English notes – 11/02/2014

Possible interpretation of "Hamlet" → Most preformed play in history.

One most common at the time, when Shakespeare put the play on stage in London, is in line with the culture in the time of Shakespeare.

Hamlet = revenge tragedy.

Life is conceived of Hell/Heaven; bad and good.

Game between play and interplay, between tragedy and everything into it: struggle between Good (his father) and Evil (his uncle who killed Hamlet's father and usurped the king's throne).

Therefore, according to the mentality, deeply affected by Christian attitude, of the time, Hamlet is asked to revenge his father.

Something is wrong with Hamlet, because he's sad/he though of death/his mind was in pain and in distress

1° event: Hamlet return from the university to attend his father's funeral (implies father's death) → Why is the father figure so important? He's the natural law and he is the reference point. His duty is to take care of the family and support it. As in the case of Hamlet, the father is also the king → reference point of the country → no king, no stability. Country without king: no roots and therefore subject to any danger.

Claudius, in Hamlet's mind, becomes the icon of all evil.

After ghost meeting → needs becomes obsessive. Starting from his doubts, everything is wrong in Hamlet. Nothing seems to fit and he starts to show a terrible behaviour: nobody seems to understand him because he has terrible reaction.

Where do doubts appear? In our MIND, the main setting.

Hamlet offers the perfect embodyment of a Renaissance spirit.

The human being, with his weaknesses, fear and uncertainities becomes the core of the text. In shakespeare's plays, tragedy is the conseguence of a flow in the character. Hamlet's flow is his inability to decide: if I can't decide, I can't take decision that can make me act in one way or another.

Hamlet's mind → setting of the scene and we are asked, as readers, to read Hamlet's mind, to analyze his working and what crosses his mind and therefore we feel emphaty of him because we recognize ourselves in him. → Partial identification.

How could Shakespeare recreate Hamlet's mind on stage? → If you want a dramatic representation, you have to find the means to tell this → Soliloquy: one persone who is speaking alone/no company on the stage (≠ Monologue: one person who is speaking but there is company on the stage).