What do you think is the core meaning of Hamlet? Or, do you think it is mere entertainment for the masses?
Hamlet was the only one who spoke the truth and they thought him mad.
>>25620291strange alternatives. a lot of mere entertainment has a core message. a lot of more difficult art has no clear core message. a lot of the masses enjoy difficult art. me for instance.
>>25620291Why would Hamlet have a core meaning? Shaksper didn't write it for English classes.
>>25620321He didn’t, but evidently OP needs help with his English homework.
>>25620345>>25620309>>25620321I am just trying to provoke discussion, its 4am but yes I should have added all sorts of variables, I just want know what people make of the play's themes or what they think those themes are.
Hamlet is an intentionally multi-faceted, complex masterwork. I do not like the phrasing of it having a "core meaning."The subject it deals with better than any other piece of literature is human intelligence, of the structure of thought. The only work that equals Hamlet on this subject are certain pieces of music by Bach, obviously through an entirely different grammar. You can summarize and draw out abstract little fragments about what the okay Hamlet says about human thought, that's not particularly difficult, and if you are looking for a subject for your LIT311 class that's not a bad way to go. But the actual statement is to a degree irreduceable to something less than what the play says as the play says it.
>>25620291Artistic failure.
>>25620364just read it anon it's all right there in the textyou think someone is going to uncover some hidden code?stop being lazy
>>25620413>is human intelligence, of the structure of thoughtYou can't elaborate on this (because it's laughably insipid)
>>25620500If I had your thoughts it would be, yes.
/lit/ will pounce on any reason to not discuss literature.
>>25620413>>25620525Shit I was hoping you had some depth of thought
>>25620556Hamlet gives seven soliloquies. You are meant to compare them, of course, but they are all on different topics. In all of them, however, Hamlet gives ample, discursive attention to the flow of his thoughts, what has effected him and why, and as a body their subject and the subject of the play is Hamlet's mind. I feel this is why Shakespeare introduced and was obviously interested in Hamlet's feigned (or maybe no so feigned) insanity.This page lists where the solioquies are, I doubt any of the analysis on that page is worth reading.https://www.wshakespeare.com/plays/hamlet-soliloquies/I will now return to my preferred method of posting, which is primarily drive-by insults.
>>25620291The core of the play is about Horatio and Horatio’s sadness and at the end of the play Horatio is like ‘wtf mate’ and Fortinbras is like ‘ I thought all these Danes were going to fight me’ and Horatio ‘ I am afraid that is not what has happened is the case is what I would tend to you now Fortinbras’ ‘Horatio do you understand that Norway is still writing with moonrunes, which is a shame’‘ Fortinbras that is a thing that is very much to Norway’s shame’
>>25620605Ah the play has disappeared beneath the folio and the folio beneath the analysis. How cringe, anon.
>>25620531Give us a genuinely interesting prompt for discussion that doesn’t feel like doing your schoolwork for you, and maybe we’d have a reason to engage.
>>25620605huh
>>25620722Stop being such a jaded, bitter, dumbass
>>25620640>what news of fortinass
>>25620495This is a fucking discussion board holy shit
>>25620291What do you think is the core meaning of Confederacy of Dunces? You need to realize that Hamlet and Ignatius are essentially the same character. Many miss this because modern theater is insistent on portraying Hamlet as young and virile, but people miss that Hamlet is basically just an overly excitable and fat (Hamlet's mother even remarks on this during the duel) grad student who flies off the handle the same way Ignatius does. In the 1800s and before it was common to portray Hamlet as bordering-on-insane (that's why he's called the mad prince), and those were much more accurate portrayals.Anyways, the takeaway is that you shouldn't fuck around with the crazies, and you should give them a very wide berth. Alternatively you could say the message is to just let shit go (something Hamlet could never do, and it leads to tragedy for everyone).
>>25620722Who don't you fix your engagement with a beautiful woman?
>>25621031A) These are valid points, howeverB) You are taking a weak interpretation of the play and saying that's what it means instead of addressing a stronger interpretation. Hamlet's mom may allude to him being fat, but Hamlet himself gives a brief speech about feigning insanity and then engages in several scenes as such. Maybe in the 1800s the actor would have been fat to emphasize the former because there is support for it, but in modern versions the person playing Hamlet pushes the impression of Hamlet's possible insanity and there is support for that as well. The question, though, is which interpretation makes for a better work? The modern Hamlet certainly exists in the text, I'll take it from you that the 1800s Hamlet does as well, but if they are both there why insist on making the play something smaller? It's like seeing a 16oz and a 20oz steak on the menu, and you ask the waiter why they're the same price. He says oh the chef always eats a 16oz steak himself. You ask if it's better, a nicer part of the muscle maybe? Better marbling? And the waiter says "Oh no, I've asked the chef that myself, he says the meat in one is as good as the other, he just eats the 16oz one." And so you say, ok, I guess I'll have the 16.
