Eternal problems in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. Lesson summary: moral problems in Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet". I. “To unravel the mystery and meaning of existence”

Shakespeare created Hamlet at a turning point in his work. Researchers have long noticed that after 1600, Shakespeare’s previous optimism was replaced by harsh criticism and an in-depth analysis of the tragic contradictions in the soul and life of man. For ten years, the playwright creates the greatest tragedies, in which he solves the most burning questions of human existence and gives deep and formidable answers to them. The tragedy of the Prince of Denmark is especially significant in this regard.

The tragedy "Hamlet" is Shakespeare's attempt to capture with a single glance the entire picture of human life, to answer the sacramental question about its meaning, to approach man from the position of God. No wonder G.V.F. Hegel believed that Shakespeare, through the means of artistic creativity, provided unsurpassed examples of analysis of fundamental philosophical problems: a person’s free choice of actions and goals in life, his independence in making decisions.

Shakespeare in his plays masterfully exposed human souls, forcing his heroes to confess to the audience. The brilliant reader of Shakespeare and one of the first researchers of the figure of Hamlet - Goethe - once said this: “There is no pleasure more sublime and pure than, closing your eyes, listening to a natural and faithful voice not recite, but read Shakespeare. So it is best to follow the harsh threads from which he weaves events. Everything that blows in the air when great world events take place, everything that fearfully withdraws and hides in the soul, here comes to light freely and naturally; we learn the truth of life without knowing how.”

Let us follow the example of the great German and read the text of the immortal tragedy, for the most accurate judgment about the character of Hamlet and other heroes of the play can only be deduced from what they say, and from what others say about them. Shakespeare sometimes remains silent about certain circumstances, but in this case we will not allow ourselves to guess, but will rely on the text. It seems that Shakespeare, in one way or another, said everything that was needed by both his contemporaries and future generations of researchers.

How have the researchers of the brilliant play interpreted the image of the Danish Prince! Gilbert Keith Chesterton, not without irony, noted the following about the efforts of various scientists: “Shakespeare, without a doubt, believed in the struggle between duty and feeling. But if you have a scientist, then for some reason things are different here. The scientist does not want to admit that this struggle tormented Hamlet, and replaces it with the struggle of consciousness with the subconscious. He gives Hamlet complexes so as not to give him a conscience. And all because he, a scientist, refuses to take seriously the simple, if you like, primitive morality on which Shakespeare’s tragedy stands. This morality includes three premises from which the modern morbid subconscious runs as if from a ghost. First, we must act justly, even if we really don’t want to; secondly, justice may require that we punish a person, usually a strong one; thirdly, the punishment itself can result in a fight and even murder.”

Tragedy begins with murder and ends with murder. Claudius kills his brother in his sleep by pouring a poisonous infusion of henbane into his ear. Hamlet imagines the terrible picture of his father’s death this way:

Father died with a swollen belly,

All swollen, like May, from sinful juices.

God knows what other demand there is for this,

But overall, probably quite a lot.

(Translation by B. Pasternak)

The ghost of Hamlet's father appeared to Marcello and Bernardo, and they called Horatio precisely as an educated person, capable of, if not explaining this phenomenon, then at least communicating with the ghost. Horatio is a friend and close associate of Prince Hamlet, which is why the heir to the Danish throne, and not King Claudius, learns from him about the visits of the ghost.

Hamlet's first soliloquy reveals his tendency to make the broadest generalizations based on a single fact. The shameful behavior of the mother, who threw herself on the “bed of incest,” leads Hamlet to an unfavorable assessment of the entire fair half of humanity. No wonder he says: “Frailty, you are called: woman!” In the original: frailty - frailty, weakness, instability. It is this quality for Hamlet that is now decisive for the entire female race. Hamlet's mother was the ideal woman, and it was all the more terrible for him to witness her fall. The death of his father and his mother’s betrayal of the memory of his late husband and monarch mean for Hamlet the complete collapse of the world in which he had happily existed until then. The father's house, which he remembered with longing in Wittenberg, collapsed. This family drama forces his impressionable and sensitive soul to come to such a pessimistic conclusion:

How, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on"t, ah fie! "tis an unwedded garden

That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely.

Boris Pasternak perfectly conveyed the meaning of these lines:

How insignificant, flat and stupid

It seems to me that the whole world is in its aspirations!

O abomination! Like an unweeded garden

Give free rein to the grass and it will become overgrown with weeds.

With the same undividedness the whole world

Rough beginnings filled.

Hamlet is not a cold rationalist and analyst. He is a man with a big heart capable of strong feelings. His blood is hot, and his senses are heightened and cannot dull. From reflections on his own life conflicts, he extracts truly philosophical generalizations concerning human nature as a whole. His painful reaction to his surroundings is not surprising. Put yourself in his place: his father died, his mother hastily married his uncle, and this uncle, whom he once loved and respected, turns out to be his father's murderer! Brother killed brother! Cain's sin is terrible and testifies to irreversible changes in human nature itself. The ghost is absolutely right:

Murder is vile in itself; but this

The most vile and most inhuman of all.

(Translation by M. Lozinsky)

Fratricide indicates that the very foundations of humanity have rotted. Everywhere - betrayal and enmity, lust and meanness. You can’t trust anyone, not even the closest person. This torments Hamlet most of all, who is forced to stop looking at the world around him through rose-colored glasses. The terrible crime of Claudius and the lustful behavior of his mother (typical, however, of many aging women) look in his eyes only as manifestations of general corruption, evidence of the existence and triumph of world evil.

Many researchers reproached Hamlet for indecisiveness and even cowardice. In their opinion, he should have killed him as soon as he learned about his uncle’s crime. Even the term “Hamletism” appeared, which began to denote weakness of will prone to reflection. But Hamlet wants to make sure that the spirit who came from hell told the truth, that his father’s ghost is really an “honest spirit.” After all, if Claudius is innocent, then Hamlet himself will become a criminal and will be doomed to hell. That is why the prince comes up with a “mousetrap” for Claudius. Only after the performance, having seen his uncle’s reaction to the crime committed on stage, does Hamlet receive real earthly proof of the revealing news from the other world. Hamlet almost kills Claudius, but he is saved only by his state of immersion in prayer. The prince does not want to send his uncle’s soul, cleansed of sins, to heaven. That is why Claudius is spared until a more favorable moment. Sohmer S. Certificatein Speculations on "Hamlet", the Calendar, and Martin Luther. Early Modern Literary Studios 2.1 (1996):

Hamlet seeks not just to avenge his murdered father. The crimes of the uncle and mother only testify to the general deterioration of morals, the destruction of human nature. No wonder he utters the famous words:

The time is out of joint - o cursed spite.

That ever I was born to set it right!

Here is a fairly accurate translation by M. Lozinsky:

The century has been shaken - and worst of all,

That I was born to restore it!

Hamlet understands the depravity not of individual people, but of all humanity, of the entire era of which he is a contemporary. In an effort to take revenge on his father's murderer, Hamlet wants to restore the natural course of things and revives the destroyed order of the universe. Hamlet is offended by Claudius' crime not only as his father's son, but also as a man. In the eyes of Hamlet, the king and all the court brethren are by no means isolated random grains of sand on the human shore. They are representatives of the human race. Despising them, the prince is inclined to think that the entire human race is worthy of contempt, absolutizing the particular cases of Shakespeare W. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. // The Complete Works. - Oxford: Claredon Press, 1988. . Queen Gertrude and Ophelia, with all their love for the prince, are not able to understand him. Therefore, Hamlet curses love itself. Horatio, as a scientist, cannot understand the mysteries of the other world, and Hamlet pronounces a verdict on learning in general. Probably, even in the silence of his Wittenberg existence, Hamlet experienced the hopeless pangs of doubt, the drama of abstract critical thought. After returning to Denmark, things escalated. He is bitter about the consciousness of his powerlessness, he realizes all the treacherous instability of the idealization of the human mind and the unreliability of human attempts to think of the world according to abstract formulas.

Hamlet faced reality as it is. He has experienced all the bitterness of disappointment in people, and this pushes his soul to a turning point. Not every person’s comprehension of reality is accompanied by such shocks as the Shakespearean hero experienced. But it is precisely when faced with the contradictions of reality that people get rid of illusions and begin to see true life. Shakespeare chose an atypical situation for his hero, an extreme case. The hero’s once harmonious inner world collapses, and then is recreated before our eyes again. It is precisely in the dynamism of the image of the main character, in the absence of statics in his character, that lies the reason for the diversity of such contradictory assessments of the Danish prince.

Hamlet's spiritual development can be reduced to three dialectical stages: harmony, its collapse and restoration in a new quality. V. Belinsky wrote about this when he argued that the so-called indecisiveness of the prince is “disintegration, a transition from infantile, unconscious harmony and self-pleasure of the spirit into disharmony and struggle, which are a necessary condition for the transition to courageous and conscious harmony and self-pleasure of the spirit "

The famous monologue “To be or not to be” is pronounced at the peak of Hamlet’s doubts, at the turning point of his mental and spiritual development. There is no strict logic in the monologue, because it is pronounced at the moment of the greatest discord in his consciousness. But these 33 Shakespearean lines are one of the peaks of not only world literature, but also philosophy. Fight against the forces of evil or avoid this battle? - this is the main question of the monologue. It is he who entails all of Hamlet’s other thoughts, including those about the eternal hardships of humanity:

Who would bear the lashes and mockery of the century,

The oppression of the strong, the mockery of the proud,

The pain of despised love, the slowness of judges,

The arrogance of the authorities and insults,

Performed by uncomplaining merit,

If only he could give himself a reckoning

With a simple dagger...

