The Tragedy of Hamlet : A synopsis

 

The Tragedy of Hamlet that is often shortened to Hamlet, is one of the most controversial plays written by William Shakespeare. The play was published in 1602  , one year before the death of queen Elizabeth the I . Shakespeare’s Chef d’oeuvre  Hamlet is a play that embodies the age of renaissance. It is a play  that encompasses  thoughtful insights about humanist philosophy as well as the mesmerizing Greek tradition of writing that is filled with mythology and fantastic elements. The story starts when Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is  back home from  England  to mourn the death of his father, King Hamlet, who has died two months earlier. Hamlet is surprised and disturbed  by the marriage of his widowed mother, Queen Gertrude, to his Uncle, King Claudius, who succeeded to throne shortly after the death of his father.

Later on, a ghost has appeared to guards on nightly watch which was seen also by Hamlet’s good friend, Horatio, who was astonished by the resemblance of the ghost to the deceased King Hamlet . Horatio tried to speak to the ghost but it refused. Shortly after that, Horatio asks Hamlet to wait for the ghost and try his chance out, maybe the ghost would finally speak. Indeed, The ghost of his father appears to Hamlet and speaks to him stating that he was murdered by his brother Claudius who poisoned him in the ear. Hamlet is moved and affected by the ghost’s speech and promises to avenge his father’s murder.

Afterwards , Hamlet’s sanity starts to be doubted by all his surroundings .consequently, Laertes, son to the King’s advisor Polonius who  is ordered to leave to France tells Ophelia, his sister, to stay away from Hamlet and orders her to be’ vigilant of Hamlet’s feelings for her. His uncle Claudius and his mother Gertrude are both worried ; Polonius suggests  that Hamlet has gone mad because of Ophelia’s rejection of his feelings.  Nevertheless, Claudius and Polonius decide to spy on Hamlet and Ophelia through employing his childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to spy on him.  However , their  hidden plan is quickly  uncovered by Hamlet.

A few  days later a troupe of players visit town which inspires hamlet to visualize his father’s murder and thinks of  hiring these actors to  perform a play that recounts and realizes the ghosts speech. Indeed, hamlet organizes everything and asks the actors to perform murder scene in which a king is being poisoned in the ear by his brother who is driven by greed of succeeding to the throne. He orders Horatio to observe Claudius’ reaction during the play. Claudius cannot endure watching the play and angrily leaves which proves Hamlet’s doubts and that he is the murderer of his father.

Hamlet follows Claudius to the chapel while he is kneeling down to pray. He is driven by a strong desire to kill him instantly, but then refrains from doing that because Claudius is in mid-prayer, and if he kills him he will therefore go to heaven. Hamlet then decides to wait until Claudius commits a sin which would guarantee that he will go to hell. After that hamlet decides to speak to his mother Gertrude an argument starts , the curtain moves and hamlet rushes to kill the one behind it thinking that it would be his uncle Claudius, but then discovers that he killed Polonius mistaking him for being his uncle.

Later on , some news suggest that Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, whose father’s lands were seized by the late King, decides to go to Denmark in order to claim back the land. Claudius asks Hamlet and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to depart to England having a letter with them that contains an order for Hamlet’s execution during the trip. Nevertheless, while at sea, Hamlet soon realizes that they are plotting against him and switches the orders, causing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be executed and Hamlet returns safe to Denmark. When he arrives at Elsinore he finds out that Ophelia has gone mad because of grieving her father. Laertes, then,   returns from France and is told that Hamlet has killed his father, Polonius. Claudius convinces Laertes to have a  duel with Hamlet and poisons the tip of Laertes foil.  He prepared a poisned drink for Hamlet in case Laertes loses the duel they are interrupted by . Gertrude  who announces the death of  Ophelia  who has drowned. In the graveyard, Hamlet reminisces on a friend of his whose skull he has found. When arrives with Ophelia’s corpse arrives , Laertes and Hamlet argue and start fighting. In the mid of their  duel, Gertrude  drinks from  the poisoned chalice and falls dead immediately. Hamlet  gets wounded by the poisoned foil and swhitches it to stab alerts who denounces Claudius’s plan to kill hamlet . He rushes and stabs Clausius and asks his friend Horatio to tell his story . The play is concluded with the scene of The Norwegian forces arriving at Elsinore picturing  Prince Fortinbras seizing  control of Denmark.

