Hamlet: Shakespeares Masterpiece - Article Example

Hamlet: Shakespeare's Masterpiece

Introduction:

An essential fact about the works of William Shakespeare was that he was a renowned dramatist. Tennenhouse (pg. 3) states that Shakespeare was born just six years after Queen Elizabeth I got into power, and that was in contemporary to the time when English Renaissance was quite high. Shakespeare’s audiences are from a wide of people of from various social classes that are always eager to reward the kind of talent that he possesses. One of the greatest achievements that Shakespeare ever achieved was writing the play Hamlet that is considered by many including scholars as one of the masterpieces of his writings. Therefore, this article will illustrate some of the reasons that have made Hamlet a great success for Shakespeare. This tale goes across boundaries. Shakespeare uses it to communicate a message; his thoughts are at ease giving a backseat performance. It’s looked upon as the challenge that is ultimate to one performing it; people always quote it without their knowledge thus brought out as a masterpiece, a great piece of stage craft.

Reasons why Hamlet is Shakespeare’s Masterpiece

The play was written basing the storyline on one of a popular legend of the times it scenes mostly concentrating on the 16th century. It goes beyond the boundary limits of the space and time with a clear-cut message that is intriguing to the audience, attracts positive attention and critics from far and wide. Shakespeare seemed to have a good fortune while writing his play, Hamlet before any other person could tell him on how to fix it. If he could be working up to today, most of the playwriting system would still exhaust itself because he would still be improving in his work. There could see more nudging on him from his fellow writers that demand of him to be more accurate in his writings because it is a bit difficult to tell whether the character, Hamlet, was mad or not and the things that were known by Gertrude (McEvoy, pg. 16). Looking at the play as at now, it might appear more general, and most of the artistic directors would want to shift uncomfortably when they come across a script that long and sprawling like the Hamlet. It comes as a challenge but when one gets it right you have forged a great millage ahead, the kind that keeps you waiting for more. One gets curious to note the way Shakespeare treats love, looking at it at a different angle (Inbinder, pg 1).

Shakespeare did the best he could in Hamlet and produced an opaque and a peculiar play in the face of many readers and scholars, and this work is considered as the seminal masterpiece of the Western Literature. The way he wrote is an art, every line that he uses are open to a variety of interpretation, kind of rhetorical, one that gives you many different meaning and pondering on which to pick. It gives a different perspective on ways people look at things. It has got flowed characters in the field of English Literature (Dutta,pg.1) .You have to accept its worth because it’s flawless. There are a lot of breathless tributes that have been passed to Shakespeare for a job well done in writing Hamlet, and some of these tributes still from come from the contemporary readers. For instance, Harold Bloom was pleased that Shakespeare made an invention of the human in his work (De Grazia, pg. 361). Hamlet remains a script that is worth airing on the stage, and it is still a show horse that is in harness. The play has been able to win a series of new audiences in every night’s airing. The verses are superb and always have a way of sticking to the reader for a very long period of time as a sign of testimony. These come as a fact to this masterpiece that is quite evident (Dutta,pg.1).

Hamlet is not portrayed as a character but appears as a real person in the play. For example, one would make a comparison with the kind of conversation that takes place about Hamlet in the play and those that happens in real life situation. There are similarities when comparing the kind of conversations on Hamlet in an English class to that which would happen about a student classmate that just leaves the classroom. The conversations would appear the same as the student colleagues that are in the discussion would remain equally vivid and puzzling just like they could be while discussing Hamlet and that is what makes Hamlet be more of a real person than just being a character in the play. Hamlet is hardly looked as a character in a play; the events happen even on real world, his erudition and intellect are quite unusual when taking into account the royal personage (Dutta, pg. 1).

One of the sources of Hamlet’s quality of a real life situation is the kind of modern sense of dislocation. For example, a reader would wonder what Hamlet was doing in a corrupt and violent world. Hamlet remained as a person with the right sense of humor when Laertes and Claudius wanted to kill, and he was there with his conscience holding his hands. However, his modern forms of procrastination have resulted in confusion because readers would ask themselves the essence of living when having values that conflict the ones of the society we live. He brings out an account of the calamities forces that are external and makes one to react to a given action. There are three kinds of answers that would explain that situation of existing in a society with values that conflict yours and it could either be to kill you, go crazy and form an excellent sense of humor like Hamlet.

