“Must I Remember?”: The Burden of the Past Tense in Hamlet

Abstract

The sense of spiritual privation that pervades Hamlet stems in part from the loss not only of a father but also of a profitable relation to the past and to the faculty that connects us to the past: memory, which sometimes acquires a purgatorial dimension in the play. The graveyard scene represents an attempt to gain release from that particular purgatory by burying the past tense and the interrogative voice with which it is associated. This chapter explores the connections between memory, riddles, burial practices, and beliefs about the dead. Anthropological evidence reveals a link between burial practices and riddles, a link that is reflected in early modern controversies over prayers for the dead and beliefs about the souls of the dead lingering for a period of time after burial. Along the way, I show that Goodman Delver’s riddling language bears underground connections to the contested religious traditions that lie at the heart of the play.

This essay was written originally for the “Shakespearean Death Arts” seminar (organized by William E. Engel and Grant Williams) which was to have been held at the Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Denver. Although that meeting was canceled due to the global pandemic, I want to express my deep appreciation to both organizers and to Zachariah Long and Amanda Ruud for their thoughtful and helpful comments on earlier drafts.