Hamlet is a philosophical tragedy.

The goal of tragedy is not to frighten, but to provoke the activity of thought, to make one think about the contradictions and troubles of life, and Shakespeare achieves this goal. Achieves primarily due to the image of the hero. Putting questions before himself, he encourages us to think about them, to look for answers. But Hamlet not only questions life, he expresses many thoughts about it. His speeches are full of sayings, and, what is remarkable, the thoughts of many generations are concentrated in them. .

In order for the death of a person depicted in the drama to be truly tragic, three prerequisites are necessary: ​​a special state of the world, called a tragic situation; an outstanding personality with heroic power; a conflict in which hostile social and moral forces collide in an irreconcilable struggle.

Othello is a tragedy of betrayed trust.

The construction of the play can easily lead to an analysis of Othello as a purely personal tragedy. However, any exaggeration of the intimate-personal element in Othello to the detriment of other aspects of this work inevitably turns in the end into an attempt to limit Shakespearean tragedy to the narrow confines of the drama of jealousy. True, in the verbal use of the whole world, the name Othello has long become synonymous with jealous. But the theme of jealousy in Shakespeare's tragedy appears, if not as a secondary element, then in any case as a derivative of more complex problems that determine the ideological depth of the play.

Othello, by his outward position, is the universally recognized savior of Venice, the support of her freedom, a general revered by all, who has royal ancestors behind him. But morally he is alone and not only alien to the republic, but even despised by its rulers. There is no one in the entire Venetian council, except the Doge, who could believe in the naturalness of Desdemona's love for the Moor. When the thought that he might lose Desdemona for the first time creeps into Othello's soul, the Venetian commander recalls with a sense of doom that he is black.

In the face of death, Othello says that jealousy was not a passion that initially determined his behavior; but this passion took possession of him when he was unable to resist the influence on him from Iago. And Othello was deprived of this ability to resist by the very side of his nature that Pushkin calls the main one - his gullibility.

However, the main source of Othello's credulity is not in his individual qualities. Fate threw him into a foreign and incomprehensible republic, in which the power of a tightly stuffed wallet triumphed and strengthened - a secret and overt power that makes people selfish predators. But the Moor is calm and confident. He is practically not interested in relations between individual members of Venetian society: he is not associated with individuals, but with the signoria, whom he serves as a military leader; and as a commander, Othello is impeccable and extremely necessary for the republic. The tragedy begins precisely with a remark confirming what has been said above about the nature of Othello's ties with Venetian society: Iago is outraged that the Moor did not heed the voice of the three Venetian nobles who petitioned for his appointment to the post of lieutenant.



To deal Othello a death blow, Iago uses both his deep understanding of the nature of the direct and trusting Othello, and his knowledge of the moral standards that guide society. Iago is convinced that the appearance of a person is given to him in order to hide his true essence. Now it remains for him to convince the Moor that such an assertion is also true of Desdemona.

The comparative ease with which Iago managed to win this victory is due not only to the fact that Othello believes in Iago's honesty and considers him a man who perfectly understands the true nature of ordinary relations between Venetians. The base logic of Iago captures Othello primarily because other members of Venetian society also use similar logic.

Othello's admission that chaos reigned in his soul until this soul was illuminated by the light of love for Desdemona can, in a certain sense, serve as the key to understanding the whole history of relations between the main characters of the tragedy.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. The eternal questions raised in the text are still worrying mankind. Love conflicts, political themes, reflections on religion: all the main intentions of the human spirit are collected in this tragedy. Shakespeare's plays are both tragic and realistic, and images have long become eternal in world literature. Perhaps this is where their greatness lies.

The famous English author was not the first to write the story of Hamlet. Before him, there was the "Spanish Tragedy", written by Thomas Kidd. Researchers and literary scholars suggest that Shakespeare borrowed the plot from him. However, Thomas Kyd himself probably referred to earlier sources. Most likely, these were short stories of the early Middle Ages.

Saxo Grammaticus, in his History of the Danes, described real story the ruler of Jutland, who had a son named Amlet (eng. Amlet) and wife Gerut. The ruler had a brother who was jealous of his wealth and decided to kill, and then married his wife. Amlet did not submit to the new ruler, and, having learned about the bloody murder of his father, decides to take revenge. The stories coincide down to the smallest detail, but Shakespeare interprets the events in a different way and penetrates deeper into the psychology of each character.

essence

Hamlet returns to his native castle of Elsinore for his father's funeral. From the soldiers who served at the court, he learns about a ghost that comes to them at night and resembles the deceased king in outline. Hamlet decides to go to a meeting with an unknown phenomenon, a further meeting terrifies him. The ghost reveals to him the true cause of his death and inclines his son to revenge. The Danish prince is confused and on the verge of insanity. He does not understand whether he really saw the spirit of his father, or did the devil come to him from the depths of hell?

The hero reflects on what happened for a long time and eventually decides to find out on his own whether Claudius is really guilty. To do this, he asks a troupe of actors to play the play "The Murder of Gonzago" to see the king's reaction. During a key moment in the play, Claudius becomes ill and leaves, at which point an ominous truth is revealed. All this time, Hamlet pretends to be crazy, and even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sent to him could not find out from him the true motives of his behavior. Hamlet intends to speak to the Queen in her quarters and accidentally kills Polonius, who has hidden behind a curtain to eavesdrop. He sees in this accident the manifestation of the will of heaven. Claudius understands the criticality of the situation and tries to send Hamlet to England, where he is to be executed. But this does not happen, and the dangerous nephew returns to the castle, where he kills his uncle and dies from poison himself. The kingdom passes into the hands of the Norwegian ruler Fortinbras.

Genre and direction

"Hamlet" is written in the genre of tragedy, but the "theatricality" of the work should be taken into account. Indeed, in the understanding of Shakespeare, the world is a stage, and life is a theater. This is a kind of specific attitude, a creative look at the phenomena surrounding a person.

Shakespeare's dramas are traditionally referred to. It is characterized by pessimism, gloominess and aestheticization of death. These features can be found in the work of the great English playwright.

Conflict

The main conflict in the play is divided into external and internal. Its external manifestation lies in Hamlet's attitude towards the inhabitants of the Danish court. He considers them all base creatures, devoid of reason, pride and dignity.

The internal conflict is very well expressed in the emotional experiences of the hero, his struggle with himself. Hamlet chooses between two behavioral types: new (Renaissance) and old (feudal). He is formed as a fighter, not wanting to perceive reality as it is. Shocked by the evil that surrounded him from all sides, the prince is going to fight him, despite all the difficulties.

Composition

The main compositional outline of the tragedy consists of a story about the fate of Hamlet. Each separate layer of the play serves to fully reveal his personality and is accompanied by constant changes in the thoughts and behavior of the hero. Events gradually unfold in such a way that the reader begins to feel a constant tension that does not stop even after the death of Hamlet.

The action can be divided into five parts:

  1. First part - plot. Here Hamlet meets the ghost of his dead father, who bequeaths him to avenge his death. In this part, the prince first encounters human betrayal and meanness. This is where his mental anguish begins, which does not let him go until his death. Life becomes meaningless for him.
  2. The second part - action development. The prince decides to pretend to be crazy in order to deceive Claudius and find out the truth about his act. He also accidentally kills the royal adviser - Polonius. At this moment, the realization comes to him that he is the executor of the highest will of heaven.
  3. The third part - climax. Here Hamlet, with the help of the trick of showing the play, is finally convinced of the guilt of the ruling king. Claudius realizes how dangerous his nephew is and decides to get rid of him.
  4. The fourth part - the Prince is sent to England to be executed there. At the same moment, Ophelia goes crazy and tragically dies.
  5. Fifth part - denouement. Hamlet escapes execution, but he has to fight Laertes. In this part, all the main participants in the action die: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet himself.

    6. Main characters and their characteristics

  • Hamlet- from the very beginning of the play, the reader's interest focuses on the personality of this character. This "book" boy, as Shakespeare himself wrote about him, suffers from the disease of the approaching age - melancholy. In essence, he is the first reflective hero of world literature. Someone might think that he is a weak, incapable person. But in fact, we see that he is strong in spirit and is not going to submit to the problems that have befallen him. His perception of the world is changing, particles of past illusions turn into dust. From this comes the very "Hamletism" - internal discord in the soul of the hero. By nature, he is a dreamer, a philosopher, but life forced him to become an avenger. The character of Hamlet can be called "Byronic", because he is maximally focused on his inner state and is rather skeptical about the world around him. He, like all romantics, is prone to constant self-doubt and tossing between good and evil.
  • Gertrude mother of Hamlet. A woman in whom we see the makings of a mind, but a complete lack of will. She is not alone in her loss, but for some reason she does not try to get closer to her son at the moment when grief happened in the family. Without the slightest remorse, Gertrude betrays the memory of her late husband and agrees to marry his brother. Throughout the action, she constantly tries to justify herself. Dying, the queen realizes how wrong her behavior was, and how wise and fearless her son turned out to be.
  • Ophelia Daughter of Polonius and beloved of Hamlet. A meek girl who loved the prince until her death. She also faced trials that she could not endure. Her madness is not a feigned move invented by someone. This is the same madness that comes at the moment of true suffering, it cannot be stopped. There are some hidden indications in the work that Ophelia was pregnant from Hamlet, and from this the realization of her fate becomes doubly difficult.
  • Claudius- a man who killed his own brother in order to achieve his own goals. Hypocritical and vile, he still bears a heavy burden. Pangs of conscience daily devour him and do not allow him to fully enjoy the reign to which he came in such a terrible way.
  • Rosencrantz And Guildenstern- the so-called "friends" of Hamlet, who betrayed him at the first opportunity to make good money. Without delay, they agree to deliver a message announcing the death of the prince. But fate has prepared for them a worthy punishment: as a result, they die instead of Hamlet.
  • Horatio- an example of a true and faithful friend. The only person the prince can trust. Together they go through all the problems, and Horatio is ready to share even death with a friend. It is to him that Hamlet trusts to tell his story and asks him to "breathe more in this world."

