Shakespeares Hamlet - The Melancholy Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Melancholy settlement In Shakespeares sad drama, small town, the multi-faceted character of the hero is so complex that this essay will illumine the reader on only one facet of his personality his tribulation dimension. A.C. Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy presents convincing evidence regarding the true limit and depth of the heros melancholy sentiment But there is a more formidable difficulty, which seems to have escaped notice. Horatio certainly came from Wittenberg to the funeral. And esteem how he and Hamlet meet (I.ii.160). . . . Is not this passing strange? Hamlet and Horatio are supposed to be fellow-students at Wittenberg, and to have left it for Elsinore little than ii months ago. Yet Hamlet hardly recognizes Horatio at first, and speaks as if he himself lived at Elsinore (I refer to his bitter jest, Well teach you to drink deep ere you exit). Who would dream that Hamlet had himself f just come from Wittenberg, if it were not for the preceding(prenominal) words about his going back there? How can this be explained on the usual view? Only, I presume, by supposing that Hamlet is so sunk in melancholy that he really does almost go forth himself and forgets e verything else, so that he actually is in doubt who Horatio is. (370) It is obvious that from the very outset of this tragedy there is a melancholic protagonist. And the depressing aspect of the initial imagery of the drama tend to underline and reinforce Hamlets melancholy. Marchette Chute in The Story Told in Hamlet describes any(prenominal) of this imagery of the opening scene The story opens in the cold and shadower of a winter night in Denmark, while the guard is macrocosm changed on the battlements of the royal castle of Elsinore. For two nights in succession, just as the bell strikes the hour of one, a ghost has appeared on the battlements, a get wind dressed in complete armor and with a face similar that of the dead king of Denmark, Hamlets father. (35) Horatio and Marcellus exit the ghost-ridden ramparts of Elsinore intending to enlist the care of Hamlet. The prince is dejected by the oerhasty marriage of his mother to his uncle less than two months after the funeral of Hamlets father (Gordon 128). There is a post-coronation cordial gathering of the court, where Claudius insincerely pays tribute to the memory of his deceased brother.