{"id":13631,"date":"2026-06-09T06:01:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13631"},"modified":"2026-06-15T07:20:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:20:47","slug":"homage-to-hamnet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13631","title":{"rendered":"Homage to Hamnet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hamnet<\/em>, the 2020 novel and the 2025 film adaptation about William Shakespeare, his wife, and the death of their son, has captivated audiences. Has this story renewed interest in Shakespeare’s original plays?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s always interest in William Shakespeare \u2014his plays, his life. But in Hamnet, there is a twist: It\u2019s the story of Shakespeare\u2019s son, Hamnet, who died at age 11. Book author Maggie O\u2019Farrell wondered if there was a connection between Hamnet\u2019s death and Hamlet, arguably the best-known play in English literature. But in researching it, O\u2019Farrell fell in love with the story of Shakespeare\u2019s wife Anne Hathaway \u2014 a woman history has sidelined and even vilified. O\u2019Farrell felt that Anne deserved a corrective retelling of her life. I think especially for the younger generation, these retellings pique their interest in the centuries-old stories. Many people will see an adaptation and think, \u201cI want to go back and read the original work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this part of a bigger trend of reimagining Shakespeare from new perspectives?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely, and it\u2019s really exciting. In my field, we used to focus on judging adaptations based on how closely they stuck to the source. But now we understand that adaptations can enliven the canon and keep it relevant. Adaptations aren\u2019t replacements, but rather conversations with the original works.<\/p>\n

So how much of Hamnet is real history, and how much is imagination?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a beautiful blend. The story doesn\u2019t contradict known facts; it builds around them. The result is what I\u2019d call \u201cplausible fiction.\u201d It\u2019s invented, but deeply rooted in reality. For example, we don\u2019t know if Shakespeare\u2019s wife kept a falcon, but many women in her social position at that time did, so the author adds that detail. It grounds the character in her world without turning her into something unrealistic.<\/p>\n

Your most recent book is titled Women Talk Back to Shakespeare<\/em>. Is that what O\u2019Farrell does in Hamnet<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my book, I explore works that deliberately retell a Shakespeare play. For example, Toni Morrison\u2019s Desdemona<\/em> retells Othello<\/em> from the perspective of one of the play\u2019s female victims. I\u2019m very interested in how contemporary adaptations talk back to, engage with, challenge, and rewrite the canonical work. But when I read Hamnet,<\/em> it felt like O\u2019Farrell was talking back toShakespeare, too. She\u2019s responding to centuries of assumptions about Shakespeare\u2019s wife, especially this idea that her marriage was unhappy or distant. We actually don\u2019t know that. Hamnet<\/em> reimagines her as active, intelligent, and central to her own life.<\/p>\n

If Shakespeare could see all these modern interpretations, what would he think?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think he\u2019d love them. Shakespeare himself was the ultimate adapter. He borrowed plots constantly and transformed them into something new. It was very collaborative and evolving. That\u2019s how storytelling worked in his time. So, the idea of people reworking his plays? That\u2019s exactly what he did.<\/p>\n

BONUS: Sixes, sevens \u2026 Shakespeare?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shakespeare shaped the English language in ways we don\u2019t even realize. Words like \u201cassassination,\u201d phrases like \u201cwhat\u2019s done is done,\u201d and even expressions like \u201cin a pickle\u201d all trace back to him. Carney says that even today\u2019s popular meme-speak phrase \u201c6\u20137\u201d actually has roots in Shakespeare, and perhaps even earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came from a dice game,\u201d Carney says. \u201cIf you rolled a six or a seven, you had to decide how to proceed because the outcome could go either way. Over time, that idea evolved into a phrase meaning uncertainty or confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Shakespeare\u2019s works, being \u201cat sixes and sevens\u201d meant being in a state of indecision or disorder. So, when kids these days casually throw around \u201c6\u20137\u201d (insert up-and-down hand motion here), they may very well be adapting a centuries-old phrase about being unsure or caught between options.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Illustration: Terri Kasuba<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reimagined story popularizes the life of the Bard, and English professor Jo Carney doth not protest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-back-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13631"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13685,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13631\/revisions\/13685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}