William Shakespeare

1
William Shakespeares Hamlet

• The Renaissance
• updates tragedy

2
Standard Issues in Hamlet

• Is Hamlet mad or is he feigning madness?
• Does Gertrude know that Claudius killed Old
  Hamlet?
• Have Hamlet and Ophelia had sex?
• When (if ever) does Hamlet decide to believe the
  ghost?
• Should Hamlet be compared to a Classical
  Aristotelian tragedy or a Renaissance revenge
  tragedy?

3
Traditions of tragic drama inherited by
Shakespeare

• European drama before Hamlet
• classical Greek and Latin tragedies, comedies,
  and farces. These lost in the Dark Ages.
• medieval religious drama lives of saints
  re-enactments of Bible stories
• Renaissance imitations of classical Latin drama,
  especially imitations of Senecas Latin revenge
  tragedies.
• Hamlet first great drama after Euripides.

4
Shakespeare plays around with received dramatic
conventions

• Opening scene
• Rather than opening with highest ranked character
  or tragic hero, Shakespeare opens with soldiers
  and delays Hamlets entrance.
• We first hear of Fortinbras and meet Laertes
  (Hamlets two rivals)
• We meet Horatio (Hamlets friend) and Claudius
  (his enemy)
• Not privileging plot over all other elements
• Tragedy typically depends on plot Shakes-peare
  instead focuses on character and ideas.

5
Hamlet as first Renaissance drama Hamlet as
first Renaissance man.

• Pre-Renaissance or pre-modern man
• unitary, unified self
• mans social position entirely determined by
  birth or other outside forces (gods)
• Renaissance man
• psychologically complex and multi-layered
  internally divided against self
• self-made man--idea that man chooses his own
  experiences, determines his own values

6
How does Hamlet show itsRenaissance character?

• The internal complexity of modern man is
  reflected in the plays doublings
• Both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
• A play within a play (and then the play within
  the play is itself doubled into a dumb show and a
  play)
• 2 mad persons Ophelia and Hamlet
• and triplings
• 3 murdered dads Fortinbras, Hamlet, Polonius
• 3 avenging sons Fortinbras, Hamlet, Laertes