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{"id":18338,"date":"2016-09-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=100"},"modified":"2016-09-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T00:00:00","slug":"tragic-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/09\/tragic-teen\/","title":{"rendered":"Tragic Teen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A<\/span>s Rhodri Lewis points out<\/a>, the evidence that Hamlet is young is overwhelming: \u201cClaudius counsels Hamlet that his enduring display of grief for his father is \u2018unmanly,\u2019 a term whose persuasive force depends on Hamlet aspiring to, rather than already having attained, the condition of manliness; Laertes thinks of Hamlet as \u2018A violet in the youth of primy nature\u2019; the Ghost tells Hamlet that if he were to describe the afterlife in detail, the effect would be to \u2018freeze thy young blood,\u2019 and addresses him as a \u2018noble youth\u2019; Claudius turns to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern because they are \u2018of so young days brought up with him, \/ And with so neighbour\u2019d to his youth and haviour\u2019; the fencing match between Hamlet and \u201cyoung Laertes\u201d is framed with some care as a contest of \u2018youth.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides, he\u2019s headed back to school and Lewis cites evidence that aristocratic students of Shakespeare\u2019s day went to university at fifteen or younger.<\/p>\n

Why then does the Gravedigger suggest that Hamlet is thirty? Comparing different texts of the play solves some of the puzzle, but concludes that the Gravedigger\u2019s time confusions are deliberate. Keith Thomas argued that numeracy was a specialized skill in the early modern period, one that the Gravedigger lacks, just as he lacks skill in Latin. His Latin illiteracy doesn\u2019t prevent him from trying his hand at garbled Latin phrases, and his innumeracy doesn\u2019t keep him from pretending to know what he\u2019s talking about. Hamlet can\u2019t compute any better than the Gravedigger, but he doesn\u2019t want to let his ignorance show either.<\/p>\n

Lewis concludes, \u201cHis historical measurements of sixteen, thirty, and twenty-three years are empty signifiers\u2014no more than words. They contradict each other, but he doesn\u2019t care. He gets to put one over on someone of a far higher social and educational status than himself, and who has presumed to question his work. . . . the numbers in the graveyard scene as recorded in Q2 and the Folio designedly do not compute. They represent the inability of Hamlet and of the Gravedigger to reckon with historical numbers in their heads, and the desire of both characters to look as if they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Hamlet\u2019s age, Lewis doesn\u2019t think we can be precise. He\u2019s an adolescent, somewhere between fourteen and twenty-one.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"