    • Themes

  1. Revenge of Hamlet. The prince was destined to bear the heavy burden of revenge. He cannot coldly and prudently deal with Claudius and regain the throne. His humanistic attitudes make you think about the common good. The hero feels his responsibility for those who suffered from the evil spread around. He sees that not only Claudius is to blame for the death of his father, but all of Denmark, which carelessly turned a blind eye to the circumstances of the death of the old king. He knows that in order to commit revenge, he needs to become an enemy to the entire environment. His ideal of reality does not coincide with the real picture of the world, the "shattered age" causes dislike in Hamlet. The prince realizes that he cannot restore the world alone. Such thoughts plunge him into even greater despair.
  2. Love of Hamlet. Before all those terrible events in the life of the hero, there was love. But, unfortunately, she is unhappy. He was madly in love with Ophelia, and there is no doubt about the sincerity of his feelings. But the young man is forced to refuse happiness. After all, the offer to share sorrows together would be too selfish. To finally break the bond, he has to hurt and be merciless. Trying to save Ophelia, he could not even imagine how great her suffering would be. The impulse with which he rushes to her coffin was deeply sincere.
  3. Friendship of Hamlet. The hero values ​​friendship very much and is not used to choosing his friends based on their position in society. His only true friend is the poor student Horatio. At the same time, the prince is contemptuous of betrayal, which is why he treats Rosencrantz and Guildenstern so cruelly.

Problems

The issues covered in Hamlet are very broad. Here are the themes of love and hate, the meaning of life and the purpose of a person in this world, strength and weakness, the right to revenge and murder.

One of the main - problem of choice faced by the protagonist. There is a lot of uncertainty in his soul, he alone thinks for a long time and analyzes everything that happens in his life. There is no one next to Hamlet who could help him make a decision. Therefore, he is guided only by his own moral principles and personal experience. His consciousness is divided into two halves. In one lives a philosopher and humanist, and in the other, a man who understood the essence of a rotten world.

His key monologue "To be or not to be" reflects all the pain in the hero's soul, the tragedy of thought. This incredible internal struggle exhausts Hamlet, imposes thoughts of suicide on him, but he is stopped by his unwillingness to commit another sin. He began to worry more and more about the topic of death and its mystery. What's next? Eternal darkness or the continuation of the suffering that he endures during his lifetime?

Meaning

The main idea of ​​tragedy is the search for the meaning of being. Shakespeare shows an educated man, always searching, having a deep sense of empathy for everything that surrounds him. But life forces him to face true evil in various manifestations. Hamlet is aware of it, trying to figure out exactly how it arose and why. He is shocked by the fact that one place can turn into hell on Earth so quickly. And the act of his revenge is to destroy the evil that has penetrated his world.

The fundamental idea in the tragedy is that behind all these royal showdowns there is a great turning point in the whole of European culture. And at the tip of this turning point, Hamlet appears - a new type of hero. Together with the death of all the main characters, the system of worldview that has developed over the centuries collapses.

Criticism

Belinsky in 1837 writes an article on Hamlet, in which he calls the tragedy a "brilliant diamond" in the "radiant crown of the king of dramatic poets", "crowned by the whole of humanity and neither before nor after himself has no rival."

In the image of Hamlet, there are all the universal features "<…>it’s me, it’s each of us, more or less…,” Belinsky writes about him.

S. T. Coleridge, in Shakespeare's Lectures (1811-1812), writes: "Hamlet hesitates because of natural sensitivity and lingers, held by reason, which makes him turn effective forces in search of a speculative solution."

Psychologist L.S. Vygotsky focused on the connection of Hamlet with the other world: "Hamlet is a mystic, this determines not only his state of mind on the threshold of a double existence, two worlds, but also his will in all its manifestations."

And the literary critic V.K. Kantor considered the tragedy from a different angle and in his article “Hamlet as a “Christian warrior”” he pointed out: “The tragedy “Hamlet” is a system of temptations. He is tempted by a ghost (this is the main temptation), and the task of the prince is to check whether the devil is trying to lead him into sin. Hence the trap theatre. But at the same time, he is tempted by love for Ophelia. Temptation is a constant Christian problem."

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Turgenev I.S. "Hamlet and Don Quixote"

In one of his works, Yu.M. Lotman writes about the ability of literary texts to act as generators of new messages. So, even “if the most mediocre poem is translated into another language (that is, into the language of another poetic system), then the back translation operation will not give the original text(our italics. - M.I.)" . This means that the semantic richness of the source text can be measured through the degree of discrepancy between the back translation and the source text. Lotman also refers to the possibility of different literary translations into the same language of the same poem, due to which any translation is only one of the interpretations of the original text. And this means that we can talk about them conditional equivalence to the source text, which just implies a certain degree of discrepancy.

Let us supplement Lotman's thought with the following considerations. Let's imagine that a certain text was taken to be translated into another language by a person who poorly knows and understands the language in which this text is written. In this case, the reverse translation with a guarantee will not give the original text. How, then, is it possible to distinguish the discrepancy between the back translation and the source text in the case of a literary translation, which is really capable of generating new information, and in the case when it is a bad and helpless translation? Indeed, in both cases, the source text and its reverse translation will not match.

Here we would like to introduce the following assumption. A translation can be considered quite adequate if it offers an interpretation, or reading, of the source text that implicitly present in the original text. And in this case, the discrepancy between the reverse translation and the source text will be an indicator that we are really dealing with a sign system with a strong creative function.

Let's explain with an example. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the prince and Horatio talk about the king, the prince's father. In the original, Horatio says the phrase: "He was a goodly king." Let's pay attention to the word "goodly", the variants of its translation into Russian are as follows: beautiful; significant, large; lovely, pleasant. The literal translation of this phrase is: "He was a fine king."

Now let's give the same phrase in the translation of Anna Radlova: "He was a king." The reverse translation gives: "He was the king." Comparing the phrase with the original text, we find that the word "goodly" is missing. Thus, the English original and Radlova's translation do not match. Nevertheless, the translation corresponds to at least one of the meanings undoubtedly present in the English original: "He was a real king." This is confirmed by the fact that it is precisely this meaning that M. Lozinsky conveys in his translation of this phrase “The true was the king” (1933).

Let us also pay attention to the fact that the outwardly less informative translation of Radlova (it reports what is already known: Hamlet's father was a king), paradoxically more clearly emphasizes the main thing that M. Lozinsky highlights in his translation, namely, that Hamlet's father was the true king.

But differences in the perception of not individual sentences, but of the artistic text as a whole are important for us. According to Lotman, the absence of a match between the source text and its perception is due to the fact that the creator of the text and the one who perceives this text (for example, a translator) are not completely identical individuals with the same language experience and memory capacity. Differences in cultural tradition and the individuality with which the tradition is realized also have an effect.

However, it is possible to shift the center of gravity from the differences between the creator of the text and the one who perceives this text, to the features the text itself. These features, in our opinion, should be such as to provide an opportunity to perceive it differently by different subjects or even by the same subject in different time periods.

L.S. wrote about these features of a literary text in his time. Vygotsky: “Shakespeare, of course, did not think, while composing tragedy, of all that Tieck and Schlegel thought while reading it; and yet, although Shakespeare did not invent all this, in Hamlet it is all there and there is immeasurably more: such is the nature of artistic creation» . Let us recall in this connection the significantly different works on Shakespeare's Hamlet by Vygotsky himself, written at intervals of nine years: in 1916 and 1925, which nevertheless expressed what is undoubtedly present in the tragedy.

It is known that Chekhov did not agree with the staging of The Cherry Orchard by Stanislavsky in the form of a drama, believing that in fact it was a comedy or even a farce. For us, this means that in the very text of The Cherry Orchard, the possibility of both interpretations - as a drama and as a comedy - is implicitly present, even if the text is preserved without any significant changes.

It seems to us that there are features of the text that provide a difference in its interpretation, interpretation and perception, associated not only with the inevitable ambiguity of the verbal material, but also with composition, or construction method artwork generally. In this paper, we will consider those features of the composition of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", which provide the possibility of different, even opposite interpretations and perceptions of this tragedy.

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Aristotle in "Poetics" defines the plot of a tragedy as a reproduction of a single integral action, in which the connection of parts of events occurs in such a way that "with the rearrangement or removal of one of the parts, the whole would change and upset" . But in an epic work, writes Aristotle, less unity of action is allowed, therefore, “out of any epic imitation, several tragedies are obtained.” Thus, the Iliad and the Odyssey contain parts, "each of which in itself is of sufficient size."

Comparing Shakespeare's tragedies from this angle, we find that "Romeo and Juliet", "King Lear", "Othello" fully satisfy Aristotle's requirement regarding the plot, namely, the omission of parts in them would change the integrity of the action. For example, the elimination of the scene in King Lear in which the division of the kingdom between the daughters of Lear takes place will make the entire further course of the tragedy incomprehensible as a single integral action. And in "Hamlet" you can omit the first part, in which the Ghost appears before Horatio and the officers of the guard; this is exactly what Grigory Kozintsev did in his film "Hamlet" (1964), nevertheless, the tragedy did not lose its integrity and unity. Eliminating the cemetery scene with the jokes of the gravediggers and Hamlet's speculation about the fate of "poor Yorick" and "why should the imagination not follow Alexander's noble ashes until it finds them plugging up the barrel-hole?" , would not lead to a shock to the integrity of the tragedy. It is quite possible to remove the fragment in which the army of Fortinbras moves to Poland, along with Hamlet's monologue, which begins with the words: "How everything around me exposes ...".

