Sie befinden Sich nicht im Netzwerk der Universität Paderborn. Der Zugriff auf elektronische Ressourcen ist gegebenenfalls nur via VPN oder Shibboleth (DFN-AAI) möglich. mehr Informationen...
If Dowden's 1899 parsing of the crux—"the dram of evil doth scandal all the noble substance"—is reconsidered in light of scandal's doctrinal meaning, the suggestion that "scandal" may be read as a verb becomes much more compelling. Because the word "scandal" could be used as a verb in the period to describe the act of entrapment, it is possible to understand Hamlet as saying that evil, perhaps the devil, uses doubt to scandal "to his owne" the "noble substance" of the human soul.38 Such a reading also makes sense of the phrase "of a doubt," since, as the next section of this essay will discuss, doctrinal scandal was understood to operate through or "of" doubt.39 Hamlet's utterance thus suggests that one's soul can, once in doubt, be ensnared, or scandaled, by error, deception, or idolatry. Hath he no means to stain my honest blood, But to corrupt the author of my blood To be his scandalous and vile solicitor? (ll. 413–18) While the conversation between the Countess and her father has alluded to both public scandal and private shame, the scandal referred to in this passage does not arise from a likelihood that Warwick will publicly shame his daughter; to the contrary, in wooing his daughter to become the king's "secret love," Warwick promises that "The king will in his glory hide thy shame" (l. 399). [...]in this scene the word "scandal" is not used in its familiar sense as a near synonym for "slander," but is instead used by the Countess in its doctrinal sense, as she reproaches her father for having constructed and led her toward a trap: an enticement toward spiritual and mortal error. "54 Readings that consider iconoclastic themes in Hamlet have needed to contend with the fact that it presents no obvious examples of idols to be set aside or broken, and that the dramatic furniture of anti-Catholicism is generally absent from the play: scheming bishops, candlelit altars, and devotional statues are nowhere to be found.55 Recovering the play's interest in the early modern discourse of scandal makes its concern with questions of idolatry more legible and relates that concern more clearly to contemporaneous discussions about materiality, toleration, and political authority. [...]Hamlet's attention to theological scandal raises the possibility of similar lines of influence at work in other plays that demonstrate an interest in snares and traps, from Pedringano's box in The Spanish Tragedy to the elaborate and fatal machinery of Caroline revenge tragedies such as John Ford's Broken Heart. [...]with scandal's contemporary popular meaning, scandal in its doctrinal sense necessarily entails a spiritual danger to those scandalized; see Bryan, "Vae Mundo A Scandalis," 7–8. [...]doctrinal scandal does not require that the scandalized experience shock or dismay or even recognize that a scandal has been given.