Peripeteia

A lecture by Marion Wynne-Davies [Surrey University]

Hamlet: a man for all seasons or a man of his time?

Introduction
Hamlet was first written and performed in 1601, the first quarto was published in 1603, with several other quartos appearing, and the first folio in 1623. It was a popular play from the very start and one of the reasons for this is that it participated in the Early Modern genre of Revenge Tragedy. In this lecture, therefore, I would like to begin by talking about Renaissance tragedy in terms of its classical inheritance – first Aristotle and then Seneca. Then I wish to turn to the immediate social context for the plays and the role of revenge tragedy.

1. Classical Background: Aristotle
Greek drama developed in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, (Euripides, Aeschylus etc.), leading Aristotle to formulate his theory of tragedy in Poetics (4th century BC). Summary definition:

The imitation of an action that is serious and complete, achieving a
catharsis through arousing pity and terror.

However, a more detailed explanation of the dramatic genre 'tragedy' is possible from analysing the specific terms Aristotle devised to interpret the plays. It is important to remember that the plays came first and that Aristotle was identifying common features in the tragedies he saw himself. As such, it is essential to link the terms to the text in performance. We should not only know what these terms mean, but also how to find them on the page and how to recognise them as portrayed on stage.

PROTAGONIST
Immediately familiar, but in tragedy this central character must undergo a disastrous downfall, there must be a sense of tragic loss.

Hamlet: the play begins with us being told that Hamlet’s father, Old Hamlet, is dead, and we also realise that the Prince has not inherited the throne as would have been expected by an Early Modern audience. The play, therefore, begins with a sense of loss. Hamlet’s downfall is seen in his supposed madness.

HAMARTIA
A fatal error, or failure on the part of the central protagonist. It can often be identified as the fatal step taken by the character, leading them to their downfall. It often involves a turn in the play's narrative line. Sometimes hamartia is used as equivalent to a 'tragic flaw', but they are not quite the same. The idea of hamartia may be linked to an action, a misguided step that could lead to tragic consequences even if the protagonist is ignorant and innocent of what is taking place. The tragic flaw means that there is a defect of character, a failing in the individual that has brought about the tragedy.
Particularly important distinction for Renaissance tradition:

Greek = fate
Renaissance = individual self-will

Hamlet
In the play, Shakespeare inverts the concept of Hamartia and makes Hamlet’s inaction his fatal flaw. It is because he does not kill Claudius immediately that the tragedy of the Danish court ensues, culminating in the multiple deaths at the end of the play. The most powerful evocation of this flaw is in Hamlet’s soliloquy, ‘To be or not to be’ (Quote 1 III. 1. 55-9).

HUBRIS
The error or flaw can often take the form of hubris or excessive pride leading to retribution. Hubris in Greek means insolence or affront, and refers to the arrogance and pride of the protagonist when they defy moral, social and divine laws. This transgression will eventually lead to the downfall of the protagonist.

Hamlet
At first, it might seem difficult to reconcile a man of inaction with pride and the defiance of social laws. But once Hamlet has evidence of Claudius’ guilt (through the play within the play sequence), he:
Kills Polonius – murder/ taking justice into one’s own hands and not leaving it to the state or God
Attacks his mother in one of the most sexually laden speeches of the play (Quote 2: III iv 51-99) – in this he breaks the Early Modern conventional codes of filial duty and respect.

NEMESIS
The punishment or retribution for the transgression of the central protagonist is in dramatic tragedy called 'nemesis', from the Greek personification of the idea as the goddess Nemesis, who executed the vengeance of the gods.

Hamlet
Hamlet is punished at the end of the play with death and with the destruction of his court. When Fortinbras enters triumphant into the Danish court the full punishment of the Danish house is seen.

But the most important thing about a tragedy is how it makes the audience feel and for Aristotle this equated with the TRAGIC EXPERIENCE, which meant that the audience had to feel pity for the protagonist, fear that it could happen to us, and therefore an inner working out of our deepest feeling which leads to a catharsis.

ANAGNORSIS
This is when the characters realise their mistakes too late, adding to the intensity of the pity we feel for them. They must display an understanding of their own errors, or of the way in which fate has made them commit a mistake even though they were innocent.

FEAR
Do we identify with the protagonists? Are we able to see that their fate somehow transcends them as individuals and is relevant for all human beings?