At the same time, the scene in the cemetery, right up to the appearance of the funeral procession, could well be staged as a small independent play. The same can be said about the fragment with the movement of Fortinbras' troops to Poland. It turns out that the composition of a tragedy formally rather corresponds to the Aristotelian definition of an epic work, in which, we recall, less unity of action is allowed and it is possible to single out completely independent parts.

Let us pay attention to the significant place of accidents and purely external circumstances in Hamlet. And this contradicts another Aristotelian rule: “that something should happen after that by necessity or probability. Therefore, it is obvious that the denouement of the tales must follow from the tales themselves, and not with the help of the machine.

After all, it is obvious that the ghosts of the dead do not necessarily or likely visit living sons in order to tell them how things really were with their death. And the staging of the famous "Mousetrap" turned out to be possible only because the actors stopped by, who could not stand the competition in the capital's theater from child actors who, for some reason, suddenly found themselves in vogue.

Before Hamlet's conversation with his mother, it is Polonius who accidentally hides behind the carpet, whom Hamlet strikes with a sword in full confidence that he is killing the hated king: “You miserable, fussy jester, goodbye! I aimed at the higher; take your lot." During the voyage to England, pirates appear from nowhere, on whose ship Hamlet passes, which allows him to return to Denmark.

The paternal seal turns out to be very useful under Hamlet (“Heaven even helped me in this”), which made it possible to fasten the forged letter, which ordered its bearers - Rosencrantz and Gilderstern - upon their arrival in England, "immediately kill, without giving and pray."

Finally, it is completely incomprehensible why Hamlet and Horatio appear at the cemetery in order to witness Ophelia's funeral, to their own surprise. After all, with the same success they could be in another place. But then there would not have been a quarrel between Hamlet and Laertes, which was used by the king to organize a fatal duel on rapiers, as a result of which the main characters, and Prince Fortinbras, who arrived very opportunely, lays the foundation for a new royal dynasty.

In the duel, an inadvertent exchange of rapiers takes place, which leads to the wounding of Laertes by his own poisoned blade and to the recognition that Hamlet, wounded by the same blade, has less than half an hour to live.

Let us also pay attention to the fact that the famous monologues in the tragedy give the impression of inserts that do not follow directly from the previous scenes and do not directly affect the further course of events.

Consider the situation in which Hamlet delivers the first monologue. It reveals resentment against the mother, who hastily married an uncle who "resembles his father no more than I look like Hercules." Immediately after the monologue, Hamlet meets with Horatio, a fellow student at the University of Wittenberg. To Horatio's explanation that he came to Elsinore out of a penchant for idleness, Hamlet answers with an awkward and cumbersome reproach: even Horatio's enemy would not say such a thing, and one should not force his hearing with such slander against himself, and that he, Hamlet, knows that Horatio is by no means an idler.

The whole scene of Hamlet's meeting with Horatio has nothing to do with the monologue just delivered. But it is important that it again raises the theme of the hasty marriage of the mother, which is now given in an ironically grounded form: Horatio was in a hurry to the funeral of the king, but he got to the wedding, which followed so quickly that the cold from the commemoration passed to the wedding table. The second theme of the monologue is also reproduced: the former king, unlike his successor, was a real king and a man who can no longer be met.

Since both themes of the monologue are repeated, the question arises: what is the meaning of the monologue? Of course, the monologue voices the pain that Hamlet experiences from the act of his mother. But the same pain, albeit not in such a sharp form, is presented in a conversation about the cold that got from the commemoration to the wedding table. And then the theme of the appearance of the shadow of Hamlet's father begins, etc. Thus, nothing would have changed from the point of view of the further course of the tragedy if the monologue had been omitted by its director.

In Grigory Kozintsev's film, the preservation of the monologue led to the omission of a playful altercation between Hamlet and Horatio about the latter's arrival due to a penchant for idleness. It seemed inappropriate for the director to sharply reduce the level of tragedy immediately after the monologue was delivered, so he had to choose: keep the monologue or the bickering between Hamlet and Horatio. This means that there are difficulties in transmitting the original text in its entirety due to the contrast of fragments following one after another in time. And on the other hand, we repeat, the irony about the cold, which has passed to the wedding table, duplicates and in this sense makes the monologue itself optional. It turns out that the first monologue does not look absolutely necessary, on the contrary, it seems that from a compositional point of view it is redundant.

In the monologue that Hamlet utters after meeting and talking with the Ghost, we are talking about the determination to submit himself entirely to revenge for the murder of his father by his uncle-king. But the same theme is duplicated in a conversation with Horatio and officers of the guard at the level of symbolic generalization: "The age has been shaken - and the worst thing is that I was born to restore it!" This taking on the burden of correcting a shattered century is quite consistent with the promise to subordinate one's whole life to the restoration of justice, which was voiced in the monologue.

The content of other monologues of Hamlet is also either duplicated in the further text, or can be omitted without prejudice to his understanding. The third monologue is about getting the king to react to the poisoning scene presented by the actors. But the same theme is repeated in a conversation with Horatio, when Hamlet asks him to follow his uncle during the performance of the scene by visiting artists: “and if, at certain words, the hidden guilt does not shudder in him, then it means that he appeared to us (under the guise of a Ghost. - M.N.) hellish spirit ... ".

The famous monologue "To be or not to be", however strange it may sound, can be withdrawn by a resolute director without any at least visible consequences for understanding the further course of the tragedy. The viewer will see how the king and Polonius are talking about how, watching the meeting of Hamlet with Ophelia, to find out “whether love torment” or something else is the cause of “his madness”. Then Hamlet would come on stage to tell Ophelia that he did not give her gifts as signs of love, and suggest that they go to the monastery so as not to produce sinners. In this sense, this monologue also creates an impression of redundancy.

In Kozintsev's film, the monologue is pronounced on the seashore, after which Hamlet finds himself in the castle and talks to Ophelia. In Zeffirelli's film, the same monologue follows, contrary to the text of the tragedy, after a conversation with Ophelia and an overheard conversation between Polonius and Claudius, in which the decision is made to send Hamlet to England. One gets the impression that the monologue is uttered only because it is perceived as an integral part of the tragedy.

In the fifth monologue, Hamlet, going to his mother to talk, talks about his willingness to be cruel, but also about the fact that he will try to hurt his mother only in words. However, the real conversation with the mother turns out to be so tense and eventful: the murder of Polonius, reproaches that her new husband was a man “like a rusty ear, who killed his brother to death”, Hamlet’s conversation with the Ghost, which the mother does not see or hear, making on this basis, the conclusion about the real “madness” of the son, the discussion of the upcoming departure by order of the king to England, accompanied by those “whom I, like two vipers, believe” - that this monologue also turns out to be redundant.

Consider the situation with the sixth monologue of Hamlet. Previously, King Claudius delivers his own monologue, in which he confesses to committing the sin of fratricide. He then kneels down to pray, at which point Hamlet appears. Thus, only the viewer hears the king's confession of fratricide. In this sense, the viewer knows more than Hamlet, unlike Hamlet, “everything is clear”, therefore, psychologically, the viewer (as well as the reader of the play) can really be perplexed about the notorious indecision of the prince in revenge for his father.

Hamlet, in his monologue, argues that it is better to kill the king not "in a pure moment of prayer", but when he is busy with "in which there is no good." And indeed, during a conversation with his mother-queen, he strikes with a sword in the belief that there is a king behind the carpet, eavesdropping on his conversation with his mother, that is, doing exactly what is not good. But it really kills Polonius. And then Hamlet is sent to England, and he is no longer physically given the opportunity to realize the plan of revenge. Only when returning during the tragic duel with Laertes, set up by the king, that is, again at a moment in which there is “no good”, Hamlet kills the king, however, at the cost of his own death.

But let's imagine that Hamlet's monologue during the king's prayer is also removed by a determined choreographer. And still, Hamlet would have been forced to attack the king only, so to speak, on the occasion of. Because the reference to a conversation with the Ghost, that is, a native of the other world, and to the fact that the king became ill during the scene played out by the actors, would not have been received with understanding by others. This act would rather be interpreted as a real manifestation of the madness that Hamlet portrayed. It is important to recognize that again nothing would have changed if Hamlet's monologue was skipped in the background of the king's prayer.

Let us turn to the monologue of King Claudius. As already mentioned, in it the king directly confesses to fratricide, but the witnesses of this confession are only the audience, who, of course, with their knowledge of how things are in reality, cannot influence what happens on stage. In this sense, the king's monologue is also redundant.

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So, we have, on the one hand, a sequence of actions and scenes not necessarily connected; and, on the other hand, monologues, each of which, taken separately, is also not absolutely necessary. However, it seems obvious that the very existence of monologues along with with actions and scenes is an the most important feature of the composition Hamlet as a work of art. And this feature of the composition, as we will see now, gives rise to the possibility of interpretations, readings and, accordingly, productions that differ from each other. Let us emphasize this important thesis for us: the very presence of monologues as a compositional feature of the tragedy is a condition for an inexhaustible variety of interpretations, interpretations and perceptions both by the directors of theater and film productions, and simply by the readers of the tragedy.

