Polonius
Polonius | |
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Laertes (son) |
Polonius is a character in
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
Father of
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 informs Gertrude and 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 an arras in 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
The literary origins of the character may be traced to the King's counsellor found in the
Polonius was first proposed[
Name
Gollancz proposed that the source for the character's name and sententious platitudes was
In the first quarto of Hamlet, 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. Hibbard argues that the name was originally Polonius, 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 of Robert 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
In most productions of the 20th century, up to about 1980, Polonius was played as a somewhat
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, including
Famous lines
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 paraphrased aphorisms ("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
- production. No other actor has ever won an award for playing Polonius in any professional American stage version of Hamlet, nor for playing him in a film version of the play.
- In "The Producer", a 1966 episode of Gilligan's Island, Polonius' "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" speech is performed satirically, first by series regular Alan Hale Jr. as The Skipper playing the role of Polonius (with Dawn Wells as Mary Ann playing Laertes) in a musical production of Hamlet by the castaways, then by Phil Silvers guest-starring as a famous stage producer who finds himself on the island.[13]
- Actors who have played Polonius on film and television include Hans Junkermann, Ian Holm, Michael Redgrave, Ian Richardson, Oliver Ford Davies, Bill Murray, and Richard Briers.
References
- ^ 'Hamlet' in William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays.
- ^ "Polonius at Encyclopædia Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
- ^ 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 from the original on 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. Rowse William Shakespeare: A Biography, 1963, 323; Shakespeare The Man, 1973 185, 186.
- ^ Jenkins, Harold, ed. Hamlet (1982), 142.
- JSTOR 1290243.
- ^ William Shakespeare, Philip Edwards (ed) Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p.71.
- ^ Courtney, Krystyna Kujawinska. “Shakespeare in Poland: selected Issues” Archived 25 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine Internet 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. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-7333-5.
External links
- Media related to Polonius at Wikimedia Commons