Hamlet and Elizabethan Revenge
Hamlet and Elizabethan RevengeClay Garland
ENGL1102
Greavu-Comely
November 28, 2000
Elizabethan Revenge
Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, very closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan Theatre. All revenge tragedies stem from the Greeks, who wrote and performed the first plays. After the Greeks, came Seneca, who had profound influence on all writers of Elizabethan tragedy. Seneca, who was Roman, sets all of the basic guidelines for revenge playwrights in the Renaissance era including William Shakespeare. Arguably the greatest of all English revenge tragedies was Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet uses most of the Elizabethan conventions for revenge tragedies, especially incorporating all revenge conventions in one way or another, which made Hamlet the ultimate revenge play. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of many heroes of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage who finds himself grievously wronged by a powerful figure, with no recourse to the law, and with a crime against his family to avenge.
Seneca was among the greatest authors of classical tragedies and there were no educated Elizabethans who were unaware of him or his plays. There were certain stylistic devices that Elizabethan playwrights, including Shakespeare, ascertained explicitly from Seneca’s great tragedies: The five act structure, the appearance of apparitions, the one line exchanges known as stichomythia, and Seneca’s use of long rhetorical speeches are all used in future tragedies by Elizabethan playwrights. Some of Seneca’s theatrical ideas were originally taken from the Greeks by Roman conquest. Some of Seneca’s stories that originated from the Greeks like Agamemnon and Thyestes, who dealt with bloody family histories and revenge, captivated the Elizabethans. Seneca’s stories were not written for the purpose of performance, so if English playwrights liked his ideas, they were forced to make the story theatrically feasible, relevant and exciting to an Elizabethan audience, which was extremely demanding. Seneca’s influence formed part of a developing tradition in tragedies whose plots hinge on political power, forbidden sexuality, family honor and private revenge. There was no author who exercised a wider or deeper influence upon the Elizabethan mind or upon the Elizabethan form of tragedy than did Seneca. For the dramatists of Renaissance Italy, France and England, classical tragedy meant only the ten Latin plays of Seneca and nothing else. Hamlet is certainly not like any play of Seneca’s. Hamlet is, however, without Seneca, inconceivable.
During the period of Elizabethan theater, vengeful tragedies were common and a regular conventions were formed on what aspects belonged in a typical revenge tragedy. In all revenge tragedies, a crime is committed and for various reasons laws and justice cannot punish the crime. Therefore, the protagonist is forced to excise vengeance in spite of everything. The protagonist usually endures a period of doubt, during which he or she tries to decide whether or not to proceed with revenge. This tribulation typically involves complex and intense deliberation. Other features typical of the said plays are the appearance of a ghost to incite avenger. The avenger also typically has a very close relationship with the audience through soliloquies and asides. The original crime that will eventually be avenged, is nearly always a sexual and/or violent crime that has, conventionally, been committed against a family member of the avenger. The avenger places his or herself outside of the normal scope of things, and often finds him or herself becoming more isolated and delirious as the play progresses. The vengeance must be the cause of a catastrophe and the vengeance must be invoked immediately after the crisis. typically, after the ghost persuades the avenger to commit his deed, a hesitation occurs and then a delay by the avenger. The vengeance must be executed by the avenger or his trusted accomplices. The avenger and his accomplices may also die at the very moment of success or even during the course of the vengeance.