Let's take a closer look at monologues. Here is the situation in which Hamlet delivers his first monologue. First, King Claudius reproaches the prince that he still continues to mourn for his father, and the queen mother explains that “everything that lives will die and pass through nature into eternity,” and asks what Hamlet finds unusual in the fate of his father? Hamlet responds by distinguishing between what seems, and the fact that eat. The signs of his grief for his father - a dark cloak, shortness of breath, grief-stricken features - this is all "what seems and can be a game", but here is what is "in me, more truthful than a game." This “in me”, as it seems to us, requires clarification.

Until now, we have proceeded from the translation of Mikhail Lozinsky. Let us turn to the translation of this passage by Anna Radlova (1937), here we are also talking about the difference between the signs of grief, which “cannot truly open me”, but “you can hardly depict what is inside”. We see that now we are talking about what is “inside”. Andrei Kroneberg's translation (1844) states that “none of these signs of sorrow will tell the truth; they can be played. And it all seems to be true. In my soul I wear what is, which is above all the sorrows of ornaments. Now "in me" and "within" is interpreted as "in my soul."

In the original, the line we are interested in looks like this: “But I have that within which passeth show”. It can be translated, if one does not pursue the poetic style, as follows: "But I have what is inside and which goes unnoticed." This means, given the context, unnoticed by the external eye.

So, Hamlet speaks of the difference between the external manifestations of mourning for his father and what is happening in his soul. This opposition of the outer and the inner passes the attention of the king and mother-queen. They again explain to the prince that "if something is inevitable and therefore happens to everyone, is it possible to disturb the heart in gloomy indignation?" Left alone, Hamlet utters a monologue, through which the inner life imperceptible to those around him is revealed.

Let us pay attention to the fact that this demonstration of inner life can be understood as a message of the hero addressed to himself. In this sense, the monologue has its own content, which can be considered separately from the rest of the sequence of events taking place on the stage. At the same time the monologue is all the same built in into the overall sequence of events. Thus, the monologue can be considered, on the one hand, as an independent whole, and on the other hand, as part of the overall action. These "on the one hand" and "on the other hand" signify the possibility of a dual approach to the monologue; and this duality of possible approaches gives rise to many different interpretations and, accordingly, different readings. Let us show how this duality is revealed.

Consider the monologue first as an independent whole. Two parts can be distinguished in it, following one after the other in time. One of them speaks of regret that there is a Christian ban on suicide, and that everything in the world seems to be a tiresome, dull and unnecessary lush garden in which wild and evil rules. In the second part, we are talking about a feeling of jealousy for the mother, who betrayed the memory of her father by a new marriage, who so tenderly treated her, "that the winds of the sky did not allow her face to touch."

While the second part of the monologue is a message about feelings about the mother's new marriage, the first part appears as a set of hyperbole. After all, it is clear that we are not talking about straight readiness for suicide "here and now", which is prevented only by the Christian norm, and not about what is actually in everything that is, reigns wild and evil. These hyperboles express the depth of Hamlet's feelings about his mother's behavior. Thus, it is found binary monologue structure: hyperbole plus story (message). At the same time, the first acts as a means of measuring the significance of the second: the son's jealousy about the mother's too quick marriage - in fact, an ordinary psychological feeling - is comprehended on the scale of a universal catastrophe.

Here we would like to refer to Lotman's ideas about situations where the subject conveys a message to himself. In these situations, writes Lotman, “the message in the process of communication is reformulated and acquires a new meaning. This happens because an additional - second - code is introduced and the original message is recoded in units of its structure, receiving the features of a new message.

Lotman explains: suppose a certain reader learns that a woman named Anna Karenina, as a result of unhappy love, threw herself under a train. And the reader, instead of incorporating this knowledge into her memory along with with what he already has, he concludes: "Anna Karenina is me." As a result, she reconsiders her understanding of herself, relationships with other people, and sometimes her behavior. Thus, the text of the novel "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy is considered "not as a message of the same type to everyone else, but as a kind of code in the process of communicating with oneself."

In our case, we are talking about Hamlet's perception of his own subjective feelings through the prism of the catastrophic state of the world. Although in fact it is still the same royal court that was under Hamlet's father. After all, even under the former king, Polonius was most likely the same somewhat talkative minister, there were courtiers Osric, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who just as diligently carried out the will of the former king, as well as the current one, the same nobles, ladies, officers ... In Kozintsev's film, Prince Hamlet, uttering the monologue passes, looking with an unseeing gaze at the nobles and ladies parting and bowing, and only when meeting with Horatio, human features appear on the face. But in fact, it was not the world that changed, the attitude towards it changed, and this changed attitude towards the world expresses the measure of the prince's feelings about the act of his mother.

But, as has already been said, the whole monologue can be considered as something that preceded in time to the next scene of the tragedy. In this case, the monologue will appear simply as a collection of poetic hyperboles and metaphors, which will include, along with the mention of the dim and unnecessary lush garden, the shoes that did not have time to wear out, in which the mother walked behind the coffin, the mention of the "bed of incest", etc. And now the semantic emphasis will shift to the last phrase of the monologue: “But be quiet, my heart, my tongue is chained!”. This phrase will act as a transition point to the subsequent conversation about the reasons that forced Horatio to leave Wittenberg, and about the hasty marriage of Hamlet's mother. In this case, only two or three metaphors can be left in the monologue in order to simply designate it as a separate stage action.

It is important for us to note the fundamental possibility of two options for staging the entire fragment associated with the first monologue. With one of them, Hamlet's perception of his own feelings through a catastrophic view of the world will be the main one, and in this case the monologue should be reproduced more or less in its entirety. In another version, the monologue turns into one of the scenes of the entire fragment, which begins with the solemn announcement of Claudius's marriage to the queen and ends with Hamlet's agreement with Horatio and the officers to meet on the watch platform at twelve o'clock. In this case, the monologue, in principle, can be completely removed, because its main idea - a critical attitude towards the new marriage of the queen mother - is still voiced in a dialogue with Horatio.

Both options for staging: the entire monologue as an expanded whole or its absence (or a significant reduction) will be performed by limit models, real productions can approach either one or the other model to varying degrees. This reveals the possibility of a whole gamut of variants, enriched by the inevitable individuality of the director and actors, the peculiarities of the scenery, lighting, dispositions, and so on.

Similarly, from the point of view of introducing a variety of different ways of seeing and staging the corresponding fragments, one can consider the rest of the monologues. Let's do it.

Let us turn to the second monologue of Hamlet. After the Phantom reported that Hamlet's father "lost his life, crown and queen" at the hands of a brother and was called to account before heaven "under the burden of imperfections", Hamlet, left alone, utters a monologue that begins with a direct psychological reaction to what he heard: "Oh army of heaven! Earth! And what else to add? Hell?" Then comes the call to fortitude: “Stop, heart, stop. And do not grow old, muscles, but carry me firmly.

Next, a symbolic act of purification, or, in modern terms, zeroing, of memory is performed: “I will erase all vain records from my memory table, all book words, all prints that youth and experience have saved; and in the book of my brain will remain only your covenant, not mixed with anything.

It is clear that again we are talking about hyperbole, and not about carrying out specific actions on one's own psyche. But this hyperbole measures the degree of conscious submission all future life exclusively to the imperative of revenge for the murder of his father: “Smiling scoundrel, damned scoundrel! - My tablets, - it is necessary to write down that you can live with a smile and be a scoundrel with a smile; at least in Denmark. - So, uncle, here you are. - My cry from now on: "Farewell, farewell! And remember me." I took an oath."

Here again, by means of one part of the monologue, the degree of significance of its other part is measured. Now we are not talking about exalting the feeling of jealousy to the level of a world catastrophe. But about such work with one’s own consciousness, in which only the bare idea of ​​​​revenge remains, next to which filial feelings for the mother, love for Ophelia, simple human pity and condescension recede into the shadows and begin to shrink to an infinitely small size.

But the same monologue can be considered again as part of the entire fragment, which describes the meeting of Hamlet with the Ghost. In this case, a sober and even ironic attitude towards the Ghost as a possible guise of the devil will be an essential moment. Let's remember Hamlet's exclamations: "O poor ghost!"; "BUT! That's what you said! Are you there buddy? “Here, do you hear him from the dungeon?”; “Yes, old mole! How cleverly you dig! Great digger!" .

Now the story of the Phantom will appear only as an additional psychological argument in favor of the already formed mortal hatred of the prince for his uncle, who married the dowager queen mother in order to seize the crown.

Before us again loom two opposite in And of this fragment and, accordingly, the possibility of a whole fan of intermediate variants of specific productions and readings.

The third monologue demonstrates the degree of Hamlet's perception of himself as a nonentity who is unable to say something worthy "even for the king, whose life and property have been so vilely ruined." As a scale, the ability of an actor “in a fictitious passion” to raise his spirit to his dream is put forward, “that from his work he became all pale; eyes are moistened, despair is in his face, his voice is broken, and his whole appearance echoes his dream.

In itself, the comparison of the ability to speak out loud your real feelings with the way an actor would do it, whose profession is to express not at all real, but precisely fictional passion, does not appear to be entirely correct. But it is important that this comparison serves, like a magnifying glass, to express the endless despair experienced by Hamlet at the thought that the promise to avenge the “mortified father”, given to himself after a conversation with the Ghost, has not yet been fulfilled. Note that here, too, a binary structure is revealed: acting skill is used as a way (code, according to Lotman) of measuring the degree of impotence to express one's true feelings about what is happening.

But let's consider this monologue in the general context of the fragment, which is usually called "The Mousetrap". Hamlet skillfully instructs the actors to act out a scene that should force King Claudius to pass himself off as a fratricide. Now the semantic emphasis of the entire monologue will again shift to the last phrase: “The spirit that appeared to me, perhaps, was the devil ... He leads me into death. I need more support. The spectacle is a noose to lasso the king's conscience." And Hamlet appears here not as a desperate loser, but as a person calmly preparing a trap for his powerful adversary.

