Hamlet

1. Hamlet Maurizio Calbi

2. Some contexts • 1. the family as the State in microcosm, the stability of State and Family inter-dependent. • 2. emergence of commerce/nascent capitalism. • 3. women as property, not property-owners; as sexually voracious; required to guard 'modesty'.

3. a)The divine right of kings • The state of the monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. […]. In the Scriptures kings are called gods and so their power is after a certain relation compared to the divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families for a king is truly Parens Patriae [i. e. father of his country], the politic father of his people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man.

4. Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of the divine power upon earth. For if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create or destroy, make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or to send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none, to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure … And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects; they have power of raising and casting down; of life and of death [...] and yet accountable to none but God only.

5. A father may dispose of this inheritance to his children at his pleasure, yea, even disinherit the eldest upon just occasions and prefer the youngest, according to his liking; make them beggars or rich at his pleasure; restrain, or banish out of his presence as he finds them give cause of offence; or restore them in favour again with the penitent sinners. So may the king deal with his subjects. • And lastly, as for the head of the natural body, the head hath the power of directing all the members of the body to that use which the judgement of the head thinks most convenient. It may apply sharp cures or cut off corrupt members, let blood in what proportion it thinks fit and as the body may spare, but yet is all this power ordained by God ad aedificationem, non ad destructionem [i. e., for construction, not destruction]...

6. And therefore a king governing in a settled kingdom leaves to be a king and degenerates into a tyrant, as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his laws... As for my part, I thank God I have ever given good proof that I never had intention to the contrary and I am sure to go to my grave with that reputation and comfort, that never king was in all his time more careful to have his laws duly observed, and himself to govern thereafter, than I... • (James I's speech to Parliament, 21 March 1610)

7. b) Marriage • In this consolidation that we call wedlock is a locking together. It is true that man and wife are one person, but understand in what manner. When a small brook or little rivulet incorporateth wíth Rhodanus [i. e., the Rhone], Humber, or Thames, the poor rivulet loseth her name […]. A woman as soon as she is married is called covert, in Latin nupta, that is, 'veiled’; as it were, clouded and overshadowed, she hath lost her stream. I may more truly, far away, say to a married woman, her new self is her superior, her companion, her master... The common law here shaketh hands with divinity. (T. E., The Lawes Resolutíons of Womens Rights (1632).

8. Gender roles • The man is as the head, and the woman is as the body... And as it is against the order of Nature that the body should rule the head; so it is no less against the course of all good that the woman should usurp authority to herself over her husband, the head. (Thomas Gataker, Marriage Duties (1620)).

9. Enforced Marriage • Oh, the heartbreakings • Of miserable maids, where love's enforced! • The best condition is but bad enough: • When women have their choices, commonly • They do but buy their thraldoms, and bring great portions • To men to keep'em in subjection. • No misery surmounts a woman's: • Men buy their slaves, but women buy their masters. (Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women (c. 1623)

10. Shakespeare's Poetic Language • Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, and longer poems are written predominantly - but not exclusively - in blank verse. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter. The word "iambic" is from iamb - a two-syllable unit the pronunciation of which has a stress on the second syllable; for example, "delight," "tonight," and "today" are iambs (while "dinner," "evening," and "ticket" are trochees - a two syllable unit in which the stress is on the first syllable). Pentameter is a line that has five such pronunciation stresses, or beats. An iambic pentameter line will generally have five stresses and ten syllables, though some lines will have eleven syllables, in what is sometimes referred to as a feminine ending.

11. Verse • Iambic pentameter was not Shakespeare's invention. Chaucer used iambic pentameter in the Canterbury Tales in the fourteenth century, and by the early sixteenth century, it had become the predominant meter for English verse. Blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter, was first used by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in the early 16th century. The first use of blank verse in English drama was in 1561, when Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton presented the first great English tragedy, Gorboduc. One of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe, who is perhaps best known for his play Dr. Faustus, used blank verse so skilfully that at that time he was considered its greatest practitioner.