(Translation by M. Lozinsky)

All these problems do not apply to Hamlet, but here he again speaks on behalf of humanity, for these problems will accompany the human race until the end of time, for the golden age will never come. All this is “human, too human,” as Friedrich Nietzsche would later say.

Hamlet reflects on the nature of the human tendency to think. The hero analyzes not only existing existence and his position in it, but also the nature of his own thoughts. In the literature of the Late Renaissance, heroes often turned to the analysis of human thought. Hamlet also carries out his own criticism of the human “power of judgment” and comes to the conclusion: excessive thinking paralyzes the will.

So thinking makes us cowards,

And so determined natural color

Withers under the pale patina of thought,

And beginnings that rose powerfully,

Turning aside your move,

Lose the action name.

(Translation by M. Lozinsky)

The entire monologue “To be or not to be” is permeated with a heavy awareness of the hardships of existence. Arthur Schopenhauer, in his thoroughly pessimistic “Aphorisms of Worldly Wisdom,” often follows the milestones that Shakespeare left in this heartfelt monologue of the prince. I don’t want to live in the world that appears in the hero’s speech. But it is necessary to live, because it is unknown what awaits a person after death - perhaps even worse horrors. “The fear of a country from which no one has returned” forces a person to eke out an existence on this mortal earth - sometimes the most pitiful one. Note that Hamlet is convinced of the existence of the afterlife, because the ghost of his unfortunate father came to him from hell.

Death is one of the main characters not only in the monologue “To be or not to be,” but also in the entire play. She reaps a generous harvest in Hamlet: nine people pass away in that same mysterious country that the Danish prince is thinking about. About this famous monologue of Hamlet, our great poet and translator B. Pasternak said: “These are the most trembling and insane lines ever written about the anguish of the unknown on the eve of death, rising with the power of feeling to the bitterness of the Gethsemane note.”

Shakespeare was one of the first in the world philosophy of modern times to think about suicide. After him, this topic was developed by the greatest minds: I.V. Goethe, F.M. Dostoevsky, N.A. Berdyaev, E. Durkheim. Hamlet reflects on the problem of suicide at a turning point in his life, when the “connection of times” has broken down for him. For him, struggle began to mean life, being, and leaving life becomes a symbol of defeat, physical and moral death.

Hamlet's instinct for life is stronger than the timid sprouts of thoughts about suicide, although his indignation against the injustices and hardships of life often turns on himself. Let's see what choice curses he showers on himself! “Dumb and cowardly fool”, “mouthless”, “coward”, “donkey”, “woman”, “scullery maid”. The internal energy that overwhelms Hamlet, all his anger, for the time being, falls into his own personality. While criticizing the human race, Hamlet does not forget about himself. But, reproaching himself for slowness, he does not for a moment forget about the suffering of his father, who suffered a terrible death at the hands of his brother.

Hamlet is by no means slow to take revenge. He wants Claudius, dying, to find out why he died. In his mother’s bedroom, he kills the lurking Polonius in full confidence that he has taken revenge and Claudius is already dead. The more terrible is his disappointment:

As for him,

(points to Polonius' corpse)

Then I mourn; but heaven commanded

They punished me and me him,

So that I become their scourge and servant.

(Translation by M. Lozinsky)

Hamlet sees in chance a manifestation of the highest will of heaven. It was heaven that entrusted him with the mission of being a “scorge and minister” - a servant and executor of their will. This is exactly how Hamlet views the matter of revenge.

Claudius is furious at Hamlet’s “bloody trick,” because he understands who his nephew’s sword was really aimed at. It is only by chance that the “fidgety, stupid busybody” Polonius dies. It is difficult to say what Claudius' plans were in relation to Hamlet. Whether he planned his destruction from the beginning or was forced to commit new atrocities by Hamlet’s very behavior, which hinted to the king about his awareness of his secrets, Shakespeare does not answer these questions. It has long been noted that Shakespeare’s villains, unlike the villains of ancient drama, are by no means just schemes, but living people, not devoid of germs of goodness. But these sprouts wither with each new crime, and in the souls of these people evil blooms magnificently. Such is Claudius, losing the remnants of humanity before our eyes. In the duel scene, he does not actually prevent the death of the queen who drinks poisoned wine, although he tells her: “Don’t drink wine, Gertrude.” But his own interests come first, and he sacrifices his newly acquired wife. But it was precisely the passion for Gertrude that became one of the reasons for Cain’s sin of Claudius!

I would like to note that in the tragedy Shakespeare confronts two understandings of death: religious and realistic. The scenes in the cemetery are indicative in this regard. While preparing the grave for Ophelia, the gravediggers unfold an entire philosophy of life before the viewer.

The real, and not poetic, appearance of death is terrible and vile. No wonder Hamlet, holding in his hands the skull of his once beloved jester Yorick, reflects: “Where are your jokes? Your tomfoolery? Your singing? Nothing left to make fun of your own antics? Has your jaw completely dropped? Now go into some lady’s room and tell her that even if she puts on a whole inch of makeup, she will still end up with such a face...” (translation by M. Lozinsky). Before death, everyone is equal: “Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander turns to dust; dust is earth; clay is made from earth; and why can’t they plug up a beer barrel with this clay into which he turned?”

Yes, Hamlet is a tragedy about death. That is why it is extremely relevant for us, citizens of a dying Russia, modern Russian people, whose brains have not yet completely become dull from watching endless series that lull the mind. The once great country perished, as did the once glorious state of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire. We, once its citizens, are left to drag out a miserable existence on the outskirts of world civilization and endure the bullying of all kinds of shylocks.

The historical triumph of Hamlet is natural - after all, it is the quintessence of Shakespearean drama. Here, as if in a gene, the bundle already contained “Troilus and Cressida,” “King Lear,” “Othello,” and “Timon of Athens.” After all, all these things show the contrast between the world and man, the clash between human life and the principle of negation.

More and more stage and film versions of the great tragedy are appearing, sometimes extremely modernized. Probably, “Hamlet” is so easily modernized because it is all-human. And although the modernization of Hamlet is a violation of historical perspective, there is no escape from it. In addition, the historical perspective, like the horizon, is unattainable and therefore fundamentally inviolable: as many eras, so many perspectives.

Hamlet, for the most part, is Shakespeare himself, the soul of the poet himself is reflected in him. Through his lips, wrote Ivan Franko, the poet expressed a lot of things that burned his own soul. It has long been noted that Shakespeare's 66th sonnet strikingly coincides with the thoughts of the Danish prince. Probably, of all Shakespeare's heroes, only Hamlet could write Shakespearean works. It is not for nothing that Bernard Shaw’s friend and biographer Frank Garrick considered Hamlet to be a spiritual portrait of Shakespeare. We find the same in Joyce: “And perhaps Hamlet is the spiritual son of Shakespeare, who lost his Hamlet.” He says: “If you want to destroy my belief that Shakespeare is Hamlet, you have a difficult task.”

There cannot be anything in creation that was not in the creator himself. Shakespeare may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the streets of London, but Hamlet was born from the depths of his soul, and Romeo grew from his passion. A person is least likely to be himself when he speaks for himself. Give him a mask and he will become truthful. Actor William Shakespeare knew this well.

The essence of Hamlet lies in the infinity of Shakespeare’s own spiritual quest, all his “to be or not to be?”, the search for the meaning of life among its impurities, the awareness of the absurdity of existence and the thirst for overcoming it with the greatness of the spirit. With Hamlet, Shakespeare expressed his own attitude towards the world, and, judging by Hamlet, this attitude was by no means rosy. In Hamlet, for the first time, a motif characteristic of Shakespeare “after 1601” will be heard: “Not one of the people pleases me; no, not even one."

Hamlet's closeness to Shakespeare is confirmed by numerous variations on the theme of the Prince of Denmark: Romeo, Macbeth, Vincent (“Measure for Measure”), Jacques (“How Do You Like It?”), Posthumus (“Cymbeline”) are peculiar doubles of Hamlet.

The power of inspiration and the power of the brushstroke indicate that “Hamlet” became an expression of some personal tragedy of Shakespeare, some of the poet’s experiences at the time of writing the play. In addition, Hamlet expresses the tragedy of an actor who asks himself: which role is more important - the one he plays on stage, or the one he plays in life. Apparently, under the influence of his own creation, the poet began to think about which part of his life is more real and complete - the poet or the person N.N. Belozerov. Integrative poetics. - TSU Publishing House, Tyumen, 1999, - P.125.

Shakespeare in Hamlet appears as the greatest philosopher-anthropologist. The person is always at the center of his thoughts. He reflects on the essence of nature, space and time only in close connection with thoughts about human life.

Issues

The problem of moral choice

One of the most striking problems of the work is the problem of choice, which can be considered a reflection of the main conflict of the tragedy. For a thinking person, the problem of choice, especially when it comes to moral choice, is always difficult and responsible. Undoubtedly, the final result is determined by a number of reasons and, first of all, by the value system of each individual person. If a person is guided in his life by higher, noble impulses, he most likely will not decide to take an inhumane and criminal step, will not violate the well-known Christian commandments: do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, etc. However, in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet we become witnesses to a slightly different process. The main character, in a fit of revenge, kills several people, his actions evoke ambiguous feelings, but condemnation comes last in this row.

