Hamlet Critical Perspectives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Hamlet Critical Perspectives - Essay prototypeThis was almost a requirement, because England was under fire from more nations, including Rome and the Catholic church, due to Henry eight (her father) brea superpower with the Vatican during his reign. Yet by the start of the seventeenth century, the queen was in her late sixties and to quotation mark the French ambassador De Maisse She kept the front of her dress open, and one could see the whole of her squashand Her bosom is somewhat wrinkled. As such Doctor Lavery draws the comparison of her and the elderly Gertrude, with whom Hamlet cannot hide his horror when she marries Claudius (Lavery). Another contemporary viewpoint that Lavery believes Shakespeare used as a main theme for the play was revenge, especially when it pertained to corruption in government. True Hamlet sought true blood revenge for his father the king was murdered by his own brother in order to seize the throne. But he besides grappled with an even bigger prob lem in that the government should be toppled, with violence if necessary, if it is deemed to be un disciplineable. Perhaps the foundation fathers of the United States learned well from Hamlet and used his ideas when they decided to secede from England well over a century later. Then again it has been said by others that the inspiration for Hamlet was a Latin work from the thirteenth century called Vita Amlethi, well before Elisabeths Tudor monarchy had been established. Hamlet uses many mythological references in the work, along with historical figures interspersed to mythological status. For instance, the Roman emperor Julius Caesar (who was a central figure in many of Shakespeares works) was mentioned in three times in the play, mostly as part of Hamlets play within a play. Speaking of his uncle Claudius, Hamlet refers to him as a satyr, the drunken buffoon in Roman mythology from which we get the word satire. Of course figures from the Judaic Christian belief system is heavily referenced from the obvious references to Cain and Abel (Claudius slew his brother), the beggar Lazarus, Saints Peter, Patrick and James, to Jesus Christ himself. Even the madness of Hercules from Greek mythology is borrowed from, to reference the built-in theme of insanity in the play. In his work Teaching Shakespeares Hamlet, Douglas Grudzina argues that the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud and his protege Carl Jung looked heavily at the mythological aspects of Hamlet when Jung said some myths are repeated throughout history in cultures and eras that could not possibly have had any contact with one another as in the Greeks and Chinese having essentially the same stories. Jung believed that this concept was especially true in relation to religious beliefs. Every culture basically believes in creation and some sort of life after death. Based upon Shakespeares own beliefs, that would thusly explain the ghostly appearance of Hamlets father, asking that his son avenge him (Gr udzina). The feminism of Hamlet, or lack of it, has been well documented, especially in the late twentieth century and one of the most notable of those was the tragic Ophelia, whose eventual madness was caused by her maltreatment from most if not all of the males she encountered. For a reference point so well written about by so many scholars, she appears