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All characters of Hamlet( Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia)
M.A:- Sem 1
Roll No:- 28
Enrollment No:- 2069108420170002
Enrollment No:- 2069108420170002
Paper No:-1
Unit:-1
Topic:- All characters of Hamlet( Hamlet, Gertrude
and Ophelia)
College :- Department of English (M.K.B.U)
Email:-priyankabaraiya8895@gmail.com
Hamlet:- Characters of Ophelia, Hamlet and Gertrude
Introduction:- William Shakespeare has
universalized his literary work. He wrote many sonnets, comedies, tragedies and
tragic comedies. Usually his female characters are strong but in it we go
Hamlet we find feeble through.
Female
characters in Shakespeare’s Drama:-
In the play ‘Macbeth’ the lady Macbeth is very forceful .
Her force many difficulties in jungle but through her
intellectuality she impressed us.
She succeed in defeating forces against her. In ‘King
lear’ the youngest daughter of the king is one of the strongest women .
Characters of Shakespeare she had to leave the kingdom for truth. In most of
Shakespeare drama women are virtues , beautiful are praised for their qualities
. But in Hamlet both the women are feeble. Gertrude is Hamlet’s mother who
maries Hamlet’s uncle within few months of his husband’s death. Other female is
Ophelia who is Hamlet’s beloved. She is shown very innocent lacking the
intellectual ability.
Character
of Hamlet:-
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare at an uncertain date between
1599 and 1602. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet is called to wreak upon his uncle, Claudius, by the ghost of Hamlet's
father, King Hamlet.
Role in the play
The play opens with Hamlet deeply depressed
over the recent death of his father, King Hamlet, and his uncle Claudius' ascension to the throne and hasty marriage to Hamlet's mother Gertrude. One night, his father's ghost appears to
him and tells him that Claudius murdered him in order to usurp the throne, and
commands his son to avenge his death.
Claudius sends for two of Hamlet's friends from Wittenberg, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern, to find out what is
causing Hamlet so much pain.
Views of Hamlet
Perhaps the most straightforward view sees
Hamlet as seeking truth in order to be certain that he is justified in carrying
out the revenge called for by a ghost that claims to be the spirit of his
father. The 1948 movie with Laurence Olivier in
the title role is introduced by a voiceover: "This is the tragedy of a man
who could not make up his mind."
T. S. Eliot offers a similar view of Hamlet's
character in his critical essay, "Hamlet and His Problems" (The
Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism). He states, "We find
Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' not in the action, not in any quotations that we might
select, so much as in an unmistakable tone...".
Character of Gertrude:-
In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Gertrude is Hamlet's mother and Queen of Denmark. Her relationship with Hamlet is
somewhat turbulent, since he resents her marrying her husband's brother Claudius after he murdered the King (young
Hamlet's father, King Hamlet). Gertrude reveals no guilt in her
marriage with Claudius after the recent murder of her husband, and Hamlet begins
to show signs of jealousy towards Claudius. According to Hamlet, she scarcely
mourned her husband's death before marrying Claudius.
Role in the play
Gertrude is first seen in Act 1 Scene 2 as
she tries to cheer Hamlet over the loss of his father, begging him to stay at
home rather than going back to school in Wittenberg. Her worry
over him continues into the second act, as she sides with King Claudius in
sending Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern to raise the
spirits of her son. Also, rather than ascribing Hamlet's sudden madness to Ophelia's rejection
(as thought by Polonius), she
believes the cause to be his father, King Hamlet's death and
her quick, subsequent marriage to Claudius: "I doubt it is no other but
the main; His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage."[1] In Act
three, she eagerly listens to the report of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on
their attempt to cheer him, and supports the King and Polonius' plan to watch
Hamlet from a hidden vantage point as he speaks with Ophelia, with the hope
that her presence will heal him.