We again see two limiting models for staging the entire fragment, which means the possibility of a variety of intermediate options, gravitating either to one or the other pole.

Let's proceed to the analysis of the fourth monologue, the famous "To be or not to be." Due to its complexity, this monologue cannot be reduced to a binary structure. On the other hand, it turns out to be the key to understanding the entire further course of the tragedy. Let's start by distinguishing its content parts.

At the beginning there is a statement of the question: "To be or not to be - that is the question." This is followed by a fragment in the form of a dilemma “What is nobler in spirit: to submit to fate. Or strike her with a confrontation? The third fragment begins with the words "To die, to fall asleep - and that's all." The fourth fragment begins: "Thus thinking makes us cowards."

Let us first turn to the third, most detailed fragment in the text. It equates death to sleep. But it is not known what dreams will be dreamed after getting rid of what is imposed by our mortal corporality. Fear of the unknown, which will follow after death, makes us endure the disasters of earthly life and not rush through "calculation with a simple dagger" to "what is hidden from us."

It seems that these thoughts can be legitimately associated with the first member of the above dilemma: submit to fate and drag out a miserable existence out of fear of what may follow after death.

The fourth fragment of the monologue is usually interpreted by translators as a continuation of the third: reflection ( meditation at M. Lozinsky, thought at B. Pasternak, consciousness in A. Radlova) about the uncertainty that follows after death, makes us cowards, and as a result, "beginnings that ascend powerfully" turn aside and lose the name of action.

But let us pay attention to the fact that in this case the powerfully ascended beginnings ( living field of courageous enterprises A. Kroneberg; big ideas that initially promised success, B. Pasternak; deeds of high, bold strength by A. Radlova) are strangely equated with giving yourself a calculation with a simple dagger. Or do you mean some other undertakings and plans on a grand scale?

Let us also pay attention to the fact that Shakespeare himself is not talking about meditation, thought or consciousness, but about conscience(conscience). However, even if we insert into the translation conscience, as A. Kroneberg did, then an even stranger thing turns out: “So conscience turns us all into cowards.”

The ability to be conscientious is not usually equated with cowardice. IN AND. Dahl defines conscience as moral consciousness, moral instinct or feeling in a person; inner consciousness of good and evil. He gives examples of the action of conscience: timid conscience, until you drown it. You will hide from a person, you will not hide from conscience (from God). Conscience torments, consumes, torments or kills. Remorse. Whoever has a clear conscience does not have a pillow under his head.

Thus, the only case when the definition of conscience is close in meaning to cowardice is: timid conscience until you drown it out. We emphasize that we are still talking not about cowardice, but about timidity.

Let's see what the corresponding English text looks like: "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all". A translation of a word coward gives the following options: coward, timid, cowardly. Based on the variability of the meaning of the word coward, let's translate the English text a little differently: "So, conscience makes each of us timid."

Based on these considerations, and translating the word pale not like pale, weak, dim(usually use this option), but how border, line, limits, translate the entire fragment as a subscript. But first, the original: “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o "er with the pale cast of thought; and enterprises of great pith and moment, with this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action".

Interlinear: “So, conscience makes each of us timid; and thus the inborn desire for the solution of the problem weakens and puts a limit on the throw of thought; and undertakings of great scope and importance are consequently swept down a curve and lose the name of the deed.”

It seems to us that in such a translation the fourth fragment can be compared with the second member of the dilemma: to slay fate by confrontation.

Let's see how the whole dilemma looks at the interlinear level, with the expression nobler in the mind translate as nobler .

But first, the English text: "Whether "tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of ​​troubles, and by opposing end them?"

Interlinear: "Which is nobler: to suffer from the sling and arrows of impudent fate, or to take up arms against a sea of ​​troubles and end them?"

Option Correlation take up arms against the sea of ​​troubles... with the reasoning from the fourth fragment about a conscience that makes us timid, turns the dilemma from which the monologue begins into a situation of choice: suffer from fate out of fear of death or end the sea of ​​troubles, overcoming the timidity inspired by conscience.

And so Hamlet chooses the second path, so he asks: “Ophelia? In your prayers, nymph, remember all that I have sinned. And then the mocking begins: Are you honest? ( Are you honest?); You are beautiful? ( Are you fair?); Why breed sinners? ( Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?); Smart people know well what kind of monsters (cuckolds - in the lane of M.M. Morozov) you make of them ( Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them).

So, the choice has been made, too big an enterprise is at stake - the restoration of a shattered century! Therefore, it is necessary to suppress the timidity inspired by the voice of conscience.

But another way of understanding the monologue is possible: to consider it in isolation, outside the general context, in the form of philosophical reflection-hesitation, when different ways of being are compared, measured, as if tasted. And then there is Ophelia. And Hamlet, guessing that they are being overheard, begins his insane speech, in which (note) the request-order to go to the monastery is repeated as a refrain ( Get thee to a nunnery), because this would allow Ophelia to fall out of the deadly game in which her father and King Claudius are dragging her.

Thus, the possibility of different interpretations and, accordingly, staging of this fragment already opens up again: in the interval between the decision to step over conscience and the desire to narrow the circle of participants to a duel only with King Claudius. But the tragic irony of the situation is that even this desire does not prevent the start of the machinery of death, which, beginning with the murder of Polonius by mistake instead of the king, did not stop until the other actors: Ophelia, the queen mother, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Laertes, the king Claudius and Hamlet himself did not leave the stage in the battle for the restoration of justice.

It remains for us to analyze the fifth, sixth and seventh monologues of Hamlet, as well as the monologue of the king. Let us first consider the monologues, which have the familiar binary structure, when one is measured through the other. These are the fifth and seventh monologues.

In the fifth monologue, Hamlet talks about the upcoming conversation with his mother. On the one hand, the mood with which the son goes to his mother is shown: “Now it’s just that magical hour of the night, // When the coffins gape and infection // Hell breathes into the world; now I'm hot blood / I could drink and do such a thing, / That the day would tremble. This part of the monologue shows what incredible efforts Hamlet has to make in order to keep himself within the boundaries after the behavior of the king during the scene staged by the actors clearly, according to Hamlet himself, revealed the guilt of the king in fratricide.

But, on the other hand, Hamlet calls himself, so to speak, to moderation: “Hush! Mother called. // O heart, do not lose nature; let // Soul of Nero not enter this chest; // I'll be cruel to her, but I'm not a fiend; // Let speech threaten with a dagger, not a hand.

The monologue ends with a call to oneself, we will give the corresponding phrase in the translation of M.M. Morozova: “Let my tongue and my soul be hypocritical in front of each other in this: no matter how I reproach her (mother. - M.N.) in words - do not fasten, my soul, these words with your consent!

This contradiction between the planned cruelty of words and the requirement for one’s soul not to agree with these same words will manifest itself in a combination of opposite intentions of the subsequent conversation with the mother: accusations of complicity in the murder of her husband (“Having killed the king, marry the royal brother ...”) and conversation as a loving son (“So good night; when you crave blessings, I will come to you for him”). Obviously, here, too, numerous options for staging the scene are possible, already incorporated in the monologue of Hamlet, going to talk with his mother.

Hamlet speaks the seventh monologue at a meeting with the army of Fortinbras, which is moving to conquer a piece of Polish land, for the protection of which the garrisons of Poland have already been put up.

First, a phrase is heard expressing Hamlet's despair from another delay in the execution of revenge due to a forced trip to England: "How everything around me exposes and rushes my sluggish revenge!". Then there are philosophical arguments: the one who created us “with such a vast thought, looking both forward and backward”, did not put this ability in us in order not to use it. However, this same ability to "look ahead" turns into a "pathetic habit" to overthink about the consequences and leads to the fact that for one share of wisdom there are three shares of cowardice.

The ability to think about the consequences is contrasted with the ambition of Prince Fortinbras, who leads the bulk of the troops, laughing at the unseen outcome. This is the real greatness: without worrying about a small reason, to enter into an argument over a blade of grass when honor is hurt. But this “hurt honor” is immediately characterized as a “whim and absurd glory”, for the sake of which “they go to the grave, like to bed, to fight for a place where everyone cannot turn around.” And now Hamlet, who has real reasons to fight for his honor, is forced to look at this with shame.

Generally speaking, Hamlet's attempting on himself the exploits of Fortinbras, who, due to his youth and provocative character, is looking for an excuse to simply fight, is not entirely legitimate. But it is important that the binary structure of the monologue is again revealed here: the delay due to various circumstances in the restoration of justice is emphasized by Fortinbras's willingness, without thinking about the consequences, to send people, including himself, to possible death.

However, let's consider the monologue in the context of the entire fragment related to the sending of Hamlet to England. Then the last phrase of the monologue will come to the fore: “O my thought, from now on you must be bloody, or the price is ashes!” And then, as we know, there followed the compilation of a forged letter, on the basis of which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, accompanying Hamlet, were executed upon arrival in England.

We note in parentheses that it was easier to return to Denmark with the original letter of King Claudius taken from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in which the British king ordered the execution of Hamlet. And on the basis of this letter, to carry out a completely justified palace coup, similar to what Laertes tried to do when he learned that his father was killed and buried "without pomp, without proper ceremony." But in this case, there would be two Laertes in one tragedy, which, undoubtedly, contradicts the laws of dramaturgy.

It is important that a whole fan of possible productions opens up again. Some of them will be guided by the disclosure in its entirety of the philosophical nature of the monologue, others - by the determination to fulfill the cold-blooded plan: for, as Hamlet tells his friend Horatio, "it is dangerous for an insignificant person to fall between attacks and fiery blades of mighty enemies."

