Hamlet in art. "eternal image" of Hamlet and its interpretation in the context of Russian poetry of the Silver Age

Why is the image of Hamlet eternal image? There are many reasons, and at the same time, each individually or all together, in a harmonious and harmonious unity, they cannot give an exhaustive answer. Why? Because no matter how hard we try, no matter what research we conduct, we are not subject to “this great secret” - the secret of Shakespeare’s genius, the secret of the creative act, when one work, one image becomes eternal, and another disappears, dissolves into oblivion, so and without touching our soul. And yet, the image of Hamlet beckons and haunts...

W. Shakespeare, “Hamlet”: history of creation

Before we set off on a fascinating journey deep into Hamlet's soul, let's remember summary and the history of writing the great tragedy. The plot of the work is based on real events described by Saxo Grammaticus in the book “The History of the Danes”. A certain Horwendil, a wealthy ruler of Jutland, was married to Geruta, had a son Amleth and a brother Fengo. The latter was jealous of his wealth, courage and fame, and one day, in front of all the courtiers, he brutally dealt with his brother, and subsequently married his widow. Amlet did not submit to the new ruler and, in spite of everything, decided to take revenge on him. He pretended to be crazy and killed him. After some time, Amlet himself was killed by his other uncle... Look - the similarity is obvious!

The time of action, the place, the action itself and all the participants in the unfolding events - there are many parallels, however, the problematic of William Shakespeare’s tragedy does not fit into the concept of “revenge tragedy” and goes far beyond its limits. Why? The thing is that the main characters of Shakespeare's drama, led by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, are ambiguous in character and differ significantly from the solid heroes of the Middle Ages. In those days, it was not customary to think much, reason, and even more so, doubt accepted laws and ancient traditions. For example, it was considered not evil, but a form of restoration of justice. But in the image of Hamlet we see a different interpretation of the motive of revenge. This is the main one distinguishing feature plays, the starting point of everything unique and amazing that is in tragedy, and that has haunted us for several centuries.

Elsinore - majestic of kings. Every night the night guard observes the appearance of the Ghost, which is reported to Horatio, Hamlet’s friend. This is the ghost of the Danish prince's late father. In the “dead hour of the night” he confides to Hamlet his main secret - he did not die a natural death, but was treacherously killed by his brother Claudius, who took his place - the throne and married the widow - Queen Gertrude.

The inconsolable soul of the murdered man demands revenge from his son, but Hamlet, confused and stunned by everything he heard, is in no hurry to act: what if the ghost is not the father at all, but a messenger of hell? He needs time to be convinced of the truth of the secret told to him, and he pretends to be crazy. The death of the king, who in the eyes of Hamlet was not only a father, but also an ideal man, then the hasty, despite the mourning, wedding of his mother and uncle, the story of the Ghost - these are the first lightnings of the emerging imperfection of the world, this is the beginning of the tragedy. After it, the plot develops rapidly, and with it the plot itself changes radically. main character. In two months he turns from an enthusiastic young man into an indifferent, melancholy “old man.” This concludes the topic “V. Shakespeare, Hamlet, the image of Hamlet does not end there.

Deceit and betrayal

Claudius is suspicious of Hamlet's illness. To check whether his nephew has actually suddenly lost his mind, he conspires with Polonius, a loyal courtier of the newly-crowned king. They decide to use the unsuspecting Ophelia, Hamlet's beloved. For the same purpose, the prince’s old devoted friends, Rosencrantz and Guildensten, are also called to the castle, but they turn out to be not so loyal and readily agree to help Claudius.

Mousetrap

A theater troupe arrives in Elsinore. Hamlet persuades them to perform a performance in front of the king and queen, the plot of which exactly conveys the story of the Ghost. During the performance, he sees fear and confusion on Claudius's face, and is convinced of his guilt. Well, the crime has been solved - it's time to act. But Hamlet is again in no hurry. “Denmark is a prison”, “time is dislocated”, evil and betrayal reveal themselves not only in the murder of the king by his own brother, they are everywhere, from now on this is the normal state of the world. The era of ideal people is long gone. Against this background, blood feud loses its original meaning and ceases to be a form of “rehabilitation” of justice, because, in essence, it does not change anything.

Path of Evil

Hamlet finds himself at a crossroads: “To be or not to be? - that is the question". What is the use of revenge, it is empty and meaningless. But even without quick retribution for the evil committed, it is impossible to live further. This is a duty of honor. Hamlet's internal conflict leads not only to his own suffering, to his endless discussions about the futility of life, to thoughts of suicide, but, like boiling water in a sealed vessel, it boils and results in a whole series of deaths. The prince is directly or indirectly guilty of these murders. He kills Polonius, who overhears his conversation with his mother, mistaking him for Claudius. On the way to England, where Hamlet was to be executed, he replaced a letter discrediting him on board the ship, and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenster were executed instead. In Elsinore, Ophelia, who has gone mad from grief, dies. Laertes, Ophelia's brother, decides to avenge his father and sister and challenges Hamlet to a court duel. The tip of his sword is poisoned by Claudius. During the duel, Gertrude dies after tasting poisoned wine from a cup that was actually intended for Hamlet. As a result, Laertes and Claudius are killed, and Hamlet himself dies... From now on, the Danish kingdom is under the rule of the Norwegian king Fortinbras.

The image of Hamlet in the tragedy

The image of Hamlet appears just as the Renaissance is approaching its end. At the same time, other, no less vivid, “eternal images” appear - Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan. So what is the secret to their durability? First of all, they are ambiguous and multifaceted. In each of them lie great passions, which, under the influence of certain events, sharpen one or another character trait to the extreme. For example, the extreme of Don Quixote lies in his idealism. The image of Hamlet brought to life, one might say, the last, extreme degree of introspection, soul-searching, which does not push him to quickly make a decision, to decisive action, does not force him to change his life, but on the contrary - paralyzes him. On the one hand, events dizzyingly succeed each other, and Hamlet is a direct participant in them, the main character. But this is on the one hand, this is what lies on the surface. And on the other? - He is not the “director”, he is not the main manager of the whole action, he is just a “puppet”. He kills Polonius, Laertes, Claudius, becomes responsible for the deaths of Ophelia, Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildensten, but all this happens by the will of fate, by tragic accident, by mistake.

Exodus of the Renaissance

However, again, not everything is so simple and unambiguous. Yes, the reader gets the impression that the image of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s tragedy is filled with indecision, inactivity and weakness. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the impenetrable thickness of water, something else is hidden - a sharp mind, an amazing ability to look at the world and oneself from the outside, the desire to get to the very essence, and, in the end, to see the truth, no matter what. Hamlet is the most a real hero Renaissance, great and strong, putting spiritual and moral self-improvement first, glorifying beauty and boundless freedom. However, it is not his fault that the ideology of the Renaissance, at its later stage, is experiencing a crisis, against the background of which he is forced to live and act. He comes to the conclusion that everything he believed in and lived by is just an illusion. The work of revising and revaluing humanistic values turns into disappointment, and as a result ends in tragedy.

Different approaches

We continue the topic of what Hamlet’s characteristics are. So what is the root of the tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark? In different eras, the image of Hamlet was perceived and interpreted differently. For example, Johann Wilhelm Goethe, a passionate admirer of William Shakespeare’s talent, considered Hamlet to be a beautiful, noble and highly moral being, and his death stems from the burden placed on him by fate, which he could neither bear nor throw off.

The famous S. T. Coldridge draws our attention to the complete lack of will of the prince. All the events occurring in the tragedy, without a doubt, should have caused an unprecedented surge of emotions, and subsequently an increase in activity and decisiveness in action. It couldn't be otherwise. But what do we see? Thirsting for revenge? Instant execution of your plans? Nothing of the kind, on the contrary - endless doubts and meaningless and unjustified philosophical reflections. And this is not a matter of lack of courage. It's just the only thing he can do.

He attributed weakness of will to Hamlet and But, according to the outstanding literary critic, it is not his natural quality, but rather a conditional one, determined by the situation. It comes from a mental split, when life and circumstances dictate one thing, but internal beliefs, values and spiritual abilities and possibilities dictate something else, absolutely the opposite.

W. Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, the image of Hamlet: conclusion

As you can see, how many people - so many opinions. The eternal image of Hamlet is surprisingly multifaceted. You could say whole Art Gallery mutually exclusive portraits of Hamlet: a mystic, an egoist, a victim of the Oedipus complex, a brave hero, an outstanding philosopher, a misogynist, the highest embodiment of the ideals of humanism, a melancholic person, not suited for anything... Is there an end to this? More likely no than yes. Just as the expansion of the Universe will continue endlessly, so the image of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s tragedy will excite people forever. He long ago broke away from the text itself, left the narrow framework of the play for it, and became that “absolute”, “supertype”, which has the right to exist outside of time.

The most famous play "Hamlet. Prince of Denmark" is a great philosophical tragedy.

The most attractive thing about it is the image of the main character.

Shakespeare is the son of a small merchant from the town of Stratchord. At the age of 14 he began helping his father in his affairs, and at the age of 18 he got married. Then he went to London and became an actor. He played on stage until he was 40, then returned to his hometown and was buried there at 52. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was a nobody, because the acting profession was not held in high esteem at that time.

Self-taught genius.

Shakespeare's time is humanism, where man is at the center.

100 years after his death he was recognized as a classic.

The tragedy "Hamlet" was created in 1600.

Shakespeare was especially sad to see his main ideal crumble (man is beautiful and capable of constant self-improvement)

Shakespeare foresaw a deep spiritual crisis associated with the bourgeois revolution.

Shakespeare creates a new type of tragedy - the tragedy of time. This time is the opposite of all its tragic heroes.

His era was filled with faith in the dignity of man and ends with disappointment.

In Hamlet, evil is the dominant force of life.

"To be honest in this world means to be the only one out of ten thousand"

"Disgrace has swept the whole world"

The pathos of the tragedy is indignation against the omnipotence of evil.

Hamlet's image:

Hamlet towers over all the characters.

The first blow is the death of the father, the second is the wedding of the mother, the third is the betrayal of the uncle.

“No man can be trusted,” is Hamlet’s conclusion.

This is how he treats everyone except his friend Horatio. He curses the century in which he was born. He is filled with innate spiritual nobility. Entering adulthood was a shock for him.

His madness is not real. It is needed to tell people the truth.

Hamlet's view of the world is world sorrow (then it was called melancholy). In Shakespeare, this is complete disappointment in all life values.

Monologue "to be or not to be" - highest point Hamlet's doubts. Meaning: fight against evil or avoid the fight? He chooses the first one.

Hamlet thinks a lot about death. This problem is connected with another: “how to live?”

Apart from Hamlet and Horatio, no one thinks about death. Hamlet is a man because he is a philosopher.