Performances
Women were almost exclusively banned from
appearing as actresses on the stage until approximately 1660 and in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods,
troupes appeared that were composed entirely of boy players. Indeed,
they are famously mentioned in Hamlet, in which a
group of travelling actors has left the city due to rivalry with a troupe of
"little eyases"
Influences
Gertrude and Claudius, a John Updike novel,
serves as a prequel to the events of the play. It follows Gertrude from her
wedding to King Hamlet, through an affair with Claudius, and its murderous
results, until the very beginning of the play. Gertrude also appears as a
character in Howard Barker's Gertrude—The
Cry, which uses some of the characters from Hamlet.
Hamlet has
played "a relatively small role" in
the appropriation of Shakespeare's plays by women writers. Margaret Atwood's "Gertrude
Talks Back", in her 1992 collection of short stories Good Bones, sees the
title character setting her son straight about Old Hamlet's murder: "It
wasn't Claudius, darling, it was me!"
The character of Gemma Teller Morrow on the
FX show Sons of Anarchy which incorporates plot elements from Hamlet, is
influenced by and shares many traits with Queen Gertrude.
Character of Ophelia:-
Ophelia is a character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and potential wife of Prince Hamlet. She is one of two female characters in
the play.
She is beautiful, faithful,
and obedient. She is sweet lovely, innocent and a saint like figure. Her
character is totally dependent on male character. She is epitome of goodness.
Ophelia loved her father, brother and lover deeply. She clings to the memory of
Hamlet when he left her.
Gertrude chose a brother
over a dead Hamlet. Here we can see that she is additionally preserves unlike
Gertrude .
Ophelia has good response to be harsh realities of life. She dies
drawing in the river amidst of garbands.
Frailty thy name is women:-
Hamlet feels betrayed by Gertrude is far more apparent with the addition
of Ophelia to the play. Hamlet’s feelings of rage against his mother can be
directed towards Ophelia in his estimation. Hiding her base nature behind a guise
of the impeccability and if women are harlots then they must have their
procurers .Gertrude has been made a whore by Claudius, and Ophelia has been mad
a whore by her father.
Hamlet’s estimation is her sexual
use by not one man but by more than one man. What seems to avenge in the
nunnery interlude is that Ophelia has put her sense of love and duty for him,
just as Gertrude put her sense of love and duty . Her new husband above her
sense of love and duty for her old.
Ophelia : Epitome of
goodness.
Ophelia represents something very different to those who are not blinded
by hurt and rage. Ophelia is the epitome of goodness very much like Gertrude.
Young Ophelia is child like and naïve. Unlike queen Gertrude , Ophelia has good
reason to be unaware of the harsh realities of life . She is very young, and
lost her mother possibly at birth . Her father polonius and brother gives her
very pain.
Even though her love for Hamlet is strong, she obeys her father when he
tells her not to see Hamlet again or accept any letters that Hamlet writes .
Her heart is pure when she does do something dishonest , such as tell
Hamlet that her father has gone home when he is really behind the curtain, it
is out of genuine fear. Ophelia clings to the memory of Hamlet treating her
with respect and tenderness. She defends him and loves him to the very and
despite his brutality . She is incapable of defending her self , but through
her timid responses we see clearly her intense suffering.
Hamlet: I did love you once.
Ophelia: Indeed my lord you
made me believe so.
Hamlet: You should not have
believed me I loved you not.
Ophelia: I was the more deceived.
Feminist:-
In the 20th century feminist critics opened up new approaches
to Gertrude and Ophelia. New historicist and cultural materialist critics
examined the play in its historical context.
Ophelia is also deafened by feminist critics. Most notably Elaine
showalter Ophelia is surrounded by powerful men. Her father, brother and Hamlet
.Hamlet abandons her and Polonius dies . Feminist theorists argue that she goes
mad with guilt because when Hamlet kills her father.
He has fullfield her sexual desires to have Hamlet kill her father so
they can be together. Showalter points out that Ophelia has became the
distraught and hysterical woman in modern culture. The bawdy songs that she
sings in front of laerts , Gertrude and Claudius are somber reminders that the
corrupt world has taken his its toll on the pure Ophelia. They shows us that
only in her insanity does she live up to Hamlet’s false perception of her as a
lascivious woman.
