Shakespeare entered the new 17th century as a mature and famous artist. Began the last decade of his work. The artist expresses with great force the thoughts and moods of the progressive people of his time, he creates a cycle of his great tragedies.
Shakespeare borrowed Hamlet’s external plot from Belfort (Tragic History), in turn, borrowed it from Saxon Grammar.
Shakespeare brings the action of the tragedy into the past, a number of signs clearly indicate that the tragedy should have been perceived as a story about the past, even if it was close. Why does Hamlet live and act in an outdated Shakespeare atmosphere? The deep answer to this is given by Hegel in Aesthetics.
“… Not only in the old, but also in the new art, the time in which ideals are inserted, are the old times. Such times establish memories, not in their completeness; the memory keeps only the big picture from them: the circumstances of the place are erased with such a memory, not present with immediate certainty; the whole external environment already brings generalization to the memory. Thus, the old days, by their very content, are already the soil for the heroes, there are still no needs and requirements on it, but the state There is still no legal system and legal order. And here the artist in the sense of relationships, conditions, and mode of action is much freer, although there is a memory … but where there is a historical element, the artist still needs to work out the universal … The picture from the past has the advantage that it gives the form of the universal … ”
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The question arises: why does Shakespeare with such accuracy determine the age of Hamlet – thirty years? This could have been done by virtue of mere chance, but even so, Shakespeare didn’t have a chance. It seems that Thirty-year-old Hamlet is needed by Shakespeare because, if he were younger, it would have been impossible to confront him with such complex problems that arise in the tragedy.
In the whole tragedy, it is impossible to find a single scene where Hamlet would take a high view of any of the people below him in position. Actors for him are the same honored guests, like all the others, and nowhere gives Horatio to feel his poverty or lack of recognition.
Hamlet is not a narrowly-everyday image, but a character filled with enormous philosophical and vital content. In the image of Hamlet with a certain power expressed that state, which was typical for many people of the Shakespearean era.
You can understand the hero of any drama based on the logic of the drama itself. Not so with Hamlet, many argue, one ought to know how he was in Wittenberg, which made him so focused on thoughts that are far from everyday elements. No wonder the other characters in the tragedy compare Hamlet today with Hamlet yesterday. This is the way Hamlet Ophelia remembers: “Look at the nobleman, the sword of a soldier, the language of a scientist.”
There can be no doubt, Hamlet is the fiery spokesman of those new views brought about by the Renaissance, when advanced rhythms sought to restore the understanding of ancient art and poetry lost over the millennia of the Middle Ages, as well as the views of the Greeks and Romans on political life, but also human confidence to their own strength without the hopes of mercy and the help of heaven.
So, Hamlet belongs to that phase of the Renaissance, when nature and life were praised by philosophers, sang by poets, painters portrayed in love.
The saying goes: philosophy begins with wonder. In order to fully understand Hamlet, one must add to his extraordinary impressionability that he takes everything to heart.
Ignorance of another way to expose the bad reality, as soon as by destroying its deceptively pleasing form to the eye, Hamlet considers this the mission of the poetic word. Hamlet, to our amazement, did not differ in direction, believed the rumors that the talented stage performance of the crime drama has magical power – not only to disturb the viewer, for whom there is some guilt but also to force him to repentance.
For a prince, the vices of the court are the concentration of manners of the entire formal, official life of the state, and he is so exhausted, so annoyed that he barely has a side vision to catch his other side. As a prince, Hamlet knows well what are the so-called “high” titles and honors, behind which the accidents of birth or the whims of the sovereign are always disrupted.
Beyond himself from lies, treachery and the baseness of light, Hamlet never wants to give the world to himself.
Hamlet has a deep and agile mind – everything seizes on the fly, his “real” soul is a membrane of sensitivity, an organ of all-guessing. In the aristocratic environment, he keeps at ease, knowing all the cogs and the mechanism of its etiquette, is not forged by ordinary people and shows no arrogance. Not only puns, jokes, witticisms always give a profound turn to serious speeches, as a result of which they seem both intelligible and intricate. Staying alone with himself, Hamlet improvises; his thoughts are not the rehash of the common truths of everyday life, but original, long-suffering and here, now born, not had time to cool down, turn into dry reasoning. Piety in him is not an iota, although in the old manner he believes that “the soul is immortal”, that there are “pious spirits” fanned by the sky and “damned” breathing hell. He is far from complacency, does not believe that everything is already known to them – on the contrary, in the world around him, he is sure, there are infinitely many more unsolved mysteries. Hamlet, trusting in people, expects frankness and frankness from them, but what to do, these spiritual qualities are extremely rare. Sometimes he plays with his wit, skillfully parades the pompous manner of his interlocutors and makes it so that its roguish function immediately comes up.
Hamlet thinks not by someone else’s orders. Physically, he is as in an iron vice, in the palace he is as in a prison, his only support against the whole world is the independence of judgment.
“Foul-thinking fool”! Hamlet’s repeated self-reproaches are also symptoms of disconnection between thought and will.
Integrity, integrity, plasticity are traits of a truly heroic character, on which action with its criteria moves, and these traits are completely absent in Hamlet.
