The play Hamlet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. The play is about a Prince who was called from the school of Denmark to attend his father’s funeral. He was shocked to see his Queen mother already remarried to his uncle Claudius whom he suspects to be responsible for his father’s death. Hamlet then promised to take revenge on his father’s murder.
The play Hamlet is considered as Aristotle’s Poetics because it is a well written tragedy. According to Aristotle, the most important element of the tragedy is plot and followed by others such as character, diction, thought, song and spectacle. Aristotle defined tragedy as an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude. Aristotelian tragedy is not a narrative
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The play Hamlet uses decorated languages which has many literary devices like personification, downfalls, metaphors etc. Diction is used extensively in the play. For instance, the soliloquy by Hamlet, “To be or Not to be.”(Act III, Scene I, Line 56). Here Hamlet is basically reflecting suicide and thinking about being alive and dead. So, it also indicates the suicide which Ophelia going to commit later. Hamlet’s plot is straight forward as we clearly know Hamlet wants to take a revenge on his father’s death. In Aristotelian tragedy, the protagonist must be good throughout and Hamlet shows that through his action. For example, Hamlet performs his duty well as a prince and remains loyal especially to his friend Horatio and his father. Song according to Aristotle is related to musical rhythm. For example, in Hamlet, sad background music is played on the Ophelia’s madness scene. Aristotle states Spectacle as least connected with the art of poetry and it is arrangement of the stage which are require conveying the setting of the poem. For instance, the play Hamlet construct up to several swords fights onstage and at the end of the play several dead bodies litter the stage with blood depending on direction (Gonclaves, …show more content…
Hamartia is a flaws or character’s own error which brings a terrible result. For example, Hamlet hesitates to kill his cruel uncle leads to bring his own destruction. Stabbing Polonius behind the curtain and his painful action towards his lover Ophelia and declaring that she should be sent to nunnery which seems to have lost his mind. This leads to his downfall. The second concept according to Aristotle is Anagnorisis/Recognition which is when the character recognizes the hard truth. When Hamlet returns to Denmark after his ship is hijacked by pirates, he learns that Ophelia has committed suicide because of her madness and over her father’s death, he realized his flaw of having mistakenly murder her father and he is unsuccessful in expressing his love and proposing her for marriage. Another example is, by the end of the novel, Hamlet and audiences both are convinced that Uncle Claudius killed his father and planning to kill him as well. Another example is when Hamlet realizes and recognizes his faults after seeing his enemy actively seeking justice and honor and
Hamlet is a tale of despair and murder. Throughout the play, Shakespeare weaves a web of death, love, and betrayal that intrigued people of the time period and is still read widely today. The tale tells of the death of a king, and it follows his son Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, takes the throne and marries his dead brother's wife only a month after his death. Soon after the ghost of the old king appears to young Hamlet and tells him he was murdered by none other than his brother Claudius, the new king. Hamlet then tries to prove Claudius' guilt and begins to slip slowly into madness. The key points in the plot of Hamlet are the meeting with the ghost, proving Claudius' guilt, and the ironic and untimely deaths of different characters. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare draws a picture very complex and intriguing using imagery and diction.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare focuses on the title character plotting vengeance against Claudius for his father's murder to capture the Danish crown. The new king is also Hamlet's uncle and now stepdad due to the marriage with his mother, Gertrude. Through a sequence of events, the protagonist eventually avenges his father, although both his mother and himself fall to a tragic fate as well. Throughout the course of the play, the relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude changes from strained to a disrespectful and mistrustful to a bittersweet ending.
Prince Hamlet's decision to feign madness does not follow the traditional method of a tragic hero's flaw being associated with an internal weakness such as having too much pride, ambition, or passion that causes his fall from happiness into destruction. For example, the Greek philosopher Aristotle defined the tragic hero with Oedipus as the archetype: a great man at the pinnacle of his power who, through a flaw in his own character, topples, taking everyone in his jurisdiction with him. In contrast, Prince Hamlet pretends to feign madness because he wants to have more time to plot his plan of revenge, which includes spying on his mother and uncle. He admits his decision as he tells Horatio, "How strange or odd some'er I bear myself- / As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on" (1.5.170-72). Once more the
The tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare brilliantly recounts the tale of feigned and true madness as it delves into themes of betrayal, incest, revenge, moral corruption, and death. The play, set in the kingdom of Denmark, gives an account of how Prince Hamlet seeks exact revenge on his uncle Claudius, for murdering his own brother and Prince Hamlet’s father. After assassinating King Hamlet, Claudius succeeds the throne and becomes joined in holy matrimony to King Hamlet’s widow and Prince Hamlet’s mother, Queen
According to the Aristotelian view of tragedy, a tragic hero must fall through his or her own error. This is typically called the "tragic flaw", and can be applied to any characteristic that causes the downfall the hero. Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark can be seen as an Aristotelian tragedy and Hamlet as it's tragic hero. Hamlet's flaw, which in accordance with Aristotle's principles of tragedy causes his demise, is his inability to act. This defect of Hamlet's character is displayed throughout the play.
