"Hamlet, as should all Shakespeare's plays, ought to be judged as an acting play, written for an Elizabethan audience, which revelled in horrors, jeered at madmen, loved ghostly thrills, believing in the appearance on earth of the spirits of the dead, and which delighted in watching fine sword-play."Shore contends that Hamlet was a familiar story to playgoers of the period, and Shakespeare took the story and adapted it for his contemporary audience. He rewrote the play, but he did not remodel it. Had he done the latter, then he "must have been an exceedingly poor playwright." To judge Shakespeare by modern criteria, though, takes his work out of its intended context. Rather, he should be viewed within his particular time frame. There is the rub.
Shore contends that Elizabethan playgoers "wanted and demanded melodrama decked out with poetics." They were not interested in careful plot construction or subtlety in character drawing, so this is what Shakespeare gave them. The poetry aside, Hamlet is "crude melodrama, which is quite exciting when it is acted as melodrama...."
Shore blames both the audience and the playwright for the puzzle that is Hamlet's character. The audience is at fault for probing Hamlet as an actual person. Shakespeare's offense is taking an actor's part and and using it as "an outlet for [his] unconquerable impulse to pour out poetry on the slightest provocation." Hamlet babbles on matters that he, as a character, could not have had any knowledge. Apparently he learned this loquacity from his father, whose ghost also runs at the mouth.
Ultimately, Shore finds the poetry to be the quality that makes the play fascinating. It saves the play from its melodramatic trappings, even if the outbursts often have nothing to do with the action of the play itself. Shore sums up his analysis with a note of thanks. "Yet we must thank heaven that Shakespeare was more of a poet than a dramatist" (author's italics).
No comments:
Post a Comment