Having learned that his father fell at the hands of the villain Claudius, Hamlet faces the most difficult problem of choice. The famous monologue “To be or not to be?” embodies the spiritual doubts of a prince making a difficult moral choice. Life or death? Strength or powerlessness? An unequal struggle or a shame of cowardice? Hamlet tries to resolve such complex questions.

Hamlet's famous soliloquy shows the destructive mental struggle between idealistic ideas and cruel reality. The insidious murder of his father, the indecent marriage of his mother, the betrayal of friends, the weakness and frivolity of his beloved, the meanness of the courtiers - all this fills the prince’s soul with immeasurable suffering. Hamlet understands that “Denmark is a prison” and “the age is shaken.” From now on, the main character is left alone with a sanctimonious world ruled by lust, cruelty and hatred.

Hamlet constantly feels a contradiction: his consciousness clearly says what he must do, but he lacks will and determination. On the other hand, it can be assumed that it is not the lack of will that leaves Hamlet without action for a long time. It is not without reason that the theme of death constantly arises in his discussions: it is in direct connection with the awareness of the frailty of existence.

Finally Hamlet makes a decision. He is truly close to madness, since the sight of evil, which triumphs and dominates, is unbearable. Hamlet takes responsibility for the world's evil, all the misunderstandings of life, for all the suffering of people. The main character acutely feels his loneliness and, realizing his powerlessness, still goes into battle and dies like a fighter.

Search for the meaning of life and death

The monologue “To be or not to be” demonstrates to us that a huge internal struggle is taking place in Hamlet’s soul. Everything that happens around him weighs so much on him that he would commit suicide if it were not considered a sin. The hero is concerned about the mystery of death itself: what is it - a dream or a continuation of the same torments that earthly life is full of?

“That’s the difficulty;

What dreams will you have in your death sleep?

When we drop this mortal noise, -

This is what throws us off; that's the reason

That disasters are so long-lasting;

Who would bear the lashes and mockery of the century,

The oppression of the strong, the mockery of the proud,

The pain of despised love, the slowness of judges,

The arrogance of the authorities and insults,

Performed by uncomplaining merit,

If only he could give himself a reckoning

With a simple dagger? (5, p.44)

Fear of the unknown, of this country from which not a single traveler has returned, often forces people to return to reality and not think about the “unknown land from which there is no return.”

Unhappy love

The relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet forms an independent drama within the framework of a great tragedy. Why can't people who love each other be happy? In Hamlet, the relationship between lovers is destroyed. Revenge turns out to be an obstacle to the unity of the prince and the girl he loves. Hamlet depicts the tragedy of giving up love. At the same time, their fathers play a fatal role for lovers. Ophelia's father orders her to break up with Hamlet, Hamlet breaks up with Ophelia in order to devote himself entirely to revenge for his father. Hamlet suffers because he is forced to hurt Ophelia and, suppressing pity, is merciless in his condemnation of women.

Ideological basis

"To be or not to be"

The amlet is filled with faith and love for people, life and the world in general. The prince is surrounded by loyal friends and the love of his parents. But all his ideas about the world dissipate like smoke when confronted with reality. Returning to Elsinore, Hamlet learns of the sudden death of his father and his mother's betrayal. In Hamlet’s soul, next to faith, a doubting thought arose. And both of these forces - faith and reason - wage a continuous struggle in him. Hamlet experiences deep pain, shocked by the death of his beloved father, who was in many ways an example for the prince. Hamlet becomes disillusioned with the world around him, the true meaning of life becomes unclear to him:

“How tiresome, dull and unnecessary

It seems to me that everything in the world!” (5, p. 11)

Hamlet hates Claudius, for whom there were no laws of kinship, who, together with his mother, betrayed the honor of his late brother and took possession of the crown. Hamlet is deeply disappointed in his mother, who was once his ideal woman. The meaning of life for Hamlet becomes revenge on his father’s murderer and restoration of justice. “But how should this matter be handled so as not to tarnish oneself.” Faced with the contradiction between dreams of life and life itself, Hamlet faces a difficult choice, “to be or not to be, to submit to the slings and arrows of furious fate, or, taking up arms on a sea of ​​turmoil, to defeat them with confrontation, to die, to sleep.”

To be - for Hamlet this means to think, believe in a person and act in accordance with one’s convictions and faith. But the deeper he knows people and life, the more clearly he sees triumphant evil and realizes that he is powerless to crush it with such a lonely struggle. Discord with the world is accompanied by internal discord. Hamlet's former faith in man, his former ideals are crushed, broken in a collision with reality, but he cannot completely renounce them, otherwise he would cease to be himself.

“The century has been shaken - and the worst thing is that I was born to restore it!”

As his father's son, Hamlet must avenge his family's honor by killing Claudius, who poisoned the king. The fratricide breeds evil around himself. Hamlet's trouble is that he does not want to be a continuer of evil - after all, in order to eradicate evil, Hamlet will have to use that same evil. It’s hard for him to take this path. The hero is torn apart by duality: the spirit of his father calls for revenge, but his inner voice stops the “action of evil.”

The tragedy for Hamlet lies not only in the fact that the world is terrible, but also in the fact that he must rush into the abyss of evil in order to fight it. He realizes that he himself is far from perfect, and, indeed, his behavior reveals that the evil that reigns in life to some extent stains him too. The tragic irony of life's circumstances leads Hamlet to the fact that he, acting as an avenger for his murdered father, also kills the father of Laertes and Ophelia, and the son of Polonius takes revenge on him.

In general, circumstances develop in such a way that Hamlet, carrying out revenge, finds himself forced to strike left and right. He, for whom there is nothing dearer than life, has to become the squire of death.

Hamlet, wearing the mask of a jester, enters into combat with a world filled with evil. The prince kills the courtier Polonius, who is watching him, reveals the betrayal of his university comrades, abandons Ophelia, who could not resist the evil influence, and is drawn into an intrigue against Hamlet.

“The century is shaken and worse than anything,

That I was born to restore it” (5, p.28)

The prince dreams not only of revenge for his murdered father. Hamlet's soul is stirred by thoughts about the need to fight the injustice of the world. The main character asks a rhetorical question: why should he correct a world that has become completely shaken? Does he have the right to do this? Evil lives within him, and he admits to himself that he is pompous, ambitious and vindictive. How can one overcome evil in such a situation? How to help a person defend the truth? Hamlet is forced to suffer under the weight of inhuman torment. It is then that he poses the main question “to be or not to be?” The resolution of this question lies the essence of Hamlet's tragedy - the tragedy of a thinking man who came into a disorderly world too early, the first of people to see the amazing imperfection of the world.

Having decided to avenge their fathers, to respond with evil to evil, the noble sons took revenge, but what was the result - Ophelia went crazy and died tragically, her mother became an unwitting victim of a vile conspiracy, drinking the “poisoned cup”, Laertes, Hamlet and Claudius are dead.

"..Death!

Oh, what kind of underground feast are you preparing?

Arrogant that so many of the world's mighty

Slayed at once? (5, p. 94)

“Something is rotten in our Danish state”

Already at the beginning of the tragedy, Marcellus casually remarks: “Something is rotten in the Danish state,” and, as the action develops, we become more and more convinced that “rot” has really started in Denmark. Betrayal and meanness reign everywhere. Treason replaces fidelity, insidious crime replaces brotherly love. Revenge, intrigue and conspiracies, this is how the people of the Danish state live.

Hamlet talks about the corruption of morals. He notices the insincerity of people, flattery and sycophancy, degrading human dignity: “Here is my uncle - the King of Denmark, and those who made faces at him while my father was alive pay twenty, forty, fifty and a hundred ducats for his portrait in miniature. Damn it, there is something supernatural in this, if only philosophy could find out” (5, p. 32).

Hamlet sees that humanity is absent, and scoundrels triumph everywhere, corrupting everyone and everything around them, who “keep thought away from the tongue, and thoughtless thought from action.”

When Rosencrantz, in response to Hamlet’s question: “What news?” replies that there is no news, “except perhaps that the world has become honest,” the prince remarks: “So, it means that the day of judgment is near, but your news is wrong.”

"The world is a theater"

The figure of the jester and the clown, on the one hand, and the figure of the king, on the other, embody the idea of ​​theatricality in real life and express the hidden metaphor of the “world-theater”. Hamlet's remark, permeated with theatrical terms in the context of the stage and the entire tragedy, appears as a vivid but elusive example of the hidden world-stage metaphor. The parallel drawn in the work between Hamlet and the First Actor makes it possible to identify the hidden metaphor “world-stage” at the level of the deep subtext of the tragedy and to trace how masterfully one reality in Shakespeare passes into another, forming parallel semantic series. “The play within the play” “the murder of Gonzago” is the paradigm of the structure of the entire “Hamlet” and the key to understanding the deep ideas hidden in the subtext of the tragedy (6, p. 63). “The Murder of Gonzago” is one big metaphor “the world is a stage”, realized in the form of a theatrical device “a scene on a stage”.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. The eternal questions raised in the text concern humanity to this day. Love conflicts, themes related to politics, reflections on religion: this tragedy contains all the basic intentions of the human spirit. Shakespeare's plays are both tragic and realistic, and the images have long become eternal in world literature. Perhaps this is where their greatness lies.

