Elizabethan Revenge in Hamlet Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare that very closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan theatre.
Elizabethan Revenge in Hamlet
Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare that very
closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan
theatre. All revenge tragedies originally stemmed from the Greeks, who
wrote and performed the first plays. After the Greeks came Seneca who
was very influential to all Elizabethan tragedy writers. Seneca who
was Roman, basically set all of the ideas and the norms for all
revenge play writers in the Renaissance era including William
Shakespeare. The two most famous English revenge tragedies written in
the Elizabethan era were Hamlet, written by Shakespeare and The
Spanish Tragedy, written by Thomas Kyd. These two plays used mostly
all of the Elizabethan conventions for revenge tragedies in their
plays. Hamlet especially incorporated all revenge conventions in one
way or another, which truly made Hamlet a typical revenge play.
"Shakespeare's Hamlet is one of many heroes of the Elizabethan and
Jacobean stage who finds himself grievously wronged by a powerful
figure, with no recourse to the law, and with a crime against his
family to avenge."
Seneca was among the greatest authors of classical tragedies
and there was not one educated Elizabethan who was unaware of him or
his plays. There were certain stylistic and different strategically
thought out devices that Elizabethan playwrights including Shakespeare
learned and used from Seneca's great tragedies. The five act
structure, the appearance of some kind of ghost, the one line
exchanges known as stichomythia, and Seneca's use of long rhetorical
speeches were all later used in tragedies by Elizabethan playwrights.
Some of Seneca's ideas were originally taken from the Greeks when the
Romans conquered Greece, and with it they took home many Greek
theatrical ideas. Some of Seneca's stories that originated from the
Greeks like Agamemnon and Thyestes which dealt with bloody family
histories and revenge captivated the Elizabethans. Seneca's stories
weren't really written for performance purposes, so if English
playwrights liked his ideas, they had to figure out a way to make the
story theatrically workable, relevant and exciting to the Elizabethan
audience who were very demanding. Seneca's influence formed part of a
developing tradition of tragedies whose plots hinge on political
power, forbidden sexuality, family honour and private revenge. "There
was no author who exercised a wider or deeper influence upon the
Elizabethan mind or upon the Elizabethan form of tragedy than did
Seneca." For the dramatists of Renaissance Italy, France and England,
classical tragedy meant only the ten Latin plays of Seneca and not
Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles. "Hamlet is certainly not much like
any play of Seneca's one can name, but Seneca is undoubtedly one of
the effective ingredients in the emotional charge of Hamlet. Hamlet
without Seneca is inconceivable."
During the time of Elizabethan theatre, plays about tragedy
and revenge were very common and a regular convention seemed to be
formed on what aspects should be put into a typical revenge tragedy.
In all revenge tragedies first and foremost, a crime is committed and
for various reasons laws and justice cannot punish the crime so the
individual who is the main character, goes through with the revenge in
spite of everything. The main character then usually had a period of
doubt , where he tries to decide whether or not to go through with the
revenge, which usually involves tough and complex planning. Other
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formed on what aspects should be put into a typical revenge tragedy.
In all revenge tragedies first and foremost, a crime is committed and
for various reasons laws and justice cannot punish the crime so the
individual who is the main character, goes through with the revenge in
spite of everything. The main character then usually had a period of
doubt , where he tries to decide whether or not to go through with the
revenge, which usually involves tough and complex planning. Other
features that were typical were the appearance of a ghost, to get the
revenge to go through with the deed. The revenge also usually had a
very close relationship with the audience through soliloquies and
asides. The original crime that will eventually be avenged is nearly
always sexual or violent or both. The crime has been committed against
a family member of the revenge. " The revenge places himself outside
the normal moral order of things, and often becomes more isolated as
the play progresses-an isolation which at its most extreme becomes
madness." The revenge must be the cause of a catastrophe and the
beginning of the revenge must start immediately after the crisis.
After the ghost persuades the revenge to commit his deed, a
hesitation first occurs and then a delay by the avenger before killing
the murderer, and his actual or acted out madness. The revenge must be
taken out by the revenge or his trusted accomplices. The revenge and
his accomplices may also die at the moment of success or even during
the course of revenge.
