THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET:
PRINCE OF DENMARK
Elements of Tragedy
Foundations of Tragedy
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Aristotle’s Poetics lays out the framework of tragedy
as the Greeks conceived of it.
William Shakespeare certainly would have had
knowledge of this structure and used it as a
framework for all of his tragedies
There are some important elements which must exist
to make a play a tragedy.
Elements of Tragedy
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Downfall of a noble hero or heroine.
 The
tragic hero must be someone of great importance –
not a common person.
 Hamartia – “he/she missed the mark”
 Liminality – Tragedies always occur in a time or context
in which great change is happening.
 Hero need not die, but must experience some change in
fortune. In Shakespeare, death for the tragic
hero/heroine always occurs, along with the usually
gruesome deaths of many others.
Hamartia
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Often simply translated as “tragic flaw,” this element is
one of the most controversial.
Some argue that thinking of the hero as flawed makes them
less noble, less capable of serving as heroes whose stories
inspire pity and fear in the audience, which is the aim of
tragedy. This is what is meant by catharsis, and is understood
to be cleansing, purging, for the audience. We are cleansed
of our excess passions, ideally, when we watch a tragedy.
 He/she missed the mark, the fuller translation, suggests that
the hero has noble ends, but that something in the
environment makes these ends impossible.
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Liminality
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Liminality – from the Latin limen, meaning
“threshold,” is a psychological, neurological, or
metaphysical subjective state, conscious or
unconscious, of being on the threshold between two
different planes.
 It
can be applied to variety of concrete problems of
transformation in the historical, political, or social world.
 Simply put, it refers to a state of being between two
realities. Think of ‘limbo,’ a place between heaven and
hell.
“He/she missed the mark”
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Let’s think of an archer in a windstorm. The archer is
the tragic hero, the windstorm is the condition of
liminality (the winds of change are blowing), and
when the hero/heroine takes aim and shoots at
his/her mark, the arrow is blown off course with
tragic consequences.
Indeed, hamartia comes from the Greek
hamartanein, a term that describes an archer missing
the target.
Romeo and Juliet
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Let’s think about this tragedy.
Who are the tragic hero and heroine?
What is their flaw?
Do we really believe it’s a flaw to love someone just
because our parents do not approve?
What is the virtuous end Romeo and Juliet are aiming
for?
What is the liminal context they find themselves in?
Hamlet
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Hamlet is typically accused of having the tragic flaw of
hesitation.
Let’s set the stage:
He has returned from college to find his father, the King of
Denmark, dead.
 His mother is marrying his uncle, the King’s brother, less than
two months after the King’s death.
 There is a war brewing.
 Hamlet is driven by the desire to avenge his father.
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