The famous English author was not the first to write the story of Hamlet. Before him there was The Spanish Tragedy, written by Thomas Kyd. Researchers and literary scholars suggest that Shakespeare borrowed the plot from him. However, Thomas Kyd himself probably consulted earlier sources. Most likely, these were short stories from the early Middle Ages.

Saxo Grammaticus, in his book “The History of the Danes,” described the real story of the ruler of Jutland, who had a son named Amlet and a wife Geruta. The ruler had a brother who was jealous of his wealth and decided to kill him, and then married his wife. Amlet did not submit to the new ruler, and, having learned about the bloody murder of his father, decides to take revenge. The stories coincide down to the smallest detail, but Shakespeare interprets the events differently and penetrates deeper into the psychology of each character.

The essence

Hamlet returns to his native castle Elsinore for his father's funeral. From the soldiers who served at the court, he learns about a ghost who comes to them at night and whose outline resembles the late king. Hamlet decides to go to a meeting with an unknown phenomenon, a further meeting horrifies him. The ghost reveals to him the true cause of his death and persuades his son to take revenge. The Danish prince is confused and on the verge of madness. He doesn’t understand whether he really saw his father’s spirit, or was it the devil who visited him from the depths of hell?

The hero reflects on what happened for a long time and ultimately decides to find out on his own whether Claudius is really guilty. To do this, he asks a troupe of actors to perform the play “The Murder of Gonzago” to see the king’s reaction. During a key moment in the play, Claudius becomes ill and leaves, at which point a sinister truth is revealed. All this time, Hamlet pretends to be crazy, and even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were sent to him, could not find out from him the true motives of his behavior. Hamlet intends to talk to the queen in her chambers and accidentally kills Polonius, who hid behind the curtain in order to eavesdrop. He sees in this accident a manifestation of the will of heaven. Claudius understands the criticality of the situation and tries to send Hamlet to England, where he is to be executed. But this does not happen, and the dangerous nephew returns to the castle, where he kills his uncle and himself dies from poison. The kingdom passes into the hands of the Norwegian ruler Fortinbras.

Genre and direction

“Hamlet” is written in the genre of tragedy, but the “theatrical” nature of the work should be taken into account. After all, in Shakespeare’s understanding, the world is a stage, and life is a theater. This is a specific worldview, a creative look at the phenomena surrounding a person.

Shakespeare's dramas are traditionally classified as. She is characterized by pessimism, gloom and aestheticization of death. These features can also be found in the work of the great English playwright.

Conflict

The main conflict in the play is divided into external and internal. Its external manifestation lies in Hamlet’s attitude towards the inhabitants of the Danish court. He considers them all vile creatures, devoid of reason, pride and dignity.

The internal conflict is very well expressed in the hero’s emotional experiences, his struggle with himself. Hamlet chooses between two behavioral types: new (Renaissance) and old (feudal). He is formed as a fighter, not wanting to perceive reality as it is. Shocked by the evil that surrounded him on all sides, the prince is going to fight it, despite all the difficulties.

Composition

The main compositional outline of the tragedy consists of a story about the fate of Hamlet. Each individual layer of the play serves to fully reveal his personality and is accompanied by constant changes in the hero’s thoughts and behavior. Events gradually unfold in such a way that the reader begins to feel constant tension, which does not stop even after Hamlet’s death.

The action can be divided into five parts:

1. First part - plot. Here Hamlet meets the ghost of his deceased father, who bequeaths him to take revenge for his death. In this part, the prince for the first time encounters human betrayal and meanness. This is where his mental torment begins, which does not let him go until his death. Life becomes meaningless for him.
2. Second part - action development. The prince decides to pretend to be crazy in order to deceive Claudius and find out the truth about his act. He also accidentally kills the royal advisor, Polonius. At this moment, the realization comes to him that he is the executor of the highest will of heaven.
3. The third part - climax. Here Hamlet, using the trick of showing the play, is finally convinced of the guilt of the ruling king. Claudius realizes how dangerous his nephew is and decides to get rid of him.
4. Part four - The Prince is sent to England to be executed there. At the same moment, Ophelia goes crazy and tragically dies.
5. Fifth part - denouement. Hamlet escapes execution, but is forced to fight Laertes. In this part, all the main participants in the action die: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet himself.

The main characters and their characteristics

• Hamlet– from the very beginning of the play, the reader’s interest is focused on the personality of this character. This “bookish” boy, as Shakespeare himself wrote about him, suffers from the disease of the approaching century - melancholy. At his core, he is the first reflective hero of world literature. Someone may think that he is a weak person, incapable of action. But in fact, we see that he is strong in spirit and is not going to submit to the problems that befell him. His perception of the world changes, particles of former illusions turn to dust. This gives rise to that same “Hamletism”—an internal discord in the hero’s soul. By nature he is a dreamer, a philosopher, but life forced him to become an avenger. Hamlet’s character can be called “Byronic”, because he is extremely focused on his inner state and is quite skeptical about the world around him. He, like all romantics, is prone to constant self-doubt and tossing between good and evil.
• Gertrude- Hamlet's mother. A woman in whom we see the makings of intelligence, but a complete lack of will. She is not alone in her loss, but for some reason she does not try to get closer to her son at a time when grief has occurred in the family. Without the slightest remorse, Gertrude betrays the memory of her late husband and agrees to marry his brother. Throughout the action, she constantly tries to justify herself. Dying, the queen understands how wrong her behavior was, and how wise and fearless her son turned out to be.
• Ophelia- daughter of Polonius and lover of Hamlet. A meek girl who loved the prince until her death. She also faced trials that she could not endure. Her madness is not a fake move invented by someone. This is the same madness that occurs at the moment of true suffering; it cannot be stopped. There are some hidden indications in the work that Ophelia was pregnant with Hamlet's child, and this makes the realization of her fate doubly difficult.
• Claudius- a man who killed his own brother to achieve his own goals. Hypocritical and vile, he still carries a heavy burden. The pangs of conscience devour him daily and do not allow him to fully enjoy the rule to which he came to in such a terrible way.
• Rosencrantz And Guildenstern– Hamlet’s so-called “friends” who betrayed him at the first opportunity to make good money. Without delay, they agree to deliver a message announcing the death of the prince. But fate has prepared a worthy punishment for them: as a result, they die instead of Hamlet.
• Horatio- an example of a true and faithful friend. The only person the prince can trust. They go through all the problems together, and Horatio is ready to share even death with his friend. It is to him that Hamlet trusts to tell his story and asks him to “breathe some more in this world.”

Themes

1. Hamlet's Revenge. The prince was destined to bear the heavy burden of revenge. He cannot coldly and calculatingly deal with Claudius and regain the throne. His humanistic principles force him to think about the common good. The hero feels responsible for those who have suffered from the evil that is widespread around him. He sees that it is not Claudius alone who is to blame for the death of his father, but all of Denmark, which blithely turned a blind eye to the circumstances of the death of the old king. He knows that to take revenge he needs to become an enemy to everyone around him. His ideal of reality does not coincide with the real picture of the world; the “shaken age” arouses hostility in Hamlet. The prince understands that he cannot restore peace alone. Such thoughts plunge him into even greater despair.
2. Hamlet's love. Before all those terrible events, there was love in the hero’s life. But, unfortunately, she is unhappy. He loved Ophelia madly, and there is no doubt about the sincerity of his feelings. But the young man is forced to give up happiness. After all, the proposal to share sorrows together would be too selfish. To finally break the connection, he has to inflict pain and be merciless. Trying to save Ophelia, he could not even imagine how great her suffering would be. The impulse with which he rushes to her coffin was deeply sincere.
3. Hamlet's friendship. The hero values ​​friendship very much and is not used to choosing his friends based on his assessment of their position in society. His only true friend is the poor student Horatio. At the same time, the prince is contemptuous of betrayal, which is why he treats Rosencrantz and Guildenstern so cruelly.

Problems

The issues covered in Hamlet are very broad. Here are the themes of love and hate, the meaning of life and the purpose of man in this world, strength and weakness, the right to revenge and murder.

One of the main ones is problem of choice, which the main character faces. There is a lot of uncertainty in his soul; alone he thinks for a long time and analyzes everything that happens in his life. There is no one next to Hamlet who could help him make a decision. Therefore, he is guided only by his own moral principles and personal experience. His consciousness is divided into two halves. In one lives a philosopher and humanist, and in the other, a man who understands the essence of a rotten world.

His key monologue “To be or not to be” reflects all the pain in the hero’s soul, the tragedy of thought. This incredible internal struggle exhausts Hamlet, makes him think about suicide, but he is stopped by his reluctance to commit another sin. He began to become increasingly concerned about the topic of death and its mystery. What's next? Eternal darkness or a continuation of the suffering he endures during his life?

Meaning

The main idea of ​​tragedy is to search for the meaning of life. Shakespeare shows a man of education, eternally searching, with a deep sense of empathy for everything that surrounds him. But life forces him to face true evil in various manifestations. Hamlet is aware of it, trying to figure out how exactly it arose and why. He is shocked by the fact that one place can so quickly turn into hell on Earth. And his act of revenge is to destroy the evil that has entered his world.

