Comrade Fortinbras and Bourgeois Hamlet: Global Leftist Hamletism
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Abstract
In Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabokov creates the world of Padukgrad, a dystopian society symbolic of Stalin's tyrannical regime. In the novel, an obscure scholar proposes an adaptation of Hamlet to be performed at Padukgrad state theater. This adaptation transforms Fortinbras into the hero of the play and presents the tragic flaw of Hamlet as secondary. I use Nabokov's anti-Stalinist appropriation of Shakespeare as a point of departure to legitimize Marxist-Leninist appropriative deployments of Hamlet that precede the taint of Stalin. German, Soviet, and American Leftists alike incorporated Hamlet as a negative prototype — a representation of bourgeois individualism and uncommitted Leftist sympathizers — into political rhetoric so as to advocate commitment and reform. I argue that global Leftist "Hamletism" not only illustrates a clear (political) distinction between proletarian and popular appropriations of Shakespeare, but also demonstrates a theory crucial to the re-politicization of Shakespeare's social function today.