Hamlet appears to be a master of irony.as he seems to be funny in a manner that the readers that live in the current Age of Irony also appreciates despite the fact that he lived long before the current age, he can be looked at as a conflict between the modern society and pre-modern all at once (Leverenz, pg. 295). However, appeared different from the current tone of irony because his tone did not appear to mere knowingness and that is a tool that he used in cutting the audience down into dismissible sizes. There are some mysteries as a larger part of the play is full of fun that works on the same puzzle of obsessing the entire players in figuring out why Hamlet acted in the manner in which he does. Interestingly, even Hamlet himself did not understand the problem with Hamlet and that made the play being a masterpiece of irony in both the ancient and current days. It is an enigma that remains unsolved; the character is well infused to himself that comes out with savagery and despondency that makes the audience to bow this great mystery that has been created.

Another factor that makes the play more intriguing and timely is the manner in which the concept of mortality is treated. Stephan Greenblatt noted that Shakespeare did his work in writing the Hamlet at a moment when the state edicts had already damaged the rituals about mourning (Bryson, pg. 12). Therefore, some traditional prayers that were conducted for the dead by the Catholics were seen as dangerously of pastime by the Queen of England. Additionally, when observing the Americans in the current days, their religious beliefs is still ebbing, but they use cable news to conspire in every few weeks and shove a funerary rite in their living rooms. Therefore, Hamlet was a careful and a far-seeing type of meditation of some forms of undiscovered countries, and it continues to be rare and more helpful. With the contributions that come from the play, therefore, a theater that decides to present Hamlet would have still one of the best places left out of the noisy world for the best contemplation of the concept of mortality.

The play greatest ever value is the fact that readers do not hear the thoughts of Hamlet but they instead see how he has changed based on the nature of his mind. For instance, when he returned from what could be termed as his dubious pirate adventure, he underwent some changes on his mental status where he achieved an Elizabethan form of Zen. He told Horatio that “the readiness was all” and any current literary manager would stress that any playwright should explain the extent to which change had occurred but for Shakespeare, he did not mention anything. His quietness has prompted the readers to work on a tantalizing challenge to realize the level at which the change occurred.

In case Hamlet, who remarkably resembled a human, went through some issues like becoming scared, tense and also getting angry in Act I and then to become the serene and philosophical in Act V, then anybody should always strive towards going through a change whenever faced with hard times. However, imitating Hamlet could be a challenge as the four centuries have only brought a bit closer to the level of wisdom that he possessed and people still many revivals to catch up with him. Portraying Hamlet as a very talented person has made the work of Shakespeare more skillful as a few playwrights have managed to demonstrate such abilities in their work (Collins, pg 2). Each character brought out as a masterpiece in the play, both from minor to major characters. From the beginning to the end, one can get a variety of impression, more so confusing cause of the different interpretations.

Albania actor, Aleksander Moissi (1879-1935) is one of renowned people who played a lead role as Hamlet more often for over thirty years period and is believed to had unveiled some three interpretations at different times of his life (LEACH, pg. 95 ). Due to the fact that he was on his early day of his life, he used to portray Hamlet as someone who was sentimental and melancholy that was suffering spiritually and later as he matured, he started acting a Hamlet that was a humanist. Therefore, this actor was also trying to make clear the kind of changes that Shakespeare portrayed that Hamlet went through over his life. It is a phantasmagorical world that Hamlet lives in, the disruption is constant. All the burdens of the past mixed with the present betrayals and the future that is full of falsehood all taunt him. He is betrayed by many and they seemed to have hidden agendas against him.