Fundamental to the tragedy is the idea that behind all these royal squabbles there is a great turning point in the entire European culture. And at the forefront of this turning point, Hamlet appears - a new type of hero. Along with the death of all the main characters, the centuries-old system of understanding the world collapses.

Criticism

In 1837, Belinsky wrote an article dedicated to Hamlet, in which he called the tragedy a “brilliant diamond” in the “radiant crown of the king of dramatic poets,” “crowned by entire humanity and having no rival before or after himself.”

The image of Hamlet contains all the universal human traits "<…>this is me, this is each of us, more or less...”, Belinsky writes about him.

S. T. Coleridge, in his Shakespeare Lectures (1811-12), writes: “Hamlet hesitates due to natural sensitivity and hesitates, held back by reason, which forces him to turn his effective forces to the search for a speculative solution.”

Psychologist L.S. Vygotsky focused on Hamlet’s connection with the other world: “Hamlet is a mystic, this determines not only his state of mind on the threshold of double existence, two worlds, but also his will in all its manifestations.”

And literary critic V.K. Kantor looked at the tragedy from a different angle and in his article “Hamlet as a “Christian Warrior”” pointed out: “The tragedy “Hamlet” is a system of temptations. He is tempted by a ghost (this is the main temptation), and the prince’s task is to check whether it is the devil who is trying to lead him into sin. Hence the trap theater. But at the same time he is tempted by his love for Ophelia. Temptation is a constant Christian problem.”

Teacher of Russian language and literature: Mashkovskaya Vera Aleksandrovna

“Should we submit to the blows of fate or should we resist?” Moral problems in tragedy
W. Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
(2 hours)

The purpose of the lesson: introduce students to the content of Shakespeare's tragedy

"Hamlet".

Objectives: educational - identify “eternal problems” in creativity

W. Shakespeare,

developing - develop an understanding of the dramatic

work, work on the development of monologue

and dialogical speech of students, develop acting skills,

absorbing - cultivate an active life position,

intransigence to meanness, cowardice, greed.

Equipment: portraits of Shakespeare, photographs of I. Smoktunovsky in the role of Hamlet.

Methodical techniques: introductory speech by the teacher, literary montage “My Hamlet”, analysis of the work, expressive reading of excerpts of the work, written answer to the question, work in groups, literary reference, report on the theater.

Vocabulary work.

Tragedy- a dramatic genre that is built on a tragic (initially unresolvable) conflict between the hero and circumstances or on an equally insoluble conflict of internal motives in the hero’s soul.

Tragic conflict- (the tragic is often based on it) cannot be safely resolved, and often has no solution at all.

There are two types of tragic conflicts: external, when a person confronts unfavorable external conditions, and internal, when values ​​that are equally important to him, but incompatible, conflict in the hero’s soul. Often external and internal tragedy are combined and reinforce each other.

Lesson Plan

I. “To unravel the mystery and meaning of existence.”

(Identify the perception of the play and create a mindset for analyzing the work.)

II. "It's not just about murder."

(Show the complexity and integrity of Hamlet’s nature.)

III. “Reality has become different for him.”

(Build the conflict of the tragedy; analyze the system of relations against which Hamlet opposes)

During the classes

I. “To unravel the mystery and meaning of existence.”

1. Introductory speech by the teacher.(It is advisable that the children watch a play or movie by this time.)

How does our modern reader perceive Hamlet?

It is possible that his feelings and thoughts will coincide with the opinion of Goethe, who explained the tragedy by the impossibility of the task entrusted to the hero, or the reader will find Belinsky’s point of view closer. The Russian critic believed that weakness of will is an overcomeable condition, that Hamlet becomes a fighter against the depraved and oppressive court. It is less likely that the views of a contemporary coincide with the assessment of I. S. Turgenev. In his article “Hamlet and Don Quixote,” the author of “Fathers and Sons” reduced the content of Shakespeare’s image to callous egoism, indifference, and contempt for the crowd. In contrast to Hamlet, Don Quixote is distinguished by his nobility and humanity. But in Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet is concerned about the fate of the country. Selfishness is the least characteristic of him.

Polemicizing with those who focus on Hamlet's weakness and indecisiveness, G. Kozintsev in his film tragedy portrays Shakespeare's hero as consistently purposeful, ready to fight evil to the end.

The performer of the role of Hamlet, I. Smoktunovsky, strives to reproduce the powerful forces hidden in a person who rebelled against evil. Thanks to this, “the viewer does not doubt for a moment that this is exactly what a Danish prince should be...” Shakespeare’s tragic feeling is not identical to the tragic worldview of one hero. It's more significant. It permeates all of Shakespeare's work of the second period. Comparing Hamlet with other characters in Shakespeare's tragedies, we can say that Hamlet is consistently aware of his tragedy and fights not blindly, but clearly imagining what kind of opponent he faces. The disparate facts of life are gradually connected together in the hero’s mind. Hamlet perceives the profound changes that have taken place in the country and laments that everything is going for the worse. Shakespeare's hero is shown in close-up. The scale of Hamlet’s personality increases because not only the contemplation of all-encompassing evil characterizes the hero, but also combat with the vicious world. Hamlet's opponents, in turn, are not idle, they accept the challenge. They should not be underestimated. They determined the tragedy of Hamlet. They “shaken” the century. They are specific carriers of vice, the perpetrators of lawlessness and debauchery. They are hostile not only to Hamlet.

2. Implementation of homework.

1) Literary montage (composed of monologues, replicas of the hero) “My Hamlet”.

2) Exchange of views.

II. “Reality has become different for him.”

1. Implementation of homework.

1) Literary information about the tragic and tragedy (the terms “tragedy”, “tragic” are introduced).

2) A short message about the theater of the Shakespearean era (lack of scenery, division into acts, conventions of time).

2. Analysis of the work.

Defining the genre of the work as tragedy, is it possible to agree with Vygotsky, who says that “Hamlet is a “tragedy of tragedies”, where the main thing is not what happens, but what Hamlet thinks about what is happening, what is struggling inside him, in his soul and thoughts"? Support your answer with examples from the text.

– Can we say that the idea of ​​this work “follows” from Shakespeare’s tragic worldview? Define the idea of ​​the play and what motivates it?

(Shakespeare strives to show how terrible the reigning inhumanity is. It is motivated by the logic of the characters and the design of the work.)

– Please follow how the main conflict of the tragedy develops from beginning to end?

(At first, the conflict is barely noticeable, but is already of a social nature. There is a feeling of imminent disaster, the consciousness that the normal course of life has been disrupted. Hamlet is not the only one expressing his concern. Having seen the ghost, Horatio says: “I see in this a sign of some strange unrest for the state.” Marcellus echoes him: “Something is rotten in the Danish state.” The internal conflict is also clearly visible: he cannot discount his personal grievance.

He cannot bear to see the “satyr” Claudius on the throne, replacing the “valiant king.” It is difficult for him to bear the death of his deeply revered father. At the same time, Hamlet is able to characterize the situation in the country more maturely than his friends did. If they had a vague premonition of trouble, then Hamlet sees in the very riotous lifestyle of the new monarch one of the reasons for the decline of Denmark:

Stupid revelry to the west and east

Disgraces us among other nations...

Hamlet confronts the king. She condemns him, but the conflict, having received no impetus, cannot yet develop further. While Hamlet expresses his dissatisfaction verbally. In order to contrast the difficult mental state of Hamlet, who is contemplating suicide, the author depicts the king’s complacency. He was touched by the prince's agreement to stay at court and not go to Wittenberg. True, it is not entirely clear to the reader why Claudius is interested in the presence of his nephew. But such complacency alarmed Hamlet. When Hamlet meets the ghost, he learns about the violent death of his father. The prince wants to punish the murderer immediately. The direct conflict with Claudius and other events unfolding in the play are inferior in their significance to the spiritual drama of Hamlet, which is highlighted. Hamlet's internal drama is that he repeatedly torments himself for inaction. If Hamlet dared to immediately take revenge for the death of his father, it would be a simple murder, but he wants to change the world of evil and unfreedom. He realizes that he cannot do this alone. When Hamlet reveals the meaning of the events taking place at court, he judges Denmark and the time more harshly than before. After the actors play, the course of action is characterized by a sharp escalation of the struggle. This is a major victory for Hamlet.)

– What determines the movement of the plot?

(The fight with Claudius. Each of the warring sides seeks to seize the initiative and impose its will on the enemy. It is not psychological analysis, but the dynamics of the unfolding battle, the tactical maneuvers of the fighters that determine the movement of the plot. Success is on one side or the other. Having taken command positions after the performance, Having struck the spy Polonius, Hamlet is then forced to defend himself from the enemies attacking him. This is seen in the example when the spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are to be executed by the English king. Then Claudius makes a clever move, persuading Laertes to kill Hamlet. This is not a fair fight, but a pre-arranged murder.)

– When does Hamlet’s internal drama reach its highest point of tension, that is, its climax?

(In Act III, Hamlet’s internal drama reaches its highest point; the crisis is most acutely expressed in a monologue that begins with the words “To be or not to be”?)

III. "It's not just about murder."

1. Expressive reading of the monologue “To be or not to be”?

(Either the recording is listened to, or the teacher himself reads, or a student prepared in advance.)

2. Conversation.

– Determine the role of the monologue in the artistic fabric of the entire work.

