English Hamlet

English Hamlet

  • Submitted By: danuel
  • Date Submitted: 02/08/2009 10:19 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 480
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 1

“Despite the play’s reputation as the most famous revenge tragedy ever written Hamlet’s soliloquies present him as entirely miscast in the role of the revenge hero.” To what extent do you agree?

Hamlet is a tragedy where the fault is of the protagonist’s inability to perform the necessary action to make the play a typical revenge tragedy, arguably due to his Renaissance qualities when he is required to be more Medieval with his actions and methods. For example in Act 1 Scene 5 when he tells the ghost he will “Sweep to revenge on wings as swift as meditation.” Which is a strange combination as meditation is not at all swift, so we know he will give the deed a lot of though before he actually acts upon it.

I think Hamlet himself is not a typical revenge hero to start with, but I feel he progresses towards that role towards the end of the play, for example in Act 3 Scene 4 after he kills Polonius he says. “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!” We know Hamlet did not like Polonius, but the Hamlet we saw at the beginning of the play, the quiet and calculating young man has transformed into a impulse ran killer. I think a quote from Sydney Bolt sums up the general idea of Hamlet amongst a lot of critics.
“Hamlet challenges the conventions of revenge tragedy by deviating from them.”“Despite the play’s reputation as the most famous revenge tragedy ever written Hamlet’s soliloquies present him as entirely miscast in the role of the revenge hero.” To what extent do you agree?

Hamlet is a tragedy where the fault is of the protagonist’s inability to perform the necessary action to make the play a typical revenge tragedy, arguably due to his Renaissance qualities when he is required to be more Medieval with his actions and methods. For example in Act 1 Scene 5 when he tells the ghost he will “Sweep to revenge on wings as swift as meditation.” Which is a strange combination as meditation is not at all swift, so we know he will give the deed a lot of though...

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