CATHARSIS
The pity and fear should, in Aristotle's theory, lead to a purgation of our own emotions. Art, therefore, become a way in which we are able to live through our concerns, thereby understanding them, and subsequently being able to handle them and overcome our fears. Aristotle arrived at this idea of 'emotional cleansing' through watching audiences watching tragedies; he noticed that upon seeing death, destruction, or the most lamentable and pitiable deaths, audiences did not leave the theatre weeping or troubled, but instead appeared to be experiencing some kind of relief. This experience is not so obvious to us in staged tragedy, but we can see it in horror films. The films’ use cinematic techniques to arouse our own fears and then purge them with a gruesome conclusion that we actually want, is used in order to dispel our own horror.

Tragedies must therefore appeal to our deepest and innermost fears and ones that we hold in common.

Hamlet

Pity
If we look at Kenneth Branagh’s film version of the play, we see that the audience’s pity is constructed from the first scene:

CLIP: I ii after Claudius and Gertrude have left.

Note: stands alone, collapses as others leave, the camera (and therefore our gaze and sympathy) moves with him down the hall, tear.

Fear
Hamlet fears treachery, something that we all worry about – being let down by someone. Although in the play this is taken to extremes, especially in the final scene. Although Claudius tries to poison Hamlet this climatic ending is postponed as the Prince refuses to drink the tainted wine; there is a further use of suspense when the swords with their poisoned tips are exchanged in battle.

Catharsis
Our fears of betrayal have been aroused by the play and we pity the protagonist. But at the end of the play do we feel a cathartic relief – leave to you and think about different ways of playing it. But, in the figure of Fortinbras, order is restored.

However, I am going to question such universalism, and challenge any notion of timelessness. Moreover, I am going to suggest that there can be no tragedy, no literature that can affect you, unless it is relevant to you as an individual, and to the time and place in which you as an individual exist. There are two ideas here that need to be considered and debated. First, that the place and the period in which you live make a difference to the way you respond, that society is important in the production of art. Second, that all we can know is our own personal and immediate reaction to the play, that we are not part of a universalised human experience, but very many individuals.

To understand this change in how tragedy affected the audience, we have, appropriately, to move through time, from the Greek critic Aristotle, to the Roman playwright, Seneca.

2. THE INFLUENCE OF SENECA

Seneca was a Roman playwright, philosopher and poet (4 BC - 65 ad), who wrote nine plays based upon the Greek tragedies of Euripides. However, Seneca made a number of alterations in form and content.

Form: 5 acts with intervening choruses, in which the chorus explained the moral and political significance of the action. Although the plots often involved bloody and horrific crimes, none of these are seen on stage, all being recounted by messengers. It is unlikely that the dramas were meant to be acted by a group, but were more probably closet dramas, meant for recitation or private reading.

Content: the plots were always blood-thirsty, there were always ghosts and horrific crimes. But, more importantly, Seneca introduced the idea of stoicism into the plays allowing for the focus upon the individual protagonist and their misfortunes at the hands of society.

Style: long speeches and public declamation allowed the dramatist to focus upon individual characters, and through the use of extended solo speeches (soliloquies) allowed the audience access to the inner workings of the protagonist's mind.

The influence of the stoic school of philosophy was important to Senecan tragedy. The stoics asserted that human beings should seek virtue and not pleasure, and be above the influence of pleasure or pain. Seneca carried through his own beliefs, since when he was informed he was going to be arrested by the Emperor Nero, he committed suicide. In terms of drama, the focus is often upon an individual who has been unjustly wronged by his society (often in the form of the dominant social group or individual) and as such s/he must decide whether or not to take revenge. The reliance upon the self and not upon social justice or God's divine intervention, in Stoic drama necessitates individual action, even that means punishment (death/damnation).

Aristotle's concepts of hamartia and the tragic flaw are, therefore, developed and altered in Senecan tragedy, so that the misfortune is created by social circumstance (not by fate or the protagonist's flawed character) and the actions of the play which lead to the tragic conclusion are undertaken with full self-awareness. The choices are made by the individual in a world where all we have to rely on is ourselves.

While Aristotle's theories have been referred to continually in the production and understanding of drama, Seneca's influence was most strongly felt in the European Renaissance (14th - 17th centuries). In Britain, his works were translated as Ten Tragedies between 1559 and 1581. Hugely successful and had a significant impact. Why?

