Hamlet Pre-Reading Handout PDF

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the problem of most famous plays in the history of English interpretation gets thematized by the sheer number literature. The play’s popularity derives in part from...

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the problem of most famous plays in the history of English interpretation gets thematized by the sheer number literature. The play’s popularity derives in part from of questions found throughout the text. The play the interpretive challenge which it presents to the famously opens with a question — “Who’s there?” audience. That’s why T. S. Eliot referred to Hamlet — which reveals that the characters will have as “the Mona Lisa of literature.”1 By comparing difficulty interpreting one another (1.1.1). The text Shakespeare’s play to Leonardo’s painting, Eliot of the Folger edition contains no fewer than 421 implied that there’s something enigmatic about question marks. In sum, Hamlet is a play that asks a Hamlet which — like the indecipherable smile of lot of questions! Mona Lisa — keeps audiences returning to it. As a reader of this kind of text, you will face Psychoanalytic theorist Ernst Jones similarly the challenge not only of answering the questions referred to the play as “the Sphinx of modern which get posed by the text, but of figuring out literature.”2 In Sophocles’s tragic play Oedipus Rex, what, in the first place, the text is asking. For th the Sphinx is a ferocious beast — part lion, part eplay opens up questions about the human eagle — which threatens to kill and eat Oedipus if condition which hadn’t been formulated before. he cannot solve the following riddle: “What walks Such questions may be important to grapple with on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, even if they don’t have easy answers. and three at night?” If you were faced with the threat of immanent death, could you solve the Major Themes in Hamlet Sphinx’s riddle? By comparing Hamlet to the Sphinx, Ernst I. Parent-Child Relations: Duty vs. Desire Jones emphasized both the play’s riddlesome nature and its elaboration of themes found in Oedipus Rex. Hamlet is frequently taught in high schools Like the Greek tragedian who was his predecessor, because it deals with issues relevant to adolescents Shakespeare uses his play to invoke complex making the transition into adulthood. One of the questions about the nature of humanity: about the most important themes explored by the play is stages of the life cycle, about how to live a parent-child relationships. Are parents justified in meaningful life, and about what it feels like to imposing expectations on their children even after confront one’s mortality. those children have grown up? Are grown children obliged to protect the honor of their parents? What happens when a child decides to embrace values 1 T. S. Eliot, Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. London: Faber, 1975. 49. which are different from the parents’ values? 2 Ernst Jones, Hamlet and Oedipus. New York: Norton, 1976. 22.  Shakespeare may have been moved to ask The famous soliloquy in the third act, “To such questions after his own father passed away in be or not to be,” has become the literary hallmark of 1601 — the same year in which he would write modern self-consciousness. Why does Shakespeare Hamlet. The death of his father seems to have construct his protagonist in this way? What might provoked Shakespeare to reflect upon the long the playwright be trying to say about the conditions shadow that parents sometimes cast over their of modern life? children. A soliloquy is a speech delivered when a At the same time, the death of his father character is alone on stage. One of the reasons why may have impelled the playwright to meditate on Hamlet’s soliloquies are so pleasurable to read is the status of the dead, and to ponder what happens that his character is extremely intelligent, articulate, to the “soul” after death. One of the first characters and quick-witted. Another reason why the that we’ll encounter in the play is the ghost of soliloquies are interesting to read is that Hamlet Hamlet’s deceased father. So one of the first enjoys exploring the multiple meanings of words. questions invoked by the play is: What might the Like a modern-day psychoanalyst, Hamlet seems to ghost represent? How does the play amount to believe that a slip of the tongue or an accidental more than a ghost story? pun can reveal a character’s veiled — or The full title of Shakespeare’s play is The subconscious — intentions. Nor does he exempt Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Although himself from such scrutiny. Hamlet is one of the this title is often foreshortened to the name of the first literary characters to reflect critically upon his protagonist, what might the full title suggest about own words and actions, examining them for hints the content of the play? of subconscious motives. The full title reminds audiences that the Many of Hamlet’s soliloquies take the form protagonist is at once an individual (the bearer of a of dialogues — or internal debates — which the proper name), a family member (the son of