Remembering Hamlet : Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and the tragic value of Hamlet

The canonical importance of Hamlet is indisputable, but the nature of its cultural value needs to be reconsidered in relation to our contemporary understanding of tragedy and death. Though the play has clearly stood the test of time, the shadow that Hamlet casts over literature and beyond has led to many reinterpretations, keeping the play’s cultural meaning in constant flux. Consequently, I would suggest that Hamlet’s original tragic value has in fact diminished and cannot be quite fully restored. I will argue that Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead holds a significant position in this history of Hamlet reworkings precisely because it captures the discontent and disillusionment that a contemporary audience might have with regards to the grandeur of Hamlet as a tragedy and its questionable treatment of death. Stoppard’s displacement of the iconic Hamlet gives us access to the play’s underbelly, which Stoppard attacks by questioning the credibility and relevance of the concept of agency in post-Beckettian theatre. As Hamlet, agency, and heroism are decentred, the tragedy of the unheroic non agent becomes all the more palpable, thereby resuscitating the poignancy of Hamlet without evoking its now inapt grandeur.peer-reviewe

To be or not to be a (dead) father

This article argues that Hamlet’s tragedy shows the idiosyncratic intervention of the law in the creation of human subjectivity, an intervention that relies on the agency of a (dead) father to regulate the subject’s desire. Hamlet’s tragedy, it suggests, is characteristically modern not because Hamlet unconsciously desired to do what Oedipus consciously did, but because of the added ingredient of Hamlet’s, and of the father’s, knowledge: Hamlet not only knows of the father’s death, he also knows that the father knows. In Hamlet the prior father, the father of Totem and Taboo, is reincarnated in the person of Claudius so the ‘progress’ from Oedipus to Hamlet, is from tragedy to obscenity. The Crown as phallus is called upon to conceal the obscenity but Hamlet, like any good analyst, plays and displays language to reveal the rotten crime at the heart of the State of Denmark and of the Law

Hamlet

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1980 performance of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Hamlet is the story of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark who sets out to avenge his father’s murder at the hands of his uncle, and the tragedy that follows.https://pillars.taylor.edu/playbills/1180/thumbnail.jp

SUPERNATURALISM AND MYSTICISM IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY HAMLET

William Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist in the world. He has produced a lot of literary works especially play or drama. Some of his plays still exist until now such as Julius Caesar, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, etc. Even, one of his plays Romeo and Juliet has been translated into several languages in the world. He produces two types of plays, namely comedy which usually talks about love and tragedy which talks about sadness. In tragedy plays, Shakespeare always puts supernatural and mystical elements such as in Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, etc. The supernatural and mysticism elements are usually marked by the appearance of apparition, witch, fairy, etc, and the elements can determine the fate of main characters. This article tries to describe how Shakespeare puts supernatural and mystical elements in one of his tragedy plays Hamlet

Embedding Hamlet In Pi

Take the text of Shakespeare\u27s Hamlet beginning with its title The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Demark... . Write down the digits of pi (after the decimal point) in successive slices, reduce these mod 26, and convert the resulting numbers to letters using the correspondence A=0, B=1...Z=25

"Done Like a Frenchman": Henry VI, the Tyranny of the Audience and Spect-Actorial Adaptations

In early modern theatre, there are many examples of audiences recognising themselves in performances that they watch. It is this recognition which creates comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when the young married aristocrats comment on how absurdly the rude mechanicals perform a story of thwarted love which exactly mirrors the potential play which Dream so nearly becomes. The same idea is the source of dramatic tension in Hamlet, when Hamlet’s adaptation of The Mousetrap is performed as a trap to “catch the conscience of the king”; Hamlet’s commentary is a diversionary tactic, for Hamlet is not watching the play at all, he is watching the King’s reactions to it and it is when the King apparently recognises himself and stops the play that Hamlet believes his trap has worked. In the so-called bad quarto The Taming of a Shrew, Christopher Sly sees in the story of Petruchio and Katherina a taming fantasy of male dominance, but in the play’s final scene he is chased offstage by his shrewish wife. Sometimes, when recognising themselves in the play, audiences can change the play as well. Arguably, this already happens in Dream, where tragedy is made into a comedy and in Hamlet, where the play cannot continue once the King has recognised himself in the play

Spaghetti Shakespeare: Johnny Hamlet and the Italian Western

The Italian Western, Johnny Hamlet (1968), directed by Enzo G. Castellari, draws on the revenge story of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet for plot and characterization. While international distributors of the film downplayed its connection to highbrow Shakespeare, they emphasized the movie’s violent content and action-packed revenge narrative, which was typical of the western all’italiana. Johnny Hamlet shares similarities with the brutally violent Django (1966), directed by Sergio Corbucci, whose avenging angel protagonist epitomizes the Spaghetti Western antihero. Although the filmmakers of Johnny Hamlet characterized Johnny as a vindicator, they also sought to develop the “broody” aspect of this gunfighter, one based on Shakespeare’s famously ruminating hero. Using innovative film techniques, Johnny Hamlet shows Johnny as a contemplative pistolero