The play “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare is about a guy named Hamlet going through a hard time in life, after the death of his father, and the remarriage of his mother to his uncle. Throughout the play were are able to get a greater understanding of who Hamlet really is. The actions of Hamlet in Shakespeare's master piece “Hamlet” proves him to a revenge seeker, emotional, and crazy.
Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare. Hamlet is about a prince who deeply misses his dad that was murdered. Hamlet’s mother Gertrude didn't really seem to mind her husband's death and remarries. She marries Claudius, King Hamlet’s brother. Hamlet does not like that his mother married Claudius. Hamlet sees his father's ghost and finds out that Claudius had murdered King Hamlet. Hamlet decides to kill Claudius, but let Heaven take care of Gertrude. Hamlet accidentally mistakes Polonius for Claudius and kills him. At the end of the play Hamlet is dueling Laertes, Polonius’s son. They are dueling because Laertes is upset that Hamlet killed Polonius. Laertes has poison on his sword to kill Hamlet and hits Hamlet with it. Laertes falls over a staircase accidentally and dies. Gertrude drinks from a cup to celebrate Hamlet winning two out of the three strikes against Laertes but the cup was poisoned and she dies. Claudius attempts to run away because he knew he had now killed Gertrude and Hamlet throws a sword at him which pins him to the throne chair and then a chandelier falls and hits Claudius. Then Hamlet runs over and opens Claudius’s mouth and
Hamartia: The flaw of the tragic character that causes the tragic character’s downfall or reversal of fortune.
Hamlet, the titled character of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, William Shakespeare’s most prominent play, is arguably the most complex, relatable, and deep character created by Shakespeare. His actions and thoughts throughout the play show the audience how fully developed and unpredictable he is with his mixed personalities. What Hamlet goes through in the play defines the adventures encountered by a tragic hero. In this timeless tragedy, despite Hamlet’s great nobility and knowledge, he has a tragic flaw that ultimately leads to his ironic death.
This a brief synopsis of the play; Hamlet is the son of King Hamlet who died before the play begins. King Hamlets brother, Claudius takes the throne and marries his wife. The story largely tracks the revenge sought by Hamlet after the murderer who is, by GREAT surprise, King Hamlet's brother, Claudius.
When you think of William Shakespeare, Hamlet is the first thing most people think of, as his work. Hamlet is also a classic example of a tragedy. In all tragedies the hero suffers, and usually dies at the end. All good pieces of literature written way back when, are usually tragedies.
Aristotle, the great fourth-century Greek philosopher labeled this tragedy as “an imitation of an action of high importance, complete and of some amplitude: in language enhanced by distinct and varying beauties…by means of pity and fear effecting its purgation of these emotions” (qtd. in Kennedy & Gioia 885). Aristotle was portraying the epic Shakespearean drama, Othello. Aristotle prescribed three main elements for a disastrous theater recipe: First is a hamartia, or a tragic flaw in the main character that leads to the demise; second, catharsis or an emotional release of the audience’s sensations derived from the actors, so they seem to have felt they have learnt something about the play; and lastly, anagnorisis or the character’s astonishment of something that may have not before realized (Kennedy & Gioia 856-857). The protagonist in Shakespeare’s Othello satisfies all of Aristotle’s necessities for a tragic hero, as Othello is the character of magnificent status, which falls from that status of power to one of shame because of his hamartia. Furthermore the plot of Othello contains an influential katharsis through its peak and deduction, and an anagnorisis when Othello comprehends that Desdemona and Iago are not who they appear to
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia.
As defined by Aristotle, A tragic hero is a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his or her own destruction. In the play “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, Prince Hamlet is the tragic hero. Prince Hamlet can even be considered a quintessential tragic hero due to how closely he relates to Aristotle’s definition. Initially he has noble motives which were to avenge his father’s death but by the end, his flaws and bad decisions lead him to his death. The fact that Prince Hamlet’s best trait is also his downfall makes him one of the most tragic heroes in Shakespeare’s work. In these ways and more, Prince Hamlet fulfills Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero.
Hamlet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare on an uncertain date between 1599 and 1602. In addition, Hamlet is considers as the greatest tragedies to Shakespeare and it is one of the greatest literatures in the world. The play dramatises the revenge of Prince Hamlet to wreck upon his uncle, King Claudius. He killed the previous king of Denmark (Hamlet’s father) and subsequently seized the throne, and married with the Queen