He calls Denmark a prison.

At first, Hamlet's mother was the ideal woman. At that time, marriage to the brother of the deceased was considered a sin of incest. And Hamlet blames his mother. It is not the son who speaks to Gertrude, but the judge.

Reason for Hamlet is the highest human ability. Education and intelligence are one of Hamlet's strongest character traits. He is also interested in art.

The type of "universal man" of the Renaissance.

His monologues contain many thoughts and quotes from ancient authors. This makes his speech meaningful.

Hamlet is even outwardly noble.

For Hamlet, the father was the ideal of a man; he was godlike for his son.

For Shakespeare, the contrast between the two kings is important. It contains a deep philosophical meaning.

Hamlet is the first reflective (more inwardly than outwardly) hero of world literature. The first is alienated and the alienation grows as the tragedy progresses.

A high concept of man is the main thing in Hamlet, as well as a tendency to think. There was no such hero in world literature.

The image of Hamlet evokes respect and interest, not pity. His image also makes it possible to be convinced that even in the most difficult conditions a person can remain tall and noble.

Hamlet is a philosophical tragedy. Not in the sense that the play contains a system of views on the world expressed in dramatic form.

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.” To portray people as they are - this is how Shakespeare understood the task of art.

That no direct lesson can be deduced 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.

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.

The premiere of "Hamlet" at the Globe Theater took place in 1601, and this was a year of famous upheavals in the history of England, which directly affected both the Globe troupe and Shakespeare personally. The fact is that 1601 is the year of the “Essex Conspiracy,” when the young favorite of the aging Elizabeth, Earl of Essex, took his people to the streets of London in an attempt to rebel against the queen, was captured and beheaded. Historians regard his speech as the last manifestation of medieval feudal freemen, as a rebellion of the nobility against the absolutism that limited its rights, which was not supported by the people. Along with Essex, the young nobles who followed him were thrown into the Tower, in particular the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's patron. Southampton was later pardoned, but while Essex's trial was going on, Shakespeare's mind must have been particularly dark.

Hamlet is the same as Don Quixote, an “eternal image” that arose at the end of the Renaissance almost simultaneously with other images of the great individualists (Don Quixote, Don Juan, Faust). All of them embody the Renaissance idea of limitless personal development, and at the same time, great passions are embodied in these artistic images, as is typical in Renaissance literature.

The indecently quick wedding of his mother, the loss of Hamlet Sr., in whom the prince saw not just a father, but an ideal person, explain his gloomy mood at the beginning of the play. And when Hamlet is faced with the task of revenge, he begins to understand that the death of Claudius will not correct general position affairs, because everyone in Denmark quickly consigned Hamlet Sr. to oblivion and quickly got used to slavery. The era of ideal people is in the past, and the theme of Denmark the prison runs through all the tragedy.

Hamlet knows that his duty is to punish evil, but his idea of evil no longer corresponds to the straightforward laws of family revenge. Evil for him is not limited to the crime of Claudius, whom he ultimately punishes; Evil is spread throughout the world around him, and Hamlet realizes that one person cannot resist the whole world. This internal conflict leads him to think about the futility of life, about suicide.

The fundamental difference between Hamlet and the heroes of the previous revenge tragedy is that he is able to look at himself from the outside, to think about the consequences of his actions. Hamlet's main sphere of activity is thought and the sharpness of his introspection. Hamlet is a hero born of the spirit of the Renaissance, but his tragedy indicates that at its later stage the ideology of the Renaissance is experiencing a crisis. Hamlet takes upon himself the work of revising and revaluing not only medieval values, but also the values of humanism, and the illusory nature of humanistic ideas about the world as a kingdom of boundless freedom and direct action is revealed.

the main tragic conflict - the loneliness of a humanistic personality in the desert of a society in which there is no place for justice, reason, and dignity. Hamlet is the first reflective hero in world literature, the first hero experiencing a state of alienation.

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Introduction
3. Katarina's image
4. Tragedy "Hamlet"
Conclusion
Literature

Introduction

The wonderful creations of the masters of the past are available to everyone. But it is not enough to read them for the artistic merits to reveal themselves. Every art has its own techniques and means. Anyone who thinks that the impression made by Hamlet and other similar works is something natural and self-evident is mistaken. The impact of the tragedy is due to the art of its creator.

There is no literary work in general, and a certain kind of it is drama. But drama is different from drama. "Hamlet" is a special kind of it - it is a tragedy, moreover, a poetic tragedy. The study of this play cannot be connected with issues of dramaturgy.

In an effort to comprehend the ideal meaning, spiritual significance and artistic power of Hamlet, one cannot separate the plot of the tragedy from its idea, isolate characters and considered in isolation from each other.

It would be especially wrong to single out the hero and talk about him in no connection with the action of the tragedy. "Hamlet" is not a monodrama, but a complex dramatic picture of life, which shows different tempers in interaction. But it is indisputable that the action of the tragedy is built around the personality of the hero.

Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", the most famous of the plays of the English playwright. According to many highly respected art connoisseurs, this is one of the most profound creations of human genius, a great philosophical tragedy. It is not without reason that at different stages of the development of human thought, people turned to Hamlet, looking for confirmation in it of their views on life and world order.

However, Hamlet attracts not only those who are inclined to think about the meaning of life in general. Shakespeare's works pose acute moral problems that are by no means abstract in nature.

1. a brief description of Shakespeare's works

Biographical information about Shakespeare is scanty and often unreliable. Researchers believe that he began performing as a playwright in the late 80s of the 16th century. Shakespeare's name first appeared in print in 1593 in the dedication of the poem "Venus and Adonis" to the Earl of Southampton. Meanwhile, by that time at least six plays by the playwright had already been staged.

Early plays are imbued with a life-affirming principle: the comedies "The Taming of the Shrew" (1593), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1596), "Much Ado About Nothing" (1598), the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" (1595 .). The historical chronicles "Richard III" (1593), "Henry IV" (1597-98) depict the crisis of the feudal system. The deepening of social contradictions led to Shakespeare's transition to the genre of tragedy - "Hamlet" (1601), "Othello" (1604), "King Lear" (1605), "Macbeth" (1606). Socio-political issues are typical for the so-called “Roman” tragedies: “Julius Caesar” (1599), “Antony and Cleopatra” (1607), “Coriolanus” (1607). The search for an optimistic solution to social tragedies led to the creation of the romantic dramas "Cymbeline" (1610), " Winter's Tale"(1611), "The Tempest" (1612), which have the tinge of a kind of instructive parable. Shakespeare's canon (undeniably his plays) includes 37 dramas, written predominantly in blank verse. Subtle insight into the psychology of the characters, vivid imagery, public interpretation personal experiences and deep lyricism distinguish these truly great works that have survived centuries, becoming an invaluable asset and an integral part of world culture.

2. Imagery and thematic analysis of the “Sonnets” cycle

Shakespeare owns a cycle of 154 sonnets, published (without the knowledge or consent of the author) in 1609, but written, apparently, back in the 1590s (in any case, already in 1598 a message about his " sweet sonnets known to close friends") and was one of the most brilliant examples of Western European lyric poetry of the Renaissance. Under the pen of Shakespeare, the form, which had become popular among English poets, sparkled with new facets, containing a wide range of feelings and thoughts - from intimate experiences to deep philosophical thoughts and generalizations. Researchers have long drawn attention to the close connection between sonnets and Shakespeare's dramaturgy. This connection is manifested not only in the organic fusion of the lyrical element with the tragic, but also in the fact that the ideas of passion that inspire Shakespeare’s tragedies also live in his sonnets. Just as in his tragedies, Shakespeare touches on in his sonnets the fundamental problems of existence that have troubled mankind for centuries; he speaks about happiness and the meaning of life, about the relationship between time and eternity, about the frailty of human beauty and its greatness, about art that can overcome the inexorable passage of time. , about the high mission of the poet.

The eternal inexhaustible theme of love, one of the central ones in the sonnets, is closely intertwined with the theme of friendship. In love and friendship, the poet finds a true source of creative inspiration, regardless of whether they bring him joy and bliss or the pangs of jealousy, sadness, and mental anguish.

Thematically, the entire cycle is usually divided into two groups: it is believed that the first

(1 - 126) is addressed to the poet’s friend, the second (127 - 154) is addressed to his beloved - the “dark lady”. The poem that distinguishes these two groups (perhaps precisely because of its special role in the general series) is not, strictly speaking, a sonnet: it has only 12 lines and an adjacent arrangement of rhymes.

The leitmotif of grief about the frailty of everything earthly, passing through the entire cycle, the imperfection of the world clearly realized by the poet does not violate the harmony of his worldview. The illusion of afterlife bliss is alien to him - he sees human immortality in glory and offspring, advising his friend to see his youth revived in children.

In the literature of the Renaissance, the theme of friendship, especially male friendship, occupies an important place: it is considered as the highest manifestation of humanity. In such friendship, the dictates of reason are harmoniously combined with spiritual inclination, free from the sensual principle.

No less significant are the sonnets dedicated to the beloved. Her image is emphatically unconventional. If the sonnets of Petrarch and his English followers (Petrarchists) usually glorified a golden-haired, angel-like beauty, proud and inaccessible, then Shakespeare, on the contrary, devotes jealous reproaches to a dark brunette - inconsistent, obeying only the voice of passion.

Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in the first period of his creativity, when he still retained faith in the triumph of humanistic ideals. Even despair in the famous 66th sonnet finds an optimistic way out in the “sonnet key”. Love and friendship still act, as in Romeo and Juliet, as a force that affirms the harmony of opposites. Hamlet's break with Ophelia is still to come, as is the fragmentation of consciousness embodied in the Danish prince. Several years will pass - and the victory of the humanistic ideal will move into the distant future for Shakespeare.

The most remarkable thing about Shakespeare's sonnets is the constant sense of internal contradiction human feeling: what is the source of the highest bliss inevitably gives rise to suffering and pain, and, conversely, happiness is born in severe pain.

This confrontation of feelings in the most natural way, no matter how complex Shakespeare’s metaphorical system may be, fits into theOa form in which dialecticity is inherent “by nature.”

