Queering a narrative is a pedagogical process. It is about expanding a literary work by way of acknowledging, imagining, and marking out the manifold of sexy possibilities. In the following paper, I want to explore Saxo Grammaticus’s Historica Danica and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the purpose of uncovering masochistic elements and subjectivities that are representative of the complexity of queer pleasure. My analysis will consider the masochist’s ability to queer the hetero-normative logics that pervade canonical texts. Here, I want to posit the idea that both Amleth and Hamlet operate on the margins of intelligibility as masochistic subjects; they achieve pleasure by maintaining a voluntary and lingering attachment to that which causes them anguish, torment, and pain. My purpose is to unsettle the fixity of Amleth and Hamlet by mapping out queer ways of understanding their place within narrative. Particularly, I am interested in how the dramatically enacted role of the masochist helps us to imagine an erotic form that destabilizes Western constructions of the sexualized body.

To begin, the seventeenth-century classical revenge tragedy Hamlet is better understood against the backdrop of earlier discourses from which Shakespeare adapted. Presumably, Shakespeare based his protagonist Hamlet on the character Amleth, whose queerness, I will argue, pervades the twelfth-century text Historica Danica by Saxo Grammaticus (Edwards 1; Thauvette Lecture 2012). Although Shakespeare would not have been familiar with Grammaticus’s narrative directly, his knowledge of the revenge tale appears to come from a secondary source, the sixteenth-century moralized version Histoires Tragiques by Francois  Belleforest (Edwards 1-3; Thauvette Lecture 2012). Nevertheless, Grammaticus lays out the general plot and characters that eventually evolve into Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Arguably, Amleth and Hamlet echo a familiar sentiment in that they both operate as queer masochistic subjects, which is vital for what I want to explore here.

In my discussion, I conceptualize queer as an adjective derived from the Latin word ‘ineptus’ or ‘insulus’ meaning ‘strange’ (“queer a”). I refer to the term “queer” for its ability to disrupt, pervert, and make strange normative behavioural codes as well as pose an alternative set of desires that threaten the stability of the dominant norm (Zeikowitz 67). That is, queerness works to destabilize the hetero-normative matrix that organizes human pleasures around constructed male/female gender categories. Specifically, I want to look at Historica Danica and Hamlet as textual forms that cast queer pleasure in terms of masochism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, masochism is defined as “the urge to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one’s own pain or humiliation; the pursuit of such pleasure. Also in weakened sense: deliberate pursuit of or enthusiasm for an activity that appears to be painful, frustrating, or tedious”(“masochism”). Hence, the seemingly paradoxical manifestation of this kind of gratification is what renders it queer (Charme 91). That is, masochism, as part of a queer dialogue, subverts many of the binary oppositions upon which the normative social order rests by bringing together pleasure and pain. What concerns me here is how Historica Danica and Hamlet foster a kind of queer masochism. My intention is to establish the ways in which the texts channel Amleth and Hamlet into a queer existence as tortured, grief-stricken, suffering masochists.

In Historica Danica and Hamlet, there is a detectable mutilation of the former temporal and social order, which arises because of Horwendil/King Hamlet’s mysterious death and Queen Gerutha/Queen Gertrude’s untimely marriage to Feng/Claudius. What is notable here is how the destruction of time and dynastic order parallels Amleth and Hamlet’s pain and fragmentation; Hamlet accurately encapsulates the critical shift from previous harmony to current disorder in declaring, “The time is out of joint” (Shakespeare 1.5.195-6). Yet, Amleth and Hamlet take delight in a society that tries to regulate and control subjective experience by subversively turning their hardships to the uses of pleasure. Now, I want to uncover the pleasurable possibilities of torment and the perverse satisfaction, for the masochist, in being disjointed.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the “rotten” state of Denmark renders time perverted and strange like an “unweeded garden / That grows to seed” (1.2.135–36; Thauvette Lecture 2012). The narrative opens with soldiers on guard at night in a scene full if perturbations, anxiety, and uneasiness (Shakespeare 1.1.44-179). Then, King Hamlet’s ghost, with a pivotal narrative role, commands that Hamlet carry out a revenge plot against his murderer Claudius (Shakespeare 1.2.39). Already, this interaction locates Hamlet in a submissive position as he remains at the mercy of his father’s ghost. More to the point, Hamlet is punished by virtue of being appointed as the avenger; he is inserted into the impossible chain of violent reprisals against actual, alleged or perceived wrongs. Next, readers learn of Hamlet’s distress under his new task of retribution: “O cursèd spite, /That ever I was born to set it right!” (Shakespeare 1.5.195-6). Here, he begrudgingly faces the burden of avenging his father’s death; however, nobody is forcing Hamlet to fix the temporal order and restore society, instead, as argued by Philip Edwards in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, “it is the entirely self-imposed burden of cleansing the world that he groans under” (45). This example demonstrates the masochist’s willingness to submit to pain and torment. What is more, Hamlet’s subsequent inaction means that he does not kill Claudius in a revenge plot but prolongs the act, and thus prolongs his pleasure. Further, the narrative has a direct goal-oriented trajectory where Hamlet’s task is revenge, except it frequently goes off course. Therefore, the wandering and multifaceted nature of the text corresponds with the complexity and instability of Hamlet’s queer identity.

