Hamlet and Habit: The Renaissance Problem of Programmable Life
Questions of “habit” and “custom” recur throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as they do elsewhere in early modern culture, in theological, legal and moral philosophical debate as well as in popular literature of improvement. In this article, I will argue that the Second Quarto edition of Shakesp...
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| Published in | Modern philology Vol. 118; no. 1; pp. 25 - 47 |
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| Main Author | |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
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The University of Chicago Press
01.08.2020
University of Chicago, acting through its Press |
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| Abstract | Questions of “habit” and “custom” recur throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as they do elsewhere in early modern culture, in theological, legal and moral philosophical debate as well as in popular literature of improvement. In this article, I will argue that the Second Quarto edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1604) is a crucial text in the early modern writing on habit, as it holds up commonplace notions of habitual learning and habitual corruption for scrutiny in ways that test Puritan and humanist educational ideas of habit available in the period, and that link ideas of personal habit with national custom and international imitation. Habit will remain troublesome in the history of modern thought; by playing off against each other different ideas of habit current at the time, Hamlet anticipates enduring problems of programmable life. |
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| AbstractList | Pfannebecker considers the Second Quarto edition (Q2) of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1604) as an instance of the early modern preoccupation with habit. An interest in habit and custom is also apparent in the Folio (1623) and to a lesser extent, the First Quarto (1603) editions (Q1), but two substantial passages that discuss habit directly are exclusive to Q2 (1.4.17-38;3.4.159-68), and a number of other Q2-only passages extend those discussions. While it is not my aim to speculate substantially on why this should be the case, it is notable that the passages were considered awkward, perhaps by Shakespeare himself, if the Folio deletions were authorial, but certainly by editors down the centuries. Hamlet refigures commonplace ideas of habit to bring to the foreground problems of human plasticity. The play brings together humanist moral and educational philosophy and Puritan theology to render human morality and reason precarious. On the level of communal habit, and in relation to travel discourse and ethnography, the play troubles early modern ideas of national and social difference. Meanwhile, on the level of language itself, and in contrast to attempts by Shakespeare's contemporaries to avoid the problem, Hamlet insists on the intractable persistence of habit to shape and disrupt human life. Questions of “habit” and “custom” recur throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as they do elsewhere in early modern culture, in theological, legal and moral philosophical debate as well as in popular literature of improvement. In this article, I will argue that the Second Quarto edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1604) is a crucial text in the early modern writing on habit, as it holds up commonplace notions of habitual learning and habitual corruption for scrutiny in ways that test Puritan and humanist educational ideas of habit available in the period, and that link ideas of personal habit with national custom and international imitation. Habit will remain troublesome in the history of modern thought; by playing off against each other different ideas of habit current at the time, Hamlet anticipates enduring problems of programmable life. |
| Author | Pfannebecker, Mareile |
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| References | Habit Of (p_n_65) 2017 p_n_4 Sherry Richard (p_n_19) Lyotard Jean-François (p_n_47) 1991 Morris Ivor (p_n_27) 1972 De (p_n_40) 1986 Of (p_n_12) Jones Ann Rosalind (p_n_36) 2000 Categories 8b26, in Categories (p_n_18) 1963 p_n_58 Foucault Michel (p_n_7) 2002 Aristotle The Ethics (p_n_16) 1963 (p_n_45) 2003 Schoenfeldt Michael C. (p_n_9) 1999 Dent R. W. (p_n_11) 1981; 1 Edwards Philip (p_n_42) 2003 Shakespeare William (p_n_54) 1995 Carlisle Clare (p_n_31) p_n_26 p_n_48 Grosz Elizabeth (p_n_64) Zuboff Shoshana (p_n_35) 2019 p_n_49 Convention Lawrence Manley (p_n_2) 1980 p_n_24 Verona Two Gentlemen (p_n_39) 2004 p_n_68 Hibbard G. R. (p_n_10) 2008 Strauss Gerald (p_n_29) 1978 A (p_n_30) 2011 Malabou Catherine (p_n_32) 2008 R. S. (p_n_21) 1961 Malabou Catherine (p_n_34) 2008 Starkey Thomas (p_n_61) 1878 |
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| Snippet | Questions of “habit” and “custom” recur throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as they do elsewhere in early modern culture, in theological, legal and moral... Pfannebecker considers the Second Quarto edition (Q2) of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1604) as an instance of the early modern preoccupation with habit. An interest... |
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| Title | Hamlet and Habit: The Renaissance Problem of Programmable Life |
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