3. Katarina's image

Catharina is the heroine of W. Shakespeare’s comedy “The Taming of the Shrew” (1592-1594). K. is one of the most charming female images Shakespeare. This is a proud and capricious girl, whose pride is severely offended by the fact that her father is trying with all his might to get her married. She is deeply disgusted by the characterless and mannered young men who pursue their sister. Bianca's suitors, in turn, revile her for her absurd character and call her nothing more than a “devil.” K. gives some grounds for such an assessment: he beats up his quiet sister, breaks a lute over the head of one of the suitors, and greets Petruchio, who has wooed her, with a slap on the wrist. But in the person of the latter, for the first time she finds an equal opponent; to her amazement, this man takes a mockingly loving tone towards her and plays out the comedy of chivalrous defense of a beautiful lady. The usual rudeness of “sweet Kat” has no effect on him: having played a quick wedding, he quickly achieves his goal - at the end of the play, K. not only turns out to be the most obedient wife, but also makes a speech in praise of female humility. This transformation of K. was perceived differently both by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and by researchers of his work: some reproached the playwright for a purely medieval disdain for women, but others found in the play a life-affirming ideal of Renaissance love - a marriage union of two “healthy” natures promises complete fulfillment in the future. mutual understanding and happiness. On the Russian stage, the role of K. is one of the most beloved. Over the years, it was performed by such actresses as G.N. Fedotova (1865), M.G. Savina (1887), L.I. Dobzhanskaya (1938), V.P. Maretskaya (1938), L.I. Kasatkina (1956). In the film by F. Zeffirelli (1967), K. played E. Taylor. An opera by V.L. was written based on the plot of the comedy. Shebalina (of the same name); among the performers of the party K. - G.P. Vishnevskaya (1957).

4. Tragedy "Hamlet"

Among William Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is one of the most famous. The hero of this drama inspired poets and composers, philosophers and politicians.

A huge range of philosophical and ethical issues are intertwined in the tragedy with social and political issues that characterize the unique facet of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Shakespeare's hero became a fiery exponent of those new views that the Renaissance brought with it, when the progressive minds of mankind sought to restore not only the understanding of art lost during the millennium of the Middle Ages ancient world, but also a person’s trust in his own strengths without relying on the mercy and help of heaven.

Social thought, literature, and art of the Renaissance decisively rejected medieval dogmas about the need for hourly humility of spirit and flesh, detachment from everything real, submissive anticipation of the hour when a person passes into the “other world,” and turned to man with his thoughts, feelings and passions , to his earthly life with its joys and sufferings.

The tragedy “Hamlet” is a “mirror”, “the chronicle of the century”. It bears the imprint of a time in which not only individuals, but entire nations found themselves, as it were, between a rock and a hard place: behind, and even in the present, are feudal relations, already in the present and ahead are bourgeois relations; there - superstition, fanaticism, here - freethinking, but also the omnipotence of gold. Society has become much richer, but there has also been more poverty; the individual is much freer, but there is also more freedom for arbitrariness.

The state in which the Prince of Denmark lives, languishing from its ulcers and vices, is a fictional Denmark. Shakespeare wrote about contemporary England. Everything in his play - heroes, thoughts, problems, characters - belongs to the society in which Shakespeare lived.

“Hamlet” is filled with such deep philosophical content, the tragedy gives such a broad picture of Shakespeare’s contemporary life, it creates such grandiose human characters that the writer’s thoughts and feelings contained in this masterpiece of Shakespearean drama became close and consonant not only with his contemporaries, but and people of other historical eras. Thanks to some “distracting” episodes, Hamlet’s image deepens, his humanity becomes less severe than in those scenes where he struggles. The warmth of the soul, the inspiration of an artist counting on mutual understanding - these are the new touches that appear in the portrait when Shakespeare shows Hamlet talking with the actors.

Shakespeare's determination is evidenced by one important detail in the construction of the image of Hamlet. The Danish prince, after the death of his father, has the right to the throne; he has reached adulthood (though it is not entirely clear how old he is). No plea of immaturity could justify Claudius' usurpation of the throne. But Hamlet never once declares his rights, he does not seek to sit on the throne. If Shakespeare had included this motive in the tragedy, it would have lost a lot; first of all, the social essence of Hamlet’s struggle would not have been revealed so clearly. When Horatio says about the deceased monarch that he was “a true king”1, Hamlet clarifies: “He was a man, a man in everything.” This is the true measure of all things, the highest criterion for Hamlet. How many boundaries are there in this complex image?

He is irreconcilably hostile to Claudius. He is friendly towards the actors. He is rude 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 contain his hatred. This entire rich range of changing colors reproduces the greatness human personality, is subordinated to the disclosure of human tragedy.

The tragedy of Hamlet is unanimously considered mysterious. It seems to everyone that it differs from the other tragedies of Shakespeare himself and other authors primarily in that it certainly causes some misunderstanding and surprise in the viewer.

Tragedy can have incredible effects on our feelings, it causes them to constantly turn into the opposite, to be deceived in their expectations, to encounter contradictions, to split into two; and when we experience Hamlet, it seems to us that we have experienced thousands human lives in one evening, and for sure - we managed to feel more than in entire years of our ordinary life. And when we, together with the hero, begin to feel that he no longer belongs to himself, that he is not doing what he should be doing, then tragedy comes into its own. Hamlet expresses this remarkably when, in a letter to Ophelia, he swears to her eternal love as long as “this car” belongs to him. Russian translators usually render the word “machine” with the word “body”, not understanding that this word contains the very essence of the tragedy (in B. Pasternak’s translation: “Yours forever, most precious, as long as this machine is intact.”

The most terrible thing in the consciousness of the era was that the object of its deepest faith - Man - was being reborn. Along with this consciousness came a fear of action, of action, for with each step a person moved further into the depths of the imperfect world, became involved in its imperfections: “So thought turns us all into cowards...”

Why does Hamlet hesitate? A sacramental question, which has already been partly answered. Therefore, let’s ask another: “How do we know that he is hesitating?” First of all, from Hamlet, executing, urging himself to action.

Completing the second act, Hamlet finally utters the right word and, as if in the right tone, in a monologue after the scene with the actors who agreed to play a play exposing him before the usurper king. To complete the similarity of events with the murder of his father, Hamlet will add a few lines, and the “mousetrap” will be ready. Having agreed on its performance, Hamlet is left alone, remembers the actor who read the monologue to him, and is delighted with the passion he played, although it would seem “what is he to Hecuba? What is Hecuba to him? But this is a worthy example to follow for him, Hamlet, who has a real reason to shake heaven and earth. He is silent when he should exclaim: “O vengeance! ”

Hamlet finally snatched this word from himself, only to immediately come to his senses and correct himself: “What an ass I am, there’s nothing to say.”

Hamlet openly breaks with his role tragic hero, unable and, as it turns out, unwilling to act as the avenger hero familiar to the public.

Moreover, there is someone to play this role. The actor participating in the “mousetrap” will be able to show it performed, and Laertes, Fortinbras will be able to directly embody it... Hamlet is ready to admire their determination, their sense of honor, but he cannot help but feel the meaninglessness of their actions: “Two thousand souls, tens of thousands of money / Not It’s a pity for some clump of hay!” This is how Hamlet responds to Fortinbras’ campaign in Poland.

Against this heroic background, Hamlet’s own inactivity emerges more clearly, the diagnosis of which has been made for two centuries: weak, indecisive, depressed by circumstances, and finally, ill.

In other words, this is divine justice, embodied by the world law of existence, which can be undermined: if evil is done to someone, it means that evil has been done to everyone, evil has penetrated the world. In the act of vengeance, harmony is restored. He who refuses revenge becomes an accomplice in its destruction.

This is the law from which Hamlet dares to deviate. Shakespeare and the audiences of his era certainly understood what he was retreating from in his slowness. And Hamlet himself is well aware of the role of the avenger, which he will never accept.

Hamlet knows what he was born for, but will he find the strength to fulfill his destiny? And this question does not apply to him human qualities: whether he is strong or weak, sluggish or decisive. The whole tragedy implies the question not of what Hamlet is, but of what his place in the world is. This is a subject of difficult thought, of his vague guesses.

Hamlet chose thought, becoming “the first to reflect,” and through this, the first hero of world literature who survived the tragedy of alienation and loneliness, immersed in himself and his thoughts.

Hamlet's alienation is catastrophic, growing as the action progresses. His break with previously close people, with his former self, with the whole world of ideas in which he lived, with his former faith is completed... The death of his father shocked him and gave rise to suspicions. His mother's hasty marriage marked the beginning of his disappointment in man and, especially in a woman, destroyed his own love.

Did Hamlet love Ophelia? Did she love him? This question constantly arises when reading the tragedy, but has no answer in its plot, in which the characters’ relationships are not built as love ones. They are expressed by other motives: Ophelia’s paternal prohibition to accept Hamlet’s heartfelt outpourings and her obedience to her parental will; Hamlet's love desperation, prompted by his role as a madman; the genuine madness of Ophelia, through which the words of songs break through memories of what happened, or what did not happen between them. If the love of Ophelia and Hamlet exists, then it is only a wonderful and unrealized possibility, outlined before the beginning of the plot and destroyed in it.

Ophelia does not break the circle of Hamlet’s tragic loneliness; on the contrary, she makes him feel this loneliness more acutely: she is turned into an obedient instrument of intrigue and made a dangerous bait with which they are trying to catch the prince. The fate of Ophelia is no less tragic than the fate of Hamlet, and even more touching, but each of them separately meets his fate and experiences his own tragedy.

Ophelia is not given the opportunity to understand that Hamlet is a man philosophical thought, that in the suffering of thought, truthful, demanding, uncompromising, is Hamlet’s lot, that Hamlet’s “I accuse” conveys the intolerability of his position in a concrete world, where all concepts, feelings, connections are perverted, where it seems to him that time has stopped and “it is so.” “It will be like this” forever.

Alienated from family, from love, Hamlet loses faith in friendship, betrayed by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He sends them to death, which was prepared for him with their, albeit involuntary, assistance. Constantly blaming himself for his inactivity, Hamlet manages to accomplish a lot in the tragedy.

They even talk about two Hamlets: the Hamlet of action and the Hamlet of monologues, which are very different from each other. Hesitating and reflective is the second; over the former, the inertia of the generally accepted, the inertia of life itself, still retains power. And even the inertia of one’s own character, as we can judge, is by no means weak in nature, decisive in everything until it comes to the main decision - to take revenge. Hamlet is a person enlightened in humanism, who, in order to clarify the truth, has to take a step back to the medieval concepts of “conscience” and “the country from which no one returned.” “Conscience,” like humanism, has become a modern word for us, having changed and expanded its original content. It is already very difficult for us to imagine how the same word was perceived by Shakespeare’s audience, denoting for them, first of all, the fear of afterlife punishment for their earthly actions, the very fear from which the new consciousness sought to free itself. Hamlet’s soul is drawn to the people of the people, and their souls are attracted to Hamlet, “a violent crowd is partial to him,” but this mutual attraction does not lead to their union. The tragedy of Hamlet is also the tragedy of the people.

