Module B: Critical Study of Text

HAMLET

Module B: Critical Study of Text

• This module requires students to explore and evaluate a specific text and its reception in a range of contexts. It develops students’ understanding of questions of textual integrity.

• A critical study involves developing a deep, informed understanding of a text, encompassing it’s key ideas, meanings and the way it is constructed.

• Students read the play carefully and consider other perspectives of the text and test these against their own understanding.

• For this text, students explore its literary qualities and the ways in which different interpretations are possible.

• Written between 1599-1601.• A play of its time – reflecting a transitional society

caught between an entrenched feudal system and a rising mercantile one

• A time of political, social and economic instability in Britain as concerns about Elizabeth I’s natural successor permeated the English court.

• An epic tragedy, aimed at provoking a myriad of extreme emotions from its audience.

• A warning of the consequences of not adhering to responsibilities and the fundamental workings of society.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet

• Unequivocally a play about the breakdown and disruption of an established order and the chaos that ensues.

• A play centred on the need to act appropriately and the dire consequences of inaction.

• A play that represents the philosophical divide that existed between traditional Christian beliefs and Renaissance Humanism (which Shakespeare presents a sceptical attitudes towards)

• A subverted form of the classical revenge tragedy genre, with the protagonist having a duty to avenge a foul deed, leading to his own emotional torture and demise.

• A play about philosophy – questions of morality, duty, responsibility, reflection and repentance.

Key Ideas and Issues in the Play

• The human condition and man’s place in the universe.

• The meaning of life and the lure of suicide.• The nature of suffering and learning through

experience.• The breakdown of relationships in both the personal

and public domains.• Filial duty and propriety• Notions of identity – what defines who we are? What

price must we pay to fully come to understand this?• The nature of justice – incorporating notions of social

justice, natural justice, poetic justice.

Key Ideas and Issues in the Play

• The most important thing in any Module B response is to engage with the question.

• On the surface, you might be asked anything in this section, however there are only so many things you could be assessed on.

• The best preparation you can do is to focus on the ideas of the play as you will be able to explore them, no matter the question you get.

• Be prepared to “step outside the text” and consider how we as an audience respond to Shakespeare’s construction of the text. Remember that Hamlet, Claudius, Ophelia, Laertes, the Ghost are all just tools he uses to explore ideas about the human condition. Step back and think: what is he saying?

• Use this to build your personal response to the play around.

Building a Response

Thesis in Response to the Question

Built Upon an informed personal response to the play focusing on

ideas

Focus areas Focus areas Focus areas

Character/event Character/event Character/event

Textual analysis Textual analysis Textual analysis

Your Personal Response to the Play

• Your own personal interpretation of Hamlet should form the basis of your discussion. You should establish it using the first person.

• Your personal response is based upon what Shakespeare wrote and how you react to it. Essentially, it encapsulates your knowledge and understanding about what the play is about.

• It is not a character study, nor is it a recount of the plot. Although you should show awareness of both.

• Your personal response to the play should focus on key ideas and issues. Consider the previous slides for ideas.

• Your personal response is essentially a thesis from which you explore a wide range of ideas about Hamlet.

• You need to be prepared to support your personal response with evidence from the text. Draw from a range of scenes

• Don’t limit yourself to one scene or discussing one particular character. Provide examples from a wide range of sources within the play.

• While your personal response will inevitably centre on Hamlet himself in some way, use his interactions with other characters as a way of expanding on your ideas.

• Your understanding of the play is informed by many things – your knowledge of Elizabethan times, Shakespeare’s context, your own values/interests, understanding of language etc.

• Your personal response will dictate the direction and depth of your essay. It needs to flow logically with links between your paragraphs, creating a cohesive whole.

Your Personal Response to the Play

• As Hamlet is a play, you need to discuss at as such. Consider such dramatic devices as:

•Conflict (this is at the heart of any drama)•Symbols•Motifs (sickness, decay etc)•Soliloquies•Imagery•Play-within-the-play•Feigned madness•Functions of characters•Parallelism

•Contrast (Hamet/Fortinbras, Old Hamlet/Claudius, Horatio/Rosencrantz & Guildenstern))•Concealment (Polonius eavesdropping etc)•Stage directions•Philosophical questioning•Dramatic irony•Irony•Costuming

Dramatic Techniques to Consider

Textual Integrity• It is important that you have some understanding of what

textual integrity is and that you address the concept.• Textual integrity involves how the key ideas and elements

of the play fit together to form a pleasing whole.• In a nutshell, you could focus on a key idea such as

madness, suffering, or family dysfunction and consider how these ideas are explored throughout the whole play.

• You would consider what narrative and dramatic devices Shakespeare uses to explore these ideas. For example, symbols/motifs, parallel narratives, contrast.