two protagonist is having with himself. So when you parents) and a dignitary (the prince of a nation- read Hamlet’s soliloquies, you should try to answer state). As we’ll see, Hamlet experiences a conflict the following questions: What is the topic or between the duties incumbent to these different question which Hamlet is trying to work through? roles. What are the two sides or positions in the debate? The play raises the following questions: How What is each side of Hamlet’s mind arguing that he should a person act when his personal desires come should do? into conflict with his obligations to his parents? How should a person act when what’s expected of him as a dutiful son comes into conflict with what’s expected of him as a dutiful citizen or good samaritan? II. Modern Self-Consciousness Yet if this play focuses on how Hamlet responds to parental expectations, it also explores the expectations which Hamlet sets for himself. For the protagonist engages in constant reflection about who he is and how he should act. Indeed, what has made Hamlet the most closely studied of Shakespeare’s plays is the extent to which Hamlet questions and doubts himself. All of Hamlet’s major soliloquies amount, paradoxically, to debates between a divided self. III. Hamlet’s Hesitation very genre in which he is writing. What is the playwright’s message about the mindset which It is no accident that Hamlet is Shakespeare’s motivates revenge? Does the eye-for-an-eye logic longest play. For the protagonist’s tendency to which underpins revenge amount to a legitimate engage in self-reflection exerts a shaping influence form of justice? Finally, what is Shakespeare using on the play’s form. Hamlet’s inability to escape his play to say about the genre of revenge tragedy? from the claims of the past keeps him locked in a slow-moving and densely layered present — and it V. A Play within the Play lends the play a temporal structure which is non- linear, recursive, perhaps even cyclical. A technique that Shakespeare employs in a Terence Hawkes has observed that, like its number of his plays is to stage a miniature “play- protagonist, the play moves “only unwillingly and within-the-play.” Hamlet is the play in which this haltingly forward, constantly, even as it does so, device gets used most explicitly. The protagonist looking over its own shoulder.”3 Noting that the hires a troupe of actors and has them perform a play features a number of slow-motion “action play for his friends and family. This play-within-the- replays,” Hawkes observes that “this serves to pull play takes place in the very middle of Hamlet — in back against any ‘forward’ progressive movement Act 3, Scene 2 — and becomes the device on which which it might otherwise appear to instigate.”4 the plot will pivot. The first four acts of Hamlet are full of the This meta-theatrical scene gives Shakespeare protagonist’s soliloquies. Because Shakespeare took a chance to explore the functions of theater. That great care when composing these soliloquies, you’ll is, the play-within-the-play offers Shakespeare an want to devote some extra time to reading and opportunity to examine whether literary texts or reflecting on them. But the fifth and final act of fictional performances have the power to disclose Hamlet will not contain a single soliloquy. Why is truths about the real world — or to move people to that? Has the protagonist found answers to the take action within the real world. So here is one last questions that he had been debating? If Hamlet has question for you to consider: What are finally made up his mind, how does that change the Shakespeare’s conclusions about the functions of play’s form? theater in modern society? IV. Revenge Tragedy Performance History Shakespeare wrote Hamlet at a time when the Shakespeare’s Hamlet was one of his first “revenge tragedy” had become a popular genre on plays to be performed at the Globe Theatre, a the Renaissance stage. But while Hamlet qualifies as playhouse built by Shakespeare’s company in 1599. a revenge tragedy, there are many ways in which the The playhouse was located on the Southern bank of play resists the genre conventions of revenge the Thames River in the city of London, England. tragedy. For example, the traditional revenge The original Globe Theatre burned down in tragedy was characterized by a swift, linear, action- 1614 due to an accident with a cannon during a driven plotline. But in Hamlet, the protagonist’s production of Henry VIII. A modern reconstruction proclivity to think before he acts has the effect of called Shakespeare’s Globe was built in 1997. It slowing down the action, turning the play into an now hosts productions of six or seven Shakespeare inward-facing, psychological drama. plays per year. If you plan to be in London in the Thus, just as Hamlet reflects critically on the near future, you can purchase tickets via the life-plot that he finds himself caught up in, theater’s website: www.shakespearesglobe.com Shakespeare seems to resist the conventions of the 3 Terence Hawkes, “Telmah,” That Shakespearian Rag. London: Routledge, 2013. 96. 4 Terence Hawkes, “Telmah.” That Shakespearian Rag. London: Routledge, 2013. 98.