Amleto

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Lingue
Voto:	1 (2)
Download:	55
Data:	19.04.2001
Numero di pagine:	9
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

REVENGE

Yet revenge tragedies were popular at the Globe theatre. The excitement of watching someone, who had been grievously wronged and whom the law would not help, take justice into his own hands and through various plots and stratagems punish the villain, was nail-biting stuff.
In the play, as the ghost ( I.v. 9-23) reveals the story of his murder, Hamlet is forced to take on the role of revenger earlier suggested by his black clothing. So at the start, he shows no doubts or hesitations(I.v. 29-31), but later he will think again about killing Claudius immediately.
The typical revenger of Elizabethan tragedy is a violent bloodthirsty and single-minded figure, but Hamlet is too intelligent to ignore all the difficulties associated with his task.
-First: is the ghost telling the truth? So Hamlet has to be sure that Claudius killed his father to get the throne of Denmark(III.ii. 237-242).
-Second: is the revenge legitimate? In the Elizabethan England, revenge was considered a crime and a sin, like a contemporary of Shakespeare, Francis Bacon said: "revenge is a kind of wild justice". Revengers could be arrested for murder and their souls were thought to be damned.
-Third: is the revenge prudent? Claudius seems to be a popular and effective king; nobody will thank Hamlet for murdering, or believe his story of a ghost. He is likely to be arrested and executed.
But the biggest problem for Hamlet is the truth of the ghost's words. So to prove what the ghost said, he tries to deceive Claudius and only when he understands that Claudius is really a murder, he explodes and kills Polonius and Claudius. The revenge has been delayed till the end of the play and this is a typical characteristic of revenge tragedies.
MELANCHOLY AND DEATH
Since the beginning of the play Hamlet has been presented as a melancholic person; in fact, Claudius and Gertrude try to convince him to abandon his black clothes for the mourning of his father and to return to life accepting the present situation:"Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy vailed lids seek for thy noble father in the dust" (I.ii. 68/72).
But Hamlet refuses their advice and starts to keep himself to himself because he has been hit by the ghost's words that have revealed Gertrude's unfaithfulness and that Claudius is the old king's murderer:"But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown" (I.v. 37/39).
Because of this, Hamlet doesn't accept the incestuous marriage between his mother and his uncle and he is in a situation of great responsibility because he should revenge his father but he is not sure at all: So he is very confused about what to do, life, love and women because of Ophelia, too, who has betrayed his love and confidence.
All of this makes Hamlet think of suicide and of reconsidering his vision of death. In Hamlet's soliloquy ("To be or not to be"), which is one of the most important part of the tragedy, characterized by doubts and inaction, which reveals that Hamlet is not ignorant and incapable but conscious and powerless, death is seen by the prince of Denmark as a way to escape from the problems and discomforts of life or the consequences of a noble revenge:"...and by a sleep, to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" (III.i. 61/63).
At the end of the play Hamlet dies after taking vengeance against the people who have caused his melancholy in a noble way: "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword" (III.i. 149).
In fact, before acting, Hamlet wants to be sure about the truth of the events so as to save his reputation which is more important than life for him: "If thou did'st ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, to tell my story" (V.ii. 352/354).
HAMLET'S STOICISM
The Renaissance rediscovered the minor,unassimilated schools of ancient thought: Cynism, Epicureanism, Skepticism, and,especially,Stoicism. Indeed,from Shakespeare’s time through the nineteenth century,"philosophical" meant in English primarily what in the twentieth century we would call "stoical".Stoicism was born in Athen with Zeno of Cizio (332-263 b.C.) and this philosophical school took its name from the "Stoa Pecile" (picture porch).With Stoicism we intend philosophical school based on endurance and detachment from the pain,accepting with resignation the universal law of the "Logos" (apathy).Every man is part of universal order and no-one can break it,but he can only endure the troubles and be happy for the sweet things.The top of stoic wisdom is living according to nature and accepting with happiness each destiny.The Stoics must follow the reason that teaches how everything is good in the universe because everything is governed by divine providence.The Stoics must also follow the duty (virtuous actions) and they mustn’t do bad actions;they live avoiding every passion with a perfect apathy.For the defence of the personal freedom the Stoics can also admit suicide.According to the universal law that governs everything the man must be inhabitant of the world (cosmopolitism) and every particular law,geographical and cultural difference are wrong and false because all men are free and equal.Hamlet shows to be a stoic in act III,in his soliloquy:the most famous words (vv 56) mean that he is thinking about life or death.