Stoicism fitted well with Protestant strictness of conduct - to work towards moral values and not for self-satisfaction - but might appear to demand passivity in the face of injustice. In practice, however, Senecan tragedy is all about bloodthirsty revenge (not seen on stage) and this was immensely popular in the public theatres of 1560-1620. These plays were commonly known as 'tragedies of blood' because of the spectacle involved in their staging. Indeed, there was considerable interest in how to produce bloodthirsty murders etc on stage. There were calls by moralists and the church to stop such bloody scenes since they might influence people to replicate the crimes in real life.

Overall, it sounds not unlike our own society's interest in horror (on television and film); there is considerable interest today in how to achieve special effects (Exorcist and Alien), as well of discussion about how much violence should be allowed (9 o clock watershed on TV). And this takes us on to the alternative title for the period: the Early Modern. Although, there are obvious differences between the16th/17th centuries and own day, what I would like to point out is that drama like Hamlet has more in common with the 21st century than does the classical tenets of ancient Greece. And, as such, we can begin to recognise the importance of place and time, while simultaneously recognising the growth of individualism.

3 Revenge Tragedy
Developing from Seneca these plays developed a distinct set of characteristics that you will see apply to Hamlet:
Protagonist’s quest for revenge
Ghosts
Real or feigned insanity
Play within a play
Graveyard scenes
Mutilation/ blood/ poisonings
Murder is usually powerful and beyond social justice

4 RENAISSANCE DRAMA AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

It is possible to look at the social issues of the Early Modern period and identify the ways in which they are expressed in the drama of the period.

Protestant ethics - doing good oneself gives grace in heaven, not relying on God's forgiveness - free will - link to stoicism
Humanism - dignity of humankind, autonomy and taking one's fate into one's own hands - possibility of acting out revenge for ourselves
Individualism - the focus upon the self
Power and hierarchy - growth of the power of the prince and decrease in the role of the church to establish law and order - autocratic power leads to discontent and challenges by the individual
The law - serving the dominant hierarchy and therefore often unjust - must be challenged to offer individual satisfaction
Radical changes in the perception of the world - science, new world, the press, allowed people to question the old order
Public theatre - self-employment meant greater freedom for dramatists - possibility of being politically radical - criticising contemporary society, not just making comments about timeless human nature

But if Early Modern tragedy showed the individual challenging a host of established orders and hierarchies, it also showed that individual being crushed by the dominant power, a power that was based in social values, and not determined by fate. In Renaissance tragedy we have to question the notion of catharsis, because the conclusions are often so dark that there appears to be no possible restitution of order, whether for the audience or in society itself.

Look at where Senecan traditions and Renaissance influences may be found in the play using the same issues presented for social context:

Protestant ethics – Hamlet must decide for himself what his actions should be; there is no sense that heaven has punished Claudius for murdering his brother - free will and stoicism
Humanism – Hamlet finally accepts that he must take revenge into his own hands – he determines his own life
Individualism – this can be seen very clearly in the soliloquies of the play, where the audience is given insight into the psychological workings of Hamlet’s mind
Power and hierarchy – there would have been no doubt in the minds of the Renaissance audience that Hamlet should have been king and that Claudius is a usurper; Hamlet therefore has to battle the power of an unjust ruler
The law – the court, in the figure of Polonius, serves Claudius the dominant power, and plots against Hamlet
Radical changes in the perception of the world – this comes in terms of how we classify the ghost; if he is a real ghost, then Catholic order and we can believe him and therefore Hamlet should take revenge; but if we think along Protestant lines then there can be no ghosts (no purgatory) and the ghost is sent by Satan to tempt Hamlet into sin – murder – and therefore Hamlet should NOT commit revenge.
Public theatre – allows Shakespeare to exploit the power of drama seen in Hamlet specifically through the impact of the play within the play – art proves Claudius’ guilt

5 Conclusion
The two strands of classical tragedy – Aristotle and Seneca – thus give us alternative readings for the play:

Aristotle: set in a universalised system of human nature in which fear and pity are felt by the audience, so that Hamlet is a timeless protagonist with whom we can all sympathise
Seneca: relevant to a particular time and place, so that we can see the development of Hamlet as an individual challenging the wrongs society has heaped upon him

Leave it to you to decide in class: is Hamlet a man for all seasons, or is he a man of his time?