Literary Criticism on Shakespeare's Hamlet

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the literary comments on Shakespeare's famous character Hamlet. It reflects on critiques of Hamlet through different eras, and their own influence and interests are a result of their time. The paper describes Hamlet is a universal character throughout the ages and as interpretations of future generations look inside and outside of him and express their own perceptions and their own era.

From the Paper:

"Willlam Hazlitt largely comments on the contemporariness and universality of Hamlet's character: that although Shakespeare wrote the play more than 500 years ago, we have come to know the character of the tragic Prince quite well. Not only because we read about him in school, but also " and more " because we know his thoughts as we do our own. (Hazlitt 1900) His sayings and speeches are not only real but are as real as our own thoughts when we ponder and despair over our or others' misfortunes and grief. Each of us becomes Hamlet, in Hazlitt's view, whenever we bear the weight of reflection (Hazlitt), when the sun in us is made dim by "envious mists" in our hearts, whenever the world looks nothing better than a "dull blank", when our love is despised, or when sadness sticks to us and makes our mind sink within. Hazlitt goes on and on in graphically describing the extremely painful condition of Hamlet's soul in many different but familiar ways that each of us recognizes in ourselves. He says that we think and refer to this particular play most often because it is full of " reflections on human life" itself. His agonies and helplessness seem to transfer to "the general account of humanity." He views Hamlet as a "great moralizer" who rationalizes about his own feelings and experience and Hazlitt hails the play once again as the most remarkably ingenious and original and for its "unstudied" development of character."

More papers on Literary Criticism on Shakespeare's Hamlet:

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• Comparison Essay # 1631 : "Differences in Adaptations of Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
• Essay # 65687 : "The Character of Hamlet"

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