HAMLET

“Hamlet” is considered one of the Shakespeare’s great narrative plays, together with “Macbeth” and “The tempest”. The text is written in blank verse: iambic pentameter without rimes.

 It is a tragedy (one of the expressions of the drama). In this kind of plays there is a tragic hero who dies for is ideals: tragedy tells the story to the point of death.

Tragedy and tragic hero are compatible to the Renaissance and Shakespeare take inspiration from medieval materials.

The tragedy was written between 1599 and 1602, the period of transition between two centuries and was shown for the first time on the Globe theatre; it is set in Denmark because there was a period of instability in England.

 The title of the poem is the name of the protagonist because in the Renaissance man is put at the centre.

In the case of “Hamlet”, the full title of the poem is “The tragedy of Hamlet, price of Denmark”.

 Hamlet is a prince, the son of a king, not a common man, so the contest is the kingdom. He has got a natural father who names Hamlet like him. The spring of the play is Hamlet’s father’s death: when he dies Hamlet begin to suspect that his father was murdered by his uncle Claudius that now has married his mother and would take revenge against him.   

The tragedy develops on different layers of meaning:

• Political level: Hamlet is a prince, the future king, so he has a kingdom
• Family level: Hamlet is a son who has a step father and a mother; this is the sphere of affection and love
•  Generation level: Hamlet is an adolescent; he belongs to the youth’s generation: this explain why he believes that the matter is right or wrong.

This explains why “Hamlet” is considered a revenge tragedy according to renaissance, medieval and classical ideals.

Hamlet is entrapped in this complex problems; he ponders different points of view and found himself in a contradictory situation: he does not know what is right and what is wrong, consequently he does not know to face the situation.

The situation is complicated by Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, the councillor of the new king.

There are two women in Hamlet’s life who condition him: his mother Gertrude and Ophelia who is in love with him. Gertrude has conditioned Hamlet’s father, Hamlet’s uncle and Hamlet himself. He thinks that is uncle has killed his father not for ascend at the throne, but for marry is mother: he is jealous.

Hamlet does not know if Claudius has murdered his father and has doubts, since when one night he hears the voice of his dead father’s ghost asking for revenge. Hamlet is scared because he cannot control the situation, but the idea of his father’s ghost gives him turbament.

The ghost is a metaphor used by Shakespeare to give in a play the idea of the incessant doubt that cross Hamlet’s mind. It gives the idea that he feels unbalance in his ideas.

 Hamlet must face many tragedies: his father is death and he must substitute him with a step father (his uncle). Hamlet is intelligent and he creatively adapts to the situation: he pays some actors to stage a tragedy where a king is murdered by his brother for marry the queen (the possible situation of his father murder). He would see his uncle’s reaction for prove himself that his uncle is guilty.  

He also decides to pretend his madness: if people believe that he is crazy they do not give importance to his actions and he is free to act. 

The colours of the tragedy are too dark, many scenes are set during the night and the same kingdom of Denmark is dark and cold. This represents the instability of the kingdom and when there is not stability there is something of dangerous: “there is something of rotten in the state of Denmark”. The king represents God but the passage of sovereignty does not follow the natural order because the king was murdered. The new king ascends to throne because he had murdered his brother. For Hamlet he was guilty of two crimes: regicide and incest.

The topic of regicide was very important in these centuries because there were many social, religious and political disorders.