Hamlet’s Femininity

The charm of Hamlet over the centuries largely lies in Shakespeare’s subtle treatment of Hamlet, and many critics have interpreted Hamlet’s tragedy as a result of his indecisive character, his obsession with philosophical thinking or his Oedipus Complex. This essay holds that Hamlet’s struggle with his femininity also contributes to his tragedy. Hamlet does exhibit some masculine traits such as courage, rationality and aggressiveness, but at the same time he is agonized to find that he is as weak, emotional, passive and dependent as a woman. In whatever cases he is placed either as a prince, a son or a lover, he is more identified with women than with men. Such a discovery tortures him and produces in him some sense of self-negation and self-hatred. Because of his deep-rooted patriarchal concept of gender identity, Hamlet cannot make a compromise with the feminine traits in him, and it somewhat prevents him from taking a masculine action to avenge his father. Key words: Hamlet; Femininity; Masculinity; Tragedy; Self-HatredRésumé: Depuis des sicècles, le charme d’Hamlet se trouve largement dans un traitement subtil de Shakespeare de ce personnage et de nombreuses critiques ont interprété la tragédie d'Hamlet en raison de son caractère indécis, son obsession par la pensée philosophique ou son complexe d'Œdipe. Cet essai soutient le point de vue que la lutte d'Hamlet contre sa féminité contribue également à sa tragédie. Hamlet montre certains traits masculins tels que le courage, la rationalité et l'agressivité, mais en même temps il est angoissé de voir qu'il est aussi faible, émotionnel, passif et dépendant comme une femme. Dans quelque cas, il n’est plus traité en tant qu’un prince, un fils ou un amant, il est plus identifié avec les femmes qu’avec les hommes. Une telle découverte le torture et produit chez lui un sentiment d'auto-négation et de haine de soi. En raison de son concept patriarcal profondément enraciné de l'identité de genre, Hamlet ne peut pas faire un compromis avec ses traits féminins, ce qui l’empêche de prendre une action virile pour venger son père.Mots-Clés: Hamlet; fémininité; masculinité; tragédie; haine de so

‘By Heaven \u3cem\u3eand\u3c/em\u3e Hell’: Re-evaluating Representations of Women and the Angel/Whore Dichotomy in Renaissance Revenge Tragedy

This essay explores the treatment of female characters in Renaissance revenge tragedy: specifically in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Revenge tragedy is a dramatic sub-genre that conventionally develops an unsettling level of audience sympathy for male characters who are, essentially, murderers. The paper shows how famous male revengers such as Kyd’s Hieronimo and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are characterised in a way that subtly resists their firm categorisation either as righteous or truly immoral figures. By contrast, it suggests, early modern culture displays a pronounced tendency to judge women only in relation to the divisive ideological dichotomy of the angel or the whore. The context of ambivalence which revenge tragedy creates for its male protagonists, does, however, have implications for women. The essay goes on to illustrate ways in which the portrayal of female characters in these plays transcends the rigid prescriptions of the angel/whore binary. It argues that Kyd’s Bel-Imperia and Shakespeare’s Ophelia and Gertrude cannot be fully aligned with either pole; theirs is a necessarily transgressive position through which the dramatists emphasise the problematic insufficiency of this divisive cultural model. Revenge tragedy, the essay argues, therefore grants its female characters an ambivalent status that notably parallels the intriguing allure of the tragedy’s male protagonists. In both cases, however, this challenging status is licensed by, and limited to, the consciously illusory space of the playhouse stage itself

Bound to Revenge: Multiple Revenge Tragedies in Shakespeare\u27s Hamlet

This paper will examine the notion of revenge, beginning with a history of the revenge tragedy genre (including its roots in the works of Seneca) as well as how the term was used to depict retribution during the Renaissance. A brief explanation of the differences between the different versions of Hamlet and why they are relevant to revenge accompanies the historical background. Using Shakespeare s Hamlet as one of the most famous examples of the genre, this thesis also explains multiple revenge tragedies occurring in the play and the common threads that unify them into a single piece of drama (specifically King Hamlet). Finally, a discussion of the film version of Hamlet and director and actor Kenneth Branagh follows. Branagh’s interpretation supports all three of the revenging sons present in the text, primarily through his use of color scheme and his interpretation of certain characters