(This monologue became famous and acquired the significance of a complete lyric poem, unusually bright in its expressive power. It completes a certain stage of the hero’s spiritual development and is organically connected with the artistic fabric of the entire work. Here Hamlet’s spiritual crisis is outlined, from which he emerges victorious, according to Belinsky’s definition. If Hamlet himself is still weighing his options, thinking about which path to choose, then life has already forced him to start fighting. First, a sharp thought comes into play, merciless to himself and to the way the world around him lives, and then Hamlet’s behavior changes. .)

– What decisions are contained in the monologue?

(One solution is “to die, to fall asleep” - and that’s all. The theme of suicide already arose in Act I, here it is persistently developed. “Fear of something” knocks Hamlet down after death, he inspires Hamlet to “endure our misfortunes,” i.e. . he is frightened by the unknown. The second solution is “to take up arms in the sea of ​​turmoil, to defeat them with confrontation.” At first, this question remains without a clear answer. Then he comes up with a “form” of behavior for himself - to pretend to be insane. .)

– Why is the monologue suddenly interrupted by the appearance of Ophelia?

(There is no surprise in this. This is inherent in Hamlet; he once again reproaches himself for indecision, since the inconsistency and duality of Hamlet’s thinking are traits inherent in him.)

– For whom does Hamlet’s “madness” cause undisguised anxiety and even confusion? Do they believe him?

(“Hamlet’s madness” causes undisguised anxiety and even confusion among the courtiers and Claudius himself. They do not believe him. Let us remember the words of Polonius: “Although it is madness, there is consistency in it.”)

– What moment can be called the culmination of the struggle between Hamlet and Claudius? What does Shakespeare call him? How did we see Hamlet here?

(The real battle began between Hamlet and Claudius after the performance, the famous “mousetrap”, with the help of which Hamlet managed to “lasso the king’s conscience.” Hamlet rebelled against the prison world, and Claudius was the main jailer. If his “madness” was a secret war , then the performance was a direct attack, the purpose of which is to expose to everyone the appearance of a criminal who seized the throne by killing his brother. Hamlet appears before us changed. All doubts and hesitations are thrown away. actors, a subtle psychological calculation of Claudius' weakness - all this stormy activity contrasts with the previous duality and constant self-flagellation that was previously characteristic of him. The arrival of the actors was an unexpected event, however, Hamlet himself was internally prepared at the time of their arrival to use the performance to expose the king. In turn, the actors understood Hamlet and their task from the first time. They respected him, and he deeply knew and loved the theater.)

– Explain the role of Laertes in the tragedy.

(On the one hand, “elementary revenge”, and on the other hand, this is a clever move for Claudius. It is he who sets Laertes up for murder. The murder of Hamlet was supposed to decide the outcome of the struggle between him and Claudius.)

According to Belinsky’s definition, “the second place in the tragedy is given to Ophelia. Her tragedy reinforces the general painful mood caused by the “omnipotence of evil.” Prove the validity of this statement with examples from the text.

(The relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is not always clear. He assures her that “forty thousand brothers” cannot love as much as he does. But in the tragedy there is not a single scene that would convincingly confirm these words; he has some kind of grossly ironic attitude towards Ophelia. For example, he advises her to go to a monastery. Her death is accelerated by weakness, but is not caused by it. The reader loves Ophelia even when she obediently serves Polonius, who is watching Hamlet. She is as naive and trusting as Hamlet is suspicious. that Hamlet is mad, she exclaims:

Oh, what a proud mind is smitten! Nobles,

A fighter, a scientist - gaze, sword, tongue;

The color and hope of a joyful state.

The statement about Hamlet is decisive. However, we remain in the dark as to whether she loved the prince, what place he occupied in her life - this remained a secret to everyone. She does not play the role of a madwoman, but really goes crazy, so the reader’s sympathy is always on Ophelia’s side.)

– What kind of relationship did Hamlet have with Gertrude?

(He accuses her that she so quickly succumbed to Claudius’s persuasion and, “without wearing out her shoes yet,” marries him. But she is the only one who, under the influence of Hamlet, becomes internally cleansed and comprehends the harmfulness of her connection with the criminal Claudius. A cruel accusation, what her son presented to her is irresistible. And the queen, unlike her second husband, has not lost her conscience. In complete despair, she confesses to Hamlet:

...You directed my eyes straight into my soul,

And in it I see so many black spots,

That nothing can get them out...)

3. R/R. Give a written answer to the question: “How many facets are there in the complex image of Hamlet?” Draw a conclusion.

He is irreconcilably hostile to Claudius, the prison world. He is friendly towards the actors. He is rude and ironic in his interactions with Ophelia. He is courteous to Horatio. He doubts himself. He acts decisively and quickly. He's witty. He skillfully wields a sword. He is afraid of God's punishment. He is blasphemous. He denounces his mother and loves her. He is indifferent to succession to the throne. He remembers his father the king with pride. He thinks a lot. He cannot and does not want to restrain his hatred - this whole range of changing colors reproduces the greatness of the human personality, and is subordinated to the revelation of the tragedy of man.

– Name the bloodiest scene in the entire tragedy. Determine her role in the tragedy.

(Critics call the play “Hamlet” the bloodiest of all Shakespeare’s tragedies. In the finale, Queen Gertrude is poisoned, Laertes and Claudius are killed, Hamlet dies from his wound. L. N. Tolstoy questioned the reliability of such a conclusion to the plot, when all the main characters die almost simultaneously It seems that we have no reason not to believe Shakespeare. The death of each character has its own special explanation, because in his image true humanity, combined with the strength of his mind, finds its most vivid embodiment.

According to this assessment, his death is depicted “as a feat in the name of freedom.” The death of Claudius is not at all tragic. Even with his death he could not atone for the crimes he committed. The death of Queen Gertrude is tragic, but her death is incommensurate in its significance with the loss that society suffered when it lost Hamlet. Each death is assessed in its own way by the author. Its historical significance, its objective meaning was that Hamlet’s grief, his protest coincided with the feelings arising among the people.)

– What artistic techniques does Shakespeare use to reveal the character of Hamlet?

4. Work in groups to answer this question.

First group.

Techniques in the field of artistic speech (the role of monologue, allegories, philosophical conversations, irony).

(The hero’s spiritual drama is revealed in monologues, and this means is also used to convey the entire process of the hero’s self-analysis and assessment of the environment.

Through the allegory, Hamlet expresses his attitude towards his opponents, as well as towards Ophelia.

Allegories emphasize the distance between Hamlet and the court.

A philosophical conversation with gravediggers has many meanings. She reveals Hamlet's closeness to the people, a sociability that is not observed in Hamlet's conversations with the king and courtiers. For some time, Hamlet's gloomy mood changes. He jokes cheerfully and sincerely enjoys the wit of the gravediggers. Hamlet seems to have forgotten about his former fear of the afterlife and freely fantasizes about the vicissitudes of fate in the unearthly world. His conversation with the actors has the same meaning - it is a kind of folk background. This is a release of tension.

Irony helps to separate the most significant, pinnacle moments of a tragic action.)

Second group.

Techniques in the field of composition.

(“Distracting” episodes are introduced (a conversation with actors, a conversation with gravediggers). Here the image of Hamlet deepens, his humanity becomes less severe than in those scenes where he fights. The warmth of the soul, the inspiration of the artist - these are the new touches in the portrait of Hamlet. )

Third group.

Techniques in the field of artistic detail.

(Relinquishment of the right to the throne: after the death of his father, he had the right to the throne, since he had reached the age of majority. He does not seek to sit on the throne. If Shakespeare included this in the tragedy, it would lose its social essence of struggle. When Horatio says about the deceased monarch that “he was a true king,” Hamlet clarifies: “He was a man, a man in everything.” This is the true measure, the highest criterion of humanism of the Renaissance.)

Conclusion.

– So what is the essence of “Hamletism”?

Homework. Write an essay on the topic “Hamlet in the poetry of the 20th century.”

Our analysis took up twice as much space as the tragedy itself, and yet we have not exhausted everything that can be said about it. “Hamlet” is one of those works that are inexhaustible. We know little about how it was received in the first two centuries after it was written. But from the moment when Goethe, in his novel “The Teaching Years of Wilhelm Meister” (1795-1796), described Hamlet as a man whose spirit was contrary to the task of revenge entrusted to him, the idea of ​​a Shakespearean hero arose, which was firmly established in the minds of people for a long time. Numerous interpretations of the tragedy have focused on the personality of the hero. A legend about Hamlet arose that did not coincide with what he is like in the play. Writers and thinkers looked for traits in Shakespeare's hero that were close to them, and used Hamlet to express their worldview and mentality inherent in their time, and not in the Renaissance.

The history of Hamlet criticism reflects the development of the spiritual life of modern times. In the works devoted to Hamlet, various philosophical, social, and aesthetic teachings of the 19th-20th centuries are clearly reflected. Despite the fact that the proposed interpretations were sometimes very subjective, and sometimes even arbitrary, they were united by the awareness of the enormous depths of thought hidden in the tragedy. “Hamlet” nourished the spiritual life of many generations, who acutely felt the discord between reality and ideals, sought a way out of the contradictions, and despaired when the social situation turned out to be hopeless. The image of the hero has become the embodiment of high humanity, the desire for truth, and hatred of everything that distorts life. Since many felt their kinship with Hamlet in periods of crisis and timelessness, the predominance of thought over action, weakness of will, suppressed by an excessive tendency to think, were emphasized in his character. Hamlet has become a symbol of a person who is always hesitant, weak-willed and passive.

