Familial Imperatives and Humanist Habits of Intellection in Hamlet

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that the humanist-educated Hamlet can never erase his learning, despite its being wholly inadequate to the emotional turmoil occasioned by his father’s death and mother’s remarriage. Owens charts this incommensurability in Hamlet’s first soliloquy and in the contrasts between Horatio and Hamlet, both of them Wittenberg scholars, in their respective encounters with the Ghost. Owens’ close reading of the first soliloquy gauges the pressure that builds up when the humanist rhetorical and intellectual practices that condition Hamlet’s thinking and emotions and that structure his moral perspective cannot accommodate familial feelings. Through detailed comparison of the addresses to the Ghost, Owens underscores the extent to which Hamlet is motivated by strong filial feeling that runs counter to humanist education that protects Horatio.