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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 3.15.97: Top | Help
I think we get ourselves really far off the track we start supposing that Shakespeare was making heartfelt pleas for societal reform. While your analysis is wonderfully post-modern and socially conscious, it is a far cry from "what Shakespeare wanted to write about".
Shakespeare wanted first and foremost to entertain, making wonderful tales of sex, violence, and, yes, revenge. Keep on mind that the people who went to see his works weren't there to see a play. In the upper seats were upper classes, more interested in social interaction than theatre, and on the ground the groundlings, who were, well, groundlings. I think we do a real diservice to the play if we start believing that it was about a feminine man struggling in a patriarchal world, or a play about a man struggling about an Oedipal thing with his mother, or a man struggling with his own homosexuality.
I don't deny analysis of the play with these sort of issues in mind. Hamlet is a play of great depth, and it's hard to find something it doesn't address, however vaguely. That's why it's so easy to do these shows in so many different settings, so many different times
But there is a fine line between that and confusing it for what the author really intended.
These post-modern socio-political intellectualized interps are great fun, but always remember you're viewing these things through your 20th Century eyes.Jabas
Posted by Jabas on April 02, 1997 at 21:05:46
In Reply to "Revenge isn't the real theme of the play." posted by winsome385 on April 01, 1997 at 09:30:33
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 3.15.97: Top | Help