#horatio did not say the goodnight sweet prince line to hamlet at the end of the play just for some tumblr users to say that

[transxfiles]

this is legit just a mini rant about the results of the gayestshakespearecouples tournament thus far. it's me thinking out loud so feel free to scroll past bc i know i'm gonna sound insane

i firmly believe that people who voted rosencrantz & guildenstern in the gay shakespeare tournament have either never read hamlet, have not read it in decades, have very bad media literacy, or are basing their memories of ros and guil's relationship entirely on when they read "rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead". girl you cannot tell me that ros and guil are somehow more queer than hamlet and horatio in the original play. ros and guil have very little screen time in the actual text of the play itself they have like zero basis for queerness at all. now don't get me wrong if we're looking at the play "rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead" there's definitely something there, or at least you could pretend that there's something there considering that ros and guil actually get to, y'know, interact with each other on-page in that play. but no matter how many "rosencrantz & guildenstern are gay" jokes you make while reading the original text of hamlet you cannot deny the fact that those two men are only on page together like 3 times during which they barely talk to each other and also iirc the queerest they get is when one of them (either ros or guil i honestly cannot remember) remarks on hamlet's queerness which would only support horatio / hamlet gayness not ros and guil gayness. feeling insane about this i just cannot believe people thought that ros and guil were more textually queer in the original hamlet than hamlet and horatio were. horatio was not out here "goodnight, sweet prince"ing as hamlet died in his arms for y'all to say ros and guil were inherently more queer.

ALSO i know that in the tournament it was technically hamlet/horatio vs olivia/viola in the bracket and that makes sense like i'd say they're equally matched when it comes to being the gayest homosexuals in shakespeare so that's chill. but it's the fact that ROS AND GUIL were agaisnt BRUTUS AND CAESAR and somehow BRUTUS/CAESAR LOST??? girls. did we do the reading or did we just click the character names we recognized.

[serialkillerbettycooper]

top three riverdale references or riffs?

PEOPLE WILL SAY WE'RE IN LOVE. I love the Silence of the Lambs references I don't care even a little bit how incredibly unsubtle they are and I think Betty should've gotten to eat someone

Controversial among fans of the musical but I absolutely adore Riverdale's take on Heathers The Muscial. The ending scene of Big Fun, when the characters sing Seventeen while removing their costumes to sing it not as their characters, but as themselves, standing on stage pleading with the adults in their lives for a chance to be normal teenagers while they still can only to be met with stunned silence and then the slow-clap reveal of Edgar and The Farm, cementing just how impossible that simple wish is, is one of my favourite moments in the whole show and in all of television. I have a really specific relationship with the musical and I think the show does an excellent job riffing on and exploring its themes.

Goodnight, Sweet Prince. If I think too much about Archie and Jughead as Hamlet and Horatio and how the show dropped this line on us and then barely did anything with their relationship for most of the season I will explode and die

[noshitshakespeare]

This has most likely already been asked, so I am sorry, but I could not find it, hence the question. I have recently seen a representation of Hamlet in which Hamlet and Horatio were given a very strong, basically romantic bond. So I was left wondering if that was just the actors' going wild or if that relationship could be read as somewhat romantic from a scholarly point of view as well. (( thanks so much, love your blog ))

Hi, thanks for the question! And thanks for checking past asks first. I haven’t actually been asked much about Hamlet and Horatio.

Scholarly opinion is not unified (on anything really), and can also include what’s called ‘queer reading’ which is the act of going against the text or deliberately reading against the grain in a deconstructionist manner in order to challenge existing conceptions. In those studies, there will be a queer subtext to almost any text. But if you don’t take much out of context, there’s not much overt suggestion that Hamlet and Horatio have a romantic bond in Hamlet. Shakespeare is capable of making male attraction quite visible (nowhere more than in the sonnets), and there’s nothing in Hamlet akin to lines like Antonio’s ‘I do love thee so / That danger shall seem sport’ (2.1.42-3) or ‘My desire / More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth’ (3.2.4-5) in Twelfth Night. 

