Drama and Hamlet

There are three basic elements to drama.
◦ Dialogue – what characters say to one another.
◦ Action – what characters do in the play.
◦ Gesture – what character express through
motion and expression.

Things that will help you with drama
analysis:
◦ Setting, structure, characterization, dramatic
irony, theme
Elements of Drama

There are two major types of drama.
◦ Tragedy
◦ Comedy
◦ It has been said that all of literature has two
faces:
 The destruction of man (All tragedy ends in death
and defeat)
 The continuation of life (All comedy ends in
marriage)
Types of Drama

There are three concepts in tragedy one
must consider.
◦ Crisis of feeling – a painful or harmful
experience that may hurt or harm the
audience.
◦ Catharsis or Purgation – the audience is able to
purge emotion through watching the play, and
thus feel better; uplifted.
◦ Reversal/Peripeteia – the hero or heroine goes
through a specific change in fortune for the
worse (usually comes after a discovery)
Greek Tragedy

There are three major types of comedy.
◦ Satire – mean barbs/jokes are aimed at
people, ideas, or things, in order to improve,
prevent, or correct something.
◦ Romantic – involves a love affair that does not
run smoothly, but ends happily.
◦ Absurd (Black) – unusual, weird, or
uncomfortable comedy that portrays the world
as unstable.
Comedy
It is through language that the plays’ full
dramatic power is realized.
 People in Shakespeare’s own time found
his plays difficult and bordering on
intelligibility.
 “Read him, therefore, again and again;
and if you do not like him, surely you are
in some manifest danger not to
understand him.” –Henry Condell

Shakespeare’s Language

Word meaning has changed in the last
400 years.
◦ “let”
◦ “I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me”
◦ In this context, let means to “hinder”

Shakespeare’s words serve a dual function
◦ 1. In part, they describe what the character
sees or does.
◦ 2. The words often also betrays the way a
character feels.

Shakespeare’s plays are a mixture of
verse and prose.
◦ The Merry Wives of Windsor” is only 13%
verse.
◦ King John is entirely verse.
◦ Most plays are right about 70% verse.
◦ The verse is usually non-rhyming iambic
pentameter (blank verse), though this is
altered at points for effect.
◦ The stresses alert readers to things that are
important (u’)

A nine syllable line ends unstressed, as
does an 11 syllable line. This is called a
feminine ending and can suggest pause or
dramatic effect.

The prose is just as important.
◦ This shift from verse to prose is always
representative of something.
◦ It could signify the shift from “high” social
character to “low” social character (humor)
◦ Later on, Shakespeare used prose more in his
comedies.
◦ Shifts in verse/prose may be emotional (i.e.
The Merchant of Venice)
◦ Prose becomes representative of “daily-ness”
or of common sense.




Hamlet is William Shakespeare’s most
studied play; there is a reason for that.
The character Hamlet is an icon for
modernity, meaning he has a modern,
philosophical, introspective personality
[conscience ](an odd thing to have for a
warrior-prince).
Consider the theme revenge.
Consider the self. What does it mean to be
yourself.
◦ Can you be patterned after another? Are you ever
wholly original?
Things to consider in Hamlet








Consider action vs. stasis.
Consider fate vs. fortune vs. free will.
Consider alienation.
Consider Freud and psychoanalysis.
Consider solitude vs. company.
Consider belonging vs. autonomy.
Consider paranoia.
Consider Old Hamlet vs. Claudius vs.
Young Hamlet.
More…

Consider this:
◦ “The being of yourself, or the dream of being
yourself, and that dream being spoiled by the
bonds to others.”





Consider being “part” and “apart” (the
age old existential crisis)
Consider false friendship.
Consider the emptiness of social ritual.
Consider forgiveness.
Consider the obsession humans have with
futurity.

Consider feeling too large for expression:
◦ “I feel the weight of what I say, because it’s
never what I mean.” –YBF
Consider “time being out of joint”
 Consider death as an escape from self.
 Consider what happens when your true
self doesn’t fit with your role or the
expectations of you.
