Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Prince Caspian as Prince Hamlet?

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Dir. Andrew Adamson. Screenplay by Andrew Adamson and Christopher Markus. Perf. Ben Barnes. Walt Disney Pictures, 2008.
In his movie review podcast, A. O. Scott mentions the Hamlet parallel in the story—a usurping uncle is attempting to do away with the rightful heir.

That makes a certain amount of sense—and it’s interesting that (spolier warning here!) Prince Caspian is more successful than Prince Hamlet, turning that element of the plot from tragedy to, if not comedy, romance!

Also, if you rearrange the letters in “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” you get “Caspian, King of Narnia.”

Interesting, that!
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm teaching this book right now and am intrigued by the idea that "Hamlet Prince of Denmark" rearranged is "Caspian King of Narnia"--but how do you make that work? The number of letters is different, not to mention that the same letters aren't used.

Thanks!

September 23, 2012 at 7:42 PM
kj said...

Alas, that was a not-very-successful joke! Sorry for the confusion.

kj

September 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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