"To Thine Own Self Be True": Reflections on a Famous Phrase

Recently writing about the advice "Be yourself" I was told by a reader that quite a few people take the line in Hamlet, "To thine own self be true," to mean this very thing.

This struck me as odd, "Be yourself" being such a modern, Romantic notion, reflecting a view of the world stressing "authenticity," individuality and self-expression--all of which is rather alien to Shakespeare's thought-world. (As Ian Watt reminds us, Shakespeare was a Medieval, not a modern, in most of the ways that count.)

Considering this I went back to the relevant portion of the play--Act I, Scene III, in which over at Polonius' house we see him giving fatherly advice to his son Laertes before he heads off for France. "Laying his hand on Laertes' head" Polonius tells him to keep "these few precepts in thy memory," very prominent among them "Give thy thoughts no tongue," "Give every man they ear, but few thy voice," and "reserve thy judgment." It is a counsel of reserve, restraint, circumspection, extending to that matter of which people make so much when talking about "being themselves," clothing ("Costly thy habit as they purse can buy/But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy/For the apparel oft proclaims the man")--befitting what comes "above all," that Laertes be loyal ("true") to his own self-interest ("thine own self").

Indeed, far from meaning "Be yourself" in the contemporary sense it would seem that Polonius not only advises his son something very different, but instructs him to, in not giving his thoughts tongue, giving few his voice, reserving his judgment, etc. for the sake of hard, practical self-interest, do the complete opposite should this be the appropriate course, which it may or may not be because what Laertes' "self" happens to be is not something Polonius or Shakespeare or anyone else regards as being at issue.

Of course, many encountering this may wonder how to take it. After all, literary critics (as Ian Watt again pointed out in the very same book I reference above--it really is a treasure) can be prone to see irony in the works they study when it suits their prejudices, attributing to writers of past eras they have been persuaded are "great" virtues and views they do not have and cannot have simply because they were in a different world from ours (and because insisting that everything means what it doesn't passes for wisdom and profundity with simpletons). Given the well-known inclinations of Bardolators in this case--to make of Shakespeare a perfect "moral teacher" for all times, by which they happen to mainly mean this one--the practicality, even crassness, of what Polonius really seems to mean (exactly the kind of thing such critics love to dismiss, as Watt's example makes clear), and Shakespeare's less than respectful attitude toward Polonius, may lead them to conclude that Shakespeare must mean the opposite of what he says. Alas, I see no grounds for thinking that here--while even if there were it would not change the literal meaning of the words on the page, which, I repeat, does not have Polonius telling Laertes "Be yourself!"