Conclusion:

There could be other many ways of perceiving the kind of play of Hamlet’s nature with some new ways being invented at present just four centuries after it was invented. The latest academic trends tend to work towards interpreting Hamlet as a coded form of defense of the religious freedom after discovering that Shakespeare could be secretly practicing Catholic in England where Anglican was the official church. Therefore, he could be trying to convey the message that every individual should be given the freedom to worship in any church of their choice. He used Hamlet as an object to show that England could also go through changes and allow their citizens to worship without limiting people to the Anglican. With this character; Hamlet, Shakespeare brings out the greatness that one has to have in order to push through the afflictions that comes with this life. One definitely meets their fate when they are fully aware of the logics.

With the intense level of scrutiny in the work of Shakespeare when writing Hamlet, maybe wanted to use Hamlet as a symbol is intensity on the kind of desperation and inchoate yearning that always exist within people. Therefore, no matter varied the characters of Hamlet could be differing with that of individuals in the societies. They still identify with some signs of confusion, outrage, and fear that were the personalities of Hamlet at the start of the play and as it ends brings out the unknown lurking of hearts that intensifies with sense o pity and waste. Therefore, Hamlet is the best piece of art that people who do not find anything interesting in others plays should buy and goes through because it is more than the most of the plays due to its openness to various interpretations that would depend on the specific audiences’ situations and even their expectations. More interestingly, different interpretations of the stages of change that Hamlet went through could be a symbolization of the changes that most adolescents go through in their lives and as they continue to grow older, some great thinks start to have different meanings, more after looking back on the person they were once upon a time.

Due to the outstanding job that was done by Shakespeare in the play, Hamlet, therefore, he has received some attributes from his readers and also other scholars in the field of the playwright. The language he uses on the play is outstanding and moves the crowd, the cast of the poetry is much powerful and a very wide net. Shakespeare had been standing out in his work of playwriting, but it would still not be a surprise to consider Hamlet as the masterpiece of his work.

Hamlet is not portrayed as a character but appears as a real person in the play. For example, one would make a comparison with the kind of conversation that takes place about Hamlet in the play and those that happens in real life situation. There are similarities when comparing the kind of conversations on Hamlet in an English class to that which would happen about a student classmate that just leaves the classroom. The conversations would appear the same as the student colleagues that are in the discussion would remain equally vivid and puzzling just like they could be while discussing Hamlet and that is what makes Hamlet be more of a real person than just being a character in the play. Hamlet is hardly looked as a character in a play; the events happen even on real world, his erudition and intellect are quite unusual when taking into account the royal personage (Dutta, pg. 1).

One of the sources of Hamlet’s quality of a real life situation is the kind of modern sense of dislocation. For example, a reader would wonder what Hamlet was doing in a corrupt and violent world. Hamlet remained as a person with the right sense of humor when Laertes and Claudius wanted to kill, and he was there with his conscience holding his hands. However, his modern forms of procrastination have resulted in confusion because readers would ask themselves the essence of living when having values that conflict the ones of the society we live. He brings out an account of the calamities forces that are external and makes one to react to a given action. There are three kinds of answers that would explain that situation of existing in a society with values that conflict yours and it could either be to kill you, go crazy and form an excellent sense of humor like Hamlet.

Hamlet appears to be a master of irony.as he seems to be funny in a manner that the readers that live in the current Age of Irony also appreciates despite the fact that he lived long before the current age, he can be looked at as a conflict between the modern society and pre-modern all at once (Leverenz, pg. 295). However, appeared different from the current tone of irony because his tone did not appear to mere knowingness and that is a tool that he used in cutting the audience down into dismissible sizes. There are some mysteries as a larger part of the play is full of fun that works on the same puzzle of obsessing the entire players in figuring out why Hamlet acted in the manner in which he does. Interestingly, even Hamlet himself did not understand the problem with Hamlet and that made the play being a masterpiece of irony in both the ancient and current days. It is an enigma that remains unsolved; the character is well infused to himself that comes out with savagery and despondency that makes the audience to bow this great mystery that has been created.

Another factor that makes the play more intriguing and timely is the manner in which the concept of mortality is treated. Stephan Greenblatt noted that Shakespeare did his work in writing the Hamlet at a moment when the state edicts had already damaged the rituals about mourning (Bryson, pg. 12). Read More