Stil, it is true that Horatio becomes the one person Hamlet can trust and rely on in the play. The best indication we can get of Hamlet’s feelings for Horatio come in that long speech in Act 3, scene 2, in which he praises Horatio’s stoic virtues: ‘as one suffering all that suffers nothing -- / A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards / Hath ta’en with equal thanks’ (3.2.63-64) and so on. As Hamlet himself says, there’s no reason for him to flatter Horatio ‘For what advancement may I hope from thee / That no revenue hast but thy good spirits / To feed and clothe thee?’ (3.2.53-55). In other words, Prince Hamlet has nothing to gain from flattering the lower-ranking and much poorer Horatio. So Hamlet’s trust in and admiration of Horatio is genuine, and he wants Horatio to know. As he continues his praise of Horatio, Hamlet says that 

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice And could of men distinguish her election Sh’ath sealed thee for herself’ (3.2.59-61)

Now the fact that Hamlet refers to his soul as feminine is quite intriguing (I’ve discussed it briefly before in this post). In the most obvious sense, Hamlet is saying that since he became old enough to make judgments by himself, he’s known Horatio is a trustworthy companion. This suggests that Horatio and Hamlet have been friends at least as long as Hamlet has been of age. But the image of the seal refers to the practice of putting a legal seal on something as a sign of ownership. So Hamlet’s as good as saying that Horatio belongs to his (female) soul. There’s something like a union or even marriage of souls in the image that could be taken romantically, as if Hamlet is conjuring a female part of himself which can unite with Horatio. He goes on to say that he wears Horatio ‘In my heart’s core -- ay, in my heart of heart’ (3.2.68-69), a real sign of trust and feeling. But images of marriage and souls need not signify a sexual or romantic attraction. As I’ve pointed out before, early modern same-sex relationships could be a lot more intimate without being considered homosexual. These sorts of changes show that conventions of what people find romantic or sexual are historically and culturally inflected to the extreme. 

What Horatio thinks of Hamlet is less clear. He’s evidently loyal to Hamlet and calls him ‘my dear lord’ (3.2.52), not just ‘my lord. But he’s never anything less than polite and hierarchically correct towards Hamlet while he lives, a point I covered this in this little post about pronoun use in Hamlet. The most emotional Horatio becomes is at the end: ‘Goodnight, sweet Prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’ (5.2.343-45) -- the one time he uses the second-person pronoun. And of course, Horatio is willing to commit suicide by drinking off the rest of the poisoned chalice, considering suicide honourable rather than damning. Why he would want to do so is less obvious. Presumably, he wants to be with Hamlet even in death, but that could come out of love or loyalty (or both), and once again, need not be the lover’s suicide of Romeo and Juliet. He abstains from drinking the poison only after Hamlet asks him 

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story (5.2.330-333)

So you could say that Horatio both wants to die for Hamlet, and chooses to live for Hamlet. It’s an intense choice that could be read, once again, as dedication, friendship, or romantic, but in all cases, it is a kind of love.

This is all quite subtle, but it gives some basis for an interpretation in which Hamlet and Horatio have a romantic bond, especially as their closest moments come after Ophelia rejects Hamlet and gives him back his gifts. But Hamlet does continue to jest sexually with Ophelia during The Murder of Gonzago, and is quite upfront about the fact that he ‘loved Ophelia’ (5.1.258) at her funeral. I’m not saying that one can’t have two romantic interests at once. Still, it’s difficult not to impinge on the pathos of Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia if he also has a liaison with Horatio. I wonder, too, whether one needs to make a relationship erotic or romantic in order for it to be significant. I think that Horatio and Hamlet do love each other, but, while I don’t have anything against the interpretation, I don’t see that they have to be in love just because they love. Both interpretations could be beneficial: a romantic bond between Horatio and Hamlet normalises gay attachments, and a close friendship between them normalises intimate male relationships.

So, to answer your question: there’s a little textual basis for reading a romantic connection between Hamlet and Horatio into the play if one wanted to. I’m sure it could add something interesting if done well, but the relationship needn’t be romantic to be powerful.