For a man is it nobler to live, enduring all the sufferings, or to die, escaping from the pain and the grieves? But this is only the first doubt for Hamlet; actually everybody knows that they have to suffer in their life, but no-one knows what there could be after death, so dying is also a sign of great courage. Hamlet must realize what is nobler and suicide depends on this choice: the Stoics admitted suicide, but whether it is wrong or right it depends on the nobility of the choice :(vv.70-76).In our opinion, Hamlet considers the endurance of the pain of life nobler because he says that the doubt between living or dying prevent anyone from acting: (vv.83-88).Hamlet also defines death like showing the inactivity of that state. Hamlet proves to be a stoic also in act V, in the scene of the graveyard. When he is speaking to Horatio he is thinking about the fact that everyone has to die, also the most powerful men in history like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar that are now dust : >(vv.212-213).This shows that for Hamlet there is a common,universal law that governs human lives and the only consolation for everyone is that troubles, problems and, above all, death are universal and everybody is affected. Hamlet, speaking toYorick’s skull, according to his philosophy, threatens also Gertrude of a similar end :(vv.192-194).When Hamlet feels the pain in his chest he says :(vv.215-216) and this means that he his ready to endure every pain to take his revenge and he actually also says:(vv.219-222). With these words he confirms the unchanging of the fate because death arrives according to a divine law that governs the whole universe. When Hamlet is going to die because he has drunk the poison and also Horatio wants to die,he stops him because the scholar must tell the true story about the events that took place at the Danish court and the prince says: (vv.352-355). It seems that Hamlet has finally decided what the most noble thing is: to live. Hamlet's behaviour reflects the priciples of Stoicism and,above all,he is really sure that there is a superior force that governs the life of everybody and that no-one can disobey it.

The end
Every day a gazelle gets up,
and she knows
she must run faster than the lion.
Every day a lion gets up,
and he knows
he must run faster than the gazelle.
Don’t care if you are
the gazelle or the lion:
just start running!
OEDIPUS COMPLEX
It is 4-or 5- year-old children who are generally affected by the Oedipus complex. Someone is affected by the Oedipus complex if they strongly love the parent of the opposite sex and hate the parent of the same sex. Some critics think that Hamlet is affected by an Oedipus complex. That means that Hamlet loves his mother and hates Claudius, his uncle, and that he is more horrified by his mother’s remarriage than by his uncle crime. So the cause of his melancholy is explained by his love for his mother. A critic, Dr. Johnson, shows that the source of his repugnance stems from the activation of his repressed childhood Oedipus complex: "The actual realisation of his early wish in the death of his father at the hands of a jealous rival would then have stimulated into activity these repressed memories, which would have produced, in the form of depression and other suffering, an obscure aftermath of his childhood’s conflict". Other critics think that we can find the reason of Hamlet’s melancholy in his sensitivity explaining that he hates Claudius because he is his father's murderer, governs in a different way and probably Gertrude committed adultery with him before King Hamlet’s death.
