Course:
M.A (English)
Topic:
Critical appreciation of Hamlet
Semester:
01
Roll
No. : 12
Paper
No.: 01
Paper
Name: The Renaissance Literature
Email
Id : budhiditya900@gmail.com
Submitted
to: Dr.Dilip Barad,
Smt.
S.B.Gardi
Department
of English,
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Critical
Appreciation of Hamlet.
The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,
is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare at an uncertain date between 1599
and 1602. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the longest play and is ranked among the most
powerful and influential tragedies in English Literature, with a story capable
of “seemingly endless retelling and adaptations by others”. The play’s
structure and depth of characterization have inspired much critical scrutiny. (wikipedia,
2016)
It is a story of a man who is innocent, moral and pure by acts and emotions but
misfortune leads him to death and so many people also. Hamlet is pure by acts
and soul but when this play opens we find that he is innocent but his father’s
ghost instigates him to take revenge of his father’s death and his mother’s
hasty marriage with Hamlet’s uncle (Claudius). The story is this entire thing,
so we can say it as a “Revenge Play”.
In Hamlet the young prince Hamlet
comes home to Denmark to attend his dead father’s funeral. Hamlet gets shocked
when he learns that his mother (Gertrude) has already married his uncle
(Claudius). After the funeral at night a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore
Castle in Denmark. It was first seen by a pair of watchmen than by the scholar
Horatio, the ghost resembled the recently deceased king Hamlet, whose brother
Claudius had inherited the throne and married his widow wife Queen Gertrude.
When Horatio brings Hamlet the son of dead king Hamlet and Gertrude to the
ghost, the ghost speaks, declares ominously that it is his father’s spirit and
how he was murdered none other by Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on
the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost said-
[“Ghost
I am the father’s spirit
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the
night,
And for the day confined to
fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of
nature
Are burnt
and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-
house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow
up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars,
start from their
spheres,
Thy knotted and combined
locks to part
And each particular hair to
stand an end,
Like quills upon the
fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must
not be
to ears of flesh and blood.
List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy
dear father love—
Hamlet
O God!
Ghost
Revenge his foul and most unnatural
murder.”] (pritiba's assignment, 2014)
Saying this
ghost disappears with the dawn. Prince Hamlet devotes himself for avenging his
father’s death, but as he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays
entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. There is tension and
supernatural mystery in the beginning of the novel. We feel this tension when
at the opening scene Francisco feels nervous.
Claudius and Gertrude get worried
about the Prince’s erratic behaviour and attempt to discover its cause. They
employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him.
When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, hears this he says that Hamlet may
be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in
conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet seemed mad, he didn’t seem to
love Ophelia; he orders Ophelia to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes
to ban marriages. He loves Ophelia but
he cannot admit that and Ophelia also loves Hamlet, and Ophelia thinks about
Hamlet that,
Oh, what a noble mind is here
o'er thrown!-
The
courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th’ expectancy and rose of the
fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould
of form, (pritiba's assignment, 2014)
A group of travelling actors comes to
Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt and the name
of the play was The Murder of Gonzago.
He said the players to perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which
Hamlet thinks his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is
guilty, he will surely react. When the murder scene arrives in the theater,
Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agrees that this
proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. He
thought that killing Claudius while praying would send his soul to Heaven,
which Hamlet didn’t want and Hamlet considered it as an inadequate revenge and
decided to wait. Claudius frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his
own safety ordered that Hamlet should be sent to England at once.
Before leaving Hamlet went to
confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius was hiding behind a tapestry.
Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes that the King is
hiding there and he impulsively drags his sword out and without seeing stabs
Polonius through the fabric. Claudius punishes Hamlet for Polonius’s death by
exiling him to England with his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Claudius’s plan includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put
to death. Hamlet discovers the plot and arranges for the hanging of Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern instead. Ophelia distraught over her father’s death and
Hamlet’s behaviour drowns while singing sad love songs bemoaning the fate of a
spurned lover. Her brother Laertes falls next. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has
been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him
that Hamlet is responsible for his father’s and sister’s death. Hamlet is very
lucky person because the ship by which he was sent to England got attacked by
the pirates. He was saved from being murdered by the English authorities, but
for his fight against the pirates he could have been killed in that battle. His
boarding the pirate ship shows again his capacity impulsive. Claudius is a
scheming villain. He does not take any action against Hamlet for killing
Polonius because he has another plan in his mind for putting an end to Hamlet’s
life, and Laertes also becomes a part of this plan readily because he has a
strong reason to do so. Laertes desires to have his father’s murder as natural
as Hamlet’s desire to avenge the murder of his father. However, the method by
which he had been convinced by Claudius and which he will try to murder Hamlet
is by no means honourable.
