Wole Soyinka's "Hamlet": the rotten state of Denmark revisited.

ABSTRACT

Wole Soyinka's sonnet "Hamlet" is first situated in the historical and biographical circumstances under which it was generated. A close reading of the text follows with interpretations carried out on two levels: transtextually with Shakespeare's play Hamlet and subtextually with Soyinka's disguised "messages" written during solitary confinement in a Nigerian prison. Prose writings by Soyinka are referred to in support of my subtextual de-coding of the poem. A theoretical framework for the reading is also postulated based on a schema of intersecting vertical and horizontal compositional trajectories. With the close reading played out, consideration is given to the appropriateness of Shakespeare's tragedy as archetypal template for Soyinka's sonnet. It is concluded that while there is neither generic compatibility nor any psychological correspondence between Shakespeare's protagonist and Soyinka's speaker, scrutiny of the political state of Denmark in the play, and of the condition of the Nigerian body politic at the time the prison poem was written, does point to similar political conjunctures.

Hamlet" is the second of Wole Soyinka's "Four Archetypes" in his collection of prison poems, A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972). The others are "Joseph (To Mrs Potiphar)," "Gulliver," and "Ulysses (Notes from here to my Joyce class)." All four poems refer allusively to canonical works, both ecclesiastical-to the Old Testament Book of Genesis-and secular-to Shakespeare's play, Swift's satire, and Joyce's novel, respectively.

Following the theme of the conference for which this paper was originally written, "Strategies of Betrayal,"' it must be obvious from the outset that Shakespeare's Hamlet would lend itself to, at least, a thematic reading along these lines in whatever sense one were to take the term "betrayal". either as treachery, deception, pretence, or as illusion, or of all of these meanings taken together. The focus here, however, will not be with the thematic configurations of Shakespeare's tragedy, but rather with strategies of deception at a linguistic level as practiced by Wole Soyinka in his poem "Hamlet." This will not rule out cross-referentiality with Shakespeare's Hamlet, but will prioritize Soyinka's poem as target text, rather than giving emphasis to the source text-Shakespeare's play.

Soyinka's poem needs to be contextualized so that our interpretations may square with the sociopolitical circumstances that gave rise to it. If we fail to do this, it is unlikely that our reading will bear any correspondence to the poet's ultimate objective, however unfashionable it has become to attribute a writer with an intention since Roland Barthes pronounced the author dead. Again, if we are not to take account of factors external to the text that, as I shall try to show, will be crucial to understanding, our interpretations of Soyinka's "Hamlet" will rely solely on its relationship to Shakespeare's play; that is, an intrinsic transtextual binary reading on a synchronic axis, whereas what I shall be primarily seeking to draw attention to is the relationship of the textual signifiers to the contextual signifieds on the diachronic plane of lived-out experience.

It will be worth bearing in mind throughout my reading that Soyinka's poem was conceived and written during the author's twenty-two-month solitary confinement without trial from 1967 to 1969. Soyinka had been arrested for pro posing, and attempting to organize, a revolutionary "Third Force" of democratic elements on both sides against the leaders of the Eastern Region of Nigeria, who had declared an independent nation-Biafra-and the military regime of Major-General Yakubu Gowon, which had responded by declaring war on the breakaway state. (2) I shall elaborate on this circumstantial aspect of the poem as I proceed with my exegesis.

Seen in relation to Shakespeare's Hamlet, the poem appears to plunge in medias res: "He [Hamlet] stilled his doubts, they rose to halt and lame / A resolution on the rack. [... ]" (Soyinka, A Shuttle in the Crypt 22). One recalls here Hamlet's irresolution in avenging the murder of his father, and the suffering ("the rack") this induces. Similarly,

 
   [...] Passion's flame Was doused in fear and error, his mind's 
   unease Bred indulgence to the state's disease 
 
   Ghosts embowelled his earth; [...] (2-5) 

recalls Hamlet's desire for vengeance thwarted by his doubts ("mind's unease") about taking such an action, or even the possibility that…