Thinking about the meaning of human existence, Hamlet utters the most exciting and profound of his monologues, the first words of which have long been catchphrase: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” This monologue contains a whole tangle of questions. There is the riddle of “an unknown land from where there is no return for earthly wanderers,” and much more. But the main thing is the choice of behavior in life. Perhaps they will “submit to the slings and arrows of furious fate?” - Hamlet asks himself. “Or, taking up arms on the sea of turmoil, defeat them with confrontation?” This is a truly heroic solution. This is not why man was created “with a thought so vast, looking both forward and backward”, so that “the god-like mind... idly grows moldy”!

Hamlet is often drawn to philosophical thoughts, but if fate has given him a titanic mission to restore the moral health of the human race, to forever rid people of meanness and scoundrels, Hamlet does not refuse this mission. After this, it is not Hamlet’s weak character that must be explained by his throwing, hesitation, mental and emotional dead ends, but by historical conditions, when popular uprisings ended in defeat. Hamlet could not merge with the people - neither in their struggle, nor in their temporary submission.

Hamlet carries within himself a ray of great hope - a passionate interest in the future of humanity. His last wish is to preserve his “wounded name” in the memory of posterity, and when Horatio intends to drink the rest of the poison from the cup in order to die after his friend, Hamlet begs him not to do this. From now on, Horatio's duty is to tell people about what happened to Hamlet and why he suffered so much.

Is Hamlet tragic? After all, this is so often disputed. They ask, doesn’t Hamlet lose heart at the slightest failure, isn’t all his ardor wasted, and doesn’t his blows miss the target? Yes, but this is because he wants more than he is able to fulfill, and therefore his courage is wasted. After all, the most terrible thing in Hamlet’s tragedy is not so much the crime of Claudius, but the fact that in Denmark in a short time they got used to despotism and slavery, brute force and stupid obedience, meanness and cowardice. The worst thing is that the crime that took place is now forgotten by those who know the circumstances of the king’s death. This is what Hamlet is terrified of.

Before committing an evil deed, a person waits until his “conscience” calms down, passes away, like illness. It will work for someone. Hamlet does not, and this is his tragedy. It is not, of course, that Hamlet does not want and cannot become unscrupulous in the concepts of our current morality. The tragedy is that he finds nothing else but seemingly once and for all rejected dependence on otherworldly, inhuman authority for support and action, in order to put in place the “dislocated joints” of the era. He has to judge one era by the standards of another, already bygone era, and this, according to Shakespeare, is unthinkable.

Hamlet had the opportunity to punish Claudius more than once throughout the song. Why, for example, does he not strike when Claudius is praying alone? Therefore, the researchers found that in this case, according to ancient beliefs, the soul of the murdered person would go straight to heaven, and Hamlet needs to send it to hell. If Laertes had been Hamlet, he would not have missed the opportunity. “Both lights are despicable to me,” he says. For Hamlet, they are not despicable, and this is the tragedy of his situation. The psychological duality of Hamlet's character is historical in nature: its cause is the dual state of a “contemporary”, in whose mind voices suddenly began to speak and the forces of other times began to operate.

No matter how popular other plays may be, none can compete with Hamlet, in which a man modern era for the first time I recognized myself and my problems.

The number of interpretations of the entire tragedy and especially the character of its main character is enormous. The starting point for the ongoing controversy to this day was the judgment expressed by the heroes of Goethe’s novel “The Years of the Teaching of Wilhelm Meister,” where the idea was voiced that Shakespeare wanted to show “a great deed weighing on a soul that is sometimes beyond the power of such an act... here an oak tree is planted in a precious vessel, whose purpose was to cherish only delicate flowers in its bosom...” They agreed with Belinsky that Hamlet is an image that has universal significance: “... this is a person, this is you, this is me, this is each of us, more or less, in a lofty or funny, but always in a pitiful and sad sense...”. They began to argue with Goethe, and more and more persistently, with the end of the romantic period, proving that Hamlet was not weak, but was placed in conditions of historical hopelessness. In Russia, this kind of historical turn of thought was already proposed by V.G. Belinsky. As for Hamlet's weakness, while finding its adherents, this theory was increasingly met with refutation.

Throughout the 19th century. judgments about Hamlet concerned, first of all, elucidation of his own character.

Strong or weak; self-absorbed, representing, first of all, introspection, “egoism, and therefore lack of faith,” in contrast to the moral idealism of Don Quixote. This is how I. S. Turgenev saw him in the famous article “Hamlet and Don Quixote” (1859), ten years earlier he gave a modern embodiment of the eternal image in the story “Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District”. In English Shakespeare studies, on the contrary, a tradition has been established to see in the case of Hamlet a tragedy experienced by a moral idealist who entered the world with faith and hope, but was painfully shocked by the death of his father and his mother’s betrayal. This is exactly the interpretation proposed in his classic work “Shakespearean Tragedy” by A.S. Bradley (1904). In a sense, the deepening and development of this concept was the Freudian interpretation of the image, outlined by Freud himself and developed in detail by his student E. Jones, who, in the spirit of psychoanalysis, presented the tragedy of Hamlet as a result of the Oedipus complex: unconscious hatred of the father and love for the mother.

However, in the 20th century, the warning with which T.S. began his famous essay about the tragedy began to be heard more and more often. Eliot, who said that “the play Hamlet is the primary problem, and Hamlet as a character is only a secondary one.” To understand Hamlet means to understand the laws of the artistic whole within which he arose. Eliot himself believed that Shakespeare in this image brilliantly guessed the birth of human problems, so deep and new that he could neither give them a rational explanation nor find an adequate form for them, so that from an artistic point of view “Hamlet” is a great failure.

Around this time, an analysis of the tragedy “Hamlet” from the point of view of genre structure, carried out by L. S. Vygotsky, began to take shape in Russia. Asking the question: “Why does Hamlet hesitate?” - a remarkable linguist and psychologist is looking for the answer in how, according to the laws of the construction and impact of tragedy, plot, plot and hero coexist in it, coming into inevitable contradiction. And in this sense, “Hamlet” is not a violation of the genre, but an ideal implementation of its law, which defines as an inevitable condition for the hero existence in several planes, which he tries in vain to bring together and brings together only in the finale, where the act of revenge coincides with the act of his own death.

Hamlet is a hero of intellect and conscience, and this makes him stand out from the entire gallery of Shakespearean images. Only Hamlet combines brilliant civilization and deep sensitivity, an educated mind and unshaken morality. He is closer, dearer to us than all the other heroes of Shakespeare, both in his strength and weakness. It is much easier to mentally make friends with him; through him, it is as if Shakespeare himself directly communicates with us. If Hamlet is so easy to love, it is because in him we feel to some extent ourselves; if it is sometimes so difficult to understand him, it is because we have not yet fully understood ourselves.

The legend of Hamlet was first recorded at the end of the 12th century by the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus. His History of the Danes, written in Latin, was published in 1514.

In the ancient times of paganism - so says Saxo Grammaticus - the ruler of Jutland was killed during a feast by his brother Feng, who then married his widow. The son of the murdered man, young Hamlet decided to take revenge for the murder of his father. To gain time and appear safe, Hamlet decided to pretend to be mad. Feng's friend wanted to check this, but Hamlet beat him to it. After Feng's unsuccessful attempt to destroy the prince at the hands of the English king, Hamlet triumphed over his enemies.

More than half a century later, the French writer Belfore presented it in his own language in the book " Tragic stories" (1674). English translation Belfort's narrative did not appear until 1608, seven years after Shakespeare's Hamlet was staged. The author of the pre-Shakespearean Hamlet is unknown. It is believed that he was Thomas Kyd (1588-1594), famous as a master of revenge tragedy. Unfortunately, the play has not survived and one can only speculate about how Shakespeare revised it.

And in the legend, and in the short story, and in the old play about Hamlet main theme there was a family revenge that the Danish prince commits. Shakespeare interpreted this image differently.

Hamlet began new life in his drama. Having emerged from the depths of centuries, he became a contemporary of Shakespeare, a confidant of his thoughts and dreams. The author mentally lived through the entire life of his hero.

Together with the Danish prince, Shakespeare mentally leafed through dozens of old and new books in the library of the University of Wittenberg, the center of medieval learning, trying to penetrate the secrets of nature and the human soul.

His hero grew and imperceptibly left the boundaries of his Middle Ages and introduced people who read Thomas More, people who believed in the power of the human mind, in the beauty of human feelings, to the dreams and disputes.

The plot of the tragedy, borrowed from the medieval legend about Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, places on the hero concerns and responsibilities not related to the tragedy of humanism and rebirth. The prince is deceived, insulted, robbed, he must avenge the treacherous murder of his father and regain his crown. But no matter what personal problems Hamlet solves, no matter what torments he suffers, everything is reflected in his character, his state of mind, and through them, his spiritual state, probably experienced by Shakespeare himself and many of his contemporaries, representatives younger generation: This is a state of deepest shock.

Shakespeare put into this tragedy all the painful questions of his age, and his Hamlet will step across the centuries and extend his hand to posterity.

Hamlet has become one of the most beloved characters in world literature. Moreover, he has ceased to be a character in an ancient tragedy and is perceived as a living person, well known to many people, almost everyone of whom has their own opinion about him.

Although the death of a person is tragic, yet the tragedy has its content not in death, but in the moral, ethical death of a person, what led him on a fatal path that ends in death.

In this case, Hamlet’s true tragedy lies in the fact that he, a man of the most beautiful spiritual qualities, broke down. When I saw the terrible sides of life - deceit, betrayal, murder of loved ones. He lost faith in people, love, life lost its value for him. Pretending to be insane, he is actually on the verge of madness from the realization of how monstrous people are - traitors, incestuous people, perjurers, murderers, flatterers and hypocrites. He gains courage to fight, but he can only look at life with sorrow.

What was the cause of Hamlet's spiritual tragedy? His honesty, intelligence, sensitivity, belief in ideals. If he were like Claudius, Laertes, Polonius, he could live like them, deceiving, pretending, adapting to the world of evil.

But he could not reconcile, and how to fight, and most importantly, how to defeat, destroy evil, he did not know. The cause of Hamlet's tragedy, therefore, is rooted in the nobility of his nature.

The tragedy of Hamlet is the tragedy of man's knowledge of evil. For the time being, the existence of the Danish prince was serene: he lived in a family illuminated mutual love parents, he himself fell in love and enjoyed the reciprocity of a lovely girl, had pleasant friends, was passionate about science, loved the theater, wrote poetry; A great future awaited him - to become a sovereign and rule an entire people.

But suddenly everything started to fall apart. At the dawn of time, my father died. Before Hamlet had time to survive the grief, a second blow befell him: his mother, who seemed to love his father so much, in less than two months married the brother of the deceased and shared the throne with him. And the third blow: Hamlet learned that his father was killed by his own brother in order to take possession of the crown and his wife.

