Hamlet and Ophelia, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Prince Hamlet is the main character in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. Image File history File linksMetadata Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Hamlet_and_Ophelia. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Hamlet_and_Ophelia. ... Dante Gabriel Rossetti (May 12, 1828 - April 10, 1882) was an English poet, painter and translator. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career: one of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, and he followed it a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. ... Hamlet and Horatio in the cemetery by Eugène Delacroix For other uses, see Hamlet (disambiguation). ...

Views of Hamlet

Perhaps the most straightforward view sees Hamlet as seeking truth in order to be certain that he is justified in carrying out the revenge called for by a ghost that claims to be the spirit of his father. The most standard view is that Hamlet is highly indecisive, which is the view as proposed by Coleridge and a number of other critics. "Shakespeare wished to impress upon us the truth, that action is the chief end to existence". The 1948 movie with Laurence Olivier in the title role is introduced by a voiceover: "This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind." Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. ...

Others see Hamlet as a person charged with a duty that he both knows and feels is right, yet is unwilling to carry out. In this view, all of his efforts to satisfy himself of King Claudius' guilt, or his failure to act when he can, are evidence of this unwillingness, and Hamlet berates himself for his inability to carry out his task. After observing a play-actor performing a scene, he notes that the actor was moved to tears in the passion of the story and compares this passion for an ancient Greek character, Hecuba, in light of his own situation: The Trojan Women (in Greek, Troiades) is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. ...

Hamlet reclines next to Ophelia in Edwin Austin Abbey's The Play Scene in Hamlet

"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all his visage wan'd;

Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!

For Hecuba?

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her?" […]

Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (900x553, 134 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Edwin Austin Abbey Ophelia Prince Hamlet ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (900x553, 134 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Edwin Austin Abbey Ophelia Prince Hamlet ... Edwin Austin Abbey, drawn by John Singer Sargent in 1888 Edwin Austin Abbey (April 1, 1852 – August 1, 1911) was an American artist, illustrator, and painter. ...

Etymology of Hamlet

Hamlet’s name is one filled with meaning and controversy. The name Hamlet occurs as early as the tenth century. His name is easily derived in form from Belleforest and the lost play from Amlethus of Saxo, and remaining in this form is then derived from its Latin form of the old Jutish Amlethoe. From this point the name can be divided into sections with common meanings. In terms of etymology the root name of Hamlet is an Icelandic noun, Amlooi, meaning ‘fool.’ However this name is derived from the way that Hamlet acts in the play and is not in all actuality the true Etymology of the name since the meaning is found through the actions of Hamlet. The second way of translating the name is by analyzing the noun aml-ooi into ‘raving mad’ and the second half, amla into ‘routine’. Later these names were incorporated into Irish dialect as Amlodhe. As phonetic laws took their course the name’s spelling changed eventually leaving it as Amlaidhe. This Irish name was given to a hero in a common folk story. The route of this name is ‘furious, raging, wild.’ These are all meanings of which Shakespeare would have been aware of when deciding on the name for his longest play.^[1]

Asimov

Another view of Hamlet, advanced by Isaac Asimov in his Guide to Shakespeare, holds that his actions are attributable not to indecision, but to multiple motivations: his desire to avenge the wrong done to his father, coupled with his own ambition to succeed to the throne. The tragic error committed by Hamlet, in Asimov's view, is his overreaching wish to see Claudius damned, and not merely dead, which prevents him from killing Claudius at the opportune moment. Isaac Asimov (January 2?, 1920?[1] – April 6, 1992), IPA: , originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as Айзек Азимов) was a Russian-born American Jewish author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. ...

Influence of the Reformation

Marcellus, Horatio, Hamlet, and the Ghost by Henry Fuseli.

It has also been suggested that Hamlet's hesitations may also be rooted in the religious beliefs of Shakespeare's time. The Reformation had generated debate about the existence of purgatory (where King Hamlet claims he currently resides). The concept of purgatory is a Catholic one, and was frowned on in Protestant England. It is possible that Hamlet's own logic ought to be taken seriously. Hamlet says that he will not kill his uncle because death would send him straight to heaven, while his father (having died without foreknowledge of his death) is in purgatory doing penance for his. Hamlet's opportunity to kill his uncle comes just after the uncle has supposedly made his peace with God. Hamlet says that he would much rather take a stab at the murderer while he is frolicking in the incestuous sheets, or gambling and drinking, so he could be sure of his going straight to Hell. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2024x1536, 399 KB) [edit] Summary Henry Fuseli - Hamlet and his fathers Ghost (1780-1785, ink and pencil on cardboard, 38 × 49,5 cm) [edit] Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2024x1536, 399 KB) [edit] Summary Henry Fuseli - Hamlet and his fathers Ghost (1780-1785, ink and pencil on cardboard, 38 × 49,5 cm) [edit] Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on... Fuseli talking to Johann Jakob Bodmer, 1778-1781. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which began in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church, but ended in division and the establishment of new institutions, most importantly Lutheranism, Reformed churches, and Anabaptists. ... Illustration for Dantes Purgatorio (18), by Gustave Doré. Purgatory refers to the Catholic doctrine of the the final purification of the elect which states that, all who die in Gods grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      Protestantism encompasses the forms...

