Polonius
| Polonius | |
|---|---|
| Hamletcharacter | |
 Polonius Behind the CurtainbyJehan Georges Vibert,1868 | |
| Created by | William Shakespeare |
| In-universe information | |
| Affiliation | King Claudius |
| Children | Ophelia(daughter) Laertes(son) |
Poloniusis a character inWilliam Shakespeare's playHamlet.He is the chief counsellor of the play's ultimate villain,Claudius,and the father ofLaertesandOphelia.Generally regarded as wrong in every judgment he makes over the course of the play,[1]Polonius is described byWilliam Hazlittas a "sincere" father, but also "a busy-body, [who] is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent".[2]In Act II,Hamletrefers to Polonius as a "tedious old fool"[3]and taunts him as a latter day "Jephtha".[4]
Polonius connives with Claudius to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet unknowingly kills Polonius, provoking Ophelia's descent into madness, ultimately resulting in her (probable) suicide and the climax of the play: a duel between Laertes and Hamlet.
Character
[edit]Father ofOpheliaandLaertes,and counsellor toKing Claudius,he is described as a windbag by some[who?]and a rambler of wisdom by others[who?].It has also been suggested[by whom?]that he only acts like a "foolish prating knave" to keep his position and popularity safe and to keep anyone from discovering his plots for social advancement.[citation needed]Throughout the play, Polonius is characterised as a typicalRenaissance"new man",who pays much attention to appearances and ceremonious behaviour. Some adaptations show him conspiring with Claudius in the murder ofKing Hamlet.
In Act 1, Scene 3, Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes, who is leaving for France, in the form of a list of sententious maxims. He finishes by giving his son his blessing, and is apparently at ease with his son's departure. However, in Act 2, Scene 1, he orders his servant Reynaldo to travel to Paris and spy on Laertes and report if he is indulging in any local vice.
Laertes is not the only character upon whom Polonius spies. He is fearful that Hamlet's relationship with his daughter will hurt his reputation with the king and instructs Ophelia to "lock herself from [Hamlet's] resort". He later suspects that Ophelia's rejection of Hamlet's attention has caused the prince to lose his wits, and informsGertrudeand Claudius of his suspicion, claiming that his reason for commanding Ophelia to reject Hamlet was that the prince was above her station. He and the king test his hypothesis by spying on and interrogating Ophelia.
In his last attempt to spy on Hamlet, Polonius hides himself behind anarrasin Gertrude's room. Hamlet deals roughly with his mother, causing her to cry for help. Polonius echoes the request for help and is heard by Hamlet, who then mistakes the voice for Claudius' and stabs through the arras and kills him.
Polonius's death at the hands of Hamlet causes Claudius to fear for his own life, Ophelia to go mad, and Laertes to seek revenge, which leads to the duel in the final act. Various other versions end with all the dead coming back to life, but that is dependent on the version.
Sources
[edit]The literary origins of the character may be traced to the King's counsellor found in theBelleforestandWilliam Painterversions of the Hamlet legend. However, at least since the 19th century scholars have also sought to understand the character in terms ofElizabethancourt politics.[citation needed]
Polonius was first proposed as a parody ofQueen Elizabeth's leading counsellor,Lord Treasurer,and Principal SecretaryWilliam Cecil, Lord Burghleyin 1869.[5]Israel Gollanczalso suggested that Polonius might have been a satire on Burghley. The theory was often finessed with supplementary arguments,[6]but also disputed. ArdenHamleteditorHarold Jenkins,for example, criticised the idea of any direct personal satire of Burghley as "unlikely" and "uncharacteristic of Shakespeare".[7]
Name
[edit]
Gollancz proposed that the source for the character's name and sententious platitudes wasDe optimo senatore,a book on statesmanship by the Polish courtierWawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki(known in Latin as Laurentius Grimaldius Goslicius), which was widely read after it was translated into English and published in 1598 under the titleThe Counsellor.[8]"Polonius" is Latin for "Polish" or "a/the Polish man." The English translation of the book refers to its author as a statesman of the "polonian empyre".
In thefirst quartoofHamlet,Polonius is named "Corambis".It has been suggested that this derives from" crambe "or" crambo ", derived from a Latin phrase meaning" reheated cabbage ", implying" a boring old man "who spouts trite rehashed ideas.[9][10]Whether this was the original name of the character or not is debated. Various suggestions have been made to explain this.G. R. Hibbardargues that the name was originallyPolonius,but was changed because Q1 derives from a version of the play to be performed in Oxford and Cambridge, and the original name was too close to that ofRobert Polenius,founder of Oxford University. Since Polonius is a parody of a pompous pseudo-intellectual, the name might have been interpreted as a deliberate insult.[11]The title page of Q1 specifically states that the play was recently performed in London, Oxford and Cambridge.