Is it surprising that Hamlet experienced the deepest shock: after all, everything that made life valuable to him collapsed before his eyes. He had never been so naive as to think that there were no misfortunes in life. And yet his thoughts were largely fueled by illusory ideas. The shock experienced by Hamlet shook his faith in man and gave rise to a duality of his consciousness.

Hamlet sees two betrayals of people connected by family and blood ties: his mother and the king's brother. If people who should be closest to each other violate the laws of kinship, then what can you expect from others? This is the root of the dramatic change in Hamlet's attitude towards Ophelia. His mother's example leads him to a sad conclusion: women are too weak to withstand the harsh trials of life. Hamlet renounces Ophelia also because love can distract him from the task of revenge.

Hamlet is ready for action, but the situation turned out to be more difficult than one might imagine. The direct fight against evil becomes an impossible task for some time. 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. It is impossible to understand its meaning if we proceed only from Hamlet’s individual data or keep in mind his desire to take revenge for the murder of his father. Hamlet's internal drama consists of the fact that he repeatedly torments himself for inaction, understands that words cannot help matters, but does not do anything concrete.

Hamlet's reflection and hesitation, which became a distinctive feature of the character of this hero, was caused by an internal shock from the “sea of disasters”, which entailed doubt in moral and philosophical principles which seemed unshakable to him.

The case is waiting, but Hamlet hesitates; more than once throughout the play, Hamlet had the opportunity to punish Claudius. Why, for example, does he not strike when Claudius is praying alone? Therefore, the researchers found that in this case, according to ancient beliefs, the soul goes to heaven, and Hamlet needs to send it to hell. In fact of the matter! If Laertes had been Hamlet, he would not have missed the opportunity. “Both worlds are despicable for me,” he says, and this is the tragedy of his situation.

The psychological duality of Hamlet's consciousness is of a historical nature: its cause is the dual state of a contemporary, in whose consciousness voices suddenly began to speak and the forces of other times began to act.

“Hamlet” reveals the moral torment of a person called to action, thirsting for action, but acting impulsively, only under the pressure of circumstances; experiencing a discord between thought and will.

When Hamlet becomes convinced that the king will commit reprisals against him, he talks differently about the discord between will and action. Now he comes to the conclusion that “thinking too much about the outcome” is “bestial oblivion or a pathetic skill.”

Hamlet is certainly irreconcilable to evil, but he does not know how to fight it. Hamlet does not recognize his struggle as a political struggle. It has a predominantly moral meaning for him.

Hamlet is a lonely fighter for justice. He fights against his enemies with their own means. The contradiction in the hero’s behavior is that to achieve his goal he resorts to the same, if you like, immoral methods as his opponents. He pretends, is cunning, seeks to find out the secret of his enemy, deceives and, paradoxically, for the sake of a noble goal, he finds himself guilty of the death of several people. Claudius is responsible for the death of only one former king. Hamlet kills (though unintentionally) Polonius, sends Rosencrantz and Gildenson to certain death, kills Laertes and, finally, the king; he is also indirectly responsible for Ophelia's death. But in the eyes of everyone, he remains morally pure, for he pursued noble goals and the evil that he committed was always a response to the machinations of his opponents.

Polonius dies at the hands of Hamlet. This means that Hamlet acts as an avenger for the very thing that he does to another.

Another theme emerges with greater force in the play - the frailty of all things. Death reigns in this tragedy from beginning to end. It begins with the appearance of the ghost of the murdered king, during the course of the action Polonius dies, then Ophelia drowns, Rosencrantz and Guildensten go to certain death, the poisoned queen dies, Laertes dies, Hamlet’s blade finally reaches Claudius. Hamlet himself dies, a victim of the treachery of Laertes and Claudius. This is the bloodiest of all Shakespeare's tragedies. But Shakespeare did not try to impress the viewer with the story of the murder; the death of each of the characters has its own special meaning. The fate of Hamlet is the most tragic, since in his image true humanity, combined with the power of the mind, finds its most vivid embodiment. According to this assessment, his death is depicted as a feat in the name of freedom.

Hamlet often talks about death. Soon after his first appearance before the audience, he reveals a hidden thought: life has become so disgusting that he would commit suicide if it were not considered a sin. He reflects on death in the monologue “To be or not to be?” Here the hero is concerned about the mystery of death itself: what is it - or a continuation of the same torments that earthly life is full of? Fear of the unknown, of this country from which not a single traveler has returned, often makes people shy away from the fight for fear of falling into this unknown world.

Hamlet focuses on the thought of death when, attacked by stubborn facts and painful doubts, he cannot continue to strengthen the thought; everything around is moving in a fast current, and there is nothing to cling to, not even a saving straw is visible.

Hamlet is sure that people need the initial story about his life as a lesson, a warning and a call - his dying order to his friend Horatio is decisive: “Out of all events, reveal the reason.” With its fate, it testifies to the tragic contradictions of history, its difficult, but increasingly persistent work to humanize man.

Conclusion

So, using the example of Shakespeare’s “Sonnets”, which are an integral part and, in my opinion, a fairly striking example of his work, we can come to the following conclusions:

1). The changes developed and consolidated by Shakespeare in the national English version of the sonnet canon, called “Shakespearean,” not without reason allow us to consider his “Sonnets,” as part of his work, the pinnacle of the English Renaissance.

2). Traditions of pan-European Renaissance culture, defined as the revival of the ancient way of thinking and feeling and being the result of development medieval culture, created conditions for the emergence of outstanding creative personalities, which, undoubtedly, is W. Shakespeare. The figurative-thematic system and the very form of his “Sonnets” reflect the anthropocentric thinking of this period, revealing the complex inner world the great poet, brilliantly embodying his creative plan. Thus, the work of W. Shakespeare can be considered the highest synthesis of the traditions of pan-European Renaissance culture.

Despite the gloomy ending, there is no hopeless pessimism in Shakespeare's tragedy. The ideals of the tragic hero are indestructible, majestic, and his struggle with the vicious, unjust world should serve as an example for other people. This gives Shakespeare's tragedies the meaning of works that are relevant at all times.

Shakespeare's tragedy has two endings. One directly ends the outcome of the struggle and is expressed in the death of the hero. And the other is taken into the future, which will be the only one capable of perceiving and enriching unfulfilled ideals.

Revival and establish them on earth. Shakespeare's tragic heroes experience a special upsurge of spiritual strength, which increases the more dangerous their opponent is.

So the crush social evil constitutes the greatest personal interest, the greatest passion of Shakespeare's heroes. That's why they are always modern.

Literature

1. Foreign literature Reader for grades 8-10 of secondary school, - M.: Education, 1977

2. A. Anikst Shakespeare. M., 1964

3. Z. Civil From Shakespeare to Shaw, - M.: Education, 1982

4. W. Shakespeare Complete. collection Op. -- M., 1957-1960, vol. 1, vol. 8

5. S. Shenbaum Shakespeare Brief documentary biography, - M.: Progress, 1985

6. Belinsky V.G. Hamlet, Shakespeare's drama. Mochalov in the role of Hamlet - M., state publishing house of fiction, 1948;

7. Vertsman I.E. “Hamlet” by Shakespeare, - M., Fiction, 1964;

8. Dinamov S.S. Foreign literature, - L., Fiction, 1960;

9. Dubashinsky I.A. William Shakespeare, - M., Education, 1965;

10. Shaitanov I. O. Western European classics: from Shakespeare to Goethe, - M., Moscow University Publishing House, 2001;

11. Shakespeare V. Hamlet, - M., Children's literature, 1982;

12. Shakespeare V. To the four hundredth anniversary of his birth, - M., Nauka, 1964;

13. Shakespeare V. Comedies, chronicles, tragedies, collected. in 2 volumes, - M., Ripod classic, 2001;

14. Shakespeare V. Plays, sonnets, - M., Olympus, 2002.

Tragedy "Hamlet"

Among William Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is one of the most famous. The hero of this drama inspired poets and composers, philosophers and politicians.

A huge range of philosophical and ethical issues are intertwined in the tragedy with social and political issues that characterize the unique facet of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Shakespeare's hero became a fiery exponent of those new views that the Renaissance brought with it, when the progressive minds of mankind sought to restore not only the understanding of the art of the ancient world that had been lost over the millennium of the Middle Ages, but also man's trust in his own strengths without relying on the mercy and help of heaven.

The state in which the Prince of Denmark lives, languishing from its ulcers and vices, is a fictional Denmark. Shakespeare wrote about contemporary England. Everything in his play - heroes, thoughts, problems, characters - belongs to the society in which Shakespeare lived.

He is irreconcilably hostile to Claudius. He is friendly towards the actors. He is rude 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 contain his hatred. This entire rich range of changing colors reproduces the greatness of the human personality and is subordinated to the revelation of the tragedy of man.

The tragedy of Hamlet is unanimously considered mysterious. It seems to everyone that it differs from the other tragedies of Shakespeare himself and other authors primarily in that it certainly causes some misunderstanding and surprise in the viewer.

Tragedy can have incredible effects on our feelings, it causes them to constantly turn into the opposite, to be deceived in their expectations, to encounter contradictions, to split into two; and when we experience “Hamlet”, it seems to us that we have experienced thousands of human lives in one evening, and for sure - we have managed to feel more than in entire years of our ordinary life. And when we, together with the hero, begin to feel that he no longer belongs to himself, that he is not doing what he should be doing, then tragedy comes into its own. Hamlet expresses this wonderfully when, in a letter to Ophelia, he swears his eternal love for her as long as “this car” belongs to him. Russian translators usually render the word “machine” with the word “body”, not understanding that this word contains the very essence of the tragedy (in B. Pasternak’s translation: “Yours forever, most precious, as long as this machine is intact.”

The most terrible thing in the consciousness of the era was that the object of its deepest faith - Man - was being reborn. Along with this consciousness came a fear of action, of action, for with each step a person moved further into the depths of the imperfect world, became involved in its imperfections: “So thought turns us all into cowards...”

Why does Hamlet hesitate? A sacramental question, which has already been partly answered. Therefore, let’s ask another: “How do we know that he is hesitating?” First of all, from Hamlet, executing, urging himself to action.

Hamlet finally snatched this word from himself, only to immediately come to his senses and correct himself: “What an ass I am, there’s nothing to say.”

Hamlet openly breaks with the role of a tragic hero, unable and, as it turns out, unwilling to act as the avenging hero familiar to the public.

Against this heroic background, Hamlet’s own inactivity emerges more clearly, the diagnosis of which has been made for two centuries: weak, indecisive, depressed by circumstances, and finally, ill.

