Includes a scene by scene run through with summary and analysis, context, critics, and a breakdown of key themes into essay plans
Some points raised have been gathered through reading academic literature.
If you learn this, knowledge will not be a problem!!!
● First mentioned in 1589
● Honour and duty were prominent ideas in Elizabethan society
● Violent deaths were a reality at the time
● First version (Ur-Hamlet which was lost but is referenced by other works)
probably written by Thomas Kyd (he wrote the Spanish Tragedy)
Complicated abc and added complications:
a= ghost (or seems to be, could be devil in disguise)
b= claudius, hamlets kin and king. King and kin killing not good xx
c= two oddities: not out for the job, revenge imposed on him, 30, bookish man, not a
man of action
++ intersecting abc of revenge when hamlet accidentally kills polonius
Trying to outlaw revenge
Almost a parody of a revenge tragedy
Senecan revenge tragedy
● Looks back to Lucius Seneca (Roman playwright)
● Author of nine tragedies
● He showed all of the passions in excess such as hate, jealousy and love.
● He also used many sensational elements such as supernatural phenomena,
cruel torture and bloody violence
● Titus Andronicus is an obvious Senecan homage
● Hamlet tones down Senecan bloodbirths to explore the psychological turmoil
as Hamlet pursues his vengeance against the murderer of his father
Amleth
➔ Norse folk tale
➔ Inspiration of Hamlet
➔ Means ‘stupid’ or ‘madman’
➔ In the original tale, Amleth’s father kills the Norwegian king and then marries
the King of Denmark’s daughter when they have Amleth. His father’s brother
kills him and marries his mother. Amleth feigns madness. The new king
attempts to trick him but Amleth outsmarts him and kills him before becoming
king.
, ➔ Similarities to Hamlet:
◆ a villain who kills his brother, takes over the throne and then marries
his brother’s wife
◆ a cunning young hero, the King’s son, who pretends to be mad to
shield himself from his uncle
◆ three plots used by the King to uncover the young man’s secrets: a
young woman, a spy planted in the Queen’s bedroom (who is
uncovered and killed), and two escorts who take the prince to England
(also outwitted and killed)
◆ a hero who returns home during a funeral and finally achieves his
revenge through an exchange of swords.
Hamlet, spying, paranoia: Denmark’s a prison
● Sir Francis Walsingham- Queen Elizabeth I’s principal secretary. Fanatical
Anti-Catholic spymaster
● European anti-Protestant backdrop
● Domestic scene: repeated attempts to replace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of
Scots. North of england was a prominent Catholic stronghold
History has left many clues indicating that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
(1550–1604), wrote plays and poetry under the pen name “William Shakespeare.”
These clues, taken together, add up to a very strong case for Oxford as the true
author of Hamlet, King Lear, the Sonnets, and other works traditionally ...
1588 Spanish Armada
● Hamlet has parallels with 16th century England
● On the verge of war
Paranoia and religious conflict
Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism and Humanism
● ‘Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself’
● As an existentialist, sartre knows that without God, everything is
permitted
● So, ‘man is free, man is freedom’; he has to act without God, without
absolute values, and knowing there are no values to legitimise his
behaviour
● He is ‘condemned to be free’
● Existential angst: the crushing weight of living in a world with no God,
no absolute moral values, and in which we are called upon to decide
right from wrong, good from bad- without any true knowledge of truth, or
help from the supernatural realm
,Stichomythia
Cain and Abel murder
According to Genesis, Abel, a shepherd, offered the Lord the firstborn of his
flock. The Lord respected Abel's sacrifice but did not respect that offered by
Cain. In a jealous rage, Cain murdered Abel. Cain then became a fugitive
because his brother's innocent blood put a curse on him.
Walter Wilson Greg
● Believes the King gets upset over the play sis because he thinks Hamlet
is being insufferable
● The king does not recognise the scene as his own crime because either
the ghost was lying or it is a figment of Hamlet’s overwrought brain
● Perhaps Horatio lies about the ghost because they are attempting to
please Hamlet (the future king)
Gesta Denorum
● By Saxo Grammaticus
● Hamlet is based on this norse legend
● Amleth= mad in Danish
● In the legend, Hamlet feigned madness
T.S Eliot
● There is no objective correlative to explain Hamlet’s behaviour
● There seems to be no explanation for his mental degradation
● Believes Hamlet is a hybrid of ‘Ur-Hamlet’ which is why there is a
protagonist who should take revenge but doesn’t
Ernest Jones
● Extreme Freudian perspective
● Believes Hamlet suffers with an Oedipus complex
Calvinism and metatextuality
● Because calvinism follows the belief of predestination
● Does a text, which is written by someone who knows the outcome of the
text, calvinist?
● So, is a reference to Calvinism, therefore, metatextual?
● [Hamlet has] ‘a calvinistic insistence upon total depravity resulting from
original sin’ Alvis
, Homo Ludens
● Book written by Huizinga
● Play is a fundamental part of human culture
● Play is a voluntary and intrinsically motivated activity
● He describes play as occurring within a special space and time, a
"magic circle," where the rules and meanings of the game are defined
● Competitive nature of play, driving force behind development of culture
● Rituals and symbolic elements are considered integral
● Concerns about diminishing role of play
Realpolitik
● Power is pursued and kept at all costs
● World of political uncertainty and intrigue
● Threat of war
● Tyrannical ‘smiling’ Claudius is a modern usurper to a brave and
chivalrous king
● Danish subjects are ‘muddied’ restless seemingly in revolt
● This can be seen as mirroring Elizabethan England
Structuralist literary theory
● Any text inherently forms a ‘system’, with the various components
creating ‘meaning’
● A focus on ‘how’ meaning is created rather than ‘what’ it means
● Understanding of how literary conventions are created more than what
they convey- why does dark= evil, why is the damsel always in distress?
● Texts should be analysed scientifically, not personally
● Context and intertextual context is important
Semiology
● All language is arbitrary and there is no inherent meaning
● Language is a form of ‘sign’
● ‘Signs’ are made up of two parts- the ‘signifier’ and the ‘signified’- this is
true in language but also in all human interactions
● The difference between ‘langue’ (the language as defined by ‘rules’) and
‘parole’ (an individual act of speech or writing)
● Language is only understood as it exists in the specific context in which
it does exist
● Propp would then create Structuralist Narratology, wherein there are 31
narrative functions that make up folk/fairy tales, and all of these stories
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