THEMES
There are numerous thematic concepts and ideas in this play, and thus a reader may have difficulty in selecting the major or central theme of the play. The following key words point to the various and complex ideas that underlie this play:
indecision disenchantment melancholy revenge imprisonment hesitation |
suicide guilt fratricide kingship/ rule incest paralysis |
friendship loyalty truth deception/ spying death grief |
The student should especially consider the following themes or issues of the play:
The Humanists believed in the nobility and greatness of man. Shakespeare (and Hamlet) did not appear to agree with the Humanists at all.
Human Achievement)
Hamlet experiences a sense of void and purposelessness:
II, 2: 294 – “What a piece of work is a man”
(Hamlet expresses the Humanist idea ironically)
III, 2: 311 – “I lack advancement”
The existential aspect in Hamlet became epitomized in the 1966 play by Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Stoppard’s play is existential from beginning to end and, quite naturally, is inspired by the existentialism of Shakespeare’s play.
The revenge idea is present in several characters and scenes:
NOTE: Hamlet will not kill Claudius while he is praying (III, 3) because it is not a fitting revenge.
Meta-Theater
(a) Theater is used as device to expose king in III, 2. (b) Hamlet defends theater against bad fashions and new innovations (II, 2).
6. Kingdom Gone to Pieces / Decay Theme Rottenness and decay are present in Danish society and especially in certain individuals in the court: (a) Claudius & Gertrude’s marriage was viewed as an act of incest to Elizabethan audiences. (b) Abandonment: Hamlet goes to Germany (I, 2) Laertes goes to France (I, 3).
preparations of war during nighttime
Two Characters Reflect a Contrast to the above:
He will be a good ruler
He suggests loyalty, friendship, reason.
He is a contrast to Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern.
LANGUAGE: NOTABLE QUOTES
Many lines from Hamlet are famous and are often quoted out of context. The serious student of Hamlet should know the following lines and the context in which they are delivered:
I, 4: 67
I, 5: 168
II, 2: 203
III, 1: 58
III, 4: 85
COMMENTS FROM THE CRITICS
Harold Bloom
(Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, pp. 383-84):
“It is the theater of the world, like Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost or Faust, or Ulysses, or In Search of Lost Time. Shakespeare’s previous tragedies only partly foreshadow it, and his later works, though they echo it, are very different from Hamlet, in spirit and in tonality. No other single character in the plays, not even Falstaff or Cleopatra, matches Hamlet’s infinite reverberations.
“The phenomenon of Hamlet, the prince without the play, is unsurpassed in the West’s imaginative literature.”
Joseph Rosenblum
(A Reader’s Guide to Shakespeare, pp. 115-16):
“To explain the reasons for its excellence in a few words, however, is a daunting task. Apart from the matchless artistry of its language, the play’s appeal rests in large measure on the character of Hamlet himself.”
Frank Kermode
(The Riverside Shakespeare, p. 1135):
“Hamlet clearly works on a different level from any other play of its kind, and indeed from any preceding play of Shakespeare’s. Somehow, as GranvilleBarker suggested, he himself became a different man in those early years at the Globe; he found his daimon.”
Stephen Greenblatt
(The Norton Shakespeare, p. 1659):
“Hamlet is an enigma. Mountains of feverish speculation have only deepened the interlocking mysteries:
Why does Hamlet delay avenging the murder of his father …?
How much guilt does … Gertrude … bear in this crime?
How trustworthy is the ghost …?
Is vengeance morally justifiable… ?
What exactly is the ghost …?
Why is the ghost … visible only to Hamlet in Act 3?
Is Hamlet’s madness feigned or true?
Does Hamlet … continue to love [Ophelia] …? Does Ophelia … actually intend to drown
herself …?”