It should not be assumed that revenge plays parallel the moral
expectations of the Elizabethan audience. Church, State and the
regular morals of people in that age did not accept revenge, instead
they thought that revenge would simply not under any circumstances be
tolerated no matter what the original deed was. " It is repugnant on
theological grounds, since Christian orthodoxy posits a world ordered
by Divine Providence, in which revenge is a sin and a blasphemy,
endangering the soul of the revenge." The revenge by taking law into
his own hands was in turn completely going against the total political
authority of the state. People should therefore never think that
revenge was expected by Elizabethan society. Although they loved to
see it in plays, it was considered sinful and it was utterly
condemned.
The Spanish Tragedy written by Thomas Kyd was an excellent
example of a revenge tragedy. With this play, Elizabethan theatre
received its first great revenge tragedy, and because of the success
of this play, the dramatic form had to be imitated. The play was
performed from 1587 to 1589 and it gave people an everlasting
remembrance of the story of a father who avenges the murder of his
son. In this story, a man named Andrea is killed by Balthazar in the
heat of battle. The death was considered by Elizabethan people as a
fair one, therefore a problem occurred when Andrea's ghost appeared to
seek vengeance on its killer. Kyd seemed to have used this to parallel
a ghost named Achilles in Seneca's play Troades. Andrea's ghost comes
and tells his father, Hieronimo that he must seek revenge. Hieronimo
does not know who killed his son but he goes to find out. During his
investigation, he receives a letter saying that Lorenzo killed his
son, but he doubts this so he runs to the king for justice. Hieronimo
importantly secures his legal rights before taking justice into his
own hands. The madness scene comes into effect when Hieronimo's wife,
Usable goes mad, and Hieronimo is so stunned that his mind becomes
once again unsettled. Finally Hieronimo decides to go through with the
revenge, so he seeks out to murder Balthazar and Lorenzo, which he
successfully does. Hieronimo becomes a blood thirsty maniac and when
the king calls for his arrest, he commits suicide.
As well as the fact that Elizabethan theatre had its rules
about how a revenge tragedy had to be, so did Thomas Kyd. He came up
with the Kydian Formula to distinguish revenge tragedies from other
plays. His first point was that the fundamental motive was revenge,
and the revenge is aided by an accomplice who both commit suicide
after the revenge is achieved. The ghost of the slain watches the
revenge on the person who killed him. The revenge goes through
justifiable hesitation before committing to revenge as a solution.
Madness occurs due to the grieve of a loss. Intrigue is used against
and by the revenge. There is bloody action and many deaths that
occur throughout the entire play. The accomplices on both sides are
killed. The villain is full of villainous devices. The revenge is
accomplished terribly and fittingly. The final point that Thomas Kyd
made about his play was that minor characters are left to deal with
the situation at the end of the play.
The Spanish Tragedy follows these rules made by Kyd very
closely, simply because Kyd developed these rules from the play. The
fundamental motive was revenge because that was the central theme of
the play. The ghost of Andrea sees his father kill the men who
murdered Andrea originally. Hieronimo hesitates first because he goes
to the king and then he is faced with Isabella's madness which is
caused by Andrea's death. The play is filled with all kinds of bloody
action and many people die throughout the course of the play. The
accomplices in the play also all end up dead. Lorenzo who is the true
villain, is full of all kinds of evil villainous devices. The revenge
works out perfectly, in that both Lorenzo and Balthazar get murdered
in the end by Hieronimo. The minor characters were left to clean up
the mess of all of the deaths that occurred during the play. The
Spanish Tragedy also follows the conventions of Elizabethan theatre
very closely. The murder was committed and Hieronimo had to take
justice into his own hands, because true justice just simply wasn't
available. Hieronimo then delays his revenge for many different
reasons that occur in the play. The ghost of Andrea appeared and
guided Hieronimo to the direction of his killer. Also at the end of
the play, both Hieronimo and his accomplices die after they were
successful in committing the revenge.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare follows regular convention for a large
part of the play. In the beginning, Shakespeare sets up the scene,
having a ghost on a dark night. Everyone is working and something
strange is happening in Denmark. It is as if Shakespeare is saying
that some kind of foul play has been committed. This sets up for the
major theme in the play which is of course revenge. The ghost appears
to talk to Hamlet. It is quite obvious that the play had a gruesome,
violent death and the sexual aspect of the play was clearly introduced
when Claudius married Hamlet's mother Gertrude. The ghost tells Hamlet
that he has been given the role of the person who will take revenge
upon Claudius. Hamlet must now think of how to take revenge on
Claudius, although he doesn't know what to do about it. He ponders his
thoughts for a long period of time, expecting to do the deed
immediately, but instead he drags it on until the end of the play.