Stage and film portrayals
[edit]In most productions of the 20th century, up to about 1980, Polonius was played as a somewhatsenile,garrulous man of about 75 or so, eliciting a few laughs from the audience by the depiction. More recent productions have tended to play him as a slightly younger man, and to emphasise his shiftiness rather than pompous senility, harking back to the traditional manner in which Polonius was played before the 20th century. Until the 1900s there was a tradition that the actor who plays Polonius also plays the quick-witted gravedigger in Act V. This bit suggests that the actor who played Polonius was an actor used to playing clowns much like the Fool inKing Lear:not a doddering old fool, but an alive and intelligent master of illusion and misdirection. Polonius adds a new dimension to the play and is a controlling and menacing character.
One key to the portrayal is a producer's decision to keep or remove the brief scene with his servant, Reynaldo, which comes after his scene of genial, fatherly advice to Laertes. He instructs Reynaldo to spy on his son, and even suggest that he has been gambling and consorting with prostitutes, to find out what he has really been up to. The inclusion of this scene portrays him in a much more sinister light; most productions, includingLaurence Olivier's1948 film version,choose to remove it. The respective productions starringRichard BurtonandKenneth Branaghboth include it. AlthoughHume Cronynplays Polonius mostly for laughs in the Burton production, Polonius is more sinister than comic inBranagh's version.
Famous lines
[edit]Polonius's most famous lines are found in Act 1 Scene 3 ( "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"; "To thine own self be true" ) and Act 2 Scene 2 ( "Brevity is the soul of wit"; and "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't" ) while others have become paraphrasedaphorisms( "Clothes make the man"; "Old friends are the best friends" ). Also, the line he speaks when he is killed by Hamlet in Act 3 scene 4 ( "Oh, I am slain!" ) has been subject to parody and ridicule due to its obviousness.[12]
Notable portrayals
[edit]- Hume Cronynwon aTony Awardfor playing Polonius oppositeRichard Burton'sHamletinJohn Gielgud's 1964Broadwayproduction. No other actor has ever won an award for playing Polonius in any professional American stage version ofHamlet,nor for playing him in a film version of the play.
- In "The Producer",a 1966 episode ofGilligan's Island,Polonius' "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" speech is performed satirically, first by series regularAlan Hale Jr.asThe Skipperplaying the role of Polonius (withDawn WellsasMary Annplaying Laertes) in a musical production ofHamletby the castaways, then byPhil Silversguest-starring as a famous stage producer who finds himself on the island.[13]
- Actors who have played Polonius on film and television includeHans Junkermann,Ian Holm,Michael Redgrave,Ian Richardson,Oliver Ford Davies,Bill Murray,andRichard Briers.
References
[edit]- ^
'Hamlet' in William Hazlitt,Characters of Shakespeare's Plays.
- ^"Polonius at Encyclopædia Britannica".Encyclopædia Britannica.Retrieved10 July2014.
- ^Hamlet Act II scene ii – William Shakespeare.
- ^2.2.346
- ^French, George Russell (1869). "Notes on Hamlet".Shakspeareana Genealogica.London, England:Macmillan.pp. 299–310. Archived fromthe originalon 10 October 2008.
- ^See, for example, Lilian Winstanley,Hamlet and the Scottish Succession,1921, 112; 114–118; John Dover Wilson,The Essential Shakespeare,1937, 104; Joel Hurstfield, The Queen's Wards, 1958, 257; A.L. RowseWilliam Shakespeare: A Biography,1963, 323;Shakespeare The Man,1973 185, 186.
- ^Jenkins, Harold, ed.Hamlet(1982), 142.
- ^Cole, Daniel H. (May 1999)."From Renaissance Poland to Poland's Renaissance: The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland by Mark Brzezinski".Michigan Law Review.97(6). Ann Arbor, Michigan:University of Michigan:2062–2102.doi:10.2307/1290243.JSTOR1290243.
- ^William Shakespeare, Philip Edwards (ed)Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,Cambridge University Press, 2004, p.71.
- ^Courtney, Krystyna Kujawinska.“Shakespeare in Poland: selected Issues”Archived25 November 2006 at theWayback MachineInternet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria, 2003, p. 2.
- ^G. R. Hibbard (ed),Hamlet,Oxford University Press, 1998, p.69-75.
- ^"See all of Polonius's lines".Opensourceshakespeare.org.Retrieved10 July2014.
- ^Abele, Elizabeth (20 November 2013).Home Front Heroes: The Rise of a New Hollywood Archetype, 1988–1999.Jefferson, North Carolina:McFarland.p. 187.ISBN978-0-7864-7333-5.
External links
[edit]
Media related toPoloniusat Wikimedia Commons
