Reflection on “To be, or not to be?”
To give you a sense of the kind of solutions in my Shakespeare Solved series of novels, I will occasionally write some brief reflections on Shakespeare's work.
A reflection on the most famous words from Shakespeare’s most famous play:
“To be, or not to be?”
What does this question mean?
The usual translation is “To live, or to die?”
But Shakespeare does not say that.
He is asking a deeper question about being versus nothingness.
He is asking a question about the very existence of God.
The words atheist and atheism appeared for the first time in English in Shakespeare’s own lifetime.
Atheism was fashionable.
Shakespeare was prohibited from writing about God in his plays.
The Queen empowered her royal censor to keep such religious beliefs out of the theatres.
But even though God may not be mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays does not mean that God is absent from his plays.
His rival playwright Christopher Marlowe was an atheist who denied the divinity of Christ.
His plays spread a cynical and poisonous message of faithlessness. Marlowe viciously attacked Shakespeare repeatedly in his plays.
Shakespeare had no choice but to fight back.
But by the time he wrote Hamlet, Shakespeare saw the futility of such fighting.
Like Hamlet, he gave up any desire for revenge.
Shakespeare saw that the real enemy was atheism—and the nihilism and fatalism that came from a lack of faith.
And he was concerned that too many leaders in the future would be like the villain Polonius—who is a faithless and ruthless bureaucrat.
He feared that too many young women and men would become like Ophelia and Laertes—who self-destruct because they have no faith and love.
His plays frequently argue against nothingness, especially King Lear.
His play—Much Ado About Nothing—mocks the idea of nothingness in the title!
He shows that terrible things happen to those who do not know God, and do not have faith in Him.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are two villains who do not fear God.
With such faithlessness, they believe that they can do anything they want.
They can justify any deed, no matter how terrible.
They murder a king—to seize his power.
They pay a price for their pride.
Hamlet starts the play as a young man who does not lead a Christ-centered life.
But then he turns away from revenge.
He learns that the battle he is fighting is not his battle to fight—the battle is the Lord’s.
When he asks this question, he is dwelling on death, but he soon turns away from such pessimism.
When he turns away from death he turns towards life, and meets God.
He rejects nothingness.
He embraces life.
And as tragic as the play is—the play does affirm life.
The play warns us not to seek revenge, and death—but to celebrate the life we have, and the God who gave us life.