Hamlet Had an Uncle: A Comedy of Honor

By James Branch Cabell

Hamlet Had an Uncle: A Comedy of Honor is a Shakespearean satire by James Branch Cabell, first published in 1940. Cabell had incubated a Shakespeare satire for decades, and based his tale on the Saxo Grammaticus, an epic saga that recounts the story of the mythic Hamlet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Aug 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781479407040

James Branch Cabell

James Branch Cabell; (April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles-lettres. Cabell was well-regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare." Although escapist, Cabell's works are ironic and satirical. Mencken disputed Cabell's claim to romanticism and characterized him as "really the most acidulous of all the anti-romantics. His gaudy heroes ... chase dragons precisely as stockbrokers play golf." Cabell saw art as an escape from life, but found that, once the artist creates his ideal world, it is made up of the same elements that make the real one

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Reviews for Hamlet Had an Uncle

[wirkman_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cabell's darkest comedy retells the tale of Hamlet . . . and not how Shakespeare told it, but much closer to the original histories from which Shakespeare drew his tragedy.Here there is blood and crime, yes. But tragedy? In Cabell's hands, it's comedy, but dark, bile-tasting comedy. For Cabell did not like politics, and did not hold high in honor men who would war and steal in the name of . . . honor.And honor is the theme. But honor, is it present?The reader must decide.And the reader of the Biography of the Life of Manuel will see the name of an old friend, Horvendile (not Horatio), and will be confused much of the time, I'm afraid, trying to find in the character Wigerlus any similarity to Shakespeare's great tragic hero.The comedy's funniest moment is satire, though, with the antihero giving a great fireside speech on debasing the currency. It was Cabell's revenge upon FDR, whom he had the good sense not to love.