context: revenge Flashcards
Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedies
many were borrowed from the plays of Seneca and were performed in the original latin in the univeristies and Inns of Court in England during the early part of the 16th century.
similarities between Thyestes and Hamlet (2)
- Ghost comes from the afterlife, Tantalus is risem from hell
- Deep hatred between brothers- Old Hamlet and Claudius and Thyestes and Atreus
synopsis of Amleth (12th Cent. Scandianvian revenge tragedy)
Amleth’s father, who has defeated the king of Norway in a duel, is murdered by his brother Feng, who then marries the widow Gerutha (Amleth’s mother). Amelth feigns madness to avert suspision. He is tested for sanity by having a ‘fair woman’ placed his way. He kills an eavesdropping friend of Feng’s and harangues his mother for marrying her husbands murderer. He is sent to Britian with tw companions with a letter to an insruction to his execution as soon as he arrives, but he changes the letter so that his companions are executed instead. He returns to demark, kills feng, convinces the people his behaviour is proper and become the ruler
summary of Gamini Salgado on the moral and social implications of revenge on an Elizabethan audience
- conflicting attitudes towards revenge
1) law condemed prvate revenge as an attempt to unsurp the prerogative of God or politically assume the powers of the sovereign, who claimed to rule by divine right
2) tradition of private revenge dating from an earlier time when the power of the state to punish crime was neither codified in the law or effectual. The most striking justification for revenge was murder and the avenger would often evoke the audiences sympathy
3) This sympathy for the avenger could be exhausted by the use of treacherous tactics or becoming more obsessed with revenge than the motive for it
Anna Baldwin- Why Killing Claudius is morally wrong
- Hamlet is not told by God but a ghost (who may or may not be a devil) to kill Claudius.
- Whilst Hamlet may think it is his duty to kill Claudius, it does not mean that it IS his duty- his delay may be a sign of moral strength and sense of right rather than a weakness
- As an audience we prefer Hamlet to the bloodthristy masculity parallel avenger (Pyrrhus, Laertes, Fortinbras)
Anna Baldwin- Why Killing Claudius is morally justifiable
- Claudius is a clear villain and therefore Hamlet would be a clear hero if he killed him
- Hamlet contrasts himself unfavourably to Fortinbras, Pyrrhus and Laertes who all see their duty of revenge in simpler terms and who as a result seen by Hamlet as being courages
Anna Baldwin: main problems of revenge
- punishes the wrong people- as seen in the Spanish tragedy which majorly influenced Hamlet, at the end the fathers of the heroes and villains are joined together in their mourning, nothing seems to distinguish the innocent from the guilty
- In Hamlet Ophelia suffers more than Claudius who is killed in an instant
Anna Baldwin: main solution to the problem of revenge tragedies
- you can look at the alternatives to revenge offered in the play- in the case of hamlet it would be better if hamlet mourned his father by remembering him rather than killing Claudius. Furthermore it would be better if Hamlet just educated Gertrude rather than kill he second husband
- this occurs in the closet scene which one could thus argue achieves far more than the simple revenge of the final scene
Francis Bacon (16th/17th cent)- Essay ‘Of revenge’: arguments against revenge
- As for the first wrong, t doth offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office.
- in taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing over her is superior
- wisemen have enough to do, with this present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labour in past matters
- We should be satisfied with the knowledge that god will punish evil ‘shall we take good a God’s hands and not be content to take evil also?
- ‘a man that studieth revenge keeps his won wounds green, which otherwise would heal
Francis Bacon (16th/17th cent)- Essay ‘Of revenge’: arguments for revenge
- excusable if theres no law to punish it ‘the most tolerable sort of revenge, is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy
- if the delight seemth to be not so much in doing the urt as in making the party repent
- if its a public revenge e.g. revenge against a ruler
Graham Holderness on the result of revenge in Hamlet
-Main argument the revenge in hamlet has brought no good, but only worsened the situation in Demark (personally, Politically etc)
‘have hamlet and the ghost between them succeeded in setting the worl to rights or rather p[lunging it into chaos wi[ng ou the entire danish royal family and allowin gthe state to fall into the hands of a soldier of fortune?… Does the play exhibit a pattern of retributive justice perfomed to the last letter of the law, or a chaotc orgy or reciprocal slaughter in whcih the innocent fall aimlessly beside the guilty
Dr Johnson on Hamlets in 3,3 (when claudius is alone praying)
this speech in which hamlet is represented as a virtuous character is not content with taking blood for blood but contrives damnation for a man that he would punish is too horrible to be read or to be uttered’
Thomas sheridan on Hamlet not taking revenge in 3,3
‘this if really from the heart would make Hamlet the most black, revengeful man. But it coincides better with his character to suppose him here endeavouring to make an excuse to himself for his delay’
Summarise Martin Wiggins argument
- Hamlets failure to kill Claudius when he is praying is not because Hamlet was uncertain and looking for an excuse not to murder, but because killing Claudius at prayer would be to send him to Heaven rather than hell.
- We should take Hamlets word as it supports Shakespeares theatrical, as opposed to pyschological intention
critic that supports Wiggins view that we should take Hamlets word for the reason he spares Claudius as it respects theatrical intention
Edgar Allen Poe suggested the the biggest error is to regard Hamlet as a real man and not the theatrical creation of Shakespeare