Drama of The Renaissance

the  Renaissance

Hello everyone and welcome again!  This time’s topic is about drama of the renaissance  

1. Historical Background

The renaissance is one of the widely acknowledged periods in the European history and civilization, it is known as an intellectual movement that started in the 14^th century and lasted until the16th one. The term is of French origins literarily means “Rebirth”. The term Renaissance was first used retrospectively by the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) in his book Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, published in 1550.  The renaissance period is mainly characterized by a surge of an immense interest in the Classical Antiquity’s thought, intellect and values.

 Italy is the cradle of the renaissance and from Italy it spread to the other European countries, actually, it is important to explain why the Renaissance began in Florence, and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars had observed many characteristics unique to Florence’s cultural life and that is what might have caused this movement. Others emphasized the role of the Medici, “a banking family and later ducal ruling house”, in patronizing and activating arts. Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492) played the role of catalyst for a huge amount of arts patronage. He used to encourage the men of his country to commission works from Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Michelangelo Buonarroti. They were the leading artists of Florence. The renaissance brought with it revolutionary advancements and changes in science, literature and Arts. There were so many factors that stimulated these changes atop which overseas explorations, substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the demise of the feudal system, the revival of the classical Antiquity as well as the rise of the humanist philosophy.

II. Defining Renaissance:

It is during this period that people started to boldly share their ideas and think outside the box, they defied religious verdict and ideology through confronting the church and discerning its deceptive nature. W. R. Goodman defined the Renaissance as follows:

The Renaissance was in essence an intellectual rebirth. It showed itself in the effort of the individual to free himself from the rigid institution of the Middle Ages, feudalism, and the church; and to assert his right to live, to think, and to express himself in accordance with a more flexible secular code.[1]

Indeed , relying on Goddman’s definition, the renaissance freed the human mind   from the constrains of religion.

also  M. H. Abram stated that:

The Renaissance involved a rebirth of letters and arts stimulated by the recovery and study of text from classical antiquity and the development of new aesthetic norms based on classical model. It also unleashed new ideas and new social, political, and economic forces that displaced the otherworldly and communal values of the Middle Ages, emphasizing instead the dignity and potential of the individual and the worth of life in this world.[2]

 III. Famous Figures in Literature

In literature, the major literary figures of this age were: Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and Sanazzaro from Italy; Erasmus from Netherland; Montaigne and Rabelais from France; Lope de Vega and Cervantes from Spain; Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Shakespeare and Sir Francs Bacon from England.

 VI. Characteristics of the Renaissance :

The renaissance period  in brief was characterized by mainly 4 important traits :

1. The revival of the classical Antiquity

Which is shown vehementy through the revival of the old forms of arts mainly sculpture

2. The rise of the logical thinking and favouring it over emotions

Which paved the way towards many thinkers of the experimental school in philosophy such as David Hume and John Locke

3.  the rise of the humanist philosophy

The term humanism was coined in the nineteenth century. It referred mainly to the new conception of man in the Renaissance. The idea of an individual was a vital element of this conception.¹⁷

J. A. Cuddon maintained that humanism as “a European phenomenon was a more worldly and thus more secular philosophy; and it was anthropocentric. It sought to dignify and ennoble man”. Humanism, according to him, helped man to be civilized and to make him realize his potential powers and gifts, and to reduce the difference between potentiality and attainment.

The study of Greek has an important role in Italian humanism; some have argued that the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 caused the escape of many Greek scholars to Italy taking their manuscripts with them and that is what promoted the interest in the classical past and particularly in Plato’s works which were imperfectly known previously.[3]

Francesco Petrarca was one of the earliest important Italian humanists. He revived interest in Cicero as a model for prose style, and he was also the author of some significant works in Latin and Italian. His Florentine followers, Giovanni Boccacio, Collucio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, and Lorenzo Valla, carried on translating of important classical works in order to recover the missing manuscripts from classical antiquity.