It should not be assumed that revenge plays parallel the moral expectations of the Elizabethan audience. The Church, State and regular morals of Elizabethan peoples did not accept revenge, regardless of circumstances. It is repugnant on Theological grounds, since Christian orthodoxy posits a world ordered by Divine Providence, in which revenge is a sin and a blasphemy, endangering the soul of the avenger. The avenger, by taking law into his own hands, was completely ignoring the political authority of the state. Although they loved to see it in plays, revenge was considered sinful and it was utterly condemned.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare follows regular convention for the vast majority of the play. To begin, Shakespeare sets up the scene, having a ghost on a dark night. People are working, and something peculiar is happening. Shakespeare is foreshadowing some past or future evils having been or to be committed. This sets up for the major theme in the play…revenge. The ghost appears again, in order to speak with Hamlet. It is obvious that the ghost has endured a gruesome, violent death, and the sexual aspect of the play was clearly introduced when Claudius marries Hamlet’s mother Gertrude. The ghost tells Hamlet that he must avenge his father’s death at the hand of Claudius. Hamlet must now ponder his course of action to avenge his father’s murder. Expecting to do the deed immediately, Hamlet instead, withholds his vengeance until the end of the play. It is important to note that delay of revenge is typical of all tragic heroes. In most revenge plays, however, the avenger is often anonymous and well disguised, stalking the infidel to be killed. Hamlet, on the other hand, starts a battle of wits with Claudius by acting insane and calling it his antic disposition. In the end, his great production was merely a ploy to get closer to Claudius, and thus, to be able to avenge his father’s death more easily. The aforementioned tactic was disadvantaged in that Hamlet draws a great deal of attention to himself. More importantly though, his antic disposition was very clever, and isolated him from the rest of the court, because of his absurdity.
One important aspect of all revenge plays, is the delay, by the tragic hero or heroine, of his of her vengeance until the end of the play. Hamlet’s delay of killing Claudius takes on three distinct stages. First, he is forced to prove that the ghost
is truthful. Hamlet accomplishes this feat by cleverly staging the play, The Mousetrap, at court. When Claudius stormed out in rage, “Give me some light. Away!” Hamlet is certain that he is guilty (Shakespeare 1435). The second stage is when Hamlet could have killed Claudius while he was confessing to God. If Hamlet had killed Claudius here, then Claudius would have gone to heaven while Hamlet’s father was in purgatory, as a result of being denied the opportunity to confess. Hamlet, therefore, decides not to murder Claudius at this juncture. The third delay was his being sidetracked. Hamlet has accidentally killed Polonius which spawns Laertes’ newfound bloodlust. After he commits this murder, he is displaced, and is unable to see the king until he can finish the job. What makes Hamlet stand out from many other revenge plays of the period is not that it rejects the conventions of its genre, but that it both enacts and analyzes them.
Hamlet, in fact, very closely follows the general conventions for all Elizabethan tragedies. First, Hamlet is faced with the fact that he must avenge the murder of his father; since there is no fair justice available, he must take the law into his own hands. The ghost of his father appears to guide Hamlet to Claudius and inform Hamlet of the evil that Claudius has committed. Then Hamlet repeatedly delays his vengeance, while simultaneously continuing to keep a close relationship with the audience via seven main soliloquies including the famous, “To be, or not to be…”(Shakespeare 1426). The play also consists of an insanity scene where Ophelia has gone delirious because her father Polonius is dead and Hamlet is sent off to England. The sexual aspect of the play is introduced when Claudius marries Gertrude after he has dreadfully killed King Hamlet and stolen his throne. Hamlet also follows almost every aspect of Thomas Kyd’s formula for a revenge tragedy. The only point that can be argued is that the accomplices on both sides were not killed because at the end of the play. Horatio is the only survivor, although, if not for Hamlet, Horatio would have committed suicide when he said, “I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here’s some liquor left” (Shakespeare 1479). If Horatio had killed himself, then Hamlet would follow the “Kydian” formula as well as the regular conventions for Elizabethan revenge tragedy.
Hamlet is definitely a prime example of a revenge tragedy of the Elizabethan theater era, as It follows every convention required to classify it as such. First influenced by Greeks, and later by Seneca, Hamlet is one of the greatest revenge stories ever written. Hamlet tackled and conquered all areas that were required for the consummation of a great revenge tragedy. Revenge, although thought to be unlawful and against the Church was absolutely adored in Elizabethan theatre, and the Elizabethan audience always insisted on seeing eventual justice. That no avenger, no matter how just, ever wholly escapes the penalty for shedding blood, even in error. This was also a very important point that was also dealt with brilliantly by Shakespeare who finds a way to kill Hamlet justly, even though he was required to kill Claudius. Hamlet was written with the mighty pen of Shakespeare who again shows people that he can conjure up any play and make it one of the greatest of all time. Hamlet is one of the greatest of all time.