William Shakespeare’s

Hamlet

The Renaissance
updates tragedy
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?
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 Seneca’s Latin revenge
tragedies.
 Hamlet first great drama after Euripides.
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 Hamlet’s entrance.
 We first hear of Fortinbras and meet Laertes
(Hamlet’s two rivals)
 We meet Horatio (Hamlet’s 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.
Hamlet as first Renaissance drama;
Hamlet as first Renaissance man.

 Pre-Renaissance or pre-modern man

 unitary, unified self
 man’s 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
How does Hamlet show its
Renaissance character?
 The internal complexity of modern man is
reflected in the play’s 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