• Textual integrity involves looking at the play as a whole - you need to consider how things are at the beginning and how they are at the end.

Hamlet• A deliberately complex and contradictory character.• In every sense, a “modern renaissance man” – a

genuine philosopher and moral thinker.• Symbolic of conflict between traditional Christian

beliefs and Renaissance Humanism.• “Flirts” with madness throughout the play – ambiguity

surrounds the true extent of his madness.• The natural successor to the Danish throne.• His actions (or lack of!) in the play are dictated by his

encounter with the Ghost and his duty to avenge his father’s unnatural murder and uphold his honour.

• Has a problematic relationship with his mother (and women in general), which significantly influences his actions.

Other Characters• Claudius – represents a disruption to the “natural”

order of the Danish court. The archetypal villain, whose crimes of morality against the protagonist are horrifying.

• Gertrude – similarly sins by not respecting the moral codes of her society.

• Laertes/Fortinbras – parallels with Hamlet – other sons who must undertake a journey to avenge the death/restore the honour of his father.

• Ophelia – the wronged – a victim of patriarchal manipulation and mistreatment.

• The Ghost – a supernatural presence in the play that is the catalyst for Hamlet’s “journey”.

Influences on the Play• Elizabethan Context

o Stresses values related directly to the context in which the play was produced and a way of thinking akin to audiences at the time.

o Emphasises values such as a belief in the Great Chain of Being, the idea of natural succession, Christian attitudes towards suicide and the afterlife, fatalism, Christian redemption through suffering and continued faith, salvation and purgatory.

o Places emphasis on Hamlet’s Christianity and the way in which his beliefs dictate his actions in the play

o Highlights the Ghost’s suffering in purgatory.o Involves considering how such ideas are represented by

Shakespeare in the play and considers the text as a play of its time.

Influences on the Play• Rise of Renaissance Humanism

o Philosophy that was popular in the 16th/17th centuries.o Upholds religious beliefs, but views mankind as the most

divine of God’s creations.o Values classical beliefs in learning, expression, philosophy.o Values man’s ability and right to dictate his own destiny.o Rejects the idea of fatalism.o Values human empowerment within a God-created

universe.o Commentators typically consider Shakespeare’s view of

Humanism as being sceptical – his characterisation of Hamlet illustrates the conflict associated with Renaissance Humanism in a Christian society.

Influences on the Play• Revenge Tragedy Genre

o A genre popular in classic Greek theatre.o Defined by a series of conventions that audiences were

familiar with (a brutal, unnatural murder of a relative of the protagonist who must undertake a course to revenge, which is defined by suffering and results in the deaths of many characters).

o Features archetypes who have pre-defined functions within the narrative.

o Shakespeare subverts the traditional revenge tragedy genre by appropriating it for the Elizabethan theatre.

o Uses existing conventions and the pre-defined structure of the revenge tragedy to philosophically question the very nature of revenge itself.

o Applying a revenge tragedy reading of the play places emphasis on the ways Hamlet both adheres to and subverts the conventions of the genre.

Readings• Feminist

- Places emphasis on the role of women in the play.- Views the world of the play as a patriarchal domain that deliberately dis-empowers and marginalises women.- Note the lack of female characters within the play.- Focuses on the unequal distribution of power and status between the sexes.- Places emphasis on the suffering of Gertrude and particularly Ophelia as the victims of objectification and patriarchal cruelty.

Readings• Existentialist

– Philosophy that initially emerged in the late 19th century, but gained popularity in the mid-20th century through the writings of French philosopher Satre. A reaction to two World Wars, mass devastation, a build-up of nuclear weapons and the constant threat of complete annihilation.

– A successor to Humanism in the modern age.– Stresses values such as: the absence of God, a belief that death is

the only certainty in life, that humans live an essentially alone existence without divine meaning.

– Places emphasis on the philosophical despair in Hamlet’s soliloquies.– Views Hamlet’s quest for revenge as being doomed and

meaningless.– Its values directly contrast those of an EC reading.– Applying an existentialist reading involves viewing the play with those

key values in mind. Note – Shakespeare WAS NOT an existentialist, but considering the play from this perspective may help us understand key aspects better and to point out the contradictory and somewhat ambiguous nature of the play.

Juggling Act• In any response you must:

– Establish your own reading or interpretation of Hamlet – what do you think it is about?

– Demonstrate close understanding of the play itself. How has your understanding of Shakespeare’s language influenced your response?

– Develop a logical argument that answers the question – how do you develop your personal response to the play? How might you use another perspective to complement your own ideas?

– Elaborate on how your understanding has been informed by considering other perspectives on the play.

– This involves considering how certain aspects of values of different readings or articles relate to your own understanding of the play

– Do not limit the frame of your thinking. Learn as much of the play as possible. This will help you in answering potentially difficult questions.

Good luck