Shakespeares Hamlet - A Clear Revenge Tragedy? Essay -- Revenge Veng

Hamlet – a Revenge Tragedy?  Ã‚        Ã‚   Most of the revenge-tragic aspect of the Shakespearean play Hamlet is explicitly presented. Some is disguised as straight tragedy, for example, Ophelia’s insanity and death; and some is implied tragedy found in the history of verbal allusions.    In the essay â€Å"An Explication of the Player’s Speech,† Harry Levin discusses the implied tragic dimension of the â€Å"Hecuba† soliloquy:    But the lyrical note can prevail no more than the epical, since Shakespeare’s form is basically tragic; and here his classical model is indicated when Polonius, introducing the Players, warns: â€Å"Seneca cannot be too heavy.† From â€Å"English Seneca read by candlelight,† according to Thomas Nashe, playwrights were lifting handfuls – or were they Hamlets? – of â€Å"tragical speeches.† (31)    Howard Felperin sees in Hamlet a return to the once-extinct revenge play (Felperin 105). Although defunct for awhile, the revenge tragedy resurrected prior to the date of Hamlet’s composition.    The prince has a possible motive for revenge from the very outset: he is dejected by the â€Å"o’erhasty marriage† of his mother to his uncle. Hamlet’s first soliloquy sees the expression of his negative feelings and their growth in intensity; it emphasizes the corruption of the world and the frailty of women:    Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As if increase of appetite had grown   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   By what it fed on: and yet, within a month—   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!—(1.2)   Ã‚   Based on the meeting of the hero and Horatio, A.C. Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy presents convincing evidence of the depth of the hero’s melancholy – is it potent enough to perform rev... ...ry Rhetoric in the Renaissance. N.p.: Yale University Press, 1976.    Levin, Harry. General Introduction. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.    Mack, Maynard. â€Å"The World of Hamlet.† Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.    Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. â€Å"Hamlet: A Man Who Thinks Before He Acts.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. N. p.: Pocket Books, 1958.