‘Stewed in corruption – Polonius and the Politics of Denmark’,
Richard Vardy
“Polonius is nothing more than a stock character, an interfering, ageing busy-
body; frequently wrong in his judgements; and an unwitting source of comic
relief.”
Polonius is a “a slightly senile and ignorant target for Hamlet’s contemptuous
mockery.”
In his influential 1971 book The Tragedy of State, JW Lever argues against
focusing on the tragic hero. We should instead concentrate on the society in
which he exists.
JW Lever: Tragedies are “not primarily treatments of characters with a so-called
‘fatal flaw’ […] the fundamental flaw is in the world they inhabit: in the political
state, the social order it upholds…”
The problem isn’t with Hamlet’s inability to act. The problem lies with Denmark.
[…] Denmark is described as a prison, as rotten”
“Polonius is established as an apparatchik, a bureaucrat, an agent of the state
whose best interests are served by maintaining the status quo: by keeping
Claudius on the throne.”
“Power and politics evidently trump family values in Claudius’s Denmark.”
“Polonius palpably enjoys spying and surveillance. And, in Denmark’s corrupt
world, spying is endemic […] He embodies, in effect, a Secret Police.”
“Political criticism reveals that Hamlet is set against a world that is
fundamentally flawed.”
“Typically for Hamlet his rebellion against the new despotic state isn’t with armed
struggle but with ‘words, words, words’.”
“Hamlet is able to escape censure by pretending to be mad.”
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