In other words, this is divine justice, embodied by the world law of existence, which can be undermined: if evil is done to someone, it means that evil has been done to everyone, evil has penetrated the world. In the act of vengeance, harmony is restored. He who refuses revenge becomes an accomplice in its destruction.

This is the law from which Hamlet dares to deviate. Shakespeare and the audiences of his era certainly understood what he was retreating from in his slowness. And Hamlet himself is well aware of the role of the avenger, which he will never accept.

Hamlet knows what he was born for, but will he find the strength to fulfill his destiny? And this question does not relate to his human qualities: is he strong or weak, sluggish or decisive. The whole tragedy implies the question not of what Hamlet is, but of what his place in the world is. This is a subject of difficult thought, of his vague guesses.

Hamlet chose thought, becoming “the first to reflect,” and through this, the first hero of world literature who survived the tragedy of alienation and loneliness, immersed in himself and his thoughts.

Ophelia is not given the opportunity to understand that Hamlet is a man of philosophical thought, that in the suffering of thought, truthful, demanding, uncompromising, is Hamlet’s lot, that Hamlet’s “I accuse” conveys the unbearableness of his position in a concrete world, where all concepts, feelings, connections, where it seems to him that time has stopped and “so it is, so it will be” forever.

Alienated from family, from love, Hamlet loses faith in friendship, betrayed by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He sends them to death, which was prepared for him with their, albeit involuntary, assistance. Constantly blaming himself for his inactivity, Hamlet manages to accomplish a lot in the tragedy.

Thinking about the meaning of human existence, Hamlet utters the most exciting and profound of his monologues, the first words of which have long become a catchphrase: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” This monologue contains a whole tangle of questions. There is the riddle of “an unknown land from where there is no return for earthly wanderers,” and much more. But the main thing is the choice of behavior in life. Perhaps they will “submit to the slings and arrows of furious fate?” - Hamlet asks himself. “Or, taking up arms on the sea of turmoil, defeat them with confrontation?” This is a truly heroic solution. This is not why man was created “with a thought so vast, looking both forward and backward”, so that “the god-like mind... idly grows moldy”!

No matter how popular other plays may be, none can compete with Hamlet, in which the man of the modern era first recognized himself and his problems.

Throughout the 19th century. judgments about Hamlet concerned, first of all, elucidation of his own character.

The legend of Hamlet was first recorded at the end of the 12th century by the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus. His History of the Danes, written in Latin, was published in 1514.

More than half a century later, the French writer Belfort presented it in his own language in the book “Tragic Histories” (1674). An English translation of Belfort's narrative did not appear until 1608, seven years after Shakespeare's Hamlet was performed on stage. The author of the pre-Shakespearean Hamlet is unknown. It is believed that he was Thomas Kyd (1588-1594), famous as a master of revenge tragedy. Unfortunately, the play has not survived and one can only speculate about how Shakespeare revised it.

In both the legend, the short story, and the old play about Hamlet, the main theme was the ancestral revenge committed by the Danish prince. Shakespeare interpreted this image differently.

Hamlet began a new life in his drama. Having emerged from the depths of centuries, he became a contemporary of Shakespeare, a confidant of his thoughts and dreams. The author mentally lived through the entire life of his hero.

Together with the Danish prince, Shakespeare mentally leafed through dozens of old and new books in the library of the University of Wittenberg, the center of medieval learning, trying to penetrate the secrets of nature and the human soul.

His hero grew and imperceptibly left the boundaries of his Middle Ages and introduced people who read Thomas More, people who believed in the power of the human mind, in the beauty of human feelings, to the dreams and disputes.

The plot of the tragedy, borrowed from the medieval legend about Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, places on the hero concerns and responsibilities not related to the tragedy of humanism and rebirth. The prince is deceived, insulted, robbed, he must avenge the treacherous murder of his father and regain his crown. But no matter what personal problems Hamlet solves, no matter what torments he suffers, everything is reflected in his character, his state of mind, and through them, his spiritual state, experienced, probably, by Shakespeare himself and many of his contemporaries, representatives of the younger generation: this is a state of the deepest shock.

Shakespeare put into this tragedy all the painful questions of his age, and his Hamlet will step across the centuries and extend his hand to posterity.

Hamlet has become one of the most beloved characters in world literature. Moreover, he has ceased to be a character in an ancient tragedy and is perceived as a living person, well known to many people, almost everyone of whom has their own opinion about him.

Although the death of a person is tragic, yet the tragedy has its content not in death, but in the moral, ethical death of a person, what led him on a fatal path that ends in death.

What was the cause of Hamlet's spiritual tragedy? His honesty, intelligence, sensitivity, belief in ideals. If he were like Claudius, Laertes, Polonius, he could live like them, deceiving, pretending, adapting to the world of evil.

But he could not reconcile, and how to fight, and most importantly, how to defeat, destroy evil, he did not know. The cause of Hamlet's tragedy, therefore, is rooted in the nobility of his nature.

The tragedy of Hamlet is the tragedy of man's knowledge of evil. For the time being, the existence of the Danish prince was serene: he lived in a family illuminated by the mutual love of his parents, he himself fell in love and enjoyed the reciprocity of a lovely girl, had pleasant friends, was passionate about science, loved the theater, wrote poetry; A great future awaited him - to become a sovereign and rule an entire people.

But suddenly everything started to fall apart. At the dawn of time, my father died. Before Hamlet had time to survive the grief, a second blow befell him: his mother, who seemed to love his father so much, in less than two months married the brother of the deceased and shared the throne with him. And the third blow: Hamlet learned that his father was killed by his own brother in order to take possession of the crown and his wife.

Hamlet's reflection and hesitation, which became a hallmark of the character of this hero, was caused by an internal shock from the “sea of disasters,” which entailed doubt in the moral and philosophical principles that seemed unshakable to him.

The psychological duality of Hamlet's consciousness is of a historical nature: its cause is the dual state of a contemporary, in whose consciousness voices suddenly began to speak and the forces of other times began to act.

“Hamlet” reveals the moral torment of a person called to action, thirsting for action, but acting impulsively, only under the pressure of circumstances; experiencing a discord between thought and will.

When Hamlet becomes convinced that the king will commit reprisals against him, he talks differently about the discord between will and action. Now he comes to the conclusion that “thinking too much about the outcome” is “bestial oblivion or a pathetic skill.”

Hamlet is certainly irreconcilable to evil, but he does not know how to fight it. Hamlet does not recognize his struggle as a political struggle. It has a predominantly moral meaning for him.

Polonius dies at the hands of Hamlet. This means that Hamlet acts as an avenger for the very thing that he does to another.

Another theme emerges with greater force in the play - the frailty of all things. Death reigns in this tragedy from beginning to end. It begins with the appearance of the ghost of the murdered king, during the course of the action Polonius dies, then Ophelia drowns, Rosencrantz and Guildensten go to certain death, the poisoned queen dies, Laertes dies, Hamlet’s blade finally reaches Claudius. Hamlet himself dies, a victim of the treachery of Laertes and Claudius. This is the bloodiest of all Shakespeare's tragedies. But Shakespeare did not try to impress the viewer with the story of the murder; the death of each character has its own special meaning. The fate of Hamlet is the most tragic, since in his image true humanity, combined with the power of the mind, finds its most vivid embodiment. According to this assessment, his death is depicted as a feat in the name of freedom.

Hamlet focuses on the thought of death when, attacked by stubborn facts and painful doubts, he cannot continue to strengthen the thought; everything around is moving in a fast current, and there is nothing to cling to, not even a saving straw is visible.

Hamlet is sure that people need the initial story about his life as a lesson, a warning and a call - his dying order to his friend Horatio is decisive: “Out of all events, reveal the reason.” With its fate, it testifies to the tragic contradictions of history, its difficult, but increasingly persistent work to humanize man.

In the 20th century, Hamlet was played on the Russian stage by V. Vysotsky, E. Mironov, it was filmed by G. Kozintsev, this role was played in films by I. Smoktunovsky. The tragedy was staged either in costumes of the Victorian era, or the actors were put on miniskirts and bell-bottoms, or they were completely undressed; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern took on the appearance of rock and roll stars, Hamlet portrayed a pathological idiot, and Ophelia turned from a nymph into a nymphomaniac. Shakespeare was made to be either a Freudian, or an existentialist, or a homosexual, but all these “formalistic” tricks, fortunately, have not yet led to anything particularly outstanding.

A notable page in the “Russian Hamletiana” was the performance of the Moscow Art Theater (1911), staged by E.G. Craig, is the first experience of collaboration between Russian actors and an English director, while the actors and the director have diametrically opposed theatrical preferences and directions. The role of Hamlet was played by V.I. Kachalov. Elegic V.I. Kachalov, it seems, did not in any way resemble his thunderous forerunner, and yet, in principle, the same dissolution in Hamlet happened to him. And not just Kachalov, but the entire play, Shakespeare and the audience: the world through the eyes not of Shakespeare, but of Hamlet.

E.G. Craig was a forerunner of symbolism in the performing arts. He replaces the vital concreteness of Shakespeare's conflicts and images with abstractions of a mystical nature. Thus, in Hamlet he sees the idea of the struggle between spirit and matter. He is not interested in the psychology of heroes. The living situation also does not matter in his eyes. Being a gifted artist, he creates conventional scenery and frees the appearance of the heroes from everything that could make them people of a certain era. True, the practical implementation of his concepts by E.G. Craig achieved only to a minimal extent, but the ideas he put forward had a significant influence on the development of decadent tendencies in the theater. The production of Hamlet at the Moscow Art Theater in 1911 only partially expressed his intention, which was to affirm the idea of human weakness. Views of E.G. Craig came into conflict with the ideological and artistic positions of K.S. Stanislavsky and the theater he directed.

The history of the relationship between K.K. Stanislavsky with Shakespeare was extremely difficult. The progressive experiments of the Moscow Art Theater were based on the then fashionable realistic drama, and “romantic tragedy” did not correspond to the image of the theater. But, in the end, Hamlet, performed by Kachalov, demonstrated to the public the helplessness of the individual in an atmosphere of triumph of the forces of reaction.

V.E. Meyerhold, when planning the production of Hamlet, thought to return to the forms of public performance, although it was in Hamlet that Shakespeare outlined his differences with the public theater and expressed confidence in the court of an expert, a loner?