Arguably, Hamlet is as much out of joint as the time with his unsettling internal conflicts (Menon 103). To illustrate, Hamlet prays for sublimation: “O that this too too solid flesh might melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew” (Shakespeare 1.2.129–30). This quote invokes imagery of bodily flesh both melting and dissolving which indicates Hamlet’s urge for a fusion of pain with pleasure. Hamlet even contemplates suicide as he longs for the oblivion of death: “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world! (Shakespeare 1.2.131-4). Hamlet reflects on how tiring and pointless life has become. As one who embodies his trauma, Hamlet gives himself over to the effects of masochism in exposing his vulnerability to the world and his longing for irresistible and inevitable death. Evidently, Hamlet’s subjectivity is inextricably wound up in an intricate web of desire and fantasy for physical and psychic pain.

In the same way, Grammaticus’s Amleth maintains a lasting attachment to his sorrow. When Amleth does give readers a glimpse into his psyche, one will find that he is only able to speak the language of pain and torment, as he proclaims, “Yet the passion to avenge my father still burns my heart” (Grammaticus 211). The emphasis here is on the phrase “still burns my heart” which implies that Amleth operates as a queer character fastened to a dark vision of ongoing pain. Thus, Amleth’s present subjectivity is haunted by former inflictions as he searches for the meaning of his life in the irrevocable and irredeemable past. Like Hamlet, it is the overwhelming task of revenge he fears and dreads even as he yearns to be dominated by it. Amleth is the vessel through which his father’s vengeance will be carried out, and yet he remains a victim. In this way, both Amleth and Hamlet function as masochistic subjects as they weave together their hardships with an invited misery. In addition, their ability to recollect their grief with steady accuracy suggests they maintain a lingering attachment to pain, which in effect, renders them genuinely unhinged and strange.

In Historica Danica and Hamlet, Amleth and Hamlet are unknowable and illegible; they exist on the margins of normative meaning-making systems. Indeed, queer subjects refuse narrow categories, as Madhavi Menon articulates in Shakesqueer, “queerness is not a category but the confusion engendered by and despite categorization” (Menon 7). In relation, both Amleth and Hamlet’s queerness cannot be easily defined or pinned down as they both express an air of fluidity and flexibility in terms of pleasure. Their behaviours and desires are recognizably queer, which consequently prompts other characters to try to figure them out. For example, Amleth is an anomaly and illegible at first glance; other men eagerly survey Amleth by searching him and questioning his actions. In response, Amleth decides to “feign dullness, and pretend an utter lack of wits” (Grammaticus 208). As well, he appears “listless and unclean” and his “discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and grotesque madness” (Grammaticus 208). Thus, Amleth encounters a sense of displacement because of his pretended madness: “he used at times to sit over the fire […] preparing sharp javelins to avenge his father” (Grammaticus 208); in this instance, both his isolation and idleness are a central part of his queerness. Notably, other men ridicule and scorn Amleth’s strange behaviour, but he takes great pleasure in the fact that his guise of madness is believable. This is where Amleth faces the pressure to be knowable and legible to others. In fact, Amleth perpetually suffers from his revenge task in solitude and his intense and overriding sorrows render him misplaced, and importantly queer. Moreover, Amleth embodies a kind of wandering instability, peculiarity, and indeterminacy that contributes to his queerness.