Attempts by individual critics to destroy this legend were unsuccessful, because opponents of the “weak” Hamlet went to the other extreme. It is not for nothing that K. Marx wrote with irony about such an adaptation of “Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which lacks not only the melancholy of the Danish prince, but also the Danish prince himself.” The positive side of the adherents of the “strong” Hamlet was that they forced us to return to the text of the tragedy and recalled those aspects of its action that refuted the opinion that Hamlet was completely inactive.

Much of Hamlet's criticism suffered from one-sidedness. The character of the hero was considered as forever given and consistent in its inconsistency from the beginning to the end of the tragedy. It was recognized that Hamlet’s life was divided into two parts: before the death of his father and after it, but, having accepted the task of revenge, Hamlet allegedly did nothing but hesitate until he died due to his own indecision.

Belinsky's great merit as a critic of Hamlet was that he saw the character of the hero in development, as already mentioned above. At the same time, over time, critics increasingly sought to carefully analyze Hamlet’s entire behavior, looking for an explanation for every moment of his life in the tragedy. This approach helped to overcome primitive one-sided interpretations and at the same time revealed the complexity of Shakespeare’s method of depicting a person. Hamlet's variety of reactions to the reality around him, different attitudes towards the people he encounters, contradictory thoughts and assessments of himself - all this, which was first condemned by critics as the inconsistency of Shakespeare himself, over time gained recognition and was declared the highest virtue in his method of portrayal person. “Hamlet” turned out to be a work in which this method was especially fully embodied.

This versatility has given the image of Hamlet such vitality that he is no longer perceived as a literary character, but as a living person. Hence the constant desire to analyze his behavior from a psychological point of view. As has already been said, here lies the danger of forgetting that we are looking at the creation of an artist, and one who used means that differed from the techniques of modern realism. It cannot be denied that Hamlet’s experiences, behavior, and thoughts reflect the true nature of man, but much in Hamlet is misunderstood when his image is modernized, and this has happened constantly since Goethe.

“Hamlet” is a typical example of the complexity associated with comprehending the great works of art of ancient times. These creations would not be great if the structure of thoughts and feelings of the heroes became incomprehensible to us, if the human content of the images were inaccessible to people of other eras. But it is possible to fully understand Shakespeare’s works only by knowing the history, culture, religion, philosophy, life and theater of his time. Scientific criticism strives to help readers do this.

Of course, we cannot require everyone to read works of this kind. The good thing is that the universal meaning of Hamlet and other great works is accessible to everyone. But for those for whom a general impression is enough, Shakespeare’s masterpieces are poorer than for those who, imbued with the consciousness of the importance of the meaning of the tragedy, are armed with knowledge that helps to penetrate the depths of thought embedded by the author in the work. With thoughtful and equipped reading, layers of meaning are revealed that we were not even aware of.

Familiarity with the era in which the work arose, knowledge of the laws and rules of the art that the master followed, leads to a comprehensive and deep comprehension of the masterpiece. Unfortunately, this often remained and remains accessible to a relatively narrow circle. The vast majority of common judgments about Hamlet are based on impressions, on what corresponded to the state of mind of the reader or viewer, or on what most struck their imagination. Then one’s own thought begins to work, set in motion by a separate motive or theme of the work. This is how one-sided judgments about tragedy are born. This happens not only to ordinary readers or viewers, but also to professional critics and scientists.

Even limited understanding of the tragedy demonstrates the power of its impact. “Hamlet” is an amazing work in terms of the productivity of its impact. Tragedy arouses the desire to reflect, to determine the attitude towards its hero, to think about the issues that concern him and involuntarily touch us as well. This is generally the peculiarity of masterpieces of literature and art. “Hamlet” stands out in this regard; it is not for nothing that it gave rise to such an abundance of books containing a wide variety of interpretations.

Should this be considered a disadvantage? The diversity of opinions generated by the tragedy is due, on the one hand, to the spiritual abilities of readers, as well as critics. Their judgments reveal the wealth or, conversely, the limitations of the individual. But Shakespeare is not to blame for this; each reader and viewer is responsible for himself.

On the other hand, one cannot help but wonder: is it not Shakespeare who is to blame for the discord and, worse, the confusion of opinion about the tragedy? Yes, he created a work, the very nature of which predetermined the possibility of different and contradictory assessments.

The origin of tragedy is death. Death is the subject of the hero's frequent thoughts. The shadow of the late king constantly hovers over the entire royal court. In the third act, Polonius dies, in the fourth, Ophelia. Death threatens Hamlet when he is sent to England... The theme of death is present even when it does not directly affect the fate of the heroes. In the second act, the Actor performs a monologue about the murder of old Priam by Pyrrhus; in the third, the actors perform the play “The Murder of Gonzago.” In a word, by all means of expression: events, speeches, acting - the tragedy keeps in the minds of those who watch or read it the thought of death. Even the humor in the play has a cemetery flavor.

A man in the face of death. The usual view is expressed in the speeches of the king and queen at the very beginning. “This is the fate of all,” says Gertrude (I, 2, 72). “This is how it should be,” the king echoes her (I, 2, 106). Most people think so. They do not think about death, they live as if they had eternity before them and there is no end waiting for them. Hamlet is alone among everyone, having learned about the death of his father and his mother’s second marriage, he thinks about death all the time and, as we know, more than once thinks about suicide.

The tragedy consistently and persistently poses the problem of death. With no less force, she puts forward the question of how to live. Again we see that most of those around Hamlet exist carried by the flow of life. Horatio stands aloof from everything as an observer.

Two characters are different from the others. This is Claudius, who rebelled against the existing order of things and committed a crime to satisfy his ambition and lust for power. And this is Hamlet, outraged by the way life is. Hamlet cannot be just an observer, but he will not act for himself either. He is guided by a consciousness of duty, in which there is nothing selfish.

The main thing in Hamlet’s personality is a high concept of man and his purpose in life, and not melancholy, not lack of will, not a tendency to doubt and hesitation. They are not innate properties of his personality, but states determined by the situation in which he finds himself. A man with rich spiritual potential, Hamlet deeply experiences everything that happens. The tragedy begins with his awareness of the discrepancy between his ideals and life. Hence the different moods that possess him.

Here, however, we are faced with a convention inherent in Shakespeare's tragedies. Did the moral corruption that corrodes the world in which Hamlet lives arise in the short period that has passed since the death of the old king? From the point of view of simple plausibility this is impossible. The world should have been like this in the last reign.

In this case, Hamlet was a completely blind person, ignorant of life. From the point of view of the same plausibility, this is impossible.

How to explain this contradiction?

Any Shakespearean tragedy must be viewed as a complete picture of life. Although Shakespeare usually communicates or makes it clear in one way or another what the hero of the tragedy was like before the events began, one should not draw far-reaching conclusions from this and indulge in detailed discussions about the hero’s past. The life of each character begins simultaneously with the action of the tragedy. With the emergence of conflict and a tragic situation, the character of the hero is revealed.

Love of truth, a sense of justice, hatred of evil, of all types of servility - these are the original traits of Hamlet. It is this, combined with a sense of duty, that leads him to tragic experiences. It is not innate melancholy, but a collision with the horrors of life that confronts Hamlet with fatal questions: is it worth living, is it worth fighting, is it not better to leave the world, and if you fight, then how?

The depth of Hamlet's suffering is great. He lost his father and mother, and considers himself obliged to part with his beloved, and, moreover, having insulted her in the most cruel way. Only in friendship does he find some consolation.

The value of human life is crumbling before Hamlet's eyes. A wonderful man, his father dies, and the scoundrel and criminal triumphs. The woman discovers her weakness and turns out to be a traitor. Circumstances develop in such a way that he, a champion of humanity, becomes the cause of the death of several people.

The contradictions to the ideal in the outside world are complemented by the struggle of conflicting feelings in Hamlet’s soul. Good and evil, truth and lies, humanity and cruelty are revealed in his own behavior.

It is tragic that Hamlet dies in the end, but the essence of the tragedy is not that the hero is overtaken by death, but in the way life is and especially in the powerlessness of the best intentions to correct the world. The so-called weakness, Hamlet's tendency to think, is perhaps Hamlet's main advantage. He's a thinker. He strives to understand every significant phenomenon in life, but, perhaps, Hamlet’s especially important feature is the desire to understand himself.

There was no such hero in world art before Shakespeare, and rarely has anyone since Shakespeare managed to create the image of a thinker with the same artistic power and insight.

Hamlet is a philosophical tragedy. Not in the sense that the play contains a system of views on the world expressed in dramatic form. Shakespeare created not a treatise giving a theoretical exposition of his worldview, but a work of art. It is not without reason that he ironically portrays Polonius teaching his son how to behave. It is not for nothing that Ophelia laughs at her brother, who reads morals to her, but is far from following them. We would hardly be mistaken in supposing that Shakespeare recognized the futility of moralizing. The purpose of art is not to teach, but, as Hamlet says, “to hold up, as it were, a mirror before nature: to show virtue its own features, arrogance its own appearance, and to every age and class its likeness and imprint” (III, 2, 23-27 ). To portray people as they are - this is how Shakespeare understood the task of art. What he does not say, we can add: the artistic depiction should be such that the reader and viewer himself is able to give a moral assessment to each character. This is exactly how those we see in tragedy are created. But Shakespeare is not limited to two colors - black and white. As we have seen, none of the main characters are simple. Each of them is complex in its own way, has not one, but several features, which is why they are perceived not as diagrams, but as living characters.

