William Shakespeare's Hamlet

William Shakespeare's Hamlet

When first introduced to Hamlet he is a character full of pain and

confusion, still mourning his father’s death, ‘But two months

dead-nay, not so much, not two’.[1] The punctuation here highlights

Hamlet’s anguish. Significantly, Hamlet is already portrayed as a

misfit, as no one else within the court but Hamlet is wearing mourning

clothes; in Shakespeare’s time it would have been worn for at least a

year following the death of a king. This gives an immediate and

striking indication of the character’s isolation, his alienation and

the power Claudius has already obtained within the court.

The rhythm of Hamlet’s words in first soliloquy ‘How weary, stale,

flat and unprofitable’[2] conveys his weariness. In an emotional

speech of anger, and grief, Hamlet explains that everything in his

world is either hopeless or contemptible. Evidence of this is his

suggestions of rot and corruption, ‘things rank and gross in nature’[3],

and in the metaphor associating the world with ‘an unweeded garden’[4].

This suggests that Hamlet sees Denmark as a paradise destroyed by

sexual sin, an interpretation immediately recognizable to an

Elizabethan audience accustomed to biblical motifs. As he is isolated

within the court he can be seen as a misfit; he is unhappy with the

new regime and does not accept the way the court is portrayed. In

addition, his powerlessness to counter the Machiavellian dominance of

Claudius demands our sympathy.

Shakespeare can be seen as presenting Hamlet as not only politically

and emotionally alone, but also as a troubled character attempting to

deal with complex and contradictory respo...

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... [5] I.2.154

[6] I.2.156-157

[7] I.2.140

[8] I.2.139-140

[9] II.II.14-17

[10] I.II.132

[11] II.II162-164

[12] II.II.600-601

[13] Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature by Augustus William

Schlegel (1808), translated by John Black (London, 1846).

[14]Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism , ed. Thomas M. Raysor

(London: Constable, 1930).

[15] III.1.85

[16] II.2.594-596

[17] William Hazzlit: from Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, 1817

[18] Newell Shakespeare Bulletin: A Journal of Performance Criticism

and Scholarship 9.4 (1991 Fall): 31-33

[19] II.II.561-563

[20] III.1.59-60

[21] III.3.383

[22] III.3.84-87

[23] III.3.93

[24] IV.4.45-46

[25] IV.5.18-19

[26] IV.3.21-24

[27] IV.3.67-68

[28] V.II.57-58

[29] V.II.65-67