Shakespearean Soliloquy.

    Shakespeare is known for his deep understanding of human nature with diverse feelings, emotions, and passions both positive and negative involved in it. Soliloquy is a device according to which a character brings out the inner complex feelings by speaking to himself / herself. The audience is supposed to hear it but not the other characters. Shakespeare gives soliloquies to complex character in order to bring out the secret feelings and plans which the character cannot share with other characters.
    Characters are individuals with their own complex thoughts and emotions. Not all these thoughts and emotions can be shared with others. Though drama is something public by its nature, soliloquies help to bring to light the private side of a character’s personality. It is the most appropriate formula for revealing the complex thoughts in the mind of characters. Shakespeare gives soliloquies either to villains or to protagonists with complex personality. In Othello, he gives more soliloquies to the antagonist Iago. Since Iago is a scheming villain his deceptions, treachery, conspiracies and pretensions can best be revealed through soliloquies. It helps to show that side of the character’s personality which is hidden from the other characters who are the victims of Iago’s villainy. In Hamlet, it is the character Hamlet who soliloquizes often thereby revealing his doubts, dilemmas, fears, anger and musings on questions of morality. Hamlet is not the acting type so the reflective or contemplative side of his personality is best brought out through his soliloquies. His ‘to be or not to be is the question’ is one of the most remarkable soliloquies that serves to highlight the state of indecision in which he finds himself.

Hamlet as tragedy.

      Hamlet is a revenge tragedy written in the line of Roman senecan tragedy. It is the tragedy of reflection and moral sensitivity. The protagonist is very reflective and too sensitive thus unfit for taking revenge through action. He has to undo the past but the paradox of guilt and justice baffles him. The soliloquies of Hamlet help to bring out his complex mental state. When the play ends all the major characters are dead making the tragedy an absolute one.
    Hamlet’s father has been murdered by his uncle and his mother marries the criminal after her husband’s death. As suggested by the ghost Hamlet has to take revenge on his father’s murderer. As he is a person with a high degree of moral sensitivity and a philosophic bent of mind, he thinks about whether evil can undo evil and not remain evil. He wants to find out whether the ghost has told the truth or not. He thinks too much and cannot go into action without which revenge cannot be taken and the tragedy occurs. The soliloquies are given to him to help reveal his complex psychological state. It’s the tragedy of moral frustration. The tension between Hamlet’s need for revenge and the question of morality, guilt, justice as well as his uncle and mother’s position is vividly dramatized. In action is the major tragic flaw which hastens his tragic downfall. Had Hamlet been Othello the tragedy wouldn’t have occurred. His philosophical soliloquies make it a poetic play rather than a realistic one. Ophelia, her father and brother die primarily because of Claudius’s conspiracy and Hamlet’s impulsiveness. Though the conspirator is killed many other innocent people lose their lives. It is a great disintegration. Since all the characters die at the end of the play the throne has to be given to a foreigner. It is an absolute tragedy in a way. Read More...

T.S. Eliot calls Hamlet an artistic failure. Do you agree? Give reasons.

    Yes, I agree with T.S. Eliot that Hamlet is an artistic failure. There are two reasons for it. First a work of art should be read in the context of literary tradition on which an individual work is built and of which it is a part. Shakespeare drew the material for his Hamlet from the plays of Thomas Kyd but failed to make his play correspond to the original material. The second reason for calling Hamlet an artistic failure has to do with the lack of objective correlative. Shakespeare creates the character possessing emotion in excess because the emotion has no equivalence to the action of the character and the other facts and details in the play.
    We can only criticize a work of art according to certain standards by comparing it to other works of art. Hamlet by Shakespeare owes its content to plays by Thomas Kyd. In Kyd’s version of Hamlet the revenge motive is at the core of the play. Hamlet’s madness was mainly designed to avoid the people’s suspicion of his ability to murder a king surrounded by body guards and Hamlet did it successfully. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet the title character’s madness, on the contrary serves to arouse the king’s suspicion. This change is not complete enough. The delay in revenge goes unexplained. Moreover the Polonius-Laertes and Plonius-Reynaldo scenes are not explained satisfactorily. There is a little excuse for it. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a play dealing with the effect of a mother’s guilt up on her son but Shakespeare was unable to impose this motive successfully upon the material of the old play. The variable versification shows that both workmanship and thought are in an unstable position. Thus the play can not do justice to the original play to which it is indebted for its material. Read More...

    William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream     Shakespeare explores the issues of inconsistency in human nature and relation by creating a world of dream where the characters behave in an irrational way by running after dreams, fantasies and romance that lead to anarchy, chaos, and confusion. Read More...

    William Shakespeare: The Tempest     The play’s major focus is on Prospero’s quest for perfection, knowledge and power. He devotes himself to learning even to the extent of neglecting his duties as a ruler. Use of magic is a weapon through which he can attain perfection. Read More...