That no direct lesson can be derived from tragedy is best demonstrated by the difference of opinion about its meaning. The picture of life created by Shakespeare, being perceived as a “likeness and imprint” of reality, encourages everyone who thinks about the tragedy to evaluate people and events in the same way as they are evaluated in life. However, unlike reality, in the picture created by the playwright, everything is enlarged. In life, you can’t immediately find out what a person is like. In the drama, his words and actions quickly make the audience aware of this character. The opinions of others about this character also help.

Shakespeare's worldview is dissolved in the images and situations of his plays. With his tragedies, he sought to arouse the attention of the audience, bring them face to face with the most terrible phenomena of life, disturb the complacent, and respond to the sentiments of those who, like him, experienced anxiety and pain due to the imperfections of life.

The purpose of tragedy is not to frighten, but to provoke the activity of thought, to make one think about the contradictions and troubles of life, and Shakespeare achieves this goal. Achieves primarily through the image of a hero. By posing questions to himself, he encourages us to think about them and look for answers. But Hamlet not only questions life, he expresses many thoughts about it. His speeches are full of sayings, and what is remarkable is that they contain the thoughts of many generations. Research has shown that almost every saying has a long tradition behind it. Shakespeare did not read Plato, Aristotle, or medieval thinkers; their ideas came to him through various books that treated philosophical problems. It has been established that Shakespeare not only carefully read the “Essays” of the French thinker Michel Montaigne (1533-1592), but even borrowed something from them. Let us turn once again to the monologue “To be or not to be.” Let us remember how Hamlet compares death and sleep:

       To die, to fall asleep, -
But only; h to say that you end up sleeping
Melancholy and a thousand natural torments,
The legacy of the flesh - how is such a denouement
Don't thirst.
        III, 1, 64-68

This is what Plato says in “The Apology of Socrates” about the dying thoughts of the Athenian sage: “Death is one of two things: either to die means to become nothing, so that the deceased no longer feels anything, or, if you believe the legends, this is some kind of change for souls, relocating them from these places to another place. If you don’t feel anything, then it’s the same as when you sleep so that you don’t even see anything in your sleep; then death is an amazing gain."

The similarity of thoughts is amazing!

       Fall asleep!
And dream, perhaps? Here's the difficulty:
What dreams will you have in your death sleep?
When we drop this mortal noise, -
This is what throws us off; that's the reason
That disasters are so long-lasting...
        III, 1, 64-69

Hamlet doubts what awaits a person in the other world: if it is the same as what happened in life, then death does not relieve torment. In this, Socrates decisively disagrees with Hamlet. He says: “In my opinion, if someone were to choose that night on which he slept so soundly that he did not even dream, and compare this night with the rest of the nights and days of his life and, having thought, say how many days and he lived better and more pleasant nights in his life than that night - then I think that not only the simplest person, but even the great king would find that he had more such nights than other days and nights. Therefore, if death is such, I, as far as I am concerned, will call it gain.”

The train of thought is approximately the same in Hamlet and Socrates: death - sleep - life - sleep - death. But there are two significant differences. The Athenian philosopher only hints, speaks somewhat mutely about how painful life is. Hamlet, as we remember, lists the troubles that cause suffering: “the oppression of the strong,” “the slowness of judges,” etc. Socrates has no doubt that death is preferable to a hard life, but Hamlet is not entirely sure of this. He does not know “what dreams will be dreamed in this mortal sleep,” because not a single traveler has returned from this country. Socrates says the same thing: “I can say that I am not familiar with death, that I know nothing about it and that I have not seen a single person who has known it from his own experience and could enlighten me on this matter.”

How did Socrates' dying speeches, as recounted by Plato, reach Shakespeare? In the 15th century, they were translated into Latin by the Italian humanist Marsilio Fcino. Montaigne translated them into French in the 16th century. Finally, shortly before the appearance of Hamlet, the Italian Giovanni Florio, who lived in London, translated Montaigne into English.

Echoes of Montaigne's reading are found in various works of Shakespeare, but especially often in Hamlet. Already at the beginning of the Essays, Shakespeare could have come across the saying: “A wonderfully vain, truly fickle and ever-wavering creature is man.” In the second chapter of the book it is said: “...Excessively strong grief completely suppresses our soul, constraining the freedom of its manifestations...”. Let’s say right away: the idea of ​​the tragedy was not suggested to Shakespeare by reading Montaigne, but some of the philosopher’s thoughts surprisingly coincide with what Shakespeare portrayed in Hamlet.

It is also noticeable that Shakespeare’s hero sometimes thinks about the same thing that Montaigne wrote about. Montaigne: “...What we call evil and torment is in itself neither evil nor torment, and only our imagination endows it with such qualities...”. Hamlet: “...there is nothing either good or bad; this reflection makes everything so...” (II, 2, 255-256).

Montaigne: “The readiness to die frees us from all subordination and coercion... You need to always have your boots on, you need, since it depends on us, to be constantly ready for a hike...”. Hamlet, casting aside his misgivings and accepting Laertes’ challenge, says: “...readiness is everything” 2, 235).

Socrates, we read from Montaigne, was accused of portraying himself as “a man who knows more than all others, knowing what is hidden from us in heaven and in hell.” How not to remember the words spoken by the prince to his friend: “And in the sky and in the earth there is more hidden // Than your wisdom dreams, Horatio” (I, 5, 165-166). Let us add that in the original the word “wisdom” corresponds to “philosophy”.

Whether these are borrowings or coincidences does not matter. It is not a disadvantage, but a virtue of Shakespeare that he absorbed into his consciousness the wisdom that had accumulated over the centuries. For an independent mind, someone else's thought helps sharpen its own. The thoughts Shakespeare puts into the mouths of the characters are not irrelevant, nor is it a display of beautiful phrases. They are organically connected with the general concept of the tragedy, with the characters of the characters, with the given situation.

Discussions about life and death, about the purpose of man, about duty, courage in the face of adversity, about honor, loyalty, betrayal, the relationship between reason and feeling, about the destructiveness of passions and much more that is discussed in the tragedy are not new at all. People have thought and had opinions about this since the earliest times of civilization. And weren’t the same problems occupying the minds of subsequent generations right up to ours? Shakespeare's use of thoughts that had ancient origins testifies not to a lack of originality, but to the wisdom of Shakespeare the artist, who skillfully and appropriately used the treasury of human thought.

Bernard Shaw, who was very critical of Shakespeare, expressed the following judgment: Shakespeare “treated all the sensational horrors he borrowed as purely external accessories, as an occasion for dramatizing the character as he appears in the normal world. While we enjoy and discuss his plays, we unconsciously neglect all the battles and murders depicted there." Let's be honest, for those who know Hamlet, all external events are of much less interest than the characters in the play, and first of all its hero. There is something else that attracts people in “Hamlet” - the thoughts heard in the speeches of the characters. True, in a theatrical performance we are most captivated by the characters, the images of people who find themselves in a tangle of tragic events. In reading, since we are less able to visually imagine what is given in the text, our attention is occupied by the ideas that fill the tragedy.

One after another, different themes arise in the speeches of the characters. Without repeating what was said earlier, let us only recall that the range of issues raised in Hamlet covers almost everything essential in life - human nature, family, society, state. As already said, the tragedy does not provide an answer to all the questions posed in it. Shakespeare had no such intention. Confident answers to problems are easily given in the normal state of social and personal life. But when a critical situation arises, the possibilities of different solutions appear and confidence gives way to doubts about which one should be chosen. “Hamlet” is the artistic embodiment of precisely such critical moments in life. Therefore, it is useless to ask: “What did Shakespeare want to say with his work?” “Hamlet” cannot be reduced to one all-encompassing formula. Shakespeare created a complex picture of life, giving rise to various conclusions. The content of Hamlet is broader than the events taking place in it. In addition, we ourselves expand the meaning of the work, transferring what is said in it to situations in life that are closer and more understandable to us, no longer similar to those portrayed by Shakespeare.

Tragedy is not only rich in thoughts in itself, but it encourages thoughts that are not directly expressed in it. This is one of those works that amazingly stimulate thinking and awaken creativity in us. Few people remain unaffected by the tragedy. For the majority, it becomes that personal property that everyone feels entitled to judge. This is good. Having understood Hamlet, imbued with the spirit of the great tragedy, we not only comprehend the thoughts of one of the best minds; “Hamlet” is one of those works in which the self-awareness of humanity is expressed, its awareness of contradictions, the desire to overcome them, the desire for improvement, and irreconcilability towards everything that is hostile to humanity.

Notes

Montaigne Michel. Experiments. 2nd ed. - M., 1979. - T. II. - P. 253.

Right there. - T. I. - P. 13.

Right there. - T. I. - P. 15.

Right there. - T. I. - P. 48.

Right there. - T. I. - pp. 82-83.

Right there. - T. II. - P. 253.

Shaw Bernard. About drama and theater. - M., 1963. - P. 72.