The Hamlet Project

This sentence is as long as a sonnet.
Is there a longer sentence in the canon?
There is great curiosity in these 14 lines,
Much to wonder at. He’s talking in the abstract
But I have to wonder what he’s trying to say about himself –
What in his birth would he like to be absolved of?
How has he been corrupted from whatever he may perceive
As his fault?
Or is he somehow trying to understand Claudius?
Trying to find an excuse for him and what he knows of his behavior thus far?
Is he finding him guilty of drinking too much
While simultaneously trying to forgive him for it?
He may be holding forth in this academic way
For the benefit of his college buddy or perhaps
He’s afraid and finds long clauses comforting.
I’m sure this sentence is usually cut. I cannot imagine
How to get my mouth around it entirely –
But there is some nugget in this thesis of his.
It is spoken seconds before the ghost of his father arrives.
Is it, perhaps, a link to his father?
Is he wrestling with forgiving his dad before he arrives?
His thinking isn’t clear. It’s sophisticated but muddled, full of tangents
And side journeys.
What is Shakespeare doing here? He precedes the ghost’s entrance
With almost incomprehensible text.
It is the opposite of the first ghost scene
Full of short clear sentences, setting us up to want desperately for the ghost to speak.
Is he turning our ears to disorientation? Tuning us out of speech to have us experience the arrival with something else?
Our bodies?
Our hearts?
All the other senses?
Perhaps he wants us not to listen
So that we just sit, squirming in our seats
Waiting for the ghost to arrive.