Prince Hamlet

Prince Hamlet is the protagonist in Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet". He is the Prince of Denmark, nephew to the usurping Claudius and son of the previous King of Denmark, Old Hamlet. Throughout the play he struggles with whether, and how, to avenge the murder of his father, and struggles with his own sanity along the way. By the end of the tragedy, Hamlet has caused the death of his love Ophelia, his mother Gertrude, his Uncle Claudius, his future brother in law Laertes, his future father in law Polonius, and his two childhood friends Rosencratz and Guildenstern. Hamlet himself is the final character to die in the play.

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 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."

T. S. Eliot offers a similar view of Hamlet's character in his critical essay, "Hamlet and His Problems" ("The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism"). He states, "We find Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' not in the action, not in any quotations that we might select, so much as in an unmistakable tone...".

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 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:

:"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?" […]

Etymology of Hamlet

Hamlet’s name is filled with meaning and controversy. The name Hamlet occurs as early as the 10th 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. 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 root of this name is ‘furious, raging, wild.’ These are all meanings Shakespeare would have been aware of when deciding on the name for his longest play. [Kemp Malone The Review of English Studies, Vol. 3, No. 11 (Jul.,1927),pp.257-271 ]

Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet, who died at age 11, about four years before the play was written.

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.

Influence of the Reformation

It has also been suggested that Hamlet's hesitations may also be rooted in the religious beliefs of Shakespeare's time. The Protestant 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. 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.

Freudian interpretation

Ernest Jones, following the work of Sigmund 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"::"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." [The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Jan., 1910), pp. 72-113. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9556%28191001%2921%3A1%3C72%3ATOAAEO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0] ]

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

As a mirror of the audience

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.

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.

Hamlet's parallels with other characters

One aspect of Hamlet's character is the way in which he reflects 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 Murder of Gonzago " - which Hamlet tauntingly calls "The Mousetrap" when Claudius asks "What do you call the play?" - 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, his character in "The Murder of Gonzago" is poisoned via his ear while reclining in his orchard.

* The Player Queen, like Ophelia, attends to a character in "The Murder of Gonzago" 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 Pyrrhus are all avenging sons. Hamlet and Laertes both blame Claudius for the death of their fathers. Hamlet and Pyrrhus 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; the surviving parent of each happens to be of the opposite gender. Both also enter scenes reading books 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.

Hamlet's age

Hamlet has generally been played as being 30 years old. In Act V of the play, the grave-digger mentions that his first day on the job was the day that Hamlet was born: "I have bin sixeteene heere, man and Boy thirty yeares." There is a strong implication that the character is 30 years old upon his return from England, but it is also possible to read "sixeteene" as "sixteen" rather than as "sexton", which would make Hamlet only sixteen years old, but few editors render it so. [Roth, Stephen: "Hamlet: The Undiscovered Country". [http://princehamlet.com/sixeteene.html 2] ] Richard Burbage, who is generally understood to have been the first actor to play Hamlet, would have been in his early thirties at the time.

Later, the first grave-digger provides another clue by fixing the time of Yorick's death, saying "This skull hath lien you i' th' earth three-and-twenty years." This would seem to lend credence to Hamlet being approximately 30 years of age as, in his subsequent monologue, Hamlet expresses vivid memories of Yorick.

In the first act, it is made clear that Hamlet is a student at Wittenberg and is hoping to return there; it would be unusual for a 30-year-old to still be a student.

Another theory states that Prince Hamlet was originally written to be 16 or 17, but the play had to be rewritten by Shakespeare so Richard Burbage, who was in his early 30s at time of the production, could play Hamlet.

Performers

Below are listed some of the notable acting portrayals of Hamlet. ;Stage
*Richard Burbage originated the role of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre.
*David Garrick made the role one of the centerpieces of his repertory in the 18th century.
*Edwin Booth was famous for the role in New York in the 1860s and 1870s.
*Sir Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted, played Hamlet for an unprecedented 200 consecutive performances at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1874.
*Johnston Forbes-Robertson played the role in 1898.
*John Barrymore created a sensation with his performance on Broadway in 1922 and again when he took it to London in 1925.
*Sir John Gielgud played Hamlet over 500 times between 1930 and 1945.
*Sir Laurence Olivier first played Hamlet at the Old Vic in 1937, later performing the production at Elsinore Castle.
*Maurice Evans first played the part at the Old Vic Theatre in 1935 and had a triumph on Broadway in 1938 and 1945.
*David Warner starred in Peter Hall's Hamlet in the RSC's August 1965 production at Stratford-Upon-Avon.
*Richard Chamberlain was the first American actor to play the role in London since John Barrymore. This occurred in the late 1960's, immediately after the run of "Dr. Kildare", the TV-series in which Chamberlain first made his name, ended.
*Vladimir Vysotsky played Hamlet in Moscow's Taganka Theatre between 1971 and 1980.
*Derek Jacobi played the role for the Prospect Theatre Company in 1978.
*Christopher Walken played the role for the American Shakespeare Theatre in 1982.
*Ralph Fiennes won the Best Actor Tony Award in 1995 for his portrayal of the character.
*Toby Stephens played the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2004.
*David Tennant plays the role for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2008.;Film
*Danish actress Asta Nielsen portrayed Hamlet in a loose 1921 adaptation which re-imagines 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 a 1996 film version, which is the only full length version of the play on film.
*Ethan Hawke played Hamlet in an adaptation released in 2000.;Television
*Maurice Evans was the first to play the role on American television, in 1953 on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
*Christopher Plummer received an Emmy Award nomination for a television version filmed at Elsinore Castle in 1964.
*Richard Chamberlain played Hamlet in a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation in 1970.
*Derek Jacobi played Hamlet in the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare production.
*Kevin Kline played the role in a 1990 PBS television production which he also directed, and which originated at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
*Campbell Scott played the role in a U.S. 2000 television production set during the American Civil War, in which Polonius, Ophelia, and Laertes were portrayed as an African-American family.

Notes

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)

External links

* [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/audio/?podcastItem=hamlet.mp3 "The Women Who Have Played Hamlet"] - Interview with Tony Howard on research into female Hamlets