>>25621167I don't think a fat and actually mad hamlet is any less meaty than a lean and cunning one. And I don't see a cunning Hamlet as any more strongly supported than a mad Hamlet (indeed, I see the rest of the play hanging together much better if Hamlet is mad than if he is sane).All that said, the main point of my post was to observe the absurdity of asking a question like 'what is the core meaning of X,' especially in the context of Hamlet. Even if you look at the title character as cunning, does the a 'core meaning' suddenly become clear? No, of course not! Not any more than the trite 'takeaways' that I suggested in my earlier post.
>>25620291My take when I was 16 that may or not be stupid was that Hamlet is about grappling with sin. He's going insane because of an evil act and wants something pure and good to believe in but cannot grasp it. "What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven (purity) and earth (vileness)."Half of the play is him going, I am evil ("Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words"), Claudius is evil, Gertrude is evil, Ophelia is evil ("Thou shalt not escape calumny") but he wishes she weren't, he wants her to "go to a nunnery" and escape the wickedness of the world, which, ultimately, she does upon her death. Claudius and Gertrude also repent, almost like Hamlet's peculiar madness is contagious. I think we are supposed to sympathize with Hamlet, who causes so much destruction, since he's the "fall of a sparrow" and "good night sweet prince, now cracks a noble heart."It reminds me a lot of more modern works with character-freaks-out-about-everything-being-corrupt narratives like All My Sons ("A man can't be a Jesus in this world") and Catcher in the Rye (the line about someone writing "fuck" on every nice thing, also has that prostitute/nun dichotomy).
>>25621196
>>25620291It's about death's power over the human mind
>>25620291Would the answer lead one to inner peace? If not, why care?
>>25620291you will suffer until you accept the truth
>>25621456It might help you along that path, yes
>>25621186I agree that "what's the core meaning" is a bad question to ask about Hamlet.
>>25620291>What do you think is the core meaning of Hamlet?The core meaning of Hamlet is that when you take your state for granted and allow it to be consumed with petty intrigues, you will be conquered by someone who has their shit together.
>>25620413>Hamlet is an intentionally multi-faceted, complex masterwork.This is true. There are all manner of explorations into numerous themes like decisiveness (or lack of it), death, love and family, hubris, political exploitation-- the list goes on and on.But the answer to the question is still this: >>25621547
>>25621196Good post>>25621311A lot of the posts I end up thinking about weeks afterward get zero (you)s at the time
>>25620291The theme is "death." When Hamlet stabs Polonius through the curtain it is esoteric symbolism of him reaching through the veil of the afterlife.All of the plot points revolve around the death of someone or something. The characters literally die along with what they symbolize figuratively dying.Ophelia represents love and dies after her heart is broken.Laertes represents honour and dies after he betrays his moral code.Claudius represents power and dies while his kingdom falls.Gertrude represents motherhood and dies after she loses the respect of her son.The specific cause of each death is haphazard and random, showing the weakness of human existence.Hamlet himself is the grim reaper, submerging the world in death to avenge his father. He is the hero since he alone embraces mortality as a philosophy
For me it's Mel Gibson's Hamlet
>>25621726My main takeaway from Hamlet was that it was about death, but that also mirrors my outlook on life. I feel like this too >>25621547Shakespeare was always commenting on contemporary politics>>25621777Nice trips, I probably like his performance the best, but I like Branagh's film the most.
yo im kinda newto 4chan entirely, idk how this stuff works. Can anyone help me outthxx
>>25622083Yes. First, speak like a human. Second, lurk for at least a year before posting. Anything else?
>>25621031Confederacy of Dunces is about like how Flannery O’Connor claimed that the United States South is Christ Haunted and that especially in New Orleans you gotta be on your guard for Italian neorealism and Christ and also be on your guard for pirates alley whiskey but that’s new orleans the blessed town at the mouth of the Christ Haunted Mississippi River
>>25620291I haven’t read it in a decade, but his inaction didn’t do him any favors.
>tfw shakespear stole hamlet from the nords>tfw muh ancestors
The failure of art to capture human suffering shown by Hamlet not able to grieve properly
>>25623964Maybe if his dads ghost didn't fuck up the grieving process
>>25620291shakespeare exists to keep the king james Bible and tyndales response to more legible
>>25624283Can you make your post more legible?