Although what was important to note was that all tragic heroes of
plays at that time delayed their actual revenge until the end of the
play. In most revenge plays, the revenge was often anonymous and well
disguised, stalking the enemy about to be killed, but Hamlet started a
battle of wits with Claudius by acting mad and calling it his "antic
disposition", although the whole thing was a ploy to get closer to
Claudius to be able to avenge his father's death more easily. The
tactic was a disadvantage in that it drew all attention upon himself.
More importantly though it was an advantage that his "antic
disposition", isolated him from the rest of the court because of the
people not paying attention to what he thought or did because of his
craziness.
One important part of all revenge plays is that after the
revenge is finally decided upon, the tragic hero delays the actual
revenge until the end of the play. Hamlet's delay of killing Claudius
takes on three distinct stages. Firstly he had to prove that the ghost
was actually telling the truth, and he did this by staging the play
"The Mousetrap" at court. When Claudius stormed out in rage, Hamlet
knew that he was guilty. The second stage was when Hamlet could have
killed Claudius while he was confessing to god. If Hamlet had done it
here then Claudius would have gone to heaven because he confessed
while Hamlet's father was in purgatory because he did not get the
opportunity to confess. So Hamlet therefore decided not to murder
Claudius at this point in the play. The third delay was the fact that
he got side tracked. He accidentally killed Polonius which created a
whole new problem with the fact that Laertes now wanted Hamlet dead.
After he commit this murder he was also sent off and unable to see the
king for another few weeks until he could finally do the job. "What
makes Hamlet stand out from many other revenge plays of the period is
not that it rejects the conventions of its genre but that it both
enacts and analyses them."
It can be easily understood that Hamlet very closely follows
the regular conventions for all Elizabethan tragedies. First Hamlet is
faced with the fact that he has to avenge the murder of his father and
since there is no fair justice available, he must take the law into
his own hands. The ghost of his father appears to guide Hamlet to
Claudius and inform Hamlet of the evil that Claudius has committed.
Then Hamlet constantly delays his revenge and always finds a way to
put it off until he finally does it in Act V, Scene 2. Hamlet at the
same time continues to keep a close relationship with the audience
with his seven main soliloquies including the famous, "To be, or not
to be..."(Act 3 Scene 1). The play also consists of a mad scene where
Ophelia has gone mad because her father Polonius had been killed and
because Hamlet was sent off to England. The sexual aspect of the play
was brought in when Claudius married Gertrude after he had dreadfully
killed Old Hamlet and taken his throne. Hamlet also follows almost
every aspect of Thomas Kyd's formula for a revenge tragedy. The only
point that can be argued is that the accomplices on both sides were
not killed because at the end of the play, Horatio was the only one to
survive, although if it wasn't for Hamlet, Horatio would have commit
suicide when he said, " I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here's
some liquor left."(Act V Scene 2, 346-347). If Horatio had killed
himself, then Hamlet would have followed the Kydian formula as well as
the regular conventions for Elizabethan revenge tragedy.
Hamlet is definitely a great example of a typical revenge
tragedy of the Elizabethan theatre era. It followed every convention
required to classify it as a revenge play quite perfectly. Hamlet is
definitely one of the greatest revenge stories ever written and it was
all influenced first by Sophocles, Euripides and other Greeks, and
then more importantly by Seneca. Hamlet as well as The Spanish Tragedy
tackled and conquered all areas that were required for the
consummation of a great revenge tragedy. Revenge although thought to
be unlawful and against the Church was absolutely adored by all
Elizabethan people. " The Elizabethan audience always insisted on
seeing eventual justice, and one who stained his hands with blood had
to pay the penalty. That no revenge, no matter how just, ever wholly
escapes the penalty for shedding blood, even in error." This was also
a very important point that was also dealt with brilliantly by
Shakespeare in finding a way to kill Hamlet justly even though he was
required to kill Claudius. Hamlet was written with the mighty pen of
Shakespeare who once again shows people that he can conjure up any
play and make it one of the greatest of all time. Hamlet was one of
the greatest of all time.
