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摘 要

在一千人的眼中有一千个哈姆雷特。随着时代的发展,各种新思潮的不断出现。莎士比亚是一面镜子,可以反映那些看着镜子的人们。在过去的400年里,哈姆雷特一直动摇着读者。这些学者和读者很少做出进一步研究莎士比亚为什么以及如何创建哈姆雷特的形象。本文将讨论哈姆雷特在莎士比亚的眼里是什么样的。首先, 在17世纪莎士比亚创作之前，哈姆雷特的故事有一个悠久的历史。它来源于老阿姆莱斯传奇。在它的基本结构和行动上,莎士比亚的哈姆雷特密切遵循着这个古老传说,就像原始哈姆雷特所包含的演讲和一个幽灵。其次,哈姆雷特的创作灵感是因为莎士比亚想悼念他死去的儿子名叫哈姆雷特。最后但是最重要的一点,文化背景对莎士比亚的创作有很大的影响。本文将对哈姆雷特和莎士比亚的关系进行全面的研究,将重点分析在莎士比亚的眼里哈姆雷特的形象。哈姆雷特这个人物充满了多样性、丰富性和复杂性，所以做这个研究是非常有意义的，可以帮助我们更好地理解莎士比亚的作品。

关键词:莎士比亚 哈姆雷特 传奇 文化背景

1. Introduction

1.1 Life and literature career of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the most important writer of the European Renaissance period, an outstanding dramatist and poet, is also one of the most outstanding writers in western eulogists. He married Anne Hathaway at the age of eighteen in 1582. The couple had three children, two daughters and a son who died very young. Shakespeare moved to London in the late fifteen eighties to be at the center of the city’s busy theater life. In 1585, he left Strafford and was missing for 7 years. It is said he traveled abroad, spending a good deal of time at sea during these years. In 1592, he can be traced again in London and career of literature began. Shakespeare had 38 plays, two long narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a few other poems. He held a special position in the history of European literature and was described as “human literature Olympus Zeus”, Shakespeare created four tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, king Lear, and Macbeth, which made him reach the peak of creation. The tragedy Hamlet was the best in the world whose character Hamlet also became one of the most typical character of humanist.

1.2 The background of Hamlet

This drama was written during in European Renaissance period. In that time, humanism was recommended by many people. It reflected on real British society. The history and cultural effects of the English Reformation are complex and multiple, and what follows is no more than rough sketch. Shakespeare also wondered deeply about the further society and cared about human’s destiny. These ideas all were expressed by Hamlet. During sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the British were making the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This period was a great turning point in the process of the history of Britain. Social conflicts further intensified, it fundamentally shaken the feudal order, at the same time it prepared conditions for British bourgeois revolution in the 17th century. Humanism had been widely spread in Europe at the same time, also constantly accepted by more and more people. Shakespeare lived in the feudal system began to collapsed while the emerging bourgeoisie at the turning point was beginning to rise. It is in this context that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet to reflect the struggle between bourgeois humanism and feudal forces and criticize the cruelty of feudal system and the darkness of human nature boldly.

1.3 Introduction of Hamlet

The compelling tragedy of the tormented young prince of Denmark continues to capture the imaginations of modern audiences worldwide. Confronted with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, and with his mother’s infidelity, Hamlet must find a means of reconciling his longing for oblivion with his duty as avenger. The ghost, Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s death and burial, the “closet scene” in which Hamlet accuses his mother of complicity in murder, and breathtaking swordplay were just some of the elements that make Hamlet an enduring masterpiece of the theater.

Hamlet was set in medieval times and related the story of Hamlet who was the son of the dead King of Denmark, which appeared as a ghost. The ghost appeared at midnight and hinted to Hamlet about his murder. Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, quickly married Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius. Hamlet found out that Claudius poisoned his father while he was sleeping to gain control of the throne. Hamlet confronted his mother about knowing about the murder of his father and her affair with Claudius. Claudius attempted to kill Hamlet through the King of England. Hamlet intercepted the letter which told the King of England cut off the heads of the messengers immediately. Laertes was allowed a duel against Hamlet to revenge his father. Halfway into the duel, Claudius dropped a poison-coated pearl into the wine. However, Gertrude drank it herself for a mistake. Finally, they all were dead.

