Allusions In Hamlet Research Paper

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a timeless play which continues to remain relevant across all generations due to its presentation of ideas that are fundamental to humanity. The play highlights aspects that relate to the society of not only Elizabethan England but also that of our modern society. Hamlet, as a character, considers ideas from outside his time and is somewhat relatable to modern day man. By drawing from ideas of archetypes and the human psyche, it reveals that Hamlet relates deeply to the elements of humanity.

William Shakespeare uses a multitude of major well-hidden symbols in his famous play, Hamlet. One of the first symbols to be uncovered early in the play is Hamlets father returning as an apparition. His father’s ghost reveals the plot of the play to the reader by telling Hamlet that Claudius, his uncle murdered him in cold blood and Hamlet must avenge him ultimately symbolizing death. Another a major yet well-hidden symbol within the play is the flowers that Ophelia hands out to her brother Laertes, the royal King Claudius and Queen Gertrude. Each type of flower handed out hint major clues about the characters that received flowers, which make them an extremely important symbol. The skull of Yorick is also a major symbol that hides vital

Laertes and Fortinbras are parallel characters to Hamlet and provide pivotal points that are used to compare the actions and emotions of Hamlet

Shakespeare sprinkles subtle lines alluding to Hamlet’s apparent cowardice and failure as a classical revenger. In addition to this, Shakespeare may intentionally delay Hamlet’s revenge and remove emphasis from his passion to break the trend of morally blind, obsessive, psychopathic avengers as traditionally depicted in plays such as “The Spanish Tragedy”.

Iterative use of vivid and detailed imagery in a piece of literature is often a way of expressing a theme or concept in a literary work. This is the case in William Shakespeare"'"s Hamlet, a revenge tragedy that continually depicts the vibrant metaphors of manifesting corruption and festering disease in order to auger the impending calamities in the state of Denmark. Throughout Shakespeare"'"s play, there are successive images of deterioration, decay and death. These images are skilfully accomplished through the use of metaphors of rotting and dead gardens. Shakespeare wonderfully creates these metaphors that add great dimension to the play of Hamlet.

Because of the anger Hamlet feels at his mother’s remarriage he compares his uncle to his father the late king Hamlet. His comparisons are quite harsh such as “Hyperion to a satyr” this classical allusion shows his prejudice against his uncle by considering his father a god and his uncle to be half goat. The comparison as well as others seen in

At first glance, the Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Henry V are not similar. This is because they truly are not similar – not in genre, since Hamlet is a tragedy and Henry V is a historical play; not in plot, since the protagonist in Hamlet hides in the shadows of conflict while the protagonist of Henry V charges head-first into it; and certainly not in tone, where Hamlet is disastrous and Henry V is triumphant. It is these dissimilarities of context that make Henry and Hamlet’s similarities in identity all the more interesting. Both Shakespearean protagonists are faced with extreme circumstances, and in such extreme circumstances, they both resort to the same human response: they question. In both plays and both characters, Shakespeare seems to explore the depth of such questions as they pertain to human identity and as they pertain to each character’s sense of control, thus seeming to pose a question himself: what does it mean to control one’s identity?

Thesis: In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet mythological and biblical allusions informs us of Hamlet’s inevitable fall.

Many of the plays written by Shakespeare in his time were performed to influence his audience and provoke thought and debate the social, cultural and economic events that were taking place at that time. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in particular, was a reflection of the events happening during the Elizabethan era. In this essay, the focus is mainly on Act IV scene IV and the speech of Hamlet and the essay focuses on answering the question of the effect Hamlet had on the audience in the Elizabethan era, specifically culturally, socially, and economically. It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate that due to the religious turmoil of the Elizabethan era, Hamlet’s reference to God in Act IV was significant to show that

He looked upon his parent's relationship as the ultimate harmony and happiness that one could gain from life.  In his mind, the idealized majestic couple was flawless, and thus, the goal that all human beings should be striving for.  His father was the epitome of masculinity, independent of any feminine control and with "grace seated on his brow:/ Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself,/ And eye like Mars, to threaten and command"(3, IV, 55-57).  Queen Gertrude, on the other hand, was the wise wife and caring mother, which added perfection and glory to King Hamlet.  Together, they formed the eternal power.

(III.iv.57-60) In contrast to “a mildewed ear / blasting his wholesome brother” (III.iv.65-66) comparing King Hamlet to Claudius.

In Hamlet the titular character is being tasked with the revenge of his father’s death, the old king. Hamlet states, “The spirit that I have seen may be a (devil,) and the (devil) hath power t' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, out of my weakness in my melancholy, as he is

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is one of the most famous tragedies William Shakespeare has ever written. Found throughout Shakespeare’s tragedy are many religious references. According to Peter Milward, the author of Shakespeare's Christianity: The Protestant and Catholic Poetics of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet, “From a purely religious point of view, which is more than just biblical, Hamlet is rich in homiletic material of all kinds, reflecting almost every aspect of the religious situation in a deeply religious age” (Milward 9). These pieces of religious literature are crucial to the plot of Hamlet. The religious elements found in this tragedy provide the plot, allusions, and foreshadowing.

William Shakespeare alludes to the Bible in Hamlet constantly because many of the characters, including Claudius and Hamlet, are experiencing a personal crisis concerning sin. Claudius prays, “O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;/ It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t,/ A brother’s murder.” The reflection made by Claudius to the killing of his brother, an allusion to the biblical story of “Cain and Able,” is influential because it captures the importance and failure of religion present during the play’s depicted period of time. Pamela Ronson, a Professor at Yale, states, “[Claudius] asks God for forgiveness, yet knows he does not merit it, since he cannot commit to penance for his crime. His prayers are empty: while he may repent breaking the sixth commandment by murdering his brother (a direct reference to Cain & Able), he refuses to preform any penance for it because of his pride (a Deadly sin)” (11). Religion proves important to Claudius because he does decide to reach out in prayer, but religion

Coming immediately after the meeting with the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Shakespeare uses his second soliloquy to present Hamlet’s initial responses to his new role of revenger. Shakespeare is not hesitant in foreboding the religious and metaphysical implications of this role, something widely explored in Elizabethan revenge tragedy, doing so in the first lines as Hamlet makes an invocation to ‘all you host of heaven’ and ‘earth’. Hamlet is shown to impulsively rationalize the ethical issues behind his task as he views it as a divine ordinance of justice, his fatalistic view reiterated at the end of scene 5 with the rhyming couplet ‘O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right’. These ideas are