Both remaining monologues - the king and Hamlet can be considered either separately or as a whole. Let's look at them individually first. So, the sixth monologue of Hamlet. One usually wonders why Hamlet does not use the extremely convenient moment of the king's prayer to fulfill his promise to the Ghost. Here is the king on his knees, here is the sword in his hands, what is the problem?

Indeed, Hamlet at first thinks like this: “Now everything would be done, - he is at prayer; and I will do; and he will ascend into heaven; and I am avenged." But then the notorious ones start again philosophical reflections: “Here it is required to weigh: my father dies at the hands of a villain, and I myself send this villain to heaven. After all, this is a reward, not revenge! It turns out that the killer will be slain "in a pure moment of prayer", while his victim was not cleansed of sins at the time of death. So, back, my sword! But when the king “is drunk, or in anger, or in the incestuous pleasures of the bed; in blasphemy, behind a game, behind something in which there is no good. "Then knock him down." The paradox is that the desire to restore justice on the principle of "measure for measure" just leads to a series of murders and deaths of people who are completely uninvolved in the relationship between Hamlet and the king.

Monologue of the King. The through thought of the monologue is the understanding of the impossibility of any prayer to remove a serious sin from oneself while preserving what this sin was committed for: “Here, I raise my eyes, the guilt is released. But what will I say? "Forgive me this heinous murder"? It cannot be, since I own everything that caused me to kill: the crown, and the triumph, and the queen. How to be forgiven and keep your sin?

What remains? Remorse? But repentance cannot help one who is unrepentant. And yet: “Bend, stiff knee! Veins of the heart! Soften like a small baby! Everything can still be good.” The king prays with a clear understanding that "words without thought will not reach heaven." This monologue reveals what kind of hell is going on in the soul of the king, who is aware of the impossibility of leaving the once chosen path.

Both monologues follow each other and in this sequence they can be saved. But other options are quite possible: leave only one of these two monologues, as Kozintsev did in his film, retaining only the king's monologue, or remove them altogether. The fact is that already the monologue of Hamlet, going to talk with his mother, is so saturated emotionally and full of meaning that the monologues of the king and Hamlet with a sword in hand that follow almost immediately after it may seem redundant.

But there is a detail that makes it worth keeping both monologues. The fact is that an extremely interesting thing is happening, this is the brilliant discovery of Shakespeare: prayer, uttered without faith in its action, nevertheless saves the king from the sword of Hamlet brought on him! And this means that it is possible to stage a fragment with an emphasis on the perception of prayer as an absolute value that saves, even if you do not believe in it.

Consider another place in the tragedy. Returning to Denmark, Hamlet talks to the gravedigger in the cemetery, talks about the skull of poor Yorick and about Alexander the Great, who turned into clay, which went, "maybe to plaster the walls."

In this scene, Hamlet's reasoning also looks like a kind of monologue, since Horace's participation as an interlocutor is minimal. Thus, the scene can be played as a relatively independent fragment with the disclosure of the philosophical theme of the frailty of everything that exists.

But the same scene can be represented as a calm before the storm, a respite, a short pause before the finale (by analogy with a piece of music). And then followed the fight between Hamlet and Laertes at the grave of Ophelia and the final decision on the restoration of justice through a death-sowing duel.

So, even the scene at the cemetery is variable, and the semantic accents here can be placed in various ways.

* * *

Arguing in accordance with the theory of Ilya Prigogine, we can recognize that each monologue in the tragedy "Hamlet" is a bifurcation point, in which divergent interpretations of the corresponding fragments are outlined. Taken together, these interpretations (interpretations and readings) can be represented as a boundless collection of intersecting and complementary potential artistic worlds.

However, one should not think that the director, while working on Hamlet, reflecting on the staging of the next monologue, is each time in the situation of a knight at a crossroads and, for various reasons, or even by a completely free act of will, chooses a version of further perception or interpretation of the plot. The decisive role is played by what Pushkin metaphorically called a magic crystal, through which at first vaguely, but then more and more clearly, the perception of the tragedy as a whole is distinguished. This image of the whole should determine the features of the interpretation or staging of a particular fragment or monologue. Pushkin used the metaphor of a magic crystal to reveal the features writing novel. In our case, we are talking about a stage production or a film version based on a certain literary text, nevertheless, it seems that the analogy is appropriate here.

And here, at the level of the vision of the whole, it is found, if we again proceed from the features of the composition of Hamlet, a wonderful duality, which sets the scale of versions (nuances, as Husserl would put it) of perceptions and staging of the tragedy, and, accordingly, of individual scenes and monologues. Let's focus on this side of the matter.

Lotman in his work "The Structure of the Artistic Text" introduces the division of the text into plotless and plot parts. The plotless part describes the world with a certain order of internal organization, in which the change of elements is not allowed, while the plot part is constructed as a negation of the plotless one. The transition to the plot part is carried out through developments, which is thought of as something that happened, although it might not have happened.

The plotless system is primary and can be embodied in an independent text. The plot system is secondary and is a layer superimposed on the main plotless structure. At the same time, the relationship between both layers is conflicting: it is precisely that, the impossibility of which is affirmed by the plotless structure, that constitutes the content of the plot.

Lotman writes: “The plot text is built on the basis of the plotless as its negation. ... There are two groups of characters - mobile and stationary. Motionless - obey the structure of the main, plotless type. They belong to the classification and assert it by themselves. Crossing the borders for them is prohibited. A mobile character is a person who has the right to cross the border. Lotman gives examples of heroes acting as mobile characters: “This is Rastignac, knocking himself out from the bottom up, Romeo and Juliet, crossing the line that separates hostile “houses”, a hero breaking away from the house of his fathers to take a veil in a monastery and become a saint, or a hero, breaking with his social milieu and leaving for the people, for the revolution. The movement of the plot, the event is the crossing of that forbidding boundary, which the plotless structure affirms. Elsewhere, Lotman directly names Hamlet among such characters: “The right to special behavior (heroic, immoral, moral, insane, unpredictable, strange - but always free from obligations indispensable for immovable characters) demonstrates a long series literary heroes from Vaska Buslaev to Don Quixote, Hamlet, Richard III, Grinev, Chichikov, Chatsky.

If we turn to Shakespeare's tragedy, bearing in mind the ideas of Lotman, we will find that the entire first act can be attributed to the plotless part, in which a certain state of affairs is announced: the announcement of the marriage of Claudius to the Queen Mother and the meeting of Hamlet with the Phantom, who reported the murder Claudius of his father. The transition from the plotless part to the plot part will be Hamlet's decision to correct this state of affairs: "The century has been shaken - and worst of all, / That I was born to restore it!". It is obvious that this decision is the event that puts the hero into an active state, this decision is what happened, although it might not have happened.

Let's take a closer look at the features of the composition of the non-plot part. It reveals two parallel, not directly related themes: the perception of the hasty marriage of the mother-queen in the context of a universal catastrophe (the world is like a garden dominated by the wild and evil) and the imperative of revenge for the vile murder of the king-father in order to seize his crown.

Imagine, as a thought experiment, that only one of these topics is left, and the other is completely canceled by the director of the play or film version. And it turns out that everything else: Hamlet's decision to restore the shattered century, his appearance before Ophelia in a crazy look instockings falling to the heels, the murder of Polonius instead of King Claudius during a meeting with his mother and beyond, up to the death-sowing duel, will continue with mutatis mutandis that does not change the essence of the matter. Thus, the peculiarity of Shakespeare's tragedy about Prince Hamlet, to which we have already paid attention, appears again: the removal of a part does not upset the whole.

But now it is important for us to emphasize the fundamental possibility two limiting models for staging the tragedy of Hamlet, corresponding exclusively to either the theme of the struggle to return the whole world to a normal state, or the theme of revenge for the murder of the king father and the restoration of law in the Danish kingdom. In reality, we can talk about a variety of options that gravitate towards one of these models as the leading one while maintaining the other only present to one degree or another. And this variety of options can be expressed, among other things, through different ways of presenting monologues in comparison with the original text.

Here we would like to return to the thesis put forward above: the presence of monologues as a compositional feature of tragedy is at least one of the conditions for its inexhaustible multitude of interpretations, interpretations and perceptions.

Let's compare films about Hamlet by Grigory Kozintsev, Franco Zeffirelli and Laurence Olivier from this point of view, while we abstract from the difference in their artistic merits.

In Kozintsev's film, in the first part, Hamlet's monologue about the queen's mother's hasty marriage is presented in more or less complete form: “There is no month! And the shoes are intact, / In which the coffin of the father accompanied. At the same time, a description of the surrounding world is given: “How insignificant, flat and stupid / It seems to me that the whole world is in its aspirations! // What dirt, and everything is defiled, as in a flower garden, overgrown entirely with weeds.

The monologue after the meeting with the Ghost, when the memory is cleared in the form of submission to the imperative of revenge for the murder of the father (“I will erase all the vain records from my memory table” and “only your testament will remain in the book of my brain, not mixed with anything”), - absolutely omitted in film. The scene of the oaths on the sword of Hamlet's companions and the exclamations of the Ghost from the dungeon are omitted, accompanied by Hamlet's ironic comments about the mole, which is so fast underground.

In Hamlet's monologue about the actor, the words are preserved: “What is Hecuba to him? // And he is crying. What would he do, // If he had the same reason for revenge, // Like me? But self-criticism for the delay in revenge on King Claudius and reasoning about the need to have more evidence than the words of the Ghost, who "could take on a favorite image," and that the intended performance (the Mousetrap) should allow the king's conscience "to be hooked with hints, are omitted" .

