Drama and HamletDrama and Hamlet

Elements of DramaElements of Drama

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

Types of DramaTypes 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)

Greek TragedyGreek Tragedy

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)

ComedyComedy

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.

Shakespeare’s LanguageShakespeare’s Language

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

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.

Things to consider in Things to consider in HamletHamlet

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?

More…More…

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.

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.” –YBFConsider “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.