Why Hamlet Should Be Considered Great Literature

Ronald G Velardi III

Professor Romano

ENGL-152-03

 December 4, 2017

Why Hamlet Should Be Considered Great Literature

Throughout history, many people have created great pieces of literature, but no one compares to the renowned work of Shakespeare. One of his most prized plays is that of Hamlet. But, what makes Hamlet such an astute play in the literary world? Many factors can go into deciding what good literature truly is. Well, by using Aristotle’s six characteristics for a great tragedy, I will prove that Hamlet is one of the greatest tragedy of all time. These six characteristics will include the characters, dialogue, plot, theme, music and spectacle in the play.

To start off, the most important category that any play should excel in is characters. Now, characters set the tone throughout the entire duration of the play. In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses characters that have adapted very unique attributes and intense backstories. For example, the main character, Hamlet, is a young man who is prince of Denmark. His father rules the land as king but, he is secretly assassinated by his uncle, Claudius. Throughout the play, you can see that revenge is what Hamlet tries to pursue for his father’s death. We know that because that is what is told to us, but the way Hamlet pursues his goals is unique. The reasoning behind this is his intelligence that he possesses. An example of this lies in Act 3, Scene 2 of Hamlet when Hamlet writes up a play to add fear to the present king, Claudius. He uses actors to make a play that he puts on for all of royalty. In one of the scenes, the king gets murdered with poison in the same fashion that his dad was killed. This gets a message to the king that Hamlet really knows what happened pertaining his death.

Other characters help support Hamlet in many ways too. Shakespeare uses very inimitable people to sway the plot of the storyline. Some of the characters include Horatio, who is considered Hamlet’s best friend and support in the play, and the brother-sister combo of Ophelia and Laertes. Now, every character that is mentioned plays very specific and important roles in hamlets shaping life. Every decision that Hamlet makes throughout the duration of the play has somehow been affected by his interactions with these supporting characters. Also, by making every character unique and having different ties to Hamlet, Shakespeare puts together almost a spiderweb of relationships among each and every character. We know everyone’s relations because of the next category of Aristotle’s six points, dialogue.

Now, dialogue is another factor which makes the play such a remarkable piece of literature. Dialogue is used to have the characters exchange conversation and interact with one another. Shakespeare uses dialogue not only to provide information about each person, but to also add drama and emotion. Shakespeare then uses the emotion and drama to really get his audience emotional involved with the characters on stage. A prime example of this dialogue relaying emotion is in Act 3, Scene 4 when Hamlet is talking to his mother. He enters his mother’s room and asks “now, mother, is everything okay?” The queen then replies with “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended” Hamlet than replies with the rude remark of “mother, you have my father much offended” (III.iiii.9-11). By reading this conversation between Hamlet and his mother, you get the feeling that heis telling her that she is forgetful of what happened to her past husband and Hamlets true father.

To add on, Shakespeare also uses dialogue to confess what the characters are feeling at that moment. By doing this, it allows the audience to go inside the heads of the characters and truly feel what they are feeling. An example of this can be found in Act three, Scene three, when the king exclaims, “o, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal elderst curse upont, A brothers murder. pray can I not “(III.iii.36-38). In this certain dialogue by Claudius, you can hear the emotion and guilt the king is experiencing at that moment. I fell that in every great piece of literature, character’s emotions and how they express them are a big way for people to enjoy what is happening. Shakespeare uses great emotional influence in his work which make the audiences really appreciate his play. But the main problem is in our next point of plot.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the plot is “a plan of the actual or proposed arrangement of something; a sketch, an outline, esp. a synopsis of a literary work.” (OED, “plot”). When it comes to the plot of hamlet, Shakespeare is a mastermind. Now in every great piece of literature there must have the qualities of a good storyline. Shakespeare not only has a fantastic story line within his play, but he also puts his own artistic twist and turns on it. By adding these unexpected twists to the storyline, like Hamlet killing Polonius through the curtain, Shakespeare creates the two most important feelings that go along with a great tragedy. These feelings include pity and fear. According to Aristotle, "pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves" (Aristotle, “Poetics”). In Hamlet, Shakespeare masters these two emotions and displays them in a lot of his scenes.

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