1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

Literature Review Minor characters have not yet been given enough attention in accordance with their functions and importance to their plays.(Wu,Chongbiao 1) Nevertheless, there are clues we can follow. Wu, Chongbiao ventures to give his own criteria for Minor Characters in Shakespeare#8217;s tragedies in his master's thesis: 1)Minor Characters are marginal to the main action of the play; 2)Minor Characters must have at least a couple of lines, though mere lines can not count them minor; 3)Minor Characters should appear in the play, though the number of times can be great or small; 4)Minor Characters may either be of high social status or of low social status.(4) Wu, Chongbiao considered the first Criterion as the most important, by which ”minor character” ranges broader than ”bit part”. The other three criteria are all supplementary to Criterion 1.(4) In Hamlet, minor characters are Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz, Gulldenstern, Osric, a gentleman, a priest, Marcellus, Bernardo, players, two clowns, Fortinbras, a Norwegian Captain, ghost of Hamlet#8217;s father, lords, ladies, officers, soldiers, sailors, messengers, attendants. However insignificant thay are, they have their functions to the plot, the theme, and the characterization of Shakespeare#8217;s great tragedies. They embody Shakespeare#8217;s views on happenings enacted in his plays and the real world, and they help attract audiences to Shakespeare#8217;s theaters.(Wu, Chongbiao 2) In Aristotle#8217;s concept of tragedy, plot is the most important element. He stated in his Poetics that ”The Plot... is the first principle... the soul of a tragedy...”. (Yao, Naiqiang 35)Because ”the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all.”(Jbid 35) Most important of all, in Wu#8217;s thesis, he concluded three functions of minor characters (functions to the plot, functions to themes and functions to characterization) from Shakespeare#8217;s four great tragedies and considered the using of minor characters a factor that contributes to his success. Under the three functions, Wu made further exploration and obtained detailed function of minor characters in a systematic way. Among the minor characters in Hamlet, Horatio, friend to Hamlet, will be given due attention. Appeared in act one, scene one, Horatio plays a significant role in the development of plot. Xia, Yueting even regards Horatio as another personality of Hamlet by analyzing and comparing the features of Hamlet and Horatio in her literature. Horatio makes a good foil or sounding board for Prince Hamlet. According to Xia#8217;s founding, Horatio is such a character that bears the quality of loyalty and integrity. As Hamlet#8217;s friend, Horatio is more sensible than Hamlet. When Hamlet was at the periphery of indignation for his father#8217;s sudden death, when he was ashamed of his own mother#8217;s incest, when he felt depressed for his girl#8217;s estrangement, Horatio was the one who kept sanity.(58) Hamlet#8217;s last request creates a parallel between the name Horatio and the Latin orator, meaning ”speaker”. When setting the background of the play, elements ranging from simple beds, tables, chairs and thrones to whole trees, grassy banks, prop dragons, an unpleasant looking cave to represent the mouth of hell, and so forth should be firstly provided. Minor characters in Hamlet fully undertake this responsibility. In Hamlet, Horatio offers a necessary description of the turbulent and intense situation of Denmark in act one, scene one. Minor characters are used to adjust certain effects at certain moments in the play. Minor characters are also complementary to Shakespeare#8217;s characterization: some of them introduce and help audiences understand those leading characters; some other exist as foils to the leading characters, thus thy highlight the major features of those leading characters.(Wu, Chongbiao, 52) Minor characters help cater to his lower-class audiences. Shakespeare was a shrewd businessman; he wrote plays with a view to attracting playgoers to his theaters and making profits out of them.(Wu, Chongbiao, 53)

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

Methods and Procedures of the Study In the hope of figuring out the function of minor characters in Hamlet, I have first of all read both the English and Chinese version of Hamlet. In the first time of reading, I labeled all the minor characters#8217; debut in the play, and made some notes about the function of their appearance. I#8217;m trying to attribute their function to the ”Three Functions to Shakespeare as a Playwright”, generalized by Wu, Chongbiao. After the basic knowledge upon the story and all the minor characters and also their functions, I focus my study on minor characters#8217; function to the plot. As achievements of current studies concerning the function of minor characters are still in deficiency, sources related to this area are insufficient accordingly. Nevertheless, my supervisor helps me a lot with this thesis. She constantly gives some clear-cut proposition and grammatical suggestions with great patience. Reading books, taking notes, turning to the Internet and the libraries, and discussing with my supervisor are the main methods of this study. The thesis consists of five parts. The first part will primarily provide the background information, including the introduction of the play as a whole and the detailed information about its five acts. The second part is literature review. In this part, the study will give brief introduction on the existing results concerning the study of the plot of Hamlet and the research towards the function of minor characters. Subsequently, in the third part of the thesis, the term ”minor character” will be further defined and all the minor characters in Hamlet will be briefly introduced. The forth part is the central section of this thesis. Part four will focus on the functions of minor characters in Hamlet. Three functions in total will be discussed. Among the three, the function to the plot will be given more attention. The last part will draw a conclusion, stressing the significance of minor characters in a play.