlet (145). I suggest it is less Pyrrhus actions, than the way they are
remembered that reveals to Hamlet how an avenging son can be deemed a brutal
murderer.

[24] In Miscelanea, Meditations, Memoratiues (1604), in which she warns her son
against being seduced from Catholicism, Elizabeth Grymeston also compares a faire
young maid who listens to the flattering gloze of a false Louer to a parleing
citie [which] neuer long resists (A4v). She is confident, though, that her son can
detect deceit. She warns him, God borroweth not the Syrens voice, and suggests
mortals are as much to blame as the devil for their downfall because of their own evil
thoughts (Dv). In The Mothers Blessing (1616), Dorothy Leigh also equates female
listening to sexual promiscuity in her advice to her sons and notes, like Polonius, that
problems occur because women sometimes do more than just listen: Had they onely
lent an eare . . . they had done well enough . . . . I would haue euery one know, that
one sinne begetteth another. The vaine words of the man, and the idle cares of the
woman, beget vnchaste thought oftentimes in the one, which may bring forth much
wickednesse in them both (Brown, 27-28).

[25] Even while the ghost clearly supports Hamlets demand for secrecy, its under-
stage presence as an old mole (1.5.170) and its ability to repeat what it hears
demonstrate the difficulty of keeping such secrets in Elsinore.

[26] I am not claiming that Claudius and the rest of the court do not see the dumb
show, but simply that they lack sufficient information to know how to respond. Roth
notes that Claudius is the only one in the court who knows that King Hamlet has been
murdered and he does not react because to do so would confirm his guilt. The others,
he argues, do not react because they do not connect the poisoning of the dumb show
with King Hamlets death by snakebite (par. 10-11).

[27] Tiffany claims that the inserted speech begins with the Player Queens
interruption and extends to her pledge of everlasting fidelity (3.2.172-218; Tiffany
316), while J. Dover Wilson claims that the inserted speech begins, Thoughts black,
hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing (3.2.249; Wilson 162). Hamlets aside, What,
frighted with false fire? (260), when Claudius leaves the play suggests, however, that
the king reacts earlier than anticipated and that Hamlets insertion is either not heard
or not heard in full.

[28] See Jenkins 145, 508; Levin 88; J. Dover Wilson 170-71. Wilson claims that
Hamlets decision to threaten the king in this way is spontaneous, while Prosser
argues that it is an error that reveals his emotional turmoil (181 n9). Pollard agrees
that The Mousetrap does not focus on the murder of Hamlet Senior, but on the death
of his murderer at the hands of Hamlet. She notes that even the plays original title,
The Murder of Gonzago, points to this substitution as Luigi Gonzaga was the
murderer not the victim in the historical account of the Duke of Urbinos 1538 death
by poisoning (128, 140).

[29] Bruce Danner and Steve Roth argue that it is not Claudius lack of response, but
Hamlets conflation of his fathers murder with his own threatened revenge that leads
to the lack of conclusive evidence of Claudius guilt (Danner 32; Roth par. 12).

[30] Most textual scholars now agree that Hamlet was written before the Earl of
Essexs rebellion on February 8, 1601, likely towards the end of 1599 or in 1600
(Cathcart 341, Jenkins 13). While textual differences between Q1, Q2, and F1 indicate
later revision, these do not appear to be in direct response to the Essex rebellion.
Nonetheless, both J. Dover Wilson and Edward Le Comte argue that the Earls
personal foibles, political career, and calamitous fall may have influenced
Shakespeares play (Le Comte 89-94, Wilson 228).

[31] In his complaint that people fail to pay attention to sermons against the
abhominable practices of playes, Gosson wonders whether our eares be wilfully
stoped, and our eyes muffled . . . or whether the deuill our ancient enemie hath
stricken so deepe and so venemous into the heart of man, as hath infected, and
wounded the soule to death (B2r-v). His description here is remarkably similar to the
ghosts account of King Hamlets poisoning, and it suggests that both playwrights and
anti-theatricalists wanted serious hearing, and that both understood the potentially
corrupting effect of false stories, the very fictions on which the theatres depended.

[32] Tiffany also sees connections between the power granted to words and listening
in Hamlet and the anti-theatrical rhetoric of Protestant preachers (309).

[33] There has been much critical debate on the Richard II-Essex connection, most
recently initiated by Leeds Barrolls criticism of New Historicist use of historical
documents. Chris Fitter outlines the reasons why Shakespeares play was most likely
the one performed along with Barrolls argument about why the Privy Council may
have been more concerned with sedition in print sources than in the theatre (note 46).
Arthur F. Kinney suggests that the theatre may have been considered less seditious
because of the ephemeral nature of performance, noting that unless Elizabeth attended
a performance, she could have no certain proof of seditious intent (466). Kinney
does not, however, consider the possibility that this very unknowability may have also
concerned the authorities.

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2006-,Matthew Steggle (Editor, EMLS).