In Hamlet's monologue, after a conversation with the captain of Prince Fortinbras on the way to England, everything related to the theme of revenge and its delay is again omitted, but lines about the fallen state of the world are left: “Two thousand souls, tens of thousands of money / Do not feel sorry for some hay tuft! // So in the years of external well-being // Healthy people suffer death // From internal hemorrhage.

Omitted is Hamlet's monologue, which he utters while going to talk with his mother, as well as his reasoning at the sight of King Claudius praying that it is better to kill him not during prayer, but at the moment of sin.

If we take into account what is preserved in Hamlet's monologues and what is stopped, then the dominance of the theme of the struggle with the insignificant world, which is like a flower garden overgrown with weeds, becomes obvious.

Kozintsev himself develops precisely this theme in Hamlet in his book Our Contemporary William Shakespeare: “A picture of the distortion of social and personal relations opens before Hamlet. He sees the world, reminiscent of a neglected garden, where all living, fruitful things perish. Those who are lustful, deceitful, base, rule. ... Metaphors of gangrene, putrefaction, decay fill the tragedy. The study of poetic images shows that in "Hamlet" the representation of the disease leading to death and decay dominates.

... Everything went off track, got out of the grooves - both moral ties and state relations. All life circumstances are turned out. The era has turned sharply off the path; everything became painful and unnatural, like a dislocation. Everything is corrupted."

Let's turn to the film Zeffirelli. In the first monologue, both words about the fallen world and reproaches to the mother, who hastily married her uncle, are preserved. And Hamlet's monologue after meeting with the Ghost is almost completely reproduced: words are spoken about erasing all vain words from the memory table and replacing them with a covenant of revenge, to which the Ghost called him. This covenant is fiercely carved with a sword on stone.

In the monologue about the actor, self-criticism comes to the fore: “I, the son of a mortified father, / Drawn to revenge by heaven and hell, / Like a whore, I take my soul away with words.” A part of the monologue is also presented, which refers to the preparation of a performance designed to expose Claudius and confirm the words of the Phantom: “I command the actors // To present something that my uncle would see // The death of my father; cry into his eyes; // Penetrate to the living; as soon as he trembles, // I know my way. ... The spirit that appeared to me // Perhaps there was also a devil; the devil is powerful // Put on a cute image. … I need // Verney support. The spectacle is a noose, // To lasso the conscience of the king.

We see the dominance of the theme of revenge. This is confirmed by the almost complete preservation of the monologue uttered by Hamlet at the time of the king's prayer: "Now everything would be done - he is at prayer." However, “I myself send this villain to heaven, ... After all, this is a reward, not revenge! ... When he is drunk, / Or will be in the pleasures of the bed; // - Then knock him down, // So that he kicks into the sky with his heels.

So, a comparison of Kozintsev's film and Zeffirelli's film, even at the level of monologues, shows a visible difference in accents. If we return to the scheme of two limiting models, it is obvious that Kozintsev's film will fit in the interval closer to the model with the exclusively theme of correcting the world, and Zeffirelli's film will be closer to the model of the exclusively theme of revenge for the murdered king-father. It can be assumed that the production based on the second model, in its extreme expression, would gravitate toward an action movie. It is no coincidence that in the Zeffirelli film, in the fight scene, even Horatio walks around with a sword on his shoulder.

In Olivier's film, Claudius's monologue with a confession of fratricide and Hamlet's monologues are preserved in their entirety - with the exception of the monologue in which Hamlet compares himself with an actor and criticizes himself for slowness, only the lines are preserved here: "I conceived this performance, // So that the conscience of the king on him to be able // Hints, as if on a hook, to hook.

The theme of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who, according to Shakespeare's play, accompany Hamlet to England, is completely stopped; in this regard, there is no monologue in which Hamlet again reproaches himself for indecision, comparing himself with Fortinbras, leading troops to seize a piece of land in Poland.

These omissions show that the theme of revenge ultimately prevails in Olivier's film, which brings it closer to the Zeffirelli film.

Let us now assume that we are talking about acquaintance with the text of a tragedy, not in terms of its staging, but as a simple reader, moving through the text as it is - entirely and completely - with a return to what has already been read. In the situation of such a reader, the stage director is also at the first stage, who only after that will begin to build the tragedy in the form of an action irreversible in time. In this case, the tragedy will appear before the mind's eye simultaneously in all possible forms; including in the form of intermediate options between the above limiting models. As a result, the text of Shakespeare's Hamlet will inevitably be revealed as something multidimensional and contradictory.

The same in music. A musical text in the form of a spatial set of signs can be studied endlessly and comprehensively, and if, of course, the ability to hear their sound in the course of looking at the notes has been developed, its unlimited variability can be found. But in concert hall under the waving of the conductor's baton, not a musical notation is performed, but the musical work itself in the form of this irreversible sequence in time of accents and intonations, and then the potential infinite variability present in the score will give way to unambiguity and one-sidedness.

This opportunity to study text"Hamlet" by means of movement along it in arbitrary directions corresponds again by virtue of features of its construction the inevitable antinomy of perception, including in the form of the notorious antithesis of slowness and at the same time the ability to take decisive actions of the protagonist. Here, yesterday’s student at the University of Wittenberg intellectually reproaches himself with the words “Oh, what kind of rubbish I am, what a miserable slave!”, But the same monologue ends with cold-blooded plans for organizing a spectacle that should, like a noose, lasso the conscience of the king. In a real staging of the tragedy, it will inevitably be necessary, albeit purely intonation, to focus either on the monologue as an independent whole, or on its ending. However, for the reader, this “either - or” is missing, but there is both.

This is the difference between the inevitable unambiguity productions Shakespearean tragedy in the form of a stage performance and the equally inevitable antinomy of its perception in the course of studying text shows through in an interesting way when comparing the works of L.S. Vygotsky about the Prince of Denmark, written with an interval of 9 years.

In his early work (1916), Vygotsky, under the impression of Stanislavsky's production of Hamlet, which in turn acted as the embodiment of the ideas of Gordon Greg, gives a very definite, namely symbolic-mystical interpretation of the tragedy: "Hamlet, immersed in earthly everyday life, everyday life, stands outside her, taken out of her circle, looking at her from there. He is a mystic, walking all the time along the edge of the abyss, connected with it. The consequence of this basic fact - touching the other world - is all this: rejection of this world, disunity with it, a different being, madness, sorrow, irony.

In his later work (1925), Vygotsky highlights the perception of the whole tragedy about Hamlet as a riddle. “...Research and critical works about this play are almost always in the nature of interpretations, and they are all built on the same model - they try to unravel the riddle posed by Shakespeare. This riddle can be formulated as follows: why is Hamlet, who is supposed to kill the king immediately after talking with the shadow, in no way able to do this, and the whole tragedy is filled with the history of his inaction? .

Vygotsky writes that some critical readers believe that Hamlet does not immediately take revenge on King Claudius because of his moral qualities or because too much work is entrusted to too weak shoulders (Goethe). At the same time, they do not take into account that often Hamlet just acts as a man of exceptional determination and courage, completely not caring about moral considerations.

Others look for the reasons for Hamlet's slowness in objective obstacles, and argue (Karl Werder) that Hamlet's task was first to expose the king, and only after that to punish. These critics, writes Vygotsky, do not notice that in his monologues Hamlet is aware that he himself does not understand what makes him hesitate, and the reasons that he gives to justify his slowness cannot actually serve as an explanation for his actions.

Vygotsky writes, referring to Ludwig Berne, that the tragedy of Hamlet can be compared to a picture on which a veil is thrown, and when we try to lift it up to see the picture; it turns out that the fleur is drawn on the painting itself. And when critics want to remove the riddle from tragedy, they deprive the tragedy itself of its essential part. Vygotsky himself explains the riddle of tragedy through the contradiction between its fable and plot.

“If the content of the tragedy, its material tells how Hamlet kills the king in order to avenge the death of his father, then the plot of the tragedy shows us how he does not kill the king, and when he does, it does not come out of revenge at all. Thus, the duality of the plot-plot - the obvious flow of action on two planes, all the time a firm consciousness of the path and deviations from it - an internal contradiction - are laid in the very foundations of this play. It is as if Shakespeare chooses the most suitable events in order to express what he needs, he chooses material that finally rushes to the denouement and makes him painfully evade it.

But let us introduce the abstraction of a collective reader, which will unite all readers and critics of the literary text called Hamlet, mentioned by Vygotsky in his later article: Goethe, Werder, Berne, Gessner, Kuno Fischer, etc., we will also include Vygotsky himself in this list as the author of both works about the Prince of Denmark. We will see that the perception of the text of the tragedy by this collective reader-critic will cover just the whole variety of its possible versions, which is implicitly present in the Hamlet tragedy itself due to the peculiarities of its composition. It can be assumed that this variety of reader versions and in And The productions will tend to coincide with the variety of the tragedy's productions that have already taken place, as well as those that will be carried out in the future.

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Nenashev Mikhail Ivanovich

Tragedy Hamlet. The tragedy Hamlet, written in 1601, is one of Shakespeare's most brilliant creations. In it, under the allegorical image of "rotten" medieval Denmark, England was meant in the 16th century, when bourgeois relations, replacing feudal ones, destroyed the old concepts of honor, justice, and duty. The humanists, who opposed the feudal oppression of the individual and believed in the possibility of re-liberation from any oppression, were now convinced that the bourgeois way of life does not bring the desired liberation, infects people with new vices, gives rise to self-interest, hypocrisy, lies. With amazing depth, the playwright reveals the state of people experiencing the breaking of the old and the formation of new, but far from ideal forms of life, shows how they perceive the collapse of hopes.

