Hamlet By William Shakespeare
…My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
Besides being one of the most powerful tragedies of English literature, Hamlet has also been one of the oft-cited works in philosophy, psychology and fiction. From being the absurd hero of Albert Camus’s philosophy, to being the Oedipus of Freudian psychoanalytics, Hamlet has played more parts without The Tragedy of Hamlet than he has played within.
The reader is immediately put in the state of discomfort by Shakespeare when he begins the play with an apparition appearing before soldiers. Then the plot unravels and we come to know how Claudius, the current King of Denmark seemed to have murdered his brother and married his wife Gertrude. The apparition is none other than King Hamlet who has been slain so mischievously. His son Hamlet is immediately put in conflict by the apparition when he is charged to execute Claudius’s murder to avenge his father’s.
The text, it seems to me, does not accentuate how Hamlet proceeds to execute his dead father's will, but why he is hesitant and conflicted while doing so. While psychoanalytical theories have attributed this to Oedipus’s complex in Hamlet, and search for the absurd in text would point us to its meta-theatrical nature, I think these layers in themselves is what makes hamlet a tale that has stuck in literature for such a long time. The pause between intention and action seems to be more interesting to me than the action itself. Shakespeare’s work is rife with irony, sarcasm and metaphors. Hamlet is not a difficult read, but interpreting the meaning of metaphors could be trying at some points.
I can safely recommend Hamlet to any general reader.
…My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
Besides being one of the most powerful tragedies of English literature, Hamlet has also been one of the oft-cited works in philosophy, psychology and fiction. From being the absurd hero of Albert Camus’s philosophy, to being the Oedipus of Freudian psychoanalytics, Hamlet has played more parts without The Tragedy of Hamlet than he has played within.
The reader is immediately put in the state of discomfort by Shakespeare when he begins the play with an apparition appearing before soldiers. Then the plot unravels and we come to know how Claudius, the current King of Denmark seemed to have murdered his brother and married his wife Gertrude. The apparition is none other than King Hamlet who has been slain so mischievously. His son Hamlet is immediately put in conflict by the apparition when he is charged to execute Claudius’s murder to avenge his father’s.
The text, it seems to me, does not accentuate how Hamlet proceeds to execute his dead father's will, but why he is hesitant and conflicted while doing so. While psychoanalytical theories have attributed this to Oedipus’s complex in Hamlet, and search for the absurd in text would point us to its meta-theatrical nature, I think these layers in themselves is what makes hamlet a tale that has stuck in literature for such a long time. The pause between intention and action seems to be more interesting to me than the action itself. Shakespeare’s work is rife with irony, sarcasm and metaphors. Hamlet is not a difficult read, but interpreting the meaning of metaphors could be trying at some points.
I can safely recommend Hamlet to any general reader.
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