Talk:King Claudius

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of Wikipedia's Elizabethan theatre coverage, and has come to the attention of WikiProject Elizabethan theatre, an attempt to create a comprehensive and detailed resource on the theatre and dramatic literature in England between 1558 and 1642. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page (just like any other article!), or visit WikiProject Elizabethan theatre, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Does anyone have the opinion that Claudius felt deep remorse for the loss of Gertrude when she fell into his trap that was intended for Hamlet? Did he really care about and love her?

• I certainly think he loved her. But I don't have a source on that. Isaac Asimov wrote an excellent Shakespeare commentary, but I don't have access to that anymore. The best I can do for a source on whether Claudius felt bad about Gertrude's death was that in the 1996 film version, he looks quite unhappy. CanadianCaesar 05:14, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the information in the main article is correct, as it states, "It is in Act III scene 3, when Claudius forestalls Hamlet's revenge by confessing his sins to God in his own private chapel, that the audience can be sure of his guilt." However, in the text Claudius says in soliloquy "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go." Would this not be stating that he could not confess?