Freudian interpretation

Ernest Jones, following the work of Freud, held that Hamlet suffered from the 'Oedipus complex'. He said in his essay "The Oedipus-Complex as An Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery: A Study in Motive": Ernest Jones (1879-1958) was arguably the best-known follower of Sigmund Freud. ...

His moral fate is bound up with his uncle's for good or ill. The call of duty to slay his uncle cannot be obeyed because it links itself with the call of his nature to slay his mother's husband, whether this is the first or the second; the latter call is strongly "repressed," and therefore necessarily the former also.

Interestingly, Harold Bloom did a "Shakespearean Criticism" of Freud's work in response. Harold Bloom (b. ...

As a mirror of the audience

Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Hamlet in the acclaimed 1964 film by Grigori Kozintsev.

It has also been suggested that Hamlet, who is described by Ophelia as "th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state, / The glass of fashion and the mould of form" (Act III, Scene i, lines 148-9), is ultimately a reflection of all of the interpretations possessed by other characters in the play—and perhaps also by the members of an audience watching him. Polonius, most obviously, has a habit of misreading his own expectations into Hamlet’s actions ("Still harping on my daughter!"), though many other characters in the play participate in analogous behaviour. Image File history File links Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Hamlet in Grigori Kozintsevs screen version of the play (1966). ... Image File history File links Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Hamlet in Grigori Kozintsevs screen version of the play (1966). ... Smoktunovsky as Hamlet in the 1964 movie. ... Hamlet is a 1964 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Hamlet based on the Russian translation of Boris Pasternak. ... Grigori Mikhailovich Kozintsev (Russian: ; Kiev, 22 March (O.S. 9 March) 1905 – Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, 11 May 1973) was a Soviet Russian film director. ...

Gertrude has a similar tendency to interpret all of her son’s activities as the result of her "o’erhasty marriage" alone. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tend to find the stalled ambitions of a courtier in their former schoolmate’s behaviour, whereas Claudius seems to be concerned with Hamlet’s motivation only so far as it reveals the degree to which his nephew is a potential threat. Ophelia, like her father, waits in vain for Hamlet to give her signs of affection, and Horatio would have little reason to think that Hamlet was concerned with anything more pressing than the commandment of the ghost. And the First Gravedigger seems to think that Prince Hamlet, like that "whoreson mad fellow” Yorick, is simply insane without any need for explanation. Several critics, including Stephen Booth and William Empson have further investigated the analogous relationship between Hamlet, the play, and its audience. Stephen Booth (born 19??) is a professor of English literature at the University of California-Berkeley. ... William Empson Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an English literary critic and poet, reckoned by some to be the greatest English literary critic after Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt and fitting heir to their mode of witty, fiercely heterodox and imaginatively rich criticism. ...

Nevertheless, over the last four centuries Prince Hamlet has become an icon in the entire western consciousness: the definition of what it means to be intelligent, and perhaps, fully human.

Hamlet's parallels with other characters

One aspect of Hamlet's character is the way in which he relects other characters, including the play's primary antagonist, Claudius. In the play within a play, for instance, Gonzago, the king, is murdered in the garden by his nephew, Lucianus; although King Hamlet is murdered by his brother, in the Mousetrap , the regicide is a nephew, like Prince Hamlet. However, it is also worth noting that each of the characters in the play-within-a-play maps to two major characters in Hamlet, an instance of the play's many doubles:

• Lucianus, like Hamlet, is both a regicide and a nephew to the king; like Claudius, he is a regicide that operates by pouring poison into ears.

• The Player King, like Hamlet, is an erratic melancholic; like King Hamlet, he is poisoned via his ear while reclining in his orchard.

• The Player Queen, like Ophelia, attends to a character that is "so far from cheer and from [a] former state"; like Gertrude, she remarries a regicide.