1.4 Purpose of study

Hamlet is not a specific Hamlet. There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes. This thesis will talk about Hamlet in Shakespeare’s eyes. Shakespeare is a mirror that can reflect oneself in which someone looks themselves. As French historian Dana said, “Shakespeare's writing, not only feel everything what we feel, but also feel many of the things we may not feel. He has incredible powers of observation that he can see a person full of personality, body, soul in an instant and accurate posture and facial expressions which the story needs in the past and present, all the details and depth in the life.”(30) It hopes that this thesis can help readers further understand the tragedy of hamlet and also Shakespeare’s purpose of creating this hero in early 17^th century.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Previous analysis or comments on Shakespeare and Hamlet

Shakespeare has been studied by lots of critics from different perspectives. Although Shakespeare's time has been over for four hundred years, up to now his plays are still influencing the whole world. There are some foreign literature reviews on Shakespeare and Hamlet. Hankins observed that in Hamlet Shakespeare’s conceptions of courage, honor, and justice are Aristotelian.(70) Hankins’ understanding of the process by which Shakespeare wrote Hamlet suffers from his adherence to now-discredited views on the order in which Shakespeare composed the quarto and folio editions of that play.(71) Edwards described Hamlet as “a hero who is a tangle of conflicting tendencies, but Shakespeare’s contemporaries, if they were familiar with Case’s work and/or philosophical commentaries generally, would have immediately recognized the deliberative form of Hamlet’s philosophical soliloquies.”(111) Besides, Bloom argued that Shakespeare created Hamlet to be as ambivalent and divided a consciousness as a coherent drama could sustain. (70) Coleridge thought that the creation of Shakespeare's Hamlet was associated with his background. (102)

Besides, there are some domestic reviews on it. Ceng Li believed that Hamlet was a typical humanist. Hamlet was full of ideals for humanity, but cruel reality made him bitter and depressed. So his outlook on life changed from then on, he became a complicated character filled with hatred. Although Hamlet was very smart and articulate, he was impulsive and lack of consideration. He did not want to abuse violence, he stuck to the truth, trusted in others easily, which finally made himself dropped in trap. (163) Shakespeare wrote Hamlet with vivid plots, grand conception and rich content. Hou Yali thought that the tragedy of Hamlet is not due to the death of his father, but due to the betrayal of his mother. He put the bad impression on the base of his mother to his lover Ophelia, believing that all the beautiful women were unreliable and his love was full of suspicion and mistrust. As Ophelia listened to his brother’s advice that she distanced herself from Hamlet, he felt a strong sense of frustration. His anger is the disillusionment of love, because love contains all his ideal of truth, kindness and beauty. His so-called revenge is to vent anger and anxiety of the ideal love. (128) However Nie Hanlin focused on the character of Hamlet. Firstly, he is a rational avenger. His impulsive revenge gradually retreated in the process of rational plan, he never put his desire of revenge into practice. Secondly, he is a strong and weak prince. He is pure and kind before the tragedy happened. When everything happened, too much concerns and hesitations generated by his kindness made him lose too many opportunities, even that he lost his life. Thirdly, he is a contradictory prince. Although he praised the beauty of human, he is disappointed at the dirty reality; although he suspected the meaning of life, he was afraid of the world after death; although he loved his mother and Ophelia, he hated their fragility. These characters eventually lead to his tragedy. (38) Wang Xiaoli analyzed Hamlet’s fate through his melancholy and hesitation. The death of his father and the betrayal of his mother heavily attack his ideal, from beginning to the end, he had been melancholy. He want to revenge, but he always thought about the question—to be or not to be, his hesitating action led to his tragedy. (183) Chai Li argued that the contradiction between ideal and reality in Hamlet is that between humanism and social reality. The essence of the contradiction is the crisis of humanism. (808)