4.  Elizabethan Golden Age :

 The reign of Queen Elizabeth I was one of the great periods of English history, perhaps the greatest one. It was known as the Elizabethan Age. In this age, England became a unified nation that was able to be firm and stable against the states like Spain which was planning to attack England. It was an age of great and famous men, of explorations and discoveries, of poetry and music, of revival of learning, and above all mature drama. English drama reached its climax, “a height which has never been surpassed.” ^[4]“The chief literary glory of the great Elizabethan age was its drama, but even before it several plays appeared which showed that a great development had taken place.”[5]

V. Elizabethan Drama  

Elizabethan drama was preliminarily influenced by three elements; the native tradition, the Latin and Italian drama. These elements could be found in almost every Elizabethan plays. The mystery, miracle, morality, and interlude represented the development of the native tradition. Seneca was the model for tragedy, and Plautus and Terence supplied the hinterland suggestions for comedy.[6]English tragedy, in particular, was not developed out of liturgical plays, but from Seneca’s model. His tragedies were marked by fear, exaggerated character-drawing, violence and rhetorical language supported by emotional hyperboles. His impact was felt for the first time in the Latin plays of the universities in general and Cambridge in particular. He became the first classical playwright and all his works had been translated into English. Many of the future dramatists such as Marlowe and Peele were students in the university when Seneca’s impact was strong. Gorboduc was the first English play that embodied Seneca’s form.

During the reign of queen Elizabeth I drama flourished due to:

v The social welfare people lived in which allowed them to enjoy entertaining spectacles of drama

v The queen’s personal interest and appreciation for art especially drama

v The rise of acting companies and acting as a profession

v The playwrights were mostly writing their plays under royal patronage which made them productive.

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[1]2. W. R. Goodman, History of English Literature.Vol. 1, (Delhi: Doaba House,

2009), pp. 285-286.

[2] M. H. Abrams, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature .^5thed., Vol.1,

(USA: WW. Norton & Company, Inc., 1987), p. 240.

4. Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in Its Historical Background,

[3] Richard Dutton, p. 29.

[4] R. F Clarke, p. 30.

[5] G. C. Thornley and Gwyneth Roberts

[6] William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, ed. Praveen Bhatia, p.18.

MEDIEVAL DRAMA

Hello everyone and welcome you all again in my Blog . Today’stopic t is a continuation to the last one, though the pieces of information that I am going to deliver this time are going to be deep, analytical and detailed. The last time we talked about drama and we have traced its origins, this time we are going to talk about a historical phase that the English drama went through and that had granted it a specific dulcitude in comparison to the other literary genres.

Medieval Drama or the Drama of the middle ages started firstly as mimetic representations of religious ideologies through recounting the historical incidents mentioned in the Bible . Drama at that time was held in churches where clerics and afterward laymen endorsed the events of Holy Scripture, God's dealings with His people in the Old and New Testaments as well as stories of common people’s struggling to find their way to God’s heaven . Dramatic spectacles were often linked to the Church's annual festival of Easter Sunday.

Nevertheless, it was bit by bit enlarged to encompass the events honored at other great feasts such as Christmas and the Epiphany, and even saints' days in some places.

You might be wondering why would drama follow such firm religious themes , the answer is Church during the Middle ages or Dark ages the period estimated to start from the fall of Rome in 476 CE until the beginning of the Renaissance in 14th century was the absolute power and its power could not be maintained unless it would ensure that most of the masses are ignorant. What the church actually did is implanting this feeling of contempt and hatred towards the Classical Antiquity for being a pagan civilization. The church also ascertained that all the scientific and philosophical heritage left by the Greek and Roman civilization would be burnt or hidden away from people’s reach to prevent them from verifying the validity of the Church’s claims about the reality of the human being and his relationship with God. As a matter of fact, Drama during the middle ages was not considered a means of entertainment by the priests but rather it was a means through which the church could spread its control over people through filling it with subtle religious messages that serve the church’s hegemony and power.

Medieval Drama underwent two main phases the first one From the 10th to the 13th centuries , in this period most of the plays were in Latin, the official language of the Roman liturgy, however starting from the 14th until the 15th centuries a vernacular religious drama burgeoned in all of the western European countries and it included a relevant stories inspired from people’s lives from creation to the Day of Judgment.

In fact, The medieval religious drama was invented by the Benedictine monks during the carolinian renaissance. It was a phase of the literary and artistic work that escorted the renovations of liturgical service books following charlemagne's instructions , and held through essentially lyrical characters that are commonly known as tropes.

There were mainly three types : Mystery plays The mystery plays are sequences of performances, they used the mysteries of God as their primary theme. They aimed tobring forward ,the daily happenings in the course of a day, how the universe was created from the the start until the Last Judgement , stories of salvation and damnation. Miracle plays told the stories of saints and the holy spirit whereas morality plays that were allegorical (i.e. the characters and events have symbolic meaning) and provided the audience with Christian moral guidance. In this type of religious drama the audience followed a primary character (representing mankind) as they encounter a cast of personified vices and virtues, before ultimately turning to righteousness and salvation.