Hamlet is also, in some form, a reflection of most other characters in the play (or perhaps vice versa):

• Hamlet, Laertes, Fortinbras and Phyrrus are all avenging sons. Hamlet and Laertes both blame Claudius for the death of their fathers. Hamlet and Phyrrus are both seized by inaction at some point in their respective narratives and each avenges his father. Hamlet and Fortinbras both have plans that are thwarted by uncles that are also kings.

• Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Osric and Polonius are all courtiers.

• Hamlet, his father, Bernardo, Marcellus, Francisco, Fortinbras and several other characters are all soldiers.

• Hamlet and his father share a name (as do Fortinbras and his father).

• Hamlet, Horatio, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Laertes are all students.

• Hamlet, his father, Gertrude and Claudius are all members of the Royal Family. Each of them is also killed by poison -- poison that Claudius is responsible for.

• Hamlet and Ophelia are each rebuked by their surviving parent in subsequent scenes (1,2); the surviving parent of each happens to be of the opposite gender. Both also enter scenes reading books (1,2) and there is a contrast between the (possibly) pretend madness of Hamlet and the very real insanity of Ophelia.

• Hamlet, Horatio, Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Claudius are each "lawful espials" at some point in the play.

Performers

Taking on the role of Hamlet is often considered the pinnacle of an actor's career. Many actors have taken on the role, on stage and later on screen. This list shows just a few of the notable performers to play the role.

• Stage
  • Richard Burbage originated the role of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre.
  • Sir John Gielgud played Hamlet over 500 times between 1930 and 1945.
  • Christopher Walken played the role for the American Shakespeare Company in 1975.
  • Toby Stephens played the role for Royal Shakespeare Company in 2004.
• Film
  • Danish actress Asta Nielsen portrayed Hamlet in a loose 1921 adaptation which reimagines Hamlet as a woman.
  • Sir Laurence Olivier directed himself as Hamlet in the 1948 film.
  • Richard Burton portrayed Hamlet in a 1964 filmed version of the stage play.
  • Mel Gibson played Hamlet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 version.
  • Kenneth Branagh directed himself as Hamlet in 1996.
  • Ethan Hawke played Hamlet in a contemporary adaptation released in 2000.
• Television
  • Derek Jacobi played Hamlet in the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare production.

Unknown artist: Portrait of Richard Burbage, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London Richard Burbage (July 7, 1568 – March 13, 1619) was an actor and theatre owner. ... This article is about the Globe Theatre of Shakespeare (commonly known as Shakespeares Globe Theatre) and includes information about both the original and its modern reconstruction. ... John Gielgud as photographed in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten Sir Arthur John Gielgud OM CH (April 14, 1904–May 21, 2000) was an English theatre and film actor, regarded by many as one of the greatest of his time. ... Christopher Walken (born March 31, 1943) is an Academy Award-winning American film and theatre actor who is best known for roles such as the Bond villain Max Zorin in the 1985 blockbuster A View to a Kill. ... Toby Stephens (born April 21, 1969) is an English stage, television and film actor, best known for playing supervillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day (2002) and Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre (2006). ... Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a British theatre company. ... shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Asta Nielsen Asta Sofie Amalie Nielsen (September 11, 1883 - May 24, 1972), also known as Die Asta, was a Danish actress, mostly appearing in German silent films during the 1910s and 1920s. ... Laurence Olivier, as photographed in 1939 by Carl Van Vechten Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (May 22, 1907 – July 11, 1989) was an English actor and director, esteemed by many as the greatest actor of the 20th century. ... Richard Burton CBE (November 10, 1925 – August 5, 1984) was a Welsh actor. ... Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson AO (born January 3, 1956) is an American born Australian actor, director, and producer. ... Franco Zeffirelli (born Gianfranco Corsi on February 12, 1923), is an Italian film director. ... Kenneth Charles Branagh (born December 10, 1960) is an Emmy Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated Northern Irish-born actor and film director. ... Ethan Green Hawke (born November 6, 1970) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, writer and film director. ... Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE (IPA: ) (born 22 October 1938) is an English actor and director, knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre. ... The BBC Television Shakespeare was a set of television adaptations of the plays of Shakespeare, produced by the BBC between 1978 and 1985. ...

Notes

1. ^ Kemp Malone The Review of English Studies, Vol. 3, No. 11 (Jul.,1927),pp.257-271 <http://www.jstor.org/view/00346551/ap020014/02a00000/0>

References

• Jenkins, Harold. Hamlet. Ed. Methuen, 1982. (The Arden Shakespeare)
• Wilson, J. Dover, What Happens in Hamlet. Cambridge University Press; 3rd edition, 1951. (First published in 1935)