Tuesday, 6 June 2006: Renaissance / early modern tragedy: Shakespeare, Hamlet

web-highlight (midterms, esp. on Hamlet): Elena Trevino

Introduction: Most of us are familiar with Tragedy and how it usually ends. Hamlet is a classic example of Tragedy and is used in many ways to show the concept. In one of the excerpts I found Hamlet’s psychological issues were touched based on and of how it played a role in the tragic events that happened.

2004

Tragedy makes the audience think. Seldom does one see people waxing philosophical about a movie such as Dumb and Dumber. Plays such as Oedipus, Hamlet, and Desire Under the Elms all have deep psychological issues coursing through them. The plays cause the audience to ask questions about the characters and their actions. The audience may wonder why it took Oedipus and his wife/mother so long to realize the situation they had put themselves into. An astute observer may proclaim it is because of an unconscious desire to sleep with each other. One common observation of Hamlet is that he waited awhile to kill his murdering uncle. In the meantime, Hamlet sunk into a deep depression and madness that pushed him to the brink of sanity. In Desire Under the Elms, an audience member may come out of the performance shaken by Abbie’s actions and wondering what could drive a woman to kill her offspring. These plays open up a number of doors into different psychological and sociological realms, which make the plays interesting and add to tragedy’s greatness. . . . [SC]

However, placing works of literature into different genres is not a perfect science because the various genres tend to overlap.  For example, Hamlet is tragedy, but it is not purely a tragedy because there are elements of comedy as well as elements of romance.  Obviously Hamlet is a tragedy because all of the major characters die in the end and the arrival of Fortinbras is the indication that the people of Denmark will be better off.  But there are comedic elements of Hamlet, such as the scene with the grave digger and Hamlet’s interaction with Polonius, when he calls him a “fishmonger.”  There are also elements of romance.  Ophelia’s death by drowning, whether it is suicide or accidental, is described in romantic terms.  There are flowers everywhere and it seems as though through death, Ophelia’s Representational genre in essence points out the voices the audience “hears.”  In Hamlet the audience watches as the characters play out the drama, but occasionally Hamlet orates seemingly to himself.  In truth, these are for the audience’s benefit allowing the observer to understand Hamlet’s thoughts and the coming and/or past action.  The narrator can be an actor the audience is familiar with, a chorus of people designed for the soul purpose of giving information, an unseen voice overlaid with the action or as demonstrated in Laura’s presentation words simply scrolling across the screen.  The intent of representational genre is to show the audience something, to tell a story.

2002

Ophelia is rising above her situation and escaping the conditions around her, the death of her father and the ill treatment from the man she loves.  Also, Hamlet feels separated from Ophelia because he sees her as a pawn of Polonius.  He must distance himself from her, and this is the separation, but after his return from England, he thought he would be able to be reunited with her.  So, genre is not really prescriptive, but rather descriptive.  You cannot assign a work to a specific genre, but the work can contain elements of that genre.

Conclusion:

In all these articles they all showed how tragedy as well as Romance and Comedy all tie in together to come into play with Hamlet. The articles each show an element of Hamlet and how this play falls into the tragedy genre.