24 Oct Hamnet
I was dazzled by ‘Hamnet’. It’s a novel that entertained and moved me in equal measure. ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell, is a fictional telling of Shakespeare’s home life based around the scant available facts. It is a brilliant imagining of his life in Stratford, of love and loss as he marries and becomes a father.
We already know the end of the story – that plays will be written, that the writing will be celebrated. The mystery that drives the story is the unknown rich life history that will foster the writer Shakespeare is to become.
Maggie O’Farrell writes in compelling prose about grief. She has experienced her own, writing on painful personal losses and close scrapes with death in ‘I Am, I Am, I Am.’ When loss comes in ‘Hamnet’, she describes the agony and its consequences with a recognisable truth.
“She discovers that it is possible to cry all day and all night. That there are many different ways to cry: the sudden outpouring of tears, the deep racking sobs, the soundless and endless leaking of water from the eyes.”
Although Shakespeare as we know him provides the skeleton of the story, we discover him through his parents, siblings, wife and children. ‘Hamnet’ is also a work of social history. It unpacks the tasks, troubles and joys of an Elizabethan household. It also takes us back pre-witch burnings to the practice of herbal medicines for home use, to the every-day world of women and children, as well as the rural and urban streetscapes of Stratford and Shoreditch.
The spelling of Hamnet is interchangeable with Hamlet. The off-stage events happen before and during the play ‘Hamlet’ is written. I’m seeing it at the National Theatre soon, so will listen for resonances.
Sarah Pletts is a Grief Tender and Artist who offers workshops in London and online, sharing rituals where grief on all themes is welcome. For more information about Grief Tending
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