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| William Shakespeare´s "Hamlet" (1599-1601) |
William Shakespeare (Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, 26 April 1564-23 April 1616)
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| William Skakespeare's Birthplace (England, Stratford-upon-Avon) |
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist.
Sheaspeare´s plays are written in poetic language.
Many of the plays are set in strange, distant places and times.
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| Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825), "Rendering of Hamlet and his father's Ghost" (1780-85) |
Shakespeare sets "Hamlet" play in the cold, dark isolation of Elsinor, a blake, snow-covered region of Denkmark.
It´s the royal court of the King of Denkmark.
The atmosphere is established on the cold, windy battlements of the castle.
Most of the action takes place in the interior rooms and corridors of the castle, and one scene is set in a nearby cemetery.
The idea that people, events and things in our world are often not what they seem is at the heart of many of Shakespeare's plays.
Deception is essential to Shakespeare's dramatic works in that it governs the relationship between the characters and drives the plots.
It is the many acts of deception that provide the dramatic devices that inform the action.
"Hamlet" is Shakespeare's longest play, and is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature.
"To be or not to be" is the opening phrase of soliloquy uttered by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" Act 3, Scene 1.
"Hamlet" has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespeare's character, specially for his famous soliloquy wich begins:
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| John Barrimore (1882-1942) as "Hamlet" (1922) |
"To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether it's nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep.
No more..."
William Shakespeare´s
"Hamlet" Act III, Scene I
In the soliloquy, Hamlet contemplates death and suicide, bemoaning the pain and unfairness of life acknowledging that the alternative might be worse.
Hamlet's responsibilities lie on his shoulders.
He is alone to fulfil his duties.
"Walking tightrope" is to indicate Hamlet experiencing a dangerous, hazardous situation.
"Hamlet" is one of the hardest parts for an actor to perform. It is one of the largest roles written by Shakespeare.
For many actors, playing
"Hamlet" is one of the most important parts of their career.
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| "Shakespeare's Memorial Theatre" (England, Stratford-upon-Avon) |
Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literatur.
In particular, he expanded the dramatic potencial of characterisation, plot, language, and genre.
His extant works consists of approximately 39 plays, 154 poems, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship.
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Nikolai Abildgaard (1743-1809)
as Richard III terrified by Nightmarish Visions |
The Plays of Shakespeare:
"Henry VI" Part I (1591/92)
"Henry VI" Part II (1591)
"Henry VI" Part III (1591)
"Richard III" (1592/93)
"Edward III" (1592/93)
"Richard II" (1595)
"King John" (1596)
"Henry IV" Part I (1596/97)
"Henry IV" Part II (1597/98)
"Henry V" (1599)
"Henry VIII" (1612/13)
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"Henry VIII" Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928)
as Katharine of Aragon (1892) |
Comedies:
"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (1589/91)
"The Taming of the Schrew" (1590/91)
"The Comedy of Errors" (1594)
"Love's Labour's Lost" (1594/95)
"Love's Labour's Won" (1595/96)
"The Merchant of Venice" (1596/97)
"A Midsummer Night's Dream"(1595)
"The Merry Wives of Windsor" (1597)
"Much Ado about Nothing" (1598/99)
"As You Like It" (1599/1600)
"Twelfth Night" (1601)
"Measure for Measure" (1603/04)
"All´s Well That Ends Well" (1604/05)
"Pericles, Prince of Tyre" (1607/08)
"The Tempest" (1610/11)
"The Two Noble Kinsmen" (1613/14)
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John Simmons (1823-1876), Hermia and Lysander
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1870)
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Tragedies:
"Titus Andronicus" (1591/92))
"Sir Thomas More" (1592/95)
"Romeo and Juliet" (1595)
"Julius Caesar" (1599)
"Hamlet" (1599/1601)
"Troilus and Cressida" (1600/02)
"Othello" (1603/04)
"Timon of Athens" (1605/06)
"King Lear" (1605/06)
"Macbeth" (1606)
"Antony and Cleopatra" (1606)
"Coriolanus" (1608)
Romances:
"Cymbeline" (1610)
"The Winter's Tale" (1609/11)
Poetry: "The Sonnets" (1593/99)
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William Blake (1757-1827), "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)
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Joseph Noel Paton (1821-1901)
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1595) |
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Ingrid Bugge, "Romeo and Juliet" Ghost Dance (2013)
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Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
"Romeo and Juliet" (1870) |
In the 20th-century, "Romeo and Juliet" would become the second most popular play behind "Hamlet"
"Romeo and Juliet" is sometimes considered to have no unifying theme, save that of young love.
Early psychoanalytic critics saw the problem of "Romeo and Juliet" in terms of Romeo's impulsiveness which leads both to:
Mercurio's death and to the double suicide.
Feminist literary critics argue that the blame for the family feud lies in Verona's patriarchals society.
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Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741-1825)
Lady Macbeth sleepwalking (1781/84) |
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William Blake (1757-1827), "Macbeth" (1798)
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John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)
"Antony and Cleopatra" (1888)
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), "Antony and Cleopatra" (1884) |
Hate is one of the most powerful emotions, and a great driver of action in drama.
Late us take "Othello" as a play in which hate is at the centre of the drama.
It is fuelled by racism and jealousy, and we are left with the impression of just how destructive it is.
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| Antonio Muñoz Degrain (1840-1924), Desdemona and Othello (1880) |
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Thomas Woolner (1825-1892),
Virgilia bewailing the absence of Coriolanus |
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Wilhelm Ferdinand Souchon (1825-1876), "Cymbeline" (1872)
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Frederick Sandys (1829-1904)
"The Winter's Tale", Perdita (1866)
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Herbert Gustave Schmalz (1856-1935)
"Cymbeline", Imogen (1888) |
Harold Bloom says:
"Cymbeline, in my judgment, is partly a Shakespearean self parody; many of his prior plays and characters are mocked by it"
Some have taken the convoluted plot as evidence that the play deliberately parodies its own content.
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| Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941), "Cymbeline" Posthumos e Imogen |
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| Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911), "King Lear" Cordelia's Farewell (1898) |
Sigmund Freud asserted that "Cordelia" symbolises Death.
Lear is unwilling to face the finitude of his being.
Wenn the play begins with Lear rejecting his daughter, it can be interpreted as him rejecting death.
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| Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays, by unknown 19th-century artist |
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| John Gilbert (1817-1897), "The Plays of Shakespeare" (1849) |
Shakespeare combined poetic genius with practical sense of theatre.
His plays remain popular and are studied, performed, and reinterpreted through various cultural and political contexts around the world.
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| William Shakespeare (1564-1616) |