2.2 Problems in the previous studies

Over the past 400 years, it has been shaking the mind of readers. The point of view that people make some researches on Hamlet is one-sided. They seldom make further researches on why and how Shakespeare created the image of Hamlet. Firstly, the Hamlet story had a long history before Shakespeare set to work on it at the turn of the seventeenth century. It derives ultimately from the old Amleth legend. In its basic structure and action, Shakespeare’s Hamlet closely follows the well-known legend, and like the Ur-Hamlet it contains speeches and a ghost. Secondly, the inspiration of the image of Hamlet appeared because Shakespeare wanted to mourn his dead son named Hamlet. The last but not least, the cultural background had a great influence on Shakespeare’s creation. This thesis will have a thorough study on the relation between Hamlet and Shakespeare and will focus on analyzing the image of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s eyes. The character Hamlet is full of versatility, richness and complexity. So it is meaningful to do this research which can help us get a better understanding of Shakespeare’s art.

3. Hamlet in Shakespeare’s eyes

3.1 The origin of the story of Hamlet

In the twelfth century, there was a priest named sarkozy who wrote a book about Danish history because of the command of the King. In the third chapter and a part of the fourth chapter of the book written in Latin, there was a story about Amleth, which became the prototype of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The new King Rorik made joint governors of Jutland two brothers whose names were Horwendil and Feng. Their father, Gerwendil, was governor before them. Many triumphs did Horwendil afterwards achieve, and to his king he gave gifts of the spoils of battle. So he became a hero in the kingdom. Rorik who exalted Horwendil with honuors and made him King of Jutland gave his daughter, the princess Gerutha, to that renowned sea rover to be his wife. Then their son was born whose name was Amleth. Then Feng was stricken with jealousy because of his brother's fortune and renown, he killed his brother and married his wife. Amleth perceived the evil purpose of Feng’s heart and feared his own safety. He feigned madness with great cunning so that he might live to slay the usurper. One day, a courtier, one of Feng’s friends, eavesdropped on private conversation between Amleth and his mother. But Amleth was too cunning to be waylaid, when he found him, he killed him with his sword. Then Feng sent the prince forth to pay visit to the King of Britain that he might be put to death by him. Feng sent two courtiers with him to Britain and attached a letter to the King of Britain, and asked the King to kill him. One night, while the men slept, Amleth changed the content of the letter. When they arrived to Britain, the King of Britain killed two courtiers according to the requirements of the letter. Also Amleth married the daughter of the King. When he returned to Denmark, he made all people get drunk, set fire to the palace, and killed Feng for his father’s revenge.

The structure and action of Hamlet have similarities with the legend to some extent. Firstly, two characters pretended to be mad for their safety. Secondly, they all changed the content of the letter. Thirdly, they were not killed directly by the new King, on the contrary, they were sent to Britain. Last but not least, two characters were dead in the end. That Shakespeare made full use of the legend of Denmark and his artistic talent created Hamlet with renaissance humanism thought.

3.2 The origin of the name of Hamlet

On November 28, 1582, Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway got married, probably because Hathaway was already pregnant with Shakespeare's children. On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first daughter, Susanna (Susanna) in trafford town to accept baptism. Then he had twins who named Hamnet and Judith. The twins were baptized on February 2, 1585. On August 11, 1596, the only son Hamnet died. Many people believed that Shakespeare’s play Hamlet was in honor of his son because the style of writing between Hamnet and Hamlet was similar. Hamlet is like Shakespeare’s child, which injected with his hope and work, was the continuation of Shakespeare’s life.

