9.

HAMLET

HAMLET
The First Quarto, 1603, the Second Quarto, 1604, the First Folio, 1623 What is the play about? The plot Problems of identity Madness: Body and Mind

HAMLET
artistic maturity brilliant depiction of the hero's struggle with two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to revenge his father's murder murder: enjoyed by the audience - horror, unnatural death, violence, secrets, premeditation, envy, pride, ambition, jealousy, hatred

REVENGE
Murder: injury done to a family Weregild was a reparational payment usually demanded of a person guilty of homicide or other wrongful death Blood revenge : Francis Bacon - a kind of wild justice Family solidarity The law of talion: the strict law of like for like (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth)

Sources: Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica (c.1200), transl. 1514 Franois de Belleforest, Histoires Tragiques (1559-80)

 revolutionary departure from contemporary revenge tragedies emphasizes the hero's dilemma rather than the depiction of bloody deeds on stage

 "the dilemma of Hamlet : feelings vs. actions difficult struggle to somehow act within a corrupt world and yet maintain moral integrity transcends the Elizabethan period, making him a man for all ages

REVENGE 12 TIMES
Ghost: So art thou to revenge (I.5.743)

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther. (761) Hamlet: Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge. (763765)

II.2.
Hamlet: O what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Bloody bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murther'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion! (F2.7.10) Drab= prostituat, scullion = ajutor de buctar, mrav,

III.3.
A villain kills my father; and for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send to heaven. Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge!

IV.4.
Hamlet: How all occasions do inform against me And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be

IV.4.
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event,A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward,- I do not know Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,' Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do't. craven = la, fricos

IV.4.
How stand I then, That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men

IV.4.
That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

 Grotesque realism: seriousness and laughter peculiar to the Renaissance, mixture of genres Ancient tradition, continued by medieval folk humour

Carnivalesque
the most performance-centred of all the tragedies, linked to market-place and street performances a complete play-within-a-play ludic performances: the players speech, the gravediggers scene, the fencing match an attitude anti-tragic, ludic, linked to madness, parody, puns, story-telling anti-linear time, stopped, repetitions, obstacles, replacing the law of talion with the telling of stories

WORDS
Hamlet: Words, words, words. (II.2) suit the action to the word, the word to the action (III.2) these words like daggers enter my ears (III.4) I die, Horatio... The rest is silence. dagger = pumnal

STORIES
The ghosts story Retold by Hamlet to Horatio Horatio in the end: And let me speak to the yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts; Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause; And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I Truly deliver. (V.2)

TRANSLATING PUNS
King: How fares our cousin Hamlet ? Hamlet: Excellent i the faith, of the chameleons dish. I eat the air, promise crammd. You cannot feed capons so. (III.2)

capon = rooster

PUNS
King: How fares our cousin Hamlet ? Hamlet: Ex cellent i the faith, of the chameleons dish. I eat the air, promise crammd. You cannot feed capons so. Cum o duce vrul nostru, Hamlet ? De minune, cu tain de cameleon: triesc cu aer i fgduine, dar n-ai putea ngra claponi cu aer. (Vl. Streinu)

PUNS
King: How fares our cousin Hamlet ? Hamlet: Excellent i the faith, of the chameleons dish. I eat the air, promise crammd. You cannot feed capons so. Ce face nepotul nostru Hamlet ? Foarte bine, pe legea mea! M nfrupt din hrana cameleonului: m ndop cu aer, care e plin de fgduine. N-ai putea ngra astfel un clapon. (P. Dumitriu)

PUNS
Polonius: I did enact Julius Caesar, I was killed i the Capitol, Brutus killed me. Hamlet: It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there. (III.2)

PU NS
Polonius: I did enact Julius Caesar, I was killed i the Capitol, Brutus killed me. Hamlet: It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there. (III.2) Polonius: Am jucat rolul lui Julius Caesar. Am fost omort n Capitol, m ucidea Brutus. Hamlet: Ce brutal din partea lui s omoare cogeamitea vielul. (P. Dumitriu)

PUNS
Polonius: I did enact Julius Caesar, I was killed i the Capitol, Brutus killed me. Hamlet: It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there. (III.2) Polonius: Pe Julius Caesar l-am jucat: am fost rpus n Capitoliu, Brutus m-a rpus. Hamlet: A fost brutal din partea lui s rpun un asemenea cap de mnzat.

PUNS
Polonius: I did enact Julius Caesar, I was killed i the Capitol, Brutus killed me. Hamlet: It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there. (III.2) Polonius: Jucam pe Julius Caesar i eram ucis pe Capitol de Brutus. Hamlet: Era o brut atunci, de ucidea pe Capitol un capital viel. (Vl. Streinu)