Shakespeare’s HamletA Revenge Play

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Definition

• Shakespearian scholar Ashley Thorndike defines a revenge play as this:

• “A tragedy whose leading motive is revenge and whose main action deals with the progress of this revenge, leading to the death of the murderers and often to the death of the avenger himself” (125).

Earliest precursor

• Roman Playwright– Playwright Lucius

Seneca (4BC – 65AD)– The Renaissance:

Latin plays were popular at English universities during the latter half of the sixteenth century http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/33/9433-

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Typical features

• Roman revenge plays included:– Graphic violence– Blood revenge for murder– Characters tricked into becoming accomplices in

the act of revenge– Ghosts of the dead clamor for revenge

Chain of events

• Exposition (usually by the ghost)• Anticipation (detailed planning)• Confrontation (of the avenger and the

intended victim)• Partial Execution (or temporary thwarting of

the plan)• Completion (of the act of vengeance)

Precursors to Hamlet

• Thyestes by Lucius Seneca

• Gorboduc by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville

• The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

• Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

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Early Modern revenge plays featured:

• A hesitating revenger• A villain• Complex plotting• Murderers• Characters of noble birth• A play within a play• A ghost• A suffering heroine• Madness, real and feigned• Lust• Physical violence, such as torture and poisoning

Likely plot source

• “Amleth”• Historicae Danicae: Latin history of Denmark• Plot closely matches that of Hamlet– King murdered by brother (Feng), marries sister in law,

Gerutha– Prince Amleth feigns madness; tested by “fair woman”– Kills and eavesdropping friend of Feng’s– Sent to Britain with two companions who carry a letter

ordering his execution– He alters the letter and returns to Denmark– He kills Feng and is accepted as the rightful ruler

Shakespeare’s genius

• Thorndike writes, “We may conclude that in building on an old story and reconstructing an old play [the original Hamlet, possibly authored by Thomas Kyd], Shakespeare used the old dramatic motives because they were still popular on the stage and because they stirred him as they did other poets to imaginative expression. He developed these motives without fundamental change but with a power of expression and characterization which they tried in vain to attain [emphasis mine]” (206).

Leaning on his forefathers

• “Shakespeare’s Hamlet is final, not only in the sense that he is made for all time, but also in the sense that he is the complete and final representative of a type that grew up among peculiar stage conventions and was developed by poets of no mean imaginative power. The final Hamlet is the result of a growth which other men than Shakespeare planted and which others fostered” (Thorndike 217).

Works Cited

Mellor, Bronwyn. Reading Hamlet. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1999. Print.

Thorndike, Ashley H. "The Relations of Hamlet to Contemporary Revenge Plays.” PMLA 17.2 (n.d.): 125-220. JSTOR. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.