HAMLET
INSPIRATIONS
Shakespeare takes inspiration from the Greek plays, especially from Seneca’s tragedies.
That always includes
Sexual or violent crime against a family member
A Hero that carries out the revenge after a period of doubt in which he establishes a close relationship with the public through soliloquies and asides
The appareance of a ghost
Bloody actions and many deaths
He also adds a lot of psychological insight
PLOT
LANGUAGE
Hamlet is the most talkative of Shakespeare’s plays.
The main characteristic of this language is
Ambiguity
Everything is conveyed by metaphores and similes. The words Have a hidden meaning, the speeches are ambiguous just like Hamlet’s feelings: he has to play roles that he doesn’t feel his. For example, he costant doubts about his role ad avenger because of his rejecytion af a barbaric way of life.
THEMES
The main theme is apparently
REVENGE
But in his play Shakespeare talks about other important themes like
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
MADNESS
ACTION AND INACTION: most believe that The main cause of the whole tragic train of events is Hamlet’s habit of delaying things, his inability to act quickly. Hamlet says he is afflicted by a form of depression, that calls melancholy, caused by his mother’s remmariage.
CORRUPTION LINKED TO POWER
THE MEANING OF THEATRE ITSELF DEALT THROUGH THE RELATION BETWEEN APPEARANCE AND REALITY: theatre, that is apparently fiction, could rapresent the truth. But the only truth that individual man knows is that he exists,
HONOUR: Shakespeare makes clear that any action to correct a wrong should be reasoned, not emotional.