A comedy from the tragedy "Hamlet" in the 30s. made by N.P. Akimov, who, while working on Hamlet, with justified determination, returned in his time to a whole series of questions, the answers to which required updating. What does “humanism” mean when applied to Hamlet and the Shakespearean era (“does not at all coincide with the trivial humanity of liberals”)? He was also right when, looking at the history of productions of “Hamlet” in the last century, he concluded that the 19th century, in many ways, but invariably, repeated the same romantic balance of power in the interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy: “the king is evil; the spirit of Hamlet's father - eternal beginning good,” especially “Hamlet himself personified the night idea of good.” In short, the essence of the romantic understanding of Hamlet lies in the words “the best of men.” It is significant that these words, which, like grace, became an integral characteristic of Hamlet, are attributed by Shakespeare to a completely different character. It is possible that Hamlet is very good, that he is an exceptional, outstanding person, but the type is not at all what the definition of “the best of people” suggests. Just as Shakespeare’s “graceful and gentle” is not Hamlet, but Fortinbras, so “the best of men” is not Hamlet, but Horatio.. The performance on the stage of the Theater. Vakhtangov, inspired by N.P. Akimov, however, limited himself to the fact that the high definition that had been established for Hamlet was turned inside out, and Hamlet became no better, no worse than others, he became the same as everyone around him. But to change it, to turn it upside down, is not yet a revision of the essence.

N.P. Akimov emphasizes that the works of E. Rotterdamsky were reference books for all educated people of Shakespeare's time, and this is another point that is especially important for the director: the time and place of action of his performance is extremely specific - England of the Elizabethan era. So, if we level out the philosophical layer of the tragedy, then the only line left is the struggle for the throne. There is a usurper on the throne. Therefore, the main goal of the heir is to take what rightfully belongs to him. This is exactly how Akimov formulated the theme of his production. He conceived "Hamlet" as a bright spectacle with intense, non-stop action, instant changes of scenery, with tricks and buffoonery. “There’s nothing you can do, it’s a comedy!” said N.P. Akimov at the presentation of the exposition of the future performance to the actors.

Later N.P. Akimov admits: “At that time, before the Decree of April 23, 1932, which coincided with the dress rehearsals of my production of Hamlet, when I could no longer revise and change the fundamentals of my production plan, we did not yet have the current reverence for the classics "

“He is obese and suffers from shortness of breath...” According to N.P. Akimov, this remark from Queen Gertrude pushed the director to the idea of appointing A.I. to the main role. Goryunov, a magnificent comedian, improviser, fat joker. Akimov’s sketch of Hamlet’s costume depicts A.I. Goryunov. Similar and not similar. Even strange: N.P. Akimov, a wonderful portrait painter, who always knew how to capture the main character trait of a person and translate it into a drawing - and with A.I. It didn’t work out for Goryunov. Everything is spoiled by a heavy, strong-willed chin.

Whole line facts indicate that the execution of A.I. Goryunov's roles were noticeably different from what the director originally intended. Akimov wanted to see Hamlet as assertive, even a little boorish, cynical, impudent, and angry. Goryunov’s charming immaturity confused all the cards. He couldn't be truly evil. Funny - yes, defenseless - yes. The only moment when A.I. Goryunov managed to create in the viewer a feeling of something sinister; he was at the very beginning of the performance.

But most of all Akimov suffered from critics for the “blasphemous” interpretation of this particular image. "The function of this girl in the play is that she is the third spy assigned to Hamlet: Rosencrantz, Guildenstern - and Ophelia." The director's position is formulated extremely clearly and clearly. Actress V. Vagrina was perhaps the most “scandalous” Ophelia in the history of the theater. There was no talk of any love between Hamlet and the daughter of Polonius in the Vakhtangov production. Marriage with the prince interested Ophelia only as an opportunity to become a member royal family- she strove for this ambitious goal, regardless of anything: she spied, eavesdropped, peeped, reported. And she was extremely offended and upset when she realized that her dream would not come true. She was so upset that at the royal ball she got completely drunk and bawled obscene songs - this is how Akimov solved the scene of Ophelia’s madness. “I was somewhat irritated by this unconvincing madness, which fits entirely into the ancient stage tradition, but falls out of our stage tradition.<…>I changed the ending of Ophelia's role: she leads a frivolous lifestyle, as a result of which she drowns while drunk. This affects our attention much less than if we think that she has gone crazy, and even drowned.”

Akimov’s famous interpretation of the “Mousetrap” scene, where the comedy is brought to such a grotesque level, has been described many times. central character becomes King Claudius. He came to the performance of traveling actors in yet another new outfit, the main detail of which was a long red train. Claudius sedately took his place, but as soon as the actor portraying the king poured poison into the ear of the sleeping Gonzago, Hamlet's uncle quickly jumped out of his chair and ran away, one might say, he fled backstage. And behind him, fluttering, stretched an endlessly long red - bloody - train.

Another resonant scene from Akimov’s play is Hamlet’s famous monologue “To be or not to be?” In a tavern filled with wine barrels, barely moving his tongue, the prince was pondering whether or not to be a king, now putting on and taking off a fake cardboard crown left by the actors after the rehearsal, and a drunken Horatio enthusiastically agreed with his friend.

According to N.P. Akimova Hamlet is a humanist, which means he should have an office for scientific studies. In Hamlet's library, in addition to books, maps, and a globe, there was a human skeleton with a bony hand playfully raised. (Akimov planned to put up a skeleton of a horse, but just like in the case of the pig, this intention could not be realized).

As we can see, there was quite a lot of “black humor” in the performance. The murder of Polonius was followed by an episode in the spirit of a stunt western with comic chases. Having picked up the corpse of Polonius, Hamlet dragged him along the numerous stairs of the castle, running away from the palace guards. And even the duel was half clowning, half guignol. The place of the fight, made like a ring, was surrounded by a crowd of spectators: live actors mixed with dolls: this became clear when the guards began to disperse the crowd at a signal from Claudius (after Gertrude poisoned herself). Hamlet and Laertes fought wearing fencing masks, with Laertes' mask resembling a jackal. Goryunov was an unimportant fencer, but one can guess with what infectious passion he swung his sword.

Last scene performance by N.P. Akimov developed it especially carefully. Fortinbras rode on horseback directly onto the platform on which the duel took place. He delivered his monologue without leaving the saddle. At the end of this cheerful performance, tragic notes unexpectedly sounded. While Fortinbras watched as the corpses were removed, grief-stricken Horatio, bending over Hamlet's body, read the poems of Erasmus of Rotterdam:

“He talked about clouds, about ideas,

He measured the flea's joints,

He admired the mosquito singing...

But I didn’t know what was important for ordinary life...”

The last line in the performance was a quote from Ulrich Von Hutten: “What a joy it is to live...”. Horatio pronounced this phrase in a sepulchral and mournful voice, emphasizing with bitter sarcasm the difference between meaning and intonation.

Thus, if in the 30s and 40s there was a tendency to reinterpret Shakespeare by showing Hamlet strong man, who knew almost no doubts (V. Dudnikov, Leningrad, 1936; A. Polyakov, Voronezh, 1941), then the performances of the 50s mark the revival of the complexity and duality of the character of the hero, his hesitations and doubts, and Hamlet, without losing the features of a fighter for justice is increasingly revealed as a person faced with the tragedy of life, which was the most characteristic feature of the productions of G. Kozintsev and N. Okhlopkov. In contrast, the performance of Hamlet by M. Astangov (Evg. Vakhtangov Theater, director B. Zahava, 1958) was marked by a somewhat cold didacticism, because in his interpretation Hamlet appeared as a man who knew in advance the answers to all the “damned questions.”

G. Kozintsev in “Hamlet” follows a fundamentally different path: he preserves everything storylines, all the main characters, but boldly (although not at all mercilessly) cuts down even monologues and replicas that are very important for the meaning of the tragedy, removes from them everything descriptive, everything that can be visibly presented on the screen.

This approach emerged already during the work on theatrical production"Hamlet". B. Pasternak, the author of the translation used by the director, gave the most radical recommendations in this regard: “Cut, shorten and reshape as much as you want. The more you eliminate from the text, the better. I always look at half of the dramatic text of any play, the most immortal, classical and ingenious, as a common remark written by the author in order to introduce the performers as deeply as possible into the essence of the action being played out. As soon as the theater has penetrated into the concept and mastered it, it is possible and necessary to sacrifice the brightest and most thoughtful remarks (not to mention the indifferent and pale ones), if the actor has achieved acting, mimic, silent or taciturn correspondence of equal talent to them in this place of the drama, in this stage of its development. In general, dispose of the text with complete freedom, it is your right...”

G. Kozintsev accepted these tips, but, so to speak, for the future - for the screen: “In cinema, with its power of visual images, one could risk achieving “equivalent.” The word dominates the stage...”

Continuing the same line of thought - the image dominates the screen. This means that in order for Shakespeare to be perceived cinematically, his poetry must be translated into visuals. That is why, when filming Hamlet, G. Kozintsev deliberately proseized the language of the tragedy - in this his ally is Pasternak, whose translation, which is as close as possible to modern colloquial speech, he uses. The same is achieved by cutting down pieces that are poetically beautiful and metaphorically figurative. But poetry does not disappear or depreciate. It is preserved, but not in words, but in plastic - both acting and that created by visible images of the screen.

There are known problems with the production of Hamlet by G. Kozintsev, where a conflict situation arose with the performer leading role I. Smoktunovsky, who presented his hero in a completely different way (in other words, within the framework of a different thesaurus). Kozintsev, according to Smoktunovsky, literally forced him to adhere to the director's plan.

Thoughts about man and humanity, about rebellion against the despotism of the century, which worried the director, were not just spoken from the screen by actors speaking Shakespearean texts - they permeate every cell of the film. It has been written more than once about how meaningful Kozintsev’s stone and iron, fire and air are. The fact that Denmark is a prison will be revealed to us not only by Hamlet’s words, but also by the very image of Elsinore, the lifeless stone of the walls, the creaking, sharp-toothed bars falling on the gate, the cold steel of helmets hiding the faces of the soldiers guarding the castle. And the Danish prince, who rebelled against this world, will be accompanied throughout the entire film by fire - rebellious, rebellious, flaring up like truth in the darkness of lies.

“Hamlet” by Yu.P. was also distinguished by the originality of its production. Lyubimova on famous Taganka, where V.S. played the leading role. Vysotsky. As director Yu.P. Lyubimov is generally characterized by a sharp plastic solution to the image of the performance as a whole, therefore this time, in collaboration with the artist D. Borovsky, he determined, first of all, the visual dominant of the performance. But today it is not the pendulum from Rush Hour, nor the amphitheater of the university auditorium from What Is To Be Done?, nor the cubes from Listen Up!, but a wall separating everything and everyone in the Danish kingdom.

In this performance, the director and actors were not tempted by facile external modernization and rightly passed by both Hamlets in tailcoats and bearded men in faded jeans - but foreign theater tried to show us such princes, claiming to bring Shakespeare's tragedy closer to our days. Vysotsky’s Hamlet is not a weak-willed dreamer, divided between the dictates of conscience and duty, and not an adventurer striving to seize the crown, not an exalted mystic and not an intellectual lost in the labyrinths of Freudian “complexes,” but a man of our era, a young man aware of his historical duty to fight for the basic values of human existence and therefore openly enters the battle for humanistic ideals.

