Shakespeares Hamlet - The Melancholy Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Melancholy Hamlet      Ã‚  Ã‚   In Shakespeare’s tragic drama, Hamlet, the multi-faceted character of the hero is so complex that this essay will enlighten the reader on only one aspect of his personality – his melancholy dimension.    A.C. Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy presents convincing evidence regarding the true extent and depth of the hero’s melancholy sentiment:    But there is a more formidable difficulty, which seems to have escaped notice. Horatio certainly came from Wittenberg to the funeral. And observe how he and Hamlet meet (I.ii.160). . . . Is not this passing strange? Hamlet and Horatio are supposed to be fellow-students at Wittenberg, and to have left it for Elsinore less than two months ago. Yet Hamlet hardly recognizes Horatio at first, and speaks as if he himself lived at Elsinore (I refer to his bitter jest, ‘We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart’). Who would dream that Hamlet had himself f just come from Wittenberg, if it were not for the previous words about his going back there? How can this be explained on the usual view? Only, I presume, by supposing that Hamlet is so sunk in melancholy that he really does almost ‘forget himself’ and forgets everything else, so that he actually is in doubt who Horatio is. (370)    It is obvious that from the very outset of this tragedy there is a melancholic protagonist. And the depressing aspect of the initial imagery of the drama tend to underline and reinforce Hamlet’s melancholy. Marchette Chute in â€Å"The Story Told in Hamlet† describes some of this imagery of the opening scene:    The story opens in the cold and dark of a winter night in Denmark, while the guard is being changed on the battlements of the royal castle of Elsinore. For two nights in succession, just as the bell strikes the hour of one, a ghost has appeared on the battlements, a figure dressed in complete armor and with a face like that of the dead king of Denmark, Hamlet’s father. (35)    Horatio and Marcellus exit the ghost-ridden ramparts of Elsinore intending to enlist the aid of Hamlet. The prince is dejected by the â€Å"o’erhasty marriage† of his mother to his uncle less than two months after the funeral of Hamlet’s father (Gordon 128). There is a post-coronation social gathering of the court, where Claudius insincerely pays tribute to the memory of his deceased brother.