3.3 The background of Shakespeare’s creation of Hamlet

The play of Hamlet was written in the seventeenth century, set in medieval Danish court depicted the real appearance of British and European society in the renaissance period through Hamlet’s revenge for his father. The play showed the author’s profound reflection on the Renaissance and deep concern about the human’s destiny and future.

3.3.1 Social background

During sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the British were making the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This period was a great turning point in the process of the history of Britain. Boom reign of Elizabeth and stability of the political situation made the rapid development of social productive forces. The emerging capitalist relations of production, not only accelerated the collapse of the feudal society, but also relied on the cruelly exploitation of the peasants to carry out. After James I succeeded, authoritarian was further implemented, which made bourgeoisie and the working people's revolt suppressed. Social conflicts further intensified, it fundamentally shaken the feudal order, at the same time it prepared conditions for British bourgeois revolution in the 17th century. The Hamlet of Shakespeare was the profound reflection of the art of the times. Shakespeare created Hamlet to reflect the British social reality. The fight between Hamlet and Claudius in the play stood for the conflicts between the emerging bourgeoisie humanists and representative of the reactionary feudal monarchy. Shakespeare created the play to reflect contradictions between the humanistic ideal and the darkness of the feudal reality and to criticize the evil between royalty and feudal evil forces.

3.3.2 The birth of humanistic thought

Hamlet was one of Shakespeare’s the four famous tragedies, which represented the supreme art achievements of Shakespeare. The renaissance made a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally, it referred to the period between the 14th and 17th centuries. It first started in Italy, with the flowering of painting, sculpture and literature. From Italy the movement went to embrace the rest of Europe. The renaissance, therefore, in essence was a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. Humanistic thought was the essence of the Renaissance. It sprang from the endeavor to restore reverence for the ancient medieval authors and was frequently taken as the beginning of the renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side, for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on such a conception that man was the measure of all things. Through the new learning, humanists not only saw the splendor and enlightenment of the arts, but the human values represented in the works. Renaissance humanists found in the classics a justification to exalt human nature and came to see that human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfections, and that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despise but to question, explore, and enjoy. Thus, by emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders. Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare were the best representatives of the English humanists.

3.3.3 The influence of humanism on Shakespeare shown in Hamlet

After the humanism was born in Italy, it started to continuously spread outward, and constantly get development. Humanism had been widely spread in Europe during 14^th century and 15^th century and also constantly accepted by more and more people. Shakespeare lived in the big turning point in which feudal system began to collapse and emerging bourgeoisie began to rise. Medieval obscurantism thought represented by religious theology came into decline. However, bourgeoisie centered on individualism was becoming more and more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Humanism in the social ideological trend began to dominate. It was in this context that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet to reflect the struggle between bourgeois humanism ideological and feudal forces, to boldly criticize the cruelty of feudal system and the confine of humanity, to accuse the sin between feudal hierarchy and feudal ideas. Shakespeare’s creation of Hamlet for the spread of humanism had played a huge role in the UK and Europe.

At the beginning of 17^th century, England was not a paradise Shakespeare described in his early comedies, but the time out of joint. Shakespeare had no choice in the face of the cruel reality. His humanistic ideology was splendid but no way to realize it, like colorful foam of soap which would be broken by a slight touch. He had no early full confidence in realizing his ideology and he was no longer an optimist that he used to be, but he wasn’t completely disappointed. In the play, Hamlet was the representative of humanists. His ideology was successfully conveyed by Hamlet. Shakespeare had claimed through the mouth of Hamlet that:

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the word, the paragon of animals! (43) Haste me to know’ t, that I with wings as swift. As meditation or the thought of love, May sweep to my revenge. (25)

Hamlet had great enthusiasm and good hope to the word and human. “And now good friends, as you are friends, scholars and soldiers, Give me one poor request.” (29) It showed that Hamlet believed that everyone is equal. Though humanistic ideology was splendid, He found no way to success in reality. Hamlet felt depressed:

O God, O God! How weary, stable, flat and unprofitable. Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on ’t! oh, fie!’ Tis an unweeded garden. That grows to seed: things rank, and gross in nature.”(12) After a deep thinking, he connected personal questions with the whole world. He found that “this time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right. Nay, come let’s go together” (30)

He was also hesitated:

to be, or not to be, that is the question: whether’ tis nobler in the mind to suffer. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles (54)

Therefore, his rational decided the tragedy of Hamlet and solemnly sacrifice for his noble belief so that he could get support and sympathy in doctrine.