The plot of Hamlet written at the end of the 12th century. Saxopus Grammaticus in his History of Denmark. This ancient Jutlandic legend has been repeatedly subjected to literary processing by authors from different countries. A decade and a half before Shakespeare, his talented contemporary Thomas Kpd turned to her, but his tragedy has not been preserved. Shakespeare filled the plot familiar to the audience with a sharp topical meaning, and the "tragedy of revenge" acquired a sharp social sound under his pen.

In Shakespeare's tragedy we are talking about power and tyranny, the greatness and meanness of a person, about duty and honor, about loyalty and revenge, questions of morality and art are touched upon. Prince Hamlet is noble, smart, honest, truthful. He indulged in the sciences, appreciated the arts, loved the theater, was fond of fencing. A conversation with the actors testifies to his good taste and poetic gift. A special property of Hamlet's mind was the ability to analyze life phenomena and make philosophical generalizations and conclusions. All these qualities, according to the prince, were possessed by his father, who "was a man in the full sense of the word." And in it he saw that perfect harmony of the spirit, "where each god pressed his seal to give the universe the image of man." Justice, reason, fidelity to duty, concern for subjects - these are the features of the one who "was the true king." This is what Hamlet was preparing to become.

But in the life of Hamlet, events occur that opened his eyes to how far from perfection the world around him is. How much in it is apparent, and not true well-being. This is the content of the tragedy.

Suddenly his father died in the prime of his life. Hamlet hurries to Elsinore to comfort the Queen Mother in grief. However, not even two months have passed, and the mother, in whom he saw an example of female purity, love, marital fidelity, "and did not wear out the shoes in which she went behind the coffin," becomes the wife of the new monarch - Claudius, brother of the deceased king. Mourning is forgotten. The new king feasts, and volleys announce that he has drained another cup. All this haunts Hamlet. He mourns for his father. He is ashamed of his uncle and mother: "Stupid revelry to the west and east shames us among other peoples." Anxiety, anxiety is felt already in the first scenes of the tragedy. “Something is rotten in the Danish state.”

Appearing ghost father confides to Hamlet a secret about which he vaguely guessed: the father was killed by the envious and treacherous Claudius, pouring deadly poison into the ear of his sleeping brother. He took both the throne and the queen from him. The ghost calls for revenge. Envy, meanness, lies and filth in people close to him shocked Hamlet, plunged him into a severe spiritual despondency, which those around him perceive as madness. When the prince realized this, he used his apparent madness as a means to lull Claudius's suspicions and figure out what was happening. Under the circumstances, the prince is very lonely. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz turned out to be spies assigned by the king, and the astute young man very soon figured this out.

Having comprehended the true state of things, Hamlet comes to the conclusion: in order to correct the vicious age, it is not enough to fight with one villain Claudius. Now he perceives the words of the ghost that called for revenge as a call to punish evil in general. “The world has been shaken, and the worst thing is that I was born to restore it,” he concludes. But how to fulfill this most difficult mission? And will he be up to the task? In the struggle, he even faces the question of “to be or not to be,” that is, is it worth living if it is impossible to overcome the dark forces of the age, but it is also impossible to put up with them. Exploring the psychological state of the hero, V. G. Belinsky notes two conflicts experienced by the prince: external and internal.

The first is the clash of his nobility with the meanness of Claudius and the Danish court, the second - in a mental struggle with himself. “The terrible discovery of the secret of his father’s death, instead of filling Hamlet with one feeling, one thought - the feeling and thought of revenge, ready for a minute to be realized in action - this discovery made him not go out of himself, but withdraw into himself and concentrate in his insides. spirit, aroused in him questions about life and death, time and eternity, duty and weakness of will, drew his attention to his own personality, its insignificance and shameful impotence, gave birth to hatred and contempt for himself.

Other On the contrary, they consider the prince to be a strong-willed, stubborn, decisive, purposeful person. “The reasons for such a sharp disagreement in determining the dominant features of that character,” writes Ukrainian researcher A. Z. Kotopko, “in our opinion, lie primarily in the fact that Shakespeare’s characters, in particular Hamlet, are characterized by a multifaceted character. As a realist artist, Shakespeare possessed an amazing ability to bring together the opposite sides of the human character - its general and individual, socio-historical and moral and psychological features, reflecting in this the contradictions of social life. And further: “Doubts, hesitations, reflections, slowness of Hamlet are doubts, hesitation, reflections of a resolute, brave man. When
href="http://www.school-essays.info/">Hamlet
convinced of the guilt of Claudius, this decisiveness is already manifested in his actions.

Hamlet, written in 1601, is one of Shakespeare's most brilliant creations. In it, under the allegorical image of "rotten" medieval Denmark, England was meant in the 16th century, when bourgeois relations, replacing feudal ones, destroyed the old concepts of honor, justice, and duty. The humanists, who opposed the feudal oppression of the individual and believed in the possibility of re-liberation from any oppression, were now convinced that the bourgeois way of life does not bring the desired liberation, infects people with new vices, gives rise to self-interest, hypocrisy, lies. With amazing depth, the playwright reveals the state of people experiencing the breaking of the old and the formation of new, but far from ideal forms of life, shows how they perceive the collapse of hopes.

Plot " " written at the end of the 12th century. Saxopus Grammaticus in his History of Denmark. This ancient Jutlandian was repeatedly subjected to literary processing by authors from different countries. A decade and a half before Shakespeare, his talented contemporary Thomas Kpd turned to her, but his tragedy has not been preserved. Shakespeare filled the plot familiar to the audience with a sharp topical meaning, and the “tragedy of revenge” acquired a sharp social sound under his pen.

In Shakespeare's tragedy we are talking about power and tyranny, the greatness and baseness of a person, about duty and honor, about loyalty and revenge, questions of morality and art are touched upon. Prince Hamlet is noble, smart, honest, truthful. He indulged in the sciences, appreciated the arts, loved the theater, was fond of fencing. A conversation with the actors testifies to his good taste and poetic gift. A special property of Hamlet's mind was the ability to analyze life phenomena and make philosophical generalizations and conclusions. All these qualities, according to the prince, were possessed by his father, who "was in the full sense of the word." And in it he saw that perfect harmony of the spirit, "where each god pressed his seal to give the universe of man." Justice, reason, fidelity to duty, concern for subjects - these are the features of the one who "was the true king." This is what Hamlet was preparing to become.

But in the life of Hamlet, events occur that opened his eyes to how far from perfection the world around him is. How much in it is apparent, and not true well-being. This is the content of the tragedy.

Suddenly his father died in the prime of his life. Hamlet hurries to Elsinore to comfort the Queen Mother in grief. However, not even two months have passed, and the mother, in whom he saw an example of female purity, love, marital fidelity, "and did not wear out the shoes in which she went behind the coffin," becomes the wife of the new monarch - Claudius, brother of the deceased king. Mourning is forgotten. The new king feasts, and volleys announce that he has drained another cup. All this haunts Hamlet. He mourns for his father. He is ashamed of his uncle and mother: "Stupid revelry to the west and east shames us among other peoples." Anxiety, anxiety is felt already in the first scenes of the tragedy. “Something is rotten in the Danish state.”

Appearing ghost father confides a secret to Hamlet, about which he vaguely guessed: the father was killed by an envious and treacherous man, pouring deadly poison into the ear of his sleeping brother. He took both the throne and the queen from him. The ghost calls for revenge. Envy, meanness, lies and filth in people close to him shocked Hamlet, plunged him into severe spiritual despondency, which others perceive as madness. When the prince realized this, he used his apparent madness as a means to lull Claudius's suspicions and figure out what was happening. Under the circumstances, the prince is very lonely. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz turned out to be spies assigned by the king, and the astute young man very soon figured this out.

Having comprehended the true state of things, Hamlet comes to the conclusion: in order to correct the vicious age, it is not enough to fight with one villain Claudius. Now he perceives the words of the ghost that called for revenge as a call to punish evil in general. “The world has been shaken, and the worst thing is that I was born to restore it,” he concludes. But how to fulfill this most difficult mission? And will he be up to the task? In the struggle, he even faces the question of “to be or not to be”, that is, is it worth living if you cannot overcome the dark forces of the age, but it is also impossible to put up with them. Exploring the psychological state, V. G. Belinsky notes two conflicts experienced by the prince: external and internal.

The first is the clash of his nobility with the meanness of Claudius and the Danish court, the second - in a mental struggle with himself. “The terrible discovery of the secret of his father’s death, instead of filling Hamlet with one feeling, one thought - the feeling and thought of revenge, ready for a minute to be realized in action - this discovery made him not go out of himself, but withdraw into himself and concentrate in his insides. spirit, aroused in him questions about life and death, time and eternity, duty and weakness of the will, drew his attention to his own, her insignificance and shameful impotence, gave birth to hatred and contempt for himself.

Other On the contrary, they consider the prince to be a strong-willed, stubborn, decisive, purposeful person. “The reasons for such a sharp disagreement in determining the dominant features of that character,” writes Ukrainian researcher A. Z. Kotopko, “in our opinion, lie primarily in the fact that Shakespeare’s characters, in particular Hamlet, are characterized by a multifaceted character. As a realist artist, Shakespeare possessed an amazing ability to bring together the opposite sides of the human character - its general and individual, socio-historical and moral and psychological features, reflecting in this the contradictions of social life. And further: “Doubts, hesitations, reflections, slowness of Hamlet are doubts, hesitation, reflections of a resolute, brave man. When he became convinced of the guilt of Claudius, this decisiveness is already manifested in his actions.

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