In the same way, Hamlet is physically demonstrative about the extent of his suffering with his black clothes, heavy sighs, weeping, and downcast eyes (Shakespeare 1.2.77-81). Like Amleth, Hamlet identifies with the “the world of the stranger” and shows his alienation by adopting a veil of madness (Edwards 46). With an alternatively queer portrait of masculine corporeality, Hamlet attaches to his grief, which prompts other characters to question his prolonged mourning. To illustrate, Claudius requests an explanation for Hamlet’s miserable mood: “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” (Shakespeare 1.2.66). Moreover, Gertrude begs Hamlet to move beyond King Hamlet’s death: “Do not forever with thy vailèd lids / Seek for thy noble father in the dust. / Thou know’st tis’ common—all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity (Shakespeare 1.2.70-4). Even Polonius tries to diagnose him as lovesick and find “the cause of this effect, / Or rather say, the cause of this defect” (Shakespeare 2.2.103-4, 165-6; Thauvette Lecture 2012). In saying this, Polonius represents the normative practice of restricting queer lives through definition and categorization; his inquiry suggests that he wants to fix or cure Hamlet because Hamlet’s eternal suffering makes him out of place and out-of-joint in Elsinore. More generally, Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius are all questioning Hamlet’s lingering attachment to grief and suffering; they symbolize the normative codes trying to set straight his queerness. In spite of this, Hamlet plays a more dynamic and threatening role by remaining markedly queer in his surroundings.

Lastly, Amleth and Hamlet remain unintelligible within the discursive framework of hetero-normative gender dichotomies and binary sexualities. In particular, Hamlet disavows the paralyzing rigidity of hetero-normative conduct and instead becomes a queer outsider consumed by a relentless state of despair and disillusionment. In fact, “the strayness of desire” is a crucial component to queerness (Menon 8). Hamlet is single, detached, and secluded, which renders him strange. To elaborate, rather than perform chivalrous acts to win a woman’s approval, Hamlet meanders into several reminiscent dialogues about his pain and suffering (Shakespeare 1.2.129- 59, 1.2.76-86). In fact, Hamlet criticizes conception and demands: “we will have no more marriages” (Shakespeare 3.1.147-9). As well, Hamlet withdraws from heterosexual love, as Claudius explains: “Love? [Hamlet’s] affections do not that way tend” (Shakespeare 3.1.162). Instead, Hamlet expresses a torrent of words through which his out-of-joint and displaced passions come in steady bursts to criticize love’s slaves. Correspondingly, Amleth avoids the “temptations of love” by not having sex with the maiden when Feng tries to test Amleth’s madness (Grammaticus 208-10). Therefore, Amleth and Hamlet remain on the margins beyond neat categories; they negotiate their identities outside of the regulatory regimes that attempt to control subjective experience.

To conclude, there is a multiplicity of queer possibilities operating in Historica Danica and Hamlet, and therefore, one should locate both texts as platforms for negotiation. In view of that, a queer reading should appreciate the various social landscapes that readers may find themselves in and offer readers a non-heterosexual lens with which to navigate a text. My intention here was to provide a refreshing discourse that speaks to the unstable, complex, and often contradictory nature of masochistic subjectivity. My hope is that reading the textual images of Amleth and Hamlet as queer in turn will foster the potentiality for an identity template that exceeds normative boundaries of human pleasure. It is important for scholars to look deeper and penetrate canonical literature by inventing a new set of postures that have nothing to do with hetero-normative logics. Ultimately, it is about engaging with a narrative to uncover the ways it can touch us both intimately and queerly.

Works Cited

Charme, Stuart L. “Religion and the Theory of Masochism.” Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 22, no. 3, 1983, pp. 221-233.

Edwards, Phillip. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Grammaticus, Saxo. “Historica Danica (1180-1208).” William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Edited by Robert S. Miola, Norton Critical Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011, pp. 207-215.

“masochism”, n. Oxford English Dictionary Online.

Menon, Madhavi. Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Duke University Press, 2011.

“queer a.” The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary. Edited by James Morwood, Oxford University Press, 1994, Oxford Reference Online. http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t131b.e 9356.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by Robert S. Miola, Norton Critical Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2011, pp. 1-149.

Thauvette, Chantelle. “Saxo Grammaticus and Revenge Tragedies.” Shakespeare 3K06/3KL6 Lecture, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, 8 May 2012.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. “Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes.” College English vol. 65, no. 1, 2002, pp. 67-80. https://doi.org/10.2307/3250731.