The constriction between the ideal of Shakespeare and the actual impossibility of reality is another important reason for the tragedy of Hamlet. What’s more, the constriction did not compromise. Shakespeare based the realization of his humanistic ideal on Hamlet. However, the conflict between his humanism and his status of noble and his ideology of noble class formed in the long term did not compromise. Though accepting humanistic ideology, he had to take the interests of his own class into consideration. Though he saw the decadence of his class, he was not willing to overthrow it, only hoping to reform it, “this time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right. Nay, come let’s go together” (30) which was what the humanists wanted to get, including Shakespeare. His humanistic ideal was doomed to have limitation resulting in the limitation in action. He regarded himself as the Saviors. He did not propagandize humanistic ideology widely, which could awake the public so that he could emancipate the people fundamentally, but he was afraid to associate the mass and ignored their strength during the action.

He took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven: But in our circumstance and course of thought, ’Tis heavy with him; and am I then revenge’d, To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and seasoned for his passage? (71) No. Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent, when he is drunk asleep; or in the rage; Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed; At gaming, swearing, or about some act. That has no relish of salvation in’t, then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be as damn’d and black. As hell, whereto it goes. (72)

Though his ideal coincided the ideal of the mass and the struggle also did well to the interest of the mass, the prince cut himself off from the people who lived under heavy burden and had to bear great sufferings as the prince knew. That was the greatest fault and the barrier that he could not go beyond as a prince. The tragedy of Hamlet showed humanists including Shakespeare basing their ideal on enlightened king, which were a failure and a tragedy.

3.4The techniques Shakespeare applied in creating Hamlet

Shakespeare applied some writing techniques in writing Hamlet in order to make this play more tragic and inherit the literary treasure besides the portrait of tragic figure and the design of tragic plots. This play conformed to the traditional writing conventions in revenge play and classic Greek tragedy.

3.4.1. Traditional writing conventions in revenge plays

At the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s father who was clanking in medieval armour appeared in the form of ghost. After Hamlet knew the truth of his father’s death, he wanted to revenge for his father. Not only his cry for revenge but also the ethic of his revenge took over the thinking of his modernist son. As the great exemplar of the Spanish Tragedy made ‘Revenge Tragedy’ clear, it was particularly well suited to inhabit the borderline between the demand of an archaic religion and its fulfillment in a secular and politically self-conscious present. All the plots above were not originated by Shakespeare. The dramatist’s genius was in his transformation of the play’s literary sources, especially the contemporaneous Ur-Hamlet into this exceptional tragedy. The Ur-Hamlet, or “original Hamlet”, was a lost play that scholars believed was written mere decades before Shakespeare’s Hamlet, providing much of the dramatic context for the later tragedy. Other principal sources available to Shakespeare were Saxo Grammaticus’s Historiae Danicae, which featured a popular legend with a plot similar to Hamlet, and Francois de Belleforest’s Histories Tragiques, Extraicts des Oeuvres Italiennes de Bande, which provided an expanded account of the story recorded in the Historae Danicae. From these sources, Shakespeare created Hamlet that was a supremely rich and complex literary work that continued to delight both readers and audiences with its myriad meaning and interpretations. So it was evident that Shakespeare made a use of literary source of revenge play to introduce Hamlet. And even he learnt the main plots and characters. That the father was murdered and the secret was revealed by the ghost for which the son was going to revenge resulted in deaths.

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