What's this poem about Hamlet?

August 29, 2013 6:54 AM

I'm trying to remember a poem, maybe French or Russian, about Hamlet.

I'm having trouble googling this answer because having Hamlet as part of the search term really problematizes things. I read a poem a long time ago that was about Hamlet, acting out his life onstage, aware, or perhaps becoming aware of his own agency, and choosing to walk-off rather than play through to the end, to his death. Maybe, something like that. Or maybe he dies, but he knows it's been written for him by someone else? But I do seem to remember he leaves the stage. It may be French or Russian, but I can't find anything by searching Baudelaire or the other likely suspects. Anybody know this one?

posted by feste to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

If it's Russian, I'm betting it's Pasternak's "Hamlet."

Without knowing who translated it, I can't point you to the exact version you may have read, but you can certainly google it.
posted by zizzle at 7:02 AM on August 29, 2013

Response by poster: It could be the Pasternak poem, that I'm just remembering wrong. I feel like what I'm remembering is more existential angst than Christ.
posted by feste at 7:10 AM on August 29, 2013

Are you thinking of the nine-page play Hamletmachine by German playwright/director Heiner Müller?
posted by Hogshead at 9:03 AM on August 29, 2013

Might it be Hamlet et Fortenbras by Mallarmé?
posted by chairmanroflmao at 1:07 PM on October 10, 2013