l'Amleto slide della Zanichelli

1. Hamlet Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet (1996).
Performer Heritage
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2016

2. Hamlet
1. Sources
Performer Heritage
• Hamlet is based on the
story of Amleth in
Historia Danica (12th
Century) by Saxo
Grammaticus where the
hero pretends he is mad
to avenge his father’s
murder.
• Shakespeare kept the
murder of the king a
secret and used the ghost
to reveal it to Prince
Hamlet.
Eugene Delacroix, Hamlet Sees the Ghost of His Father,
1825. Krakow, Muzeum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.

3. Hamlet
2. The setting
The late Middle Ages (14th and 15th centuries)
The royal castle in Elsinore, a city in Denmark
WHY DENMARK?
Like England, it was a Protestant country.
The subplot deals with a possible war against Norway
sense of menace from another country increases the
tension and sets the mood of the play.
Performer Heritage

4. Hamlet
3. The main situation
• Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark and studies in
Wittenberg, Germany.
• During his absence from Denmark, his father died
and his uncle Claudius succeeded to the throne
and married his mother.
• Hamlet returns to Denmark and is greatly upset.
• He is concerned about his mother’s quick marriage,
his uncle’s sitting on the throne, and his own fate.
Performer Heritage

5. Hamlet
The real psychological
dimension of the play lies
in Hamlet’s use of
language.
He is the most talkative
of all Shakespeare’s
characters.
4. The character of Hamlet
Performer Heritage
Nikolay Lazarev as Hamlet on stage at the
Theatre of the Russian Army in Moscow, 2006.

6. Hamlet
Performer Heritage
Ambiguity is the most striking
characteristic of Hamlet’s language.
Everything he says
is conveyed through
• metaphor;
• simile;
• wordplay.
His words have
a hidden meaning.
4. The character of Hamlet
Nikolay Lazarev as Hamlet on stage at the
Theatre of the Russian Army in Moscow, 2006.

7. Hamlet
Performer Heritage
He has many roles in the play
he does not believe in:
• the [non]-revenger
in a revenge play;
• the [non]-heir to the throne;
• the [non]-lover of the heroine;
• the [non]-son to the [non]-
father. Hamlet holds the skull of Yorick in the graveyard
scene from the 1948 film adaptation of Hamlet.
4. The character of Hamlet

8. Hamlet
Performer Heritage
4. Hamlet’s melancholy

9. Hamlet
5. Claudius
• He is Hamlet’s uncle.
• He is guilty of killing the king, his own brother.
• He becomes Hamlet’s stepfather when he hurriedly
marries his mother Gertrude, whom he seems to love.
• He becomes king by election of the nobles when King
Hamlet dies.
Performer Heritage

10. Hamlet
• He is a man of action who coldly plans Hamlet’s
murder and has no moral doubts.
• He manipulates everyone in the play: Gertrude,
Ophelia, Polonius, Laertes, and Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern.
• He is the villain but Shakespeare shows he has
a conscience when he tries to pray.
Performer Heritage
5. Claudius

11. Hamlet
Eugene Delacroix, Hamlet Sees the Ghost of His Father, 1825.
Krakow, Muzeum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
6. The ghost
Performer Heritage
• Hamlet’s father, whose
name was also Hamlet.
• Hamlet talks to him and
finds out the truth about
his father’s death.
• Hamlet wants to confirm
the true identity of the
ghost before.

12. Hamlet
7. The minor characters
GERTRUDE Hamlet’s mother and the queen.
Performer Heritage
POLONIUS the Principal Secretary of State, the father
of Ophelia and Laertes. Hamlet does not trust him.
HORATIO Hamlet’s best friend and confidant.
OPHELIA Hamlet’s tragic love. Her madness contrasts
with Hamlet’s pretended madness.
LAERTES A student at the University of Paris, he comes
back to avenge his father’s death and finally kills Hamlet
with a poisoned sword.

13. Hamlet
8. The chain of being
Performer Heritage
• The Elizabethans believed in the
natural order determined by a
great chain of being.
• The chain was organised in a
series of hierarchical links with
God at the top.
• The king was at the top of the
human level.
• Any disruption in the chain had
consequent effects on the natural
order of things.

14. Hamlet
9. Regicide
and the chain of being
Performer Heritage
The Elizabethans believed that
• the king was appointed by God to embody order
and stability;
• the murder of the king disrupted the chain of being,
brought about the collapse of order and universal
disaster;
• the ghost of a murdered person could return to ask for
revenge on his murderer;
• the Devil could appear on earth and take on many forms,
including that of a ghost.

15. Hamlet
10. Themes
Performer Heritage

16. Hamlet
11. A play-within-the-play
organised by Hamlet to expose his father’s murderer;
interesting expedient because it turns the actors into an audience
dealing with the background to the tragedy.
Performer Heritage
The Murder of Gonzago

17. Hamlet
Performer Heritage
12. Hamlet
and the tragedy of revenge
Revenge
tragedies Hamlet
The avenger has a close
relationship with the
audience through soliloquies
• follows the conventions
of the tragedy of revenge
• shows greater
psychological penetration
• focuses on the theme
of doubt and uncertainty
• a sexual or violent crime is
committed against a family
member
• the hero exacts the
revenge
• he has a period of doubt
• a ghost appears to get the
avenger carry out his task