MISOGYNY
When Hamlet’s mother’s hasty remarriage had led Hamlet to the disillusioned view that " frailty, thy name is woman", Ophelia’s affection might yet have restored his spirit. But her unexplained refusal to see him soon after his mother’s remarriage completes Hamlet’s disillusionment with women. The first real reaction happens during the dialogue between Gertrude and him, and it seems that mysteriously he becomes rabid more against his mother then his uncle, though he is certain that Claudius is the culprit of his father’s murder. We can find a misogynyst behaviour in the violence of Hamlet’s treatment to Ophelia "Ha, ha, are you honest?" (act III, scene i) and later he says to her. "Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know will enough what monsters you make of them". In the second quotation the "you" is referred to all women and this treatment to Ophelia, who appears like the victim of the tragedy, is caused by anger against his mother and a hysterical hatred of women produced by his madness . Others defend Hamlet saying that he treats Ophelia in that way because he is disappointed in love and suspects that she has helped his enemies: when he said " where’s your father?" (act III, scene i) he had realised that Polonius is spying on him.
HAMLET’S MADNESS
True to the conversations of revenge tragedy, Hamlet warns his friends that he will possibly pretend to be mad, he will put on ‘an antic disposition’ to help him to carry out the Ghost’s instructions. Whether Hamlet is ever mad, ever pretends to be mad or is considered mad, it is something over which critics have been arguing for a long time. There are not two performances that will convey the same impression of the state of Hamlet’s mind in the episodes that follow his interview with the Ghost.
Most, if not all, of the behaviour Ophelia describes sounds like play-acting. Hamlet appears to be doing what revenge heroes often do – trying to persuade his intended victim that he is a harmless madman so he will find it easier to carry out his task. The person playing Hamlet therefore, should probably be dressed oddly, not simply in black. And his behaviour must be more than bitterly melancholy as it was in that scene, if the audience is to understand the King’s new anxiety.
We can see how Shakespeare presents "pure" madness in Ophelia‘s behaviour. Her "pretty" nonsense can be presented as charming or disturbing but it is comprehensible and complete in itself: shock and bereavement make her "incapable" one of the dramatic purposes in presenting Ophelia’s madness his to help the audience get a bearing upon Hamlet’s. The case would be much simpler if the prince did not, in lines which are surely meant to sound sincere, tell Laertes that he really has been mad. For most of the play when he the Prince’s madness has been a topic it has been clear to the audience that the term was a convention fiction.
For example, often when Hamlet talks to Polonius, what sounds to the foolish old man like nonsense as a thread of bitter satire running through it. Hamlet’s babble is not madness, but forthright contempt, privileged rudeness in a court where no-one speaks the truth. Similarly, when Hamlet taunts Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he uses, as they realize, "crafty madness" to mock them and lead them astray. His behaviour is fully under his own control. Claudius asserts that his nephew is mad because he is convinced that he is not and he needs an excuse to get rid of the threat Hamlet poses.
Madness can be defined as "being in a minority of one". Hamlet admires the one judicious person in the audience. If to be honest his to be "one man picked out of them thousand", Hamlet is not afraid to be in a moral minority of one as his black clothes.
TRAGEDY AND FATE
Tragedy derives from a Greek word "tragos" which means scapegoat. In Shakespeare’s tragedies the action is usually concentrated on a single, isolated individual who finds himself in opposition to society. The starting point some kind of challenge which presents itself as a blow of fate. But the tragic hero either tries to avoid the challenge or takes a course of action which is fatal to himself. The basis of Shakespeare’s plays is still narrative but their focus is often on a single character, which is the personification of bad qualities: Hamlet symbolises the doubts, Gertrude the lust. Hamlet is a revenge play about how the hero chooses to carry his vengeance on his uncle, the villain, who has murdered his father, crowned himself King an married his mother. Fate is ever present in Shakespeare’s tragedy, but its role in earlier tragedies is not the same as in later ones. In early tragedies fate is a malign force which works against its victims through no fault of their own. In his great tragedies, like Hamlet, Shakespeare explores the way a man’s own character contributes to his downfall. The tragic hero makes a fatal mistake and from that moment there’s no respite; he’s doomed to catastrophe by a relent lessfate. The roman philosopher Seneca had considerable influence on Shakespeare. His tragedies were very popular in translation in Shakespeare’s time. He used exaggerated rhetoric, frequent blood-thirsty details, and introduced ghost and magic.