'the tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark' by William Shakespeare

The setting of the play is dark northern Denmark.

As you can see we have castles here. Castles are interesting architecture product.

 

Nobody today build castles because the condition of living today are different. Apparently we don't need to be defended by enemies that might settle in our land. But this was a risk and they're in constant danger during the period when Hamlet is set. This explains why we have a lot of castles.

 

Hamlet is a tragedy (tragedy is one of the expression of drama; drama is the literary genre and drama may be organized into comedies or tragedies or cronicals) that is considered to be one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy.

 

This slide gives hints about the setting. You can see dark colors, and a skull as a foregrounding.

Skull is a foregrounding because skull reminds death, but death as a meaning only if we speak of life.

 

There is a quotation on the slide, and the quotation is one of the most famous for the people who read Hamlet. 'There's something rotten in the state of Denmark'.

So the tragedy is set in Denmark, in the North. It is a dark atmosphere, people need to defend themselves against enemies. But there is something 'rotten'. So there is no stability in the kingdom of Denmark.

The need of balance and stability is a very important element in keeping power inside a state. So if you don't restore balance, there is only some danger. And we also said that the king in a state, in a country is the micro representation of God in the skull. So if the king rules over a rotten kingdom, it means that there are lot of problems that have to be solved.

 

What is rotten in the Denmark state?

First of all the passing from one over reign to another was not proper, it was improper. Denmark is a kingdom, is ruled by very important person, the king, who was the representation of God on earth, and the passing of the crown didn't follow a natural order: the natural order was destroyed by a murder. The real king was murdered and the new king came to/ascended the throne but not in a natural way: he was murdered and his brother took his place. So this is something incorrect, unnatural. And this is what justifies Shakespeare's words 'There's something rotten in the state of Denmark'.

 

Prince Hamlet returns home from universe to discover that his farther is dead and his mother has married his uncle, and now Claudius has declared himself king.

And if that's not bad enough, the ghost of his father appears one night. Hamlet's father's ghost appears to Hamlet.

 

And here we started to think about it is naturally, concretely possible for anybody, any human being to see ghost. Generally speaking people don't meet ghost, and i think people don't meet ghost even in the MAs.

 

So why did Shakespeare exploit the idea of the ghost? What was Shakespeare's intention in producing the idea of the ghost that appeared to Hamlet, the prince? What did he want to have as a reaction in presenting the audience with Hamlet's father's ghost? What did the ghost stand for? What do the ghost stand for?

 

Our mind may be … by ghost when we have problems, when we can't get read of the questions that crossed our mind constantly, when always the same thought crosses our mind which means that we feel unbalanced about some problems that we may have to face.

 

So Hamlet exploited the symbol/the metaphor of ghost because the image ghost becomes a metaphor or a symbol for, probably, the continuos, incessant, never ended doubts that crossed Hamlet's mind.

Shakespeare cannot represent an image of a mind so he has to use imaging or rhetorical devices (so the use of the ghost is a rhetorical device) to have the audience watching the play images what crosses in Hamlet's mind.

And since in the MAs people believed in magic, he produced the idea of the ghost for the audience to understand that Hamlet's thoughts in a way or another disturbed his mind.

 

The ghost of his father appears to Hamlet. He tells Hamlet that he has been murdered by Claudius.

This of course is one of the suspicion that Hamlet, as the son, the prince, has. He starts to think who might have killed my father. He has the suspicion it has been his uncle Claudius.

So Shakespeare in order to represent such Hamlet's doubts, puts the idea/rhetorical device of the Hamlet's father's ghost who tells his some, Hamlet the prince, that he has been murdered by Claudius and demands that Hamlet get revenge.

 

Hamlet was in front of this doubt: his father had died and so he had the suspicion, a very pressant suspicion that his father had been murdered by his uncle.

 

Instead of jumping into actions (he doesn't take action) Hamlet broods over and over his doubts, his questions, his problems, his situation.

And this is one of the main problem typically adolescent. Adolescents are always thinking, imagining what they could do by never act, this is the problem: they never take actions.

The writer say 'jump' because it means instinctively react doing something.

 

And then start acting very strange.

He found himself in a difficult situation and s to adapt to reality creatively he decide to pretend his mad, he pretends he's crazy. People think he is crazy and he behaves accordingly.

He starts talking riddle, so he spoke in a way or another provoking people to understand what he was saying. So people started to think that he was out of himself.

He acts cruelly to Ophelia, for example, a girl who loves him.

He has suspicions of everyone, he doesn't trust anyone.

With such behaviors he shows his face in a way that people couldn't understand.

 

And the more you can't understand a person, the less you understand a person, the more curious you become. So when somebody is not clear to you, that somebody becomes interesting.

 

 

The play was put on the stage for the first time in the Globe theatre. And so the theatre opened in 1599.

 

Shakespeare may have used the Hamlet story - and other plays that featured murdered kings - to reflect the concerns of his own time/to give the audience an opportunity to reflect on the problems of his time.

Social order was very important, yet there had been political and religious conflict before and during Elizabeth’s rule.

Hamlet depicts a conflict over what to do when an orderly state is actually corrupt inside and there seems to be no civilized answer.

 

 

The language of the play is unrhymed. This is called blank verse.

iambic pentameter without rhyme (versi che sono pentametri giambici senza rima) = black verse

iambic pentameter is based on a beat that is pleasing (frase relativa fatta col gerundio) to the ear.

 

line (verso)verse (gruppo di versi)

blank (vuoto di rima)

pleasing (che è piacevole)pleasant (piacente) - agg

 

It includes an unstressed syllable (sillaba non accentate) followed by an stressed syllable (sillaba accentate):

“To BE or NOT to BE . . .”

It matches the sound of a beating heart: daDUM daDUM