Vysotsky’s Hamlet is the most democratic of all that were played in the twentieth century, and this is also a sign of the century, because blue blood has long ceased to serve as a guarantee of grace and nobility, and today a hero can easily be imagined not only with a sword, but also with a hockey stick or a crowbar rock climber

The latest production of Hamlet on domestic scene was the work of the German director P. Stein. P. Stein simply tells the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Tells for those who are encountering Shakespeare's play for the first time in its complete version. He tells how the Ghost of the murdered father appears, how he pushes his son to take revenge, how Hamlet Jr. prepares to carry out his plan, how Claudius resists and tries to get rid of his persistent stepson, how in the end almost all the heroes die, and a narrow-minded man arrives in Denmark on a tank, but a strong martinet, Fortinbras.

One gets the impression that P. Stein reads Shakespeare's play as a “well-told story”; the performance absolutely does not set as its goal to find anything new in Hamlet. In general, both new “Hamlets” are interesting because, it seems, all these moves have already existed somewhere. Hamlet, performed by E. Mironov, is an ordinary young man who really feels unwell: after all, his father recently died, his mother immediately married an unloved uncle, and then the Ghost of his murdered father will appear, offering to take revenge. There is little joy, but Mironov’s Hamlet is not moping at all, he is reflecting, but these are not some lofty philosophical problems, this is an ordinary train of thought young man who learns such news, sometimes even tries to commit suicide, often carefully peering into the veins on his arm.

Hamlet Sr. (M. Kozakov) is an ethereal shadow. A white figure walks around Elsinore, the face is not visible, the steps are not heard, the voice echoes, Marcellus and Bernardo jump through it, Gertrude is really unable to see the ghost.

P. Stein's characters are successful people, dressed by Tom Clym, watching "The Mousetrap" in elegant glasses, quietly knocking a silver spoon on a porcelain cup, silently unwrapping candy wrappers and handing them to servants-bodyguards, and young people are not far behind them. Only Hamlet and Horatio are busy with the idea of exposing the king; Ophelia and Laertes prefer this life.

Thus, the twentieth century brought new incarnations of the image of Hamlet not only in the theater, but also in cinema. The images of the Prince of Denmark, created by P. Kachalov, I. Smoktunovsky, V. Vysotsky and other actors, showed how different Hamlet can be in different interpretations at different stages of the twentieth century.

So, even though more than four hundred years have passed since the first production of Hamlet, this tragedy does not leave the minds of directors and actors all over the world. The image of Hamlet changed not only from historical era, but also on the country in which Hamlet is staged and who plays the role. Translations, on the basis of which the play was staged, played a huge role in embodying the image of Hamlet. If in England the tragic image was created, then in Germany Hamlet is a lazy and boring hero who is incapable of action. In Russia, Hamlet was so different depending on the era and translation that each production of the play is new hero and new drama.

The influence of the work of Russian composers of the 19th century on the formation of the Russian vocal school

Makeup. Skin and hair care. Manicure

W. Shakespeare, “Hamlet”: history of creation

Deceit and betrayal

Mousetrap

Path of Evil

The image of Hamlet in the tragedy

Exodus of the Renaissance

Different approaches

W. Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, the image of Hamlet: conclusion

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Introduction

There is no literary work in general, and a certain kind of it is drama. But drama is different from drama. "Hamlet" is a special kind of it - it is a tragedy, moreover, a poetic tragedy. The study of this play cannot be connected with issues of dramaturgy.

In an effort to comprehend the ideal meaning, spiritual significance and artistic power of Hamlet, one cannot separate the plot of the tragedy from its idea, isolate characters and considered in isolation from each other.

However, Hamlet attracts not only those who are inclined to think about the meaning of life in general. Shakespeare's works pose acute moral problems that are by no means abstract in nature.

1. a brief description of Shakespeare's works

2. Imagery and thematic analysis of the “Sonnets” cycle

Thematically, the entire cycle is usually divided into two groups: it is believed that the first

The most remarkable thing about Shakespeare's sonnets is the constant sense of internal contradiction human feeling: what is the source of the highest bliss inevitably gives rise to suffering and pain, and, conversely, happiness is born in severe pain.

This confrontation of feelings in the most natural way, no matter how complex Shakespeare’s metaphorical system may be, fits into theOa form in which dialecticity is inherent “by nature.”

3. Katarina's image

4. Tragedy "Hamlet"

Among William Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is one of the most famous. The hero of this drama inspired poets and composers, philosophers and politicians.

A huge range of philosophical and ethical issues are intertwined in the tragedy with social and political issues that characterize the unique facet of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The state in which the Prince of Denmark lives, languishing from its ulcers and vices, is a fictional Denmark. Shakespeare wrote about contemporary England. Everything in his play - heroes, thoughts, problems, characters - belongs to the society in which Shakespeare lived.

The tragedy of Hamlet is unanimously considered mysterious. It seems to everyone that it differs from the other tragedies of Shakespeare himself and other authors primarily in that it certainly causes some misunderstanding and surprise in the viewer.

Why does Hamlet hesitate? A sacramental question, which has already been partly answered. Therefore, let’s ask another: “How do we know that he is hesitating?” First of all, from Hamlet, executing, urging himself to action.

Hamlet finally snatched this word from himself, only to immediately come to his senses and correct himself: “What an ass I am, there’s nothing to say.”

Hamlet openly breaks with his role tragic hero, unable and, as it turns out, unwilling to act as the avenger hero familiar to the public.

Against this heroic background, Hamlet’s own inactivity emerges more clearly, the diagnosis of which has been made for two centuries: weak, indecisive, depressed by circumstances, and finally, ill.

This is the law from which Hamlet dares to deviate. Shakespeare and the audiences of his era certainly understood what he was retreating from in his slowness. And Hamlet himself is well aware of the role of the avenger, which he will never accept.

Hamlet chose thought, becoming “the first to reflect,” and through this, the first hero of world literature who survived the tragedy of alienation and loneliness, immersed in himself and his thoughts.

No matter how popular other plays may be, none can compete with Hamlet, in which a man modern era for the first time I recognized myself and my problems.

Throughout the 19th century. judgments about Hamlet concerned, first of all, elucidation of his own character.

The legend of Hamlet was first recorded at the end of the 12th century by the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus. His History of the Danes, written in Latin, was published in 1514.

And in the legend, and in the short story, and in the old play about Hamlet main theme there was a family revenge that the Danish prince commits. Shakespeare interpreted this image differently.

Hamlet began new life in his drama. Having emerged from the depths of centuries, he became a contemporary of Shakespeare, a confidant of his thoughts and dreams. The author mentally lived through the entire life of his hero.

Together with the Danish prince, Shakespeare mentally leafed through dozens of old and new books in the library of the University of Wittenberg, the center of medieval learning, trying to penetrate the secrets of nature and the human soul.

His hero grew and imperceptibly left the boundaries of his Middle Ages and introduced people who read Thomas More, people who believed in the power of the human mind, in the beauty of human feelings, to the dreams and disputes.

Shakespeare put into this tragedy all the painful questions of his age, and his Hamlet will step across the centuries and extend his hand to posterity.

Hamlet has become one of the most beloved characters in world literature. Moreover, he has ceased to be a character in an ancient tragedy and is perceived as a living person, well known to many people, almost everyone of whom has their own opinion about him.

Although the death of a person is tragic, yet the tragedy has its content not in death, but in the moral, ethical death of a person, what led him on a fatal path that ends in death.

What was the cause of Hamlet's spiritual tragedy? His honesty, intelligence, sensitivity, belief in ideals. If he were like Claudius, Laertes, Polonius, he could live like them, deceiving, pretending, adapting to the world of evil.

But he could not reconcile, and how to fight, and most importantly, how to defeat, destroy evil, he did not know. The cause of Hamlet's tragedy, therefore, is rooted in the nobility of his nature.

Hamlet's reflection and hesitation, which became a distinctive feature of the character of this hero, was caused by an internal shock from the “sea of ​​disasters”, which entailed doubt in moral and philosophical principles which seemed unshakable to him.

The psychological duality of Hamlet's consciousness is of a historical nature: its cause is the dual state of a contemporary, in whose consciousness voices suddenly began to speak and the forces of other times began to act.

“Hamlet” reveals the moral torment of a person called to action, thirsting for action, but acting impulsively, only under the pressure of circumstances; experiencing a discord between thought and will.

When Hamlet becomes convinced that the king will commit reprisals against him, he talks differently about the discord between will and action. Now he comes to the conclusion that “thinking too much about the outcome” is “bestial oblivion or a pathetic skill.”

Hamlet is certainly irreconcilable to evil, but he does not know how to fight it. Hamlet does not recognize his struggle as a political struggle. It has a predominantly moral meaning for him.

Polonius dies at the hands of Hamlet. This means that Hamlet acts as an avenger for the very thing that he does to another.

Hamlet focuses on the thought of death when, attacked by stubborn facts and painful doubts, he cannot continue to strengthen the thought; everything around is moving in a fast current, and there is nothing to cling to, not even a saving straw is visible.

Conclusion

So, using the example of Shakespeare’s “Sonnets”, which are an integral part and, in my opinion, a fairly striking example of his work, we can come to the following conclusions:

1). The changes developed and consolidated by Shakespeare in the national English version of the sonnet canon, called “Shakespearean,” not without reason allow us to consider his “Sonnets,” as part of his work, the pinnacle of the English Renaissance.

Shakespeare's tragedy has two endings. One directly ends the outcome of the struggle and is expressed in the death of the hero. And the other is taken into the future, which will be the only one capable of perceiving and enriching unfulfilled ideals.

Revival and establish them on earth. Shakespeare's tragic heroes experience a special upsurge of spiritual strength, which increases the more dangerous their opponent is.

So the crush social evil constitutes the greatest personal interest, the greatest passion of Shakespeare's heroes. That's why they are always modern.

Literature

1. Foreign literature Reader for grades 8-10 of secondary school, - M.: Education, 1977

2. A. Anikst Shakespeare. M., 1964

3. Z. Civil From Shakespeare to Shaw, - M.: Education, 1982

4. W. Shakespeare Complete. collection Op. -- M., 1957-1960, vol. 1, vol. 8

5. S. Shenbaum Shakespeare Brief documentary biography, - M.: Progress, 1985

6. Belinsky V.G. Hamlet, Shakespeare's drama. Mochalov in the role of Hamlet - M., state publishing house of fiction, 1948;

7. Vertsman I.E. “Hamlet” by Shakespeare, - M., Fiction, 1964;

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