The Success of Hamlet :: The Tragedy of Hamlet Essays

The Success of hamlet Is this Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet as advantageful a walka focal point as some critics say? Wherein lies the success? Is the protagonist the prime reason for the continuing success? J. Dover Wilson in What Happens in Hamlet attributes much of the success of the drama to the characterization of the prince Finally, this tangled of overwhelmingly convincing humanity and psychological contradiction is the greatest of Shakespeares legacies to the men of his own quality. No part in the whole repertory of dramatic literature is so certain of success with almost both audience, and is yet open to such a remarkable variety of interpretation. in that location are as m both Hamlets as there are actors who play him and Bernhardt has proved that even a woman can score a success. (101) Could the enduring reputation of Hamlet be attributed to the ultimate form in which the Bard of Avon expressed his ideas? Robert B. Heilman says so in The Role We Give Shakespear e It is the way of venerable texts whose authenticity has impressed itself on the human imagination he has said m whatsoever things in what seems an ultimate form, and he is a head of quotation and universal center of allusion. A rose by any other name comes to the mouth as readily as vanity goeth before a fall, and seems no less wise. . . . The Ophelia-Laertes relationship is strongly felt up near the end of Goethes Faust, Part I, and the Hamlet-Gertrude-Claudius triangle echoes throughout Chekhovs Sea Gull (24-25). This play is ranked by many as the very greatest ever written. Cumberland Clark in The Supernatural in Hamlet gives the consensus regarding Hamlet that exists among literary critics of today At least six or seven years pass after the writing of Midsummer darks Dream before we find Shakespeare engaged on Hamlet, the minute of arc of the great plays with an important Supernatural element, and, in the opinion of many, the greatest tragedy ever penned. (99) There i s no more exalted ranking than the above. Richard A. Lanham in the essay Superposed Plays maintains that no other English tragedy has generated the literary chin-wag which this play has produced Hamlet is one of the great tragedies. It has generated more comment than any other written document in English literature, one would guess, reverent, dependable comment on it as a serious play (91).