12. Themes in Hamlet: madness • Madness: Is he or isn't he? This is the perennial question about Hamlet. Hamlet announces to Horatio that he will "put an antic disposition on" (1.5.172); in other words, that he will act mad. In the original legend, which Shakespeare adapted for this play, the Danish prince Amlethus clearly pretends to be mad in order to buy himself enough time and space to accomplish his desired revenge. Note that Hamlet always appears mad before those characters from whom he has something to fear - Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, and even poor Ophelia, after she has been reduced to the role of bait for Hamlet.

13. Indirect Versus Direct Action • This theme is encapsulated in Polonius's desire to "[b]y indirections, find directions out" (2.1.66), regarding Laertes's activities in France. Indirection is the method by which each of the principal characters pursues his course. Hamlet uses the play to "catch the conscience of the King" (2.2.617). Polonius uses Reynaldo to spy upon Laertes, and Ophelia to spy upon Hamlet, and Claudius uses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet. Laertes, who initially seems inclined to direct action when he confronts Claudius over the death of his father, is eventually drawn into the web of indirection as well, when he agrees to conspire with Claudius in an attempt to murder Hamlet.

14. Direct action • The obvious contrast to the indirection, sneaking, and back-stabbing of the Danish court is the behaviour of Fortinbras, the Norwegian prince, who takes direct action by invading Denmark and taking the throne at the end of the play. Even Fortinbras, however, employs some indirection, since he uses the invasion of Poland as a pretext to get his forces in the field so that he may then invade Denmark.

15. Appearance versus Reality • Appearance versus reality is a theme that surfaces often. For example, Hamlet realizes early on that "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain" (1.5.108). He also uses the appearance of madness to hide the reality of his desire for revenge. This theme ties in nicely with that of the supernatural since, with each case, what is real must be separated from what merely appears to be real.

16. The Supernatural • The Renaissance revenge tragedy, of which Hamlet is the most famous example, nearly always involves a ghost crying for vengeance. These plays have their roots in the dramas of Seneca, a Roman playwright from the first century A.D. The tradition surfaced in English drama with Thomas Kyd's 1590 play The Spanish Tragedy. Other famous dramas of this style are John Marston's Antonio's Revenge (c. 1602), in which a murdered father begs his son to avenge his death, and George Chapman's Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois (c. 1610), in which a murdered brother asks his surviving brother to do the same.

17. Succession to the Throne • In this time period, the Danish throne is elective. The king is a kind of primus inter pares, or "first among equals," and he is chosen by the assembled nobles of the land. This is very similar to the way in which the early English kings were chosen. In the past, succession to the throne was not always determined by what is known as primogeniture (primacy in birth - or succession by the oldest child). Instead, the throne would pass, on the death of the reigning monarch, to a qualified member of the royal family. If this happened to be the eldest son, so be it. But if the eldest son of a deceased monarch were still a child, an adult male of the family would be chosen to succeed to the throne.

18. Succession • The issue of succession (who is to take power and on what principle) is critical in Hamlet. In the political world of Elsinore, there is not a recognizably primogeniture-based principle of succession to the Danish throne, and, consequently, succession is, in this play, a matter of some uncertainty. Hamlet hints at this unclear situation when he says to Horatio that Claudius has "popped between the election and my hopes" (5.2.65). The anxiety about succession in this play can be seen as reflecting a general anxiety, at the end of the sixteenth century, regarding the failure of an aging Elizabeth I to produce an heir. (She died three years after Hamlet was first performed.)

19. Succession (2) • What would happen to England when she died? Given the violent political shocks and aftershocks in England during the first half of the sixteenth century, these were not baseless fears. It is worth pointing out that, by the end of the play, it is Fortinbras (whose name means, roughly, "strong-arm") of Norway who sits on the Danish throne. This is a very literal hint about the kind of "strong-arm" politics that inevitably steps - or attempts to step - into disorder, or collapsed or failed order.

20. Revenge • There are three separate revenge plots in Hamlet: Hamlet desires to revenge Claudius's murder of his father. Fortinbras desires to revenge the death of his father, the former king of Norway, whom the late Danish king had defeated in battle. Finally, Laertes desires to revenge the death of his father, Polonius. The pattern is clear: a son avenges the death of a father and in so doing, advances to his father's former position. Hamlet would become king were he to succeed. Fortinbras would recover the lands lost by his father and would eventually succeed to a throne of his own. Laertes actually becomes the prime counselor to, and conspirator with, Claudius.