There is also a comic scene in the
play after the tragic death of Ophelia. It is so while the grave diggers
(clowns) sings in the course of his digging a grave puzzles Hamlet, Horatio
says that he is no longer sensitive to death because it has become a habit of
him to dig graves. While the second grave digger goes to fetch some liquor
Hamlet and Horatio, enter and asks question to the first grave digger. The
grave digger and Hamlet engage in a witty game of “chop- logic”- repartee
composed of a series of questions and answers. The grave digger says Hamlet
that he has been digging graves since the day Old King Hamlet defeated the Old
King Fortinbras, the very birthday of Prince Hamlet – “he that’s mad, and sent
to England”- thirty years ago. Hamlet mulls over the nature of life and death,
and the great chasm between the two states. He tosses skulls and parries with
the possibilities of what each may have been in life. He asks the grave digger
whose grave he is in, and the grave digger plays with the pun and answers that
the grave is one who was a woman. But that amusing dialogue of Hamlet and the
grave digger gives place to a tragic situation when Hamlet comes to know about Ophelia’s
death that she is no more and dead and the new grave is meant for her. When
Ophelia’s body is placed into the grave, Hamlet watches the Queen strew the
coffin with flowers. “Sweets to the sweet,” she says; “I hoped thou shouldst
have been my Hamlet’s wife”. (cliffnotes) Hamlet leaps into
the grave and attacks Laertes, who has just cursed him. Hamlet and Laertes
argued over who loved Ophelia best. Laertes tries to strangle Hamlet, but attendants
separate them. Gertrude decries her son’s madness. Claudius asks Horatio to
look after Hamlet and promises Laertes immediate satisfaction. He instructs
Gertrude to have her son watched, implying that another death will serve as
Ophelia’s memorial.
Hamlet recalls the events of his escape
from the plot of killing him. He tells Horatio that the night when the pirates
took him, he was unable to sleep, and he used the opportunity to investigate
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s cabin. Groping in the darkness, he discovered
letters addressed to the English King, which he managed to open with
surreptitious skill. To his surprise he read that Claudius has asked the King
of England to imprison and behead Hamlet as soon as possible. Horatio remains
silent until Hamlet hands him the letter. Hamlet says that he immediately
conjured a brilliant plan. He composed a second set of letter in the original
style ordering that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should be killed. They both
were unaware about the exchange of letters which Hamlet did, and thus according
to Hamlet, their demise will be due to their own actions in delivering the
letter to the English King. Claudius’s behaviour horrifies Horatio, “what a
King is this!” he exclaims. Hamlet reminds him that this is the same King who
killed the right King, made Gertrude a whore and robbed Hamlet of his own
birthright, at one stroke. Hamlet says that he is sorry about one thing that
is; in all this he has to engage Laertes. Osric, a courtier, enters and Hamlet
mocks at the man’s flamboyance. Osric tells Hamlet that Laertes invites the
Prince for a duel with him. Horatio feels uneasy about the duel and suggests
that Hamlet could lose. Hamlet shrugs off any possibility of Laertes’s winning,
but says that in any event one cannot avoid one’s destiny. Hamlet must do what
he must do. The duel starts, Hamlet asks Laertes to forgive his earlier acts of
madness at Ophelia’s grave. He further claims that his madness, not he himself,
is responsible for Polonius’s death, and he begs pardon for the crime. Laertes
remains stiff and says that he has no grudge. Osric brings the swords and
Laertes makes a show of choosing the sword. The King sets wine for the duelists
and hold up the cup intended for Hamlet. Osric proclaims a hit in favour of
Hamlet and Claudius holds Hamlet’s goblet and takes a drink. Claudius drops a
pearl in the wine as a gift to Hamlet. When Hamlet hits Laertes a second time,
then Laertes says it to be a mere touch. Claudius assures Gertrude that “Our
son shall win”. Gertrude agrees and takes Hamlet’s wine, wipes his brow, and
offers him a drink, which he refuses. She then toasts her son, Claudius asks
her not to drink, but again she drinks and wipes Hamlet’s brow. Laertes says
Claudius that the time has come to hit him with the poisonous tip but Claudius
disagrees. Hamlet accuses him of dallying and presses for a third bout. The two
fight again and Laertes hits Hamlet with the poisoned tip. Both drop their
swords and in the scuffle, Hamlet picks up Laertes’s sword and Laertes picks up
Hamlet’s sword. Hamlet hits Laertes with the poisoned sword. Gertrude swoons.
Hamlet sees the Queen fall and asks anxiously “How does the Queen?” the King
assures him saying that the Queen has fainted seeing the blood, but Gertrude
cries out that the drink has poisoned her. Hamlet gets angry and orders the
doors to be locked so that the King cannot escape. Laertes reveals the murder
plot to Hamlet and says that the sword which is in Hamlet’s hands is being
poisoned. In a fury, Hamlet runs the sword through Claudius yelling, “Venom to
they work”. (cliffnotes) Before Claudius died
Hamlet poured the poisonous wine down the King’s throat. Hamlet then goes to
Laertes who was about to die, the two forgave each other so that none of them
is denied from going to Heaven. Laertes dies and Horatio rushes to Hamlet’s
side.
Hamlet tells that he is dead, and
asks Horatio “tell my story”. Osric announces the sound of an approaching army,
which meant that Fortinbras has arrived defeating the Poles. Hamlet tells
Horatio to ensure that the Danish crown passes to Fortinbras. With the words
“The rest is silence”, Hamlet dies and Horatio wishes him a gentle rest. Fortinbras
appalled by the sight of the mayhem that greets him, “with sorrow” recognizes
his right to wear the crown of Denmark, which Horatio collaborates with
Hamlet’s words.
Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be given
military honors, “with music and rite of war”. He orders that Hamlet’s body
should be a carried “like a soldier”. Fortinbras said that if Hamlet had had
the chance, he would “have proved the most loyal”. He ordered the firing of
ordnance, with which the play ends. (cliffnotes)
cliffnotes.
(n.d.). Retrieved from
http://cms.cliffsnotes.com/en/Literature/H/Hamlet/Summary-and-Analysis/Act-V-Scene-1.aspx
pritiba's assignment. (2014, 9 28). Retrieved from
http://pritibagohil1416.blogspot.in/2014/09/critical-appreciation-of-hamlet.html
wikipedia. (2016, 11 3). Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet
No comments:
Post a Comment