Hamlet’s Astounding Success Essay - 1959 Words

Hamlet’s Astounding Success What secret formula did the playwright William Shakespeare use in the recipe for the tragedy Hamlet? Why, this play has been the rage for 400 years! Let’s analyze the reasons for its success. A.C. Bradley tells in his book of criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, the extreme importance of the character of Hamlet to the rating of the play: Naturally then, the tragedy of Hamlet with Hamlet left out has become the symbol of extreme absurdity; while the character itself has probably exerted a great fascination, and certainly has been the subject of more discussion, than any other in the whole literature of the world. (94) In total agreement with Bradley are other critics, one†¦show more content†¦(99) There is no more exalted ranking than the above. Richard A. Lanham in the essay â€Å"Superposed Plays† maintains that no other English tragedy has generated the literary comment which this play has produced: â€Å"Hamlet is one of the great tragedies. It has generated more comment than any other written document in English literature, one would guess, reverent, serious comment on it as a serious play† (91). Robert B. Heilman in â€Å"The Role We Give Shakespeare† relates the high ranking of Shakespeare to the â€Å"innumerableness of the parts†: But the Shakespeare completeness appears graspable and possessable to many men at odds with each other, because of the innumerableness of the parts: these parts we may consider incompletenesses, partial perspectives, and as such they correspond to the imperfect (but not necessarily invalid) modes of seeing and understanding [. . .] . (10) Indeed, the reader finds a wide variety of â€Å"parts† from beginning to end of Hamlet. This is seen in the fact of over 20 characters with speaking roles; and in their variety of occupations from king to grave-digger; and in the 20 different scene changes; and in the differentiationShow MoreRelated Freudian Analysis of Hamlet Essay969 Words   |  4 Pagesmany places in the play to need specific reference, and is generally recognized. The latter is also manifest: Claudius says for instance (79), The Queen his mother lives almost by his looks. Nevertheless Hamlet appears to have with more or less success weaned himself from her and to have fallen in love with Ophelia. The precise nature of his original feeling for Ophelia is a little obscure. We may assume that at least in part it was composed of a normal love for a prospective bride, though the extravaganceRead MoreA Comparison of Hamlet and Mcmurphy in One Flew over the Cuckoos Nes2438 Words   |  10 Pageshis provocati on of the other patients. Its my first day, and what I like to do is make a good impression straight off on the right man if he can prove to me he is the right man, says McMurphy in an equally witty, yet less subtle passage then Hamlets comments about his mothers wedding. It is their behavior in the latter half of each story, that ties these two together. Revenge becomes a common prompt. For Hamlet, this is simply avenging his fathers death after much contemplation andRead MoreBiography of William Shakespeare2130 Words   |  9 Pageshad three children with her. Their daughter Susanna was born in May of 1582, and twins Judith and Hamnet were born in 1585. Shakespeare left Stratford in the 1580s to seek fortune in London, England (Chrisp, 2004). Shakespeare certainly found the success he was searching for when he began to produce plays. He learned to write by watching and performing in plays such as Thomas Kyd’s â€Å"revenge tragedy† The Spanish Tragedy. Although he had not gone to a University, his plays became popular because, as