Comparison between Ophelia
and Gertrude:-
In the Hamlet both the female characters are weaker in the
comparison of other females of Shakespeare . They lack virtues . Through
Ophelia we witness Hamlet’s evolution or devolution Gertrude has been made
whore by Claudius while Ophelia by Polonius
Analysis of love – hate relation between Hamlet
and Ophelia.
This
consideration occupied with others as to Hamlet’s state of mind. Seem to be
point to two two types they suggests first that Hamlet’s love, though never
lost , was after Ophelia’s apparent rejection of him.
Hamlet’s love,
they seem to show not only mingled with bitterness it was also like all his
healthy feelings, weakened and deepen by his melancholy . It was far from being
extinguished. Probably it was one of the causes which prove him to force his
way to Ophelia it awake and the circumstances being what they were tormented
him.
Theatrical experience:- He knew that the not
observe how unnatural it was that a man deeply in love and forced not only to
remove but to wound the woman he loved, should not think of her when he was
alone.
This result
may seem to imply a serious accusation against Shakespeare . Tones , gestures
and by play how far Hamlets feigned harshness to Ophelia was mingled with real bitterness, and again
hpw far his melancholy had dead ended his love.
In last seen
Ophelia gone mad because her love is not success.
Conclusion:-
Character of
Hamlet and Ophelia are very sensitive .
Gertrude and
Ophelia both are shown as weaker sex.
Females are
given lower category.
They are
symbols of ingratitude and infidelity.
Both are
powered bye man and lack of freedom.
The Biographia Literaria by Samuel Coleridge.
M.A:- Sem 1
Roll No:- 28
Enrollment No:- 2069108420170002
Paper No:-3
Unit:-4
Sub:- Literary theory and criticism
Topic:- The Biographia Literaria by
Samuel Coleridge
College :- Department of English
(M.K.B.U)
Email:-priyankabaraiya8895@gmail.com
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who,
with his friend William Wordsworth,
was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was
highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture.
In
the wonderful “ Ode to Dejection” from which the above fragment is taken, we
have a single strong impression of Coleridge’s whole life – a sad , broken ,
tragic life. In marked contrast with the peaceful extence of his friend
Wardsworth for him self . During the greater part of his life . The poet had
only grief and remorse as his portion, But for anybody else. For the audience
that were charred by the brilliancy of
his literary lectures. For the friends who gathered about him to be inspired by
his ideals and conversation, and for all his readers who found unending delight
in the little volume which holds his poetry. He had and still has a cheering
message full of hope and beauty and inspiration. Coleridge a man of grief who
makes world glad.
Early
life:-
Samuel's father was the
Reverend John Coleridge (1718–1781), the well-respected vicar of St Mary's Church, Ottery St
Mary and
headmaster of the King's School, a free grammar school established by King Henry VIII (1509–1547) in the town. He had
previously been Master of Hugh Squier's School in South Molton, Devon, and Lecturer of nearby Molland.
John Coleridge had three
children by his first wife. Samuel was the youngest of ten by the Reverend Mr.
Coleridge's second wife, Anne Bowden (1726–1809),probably the daughter of John
Bowden, Mayor of South Molton, Devon, in 1726.
Coleridge
suggests that he "took no pleasure in boyish sports" but instead read
"incessantly" and played by himself.
After John Coleridge died in 1781,
8-year-old Samuel was sent to Christ's Hospital, a charity school which was founded in
the 16th century in Greyfriars, London, where he remained throughout
his childhood, studying and writing poetry. At that school Coleridge became
friends with Charles Lamb, a schoolmate, and studied the works of Virgil and William Lisle Bowles.
In one of a series of
autobiographical letters written to Thomas Poole, Coleridge wrote: "At six
years old I remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, and Philip
Quarll – and then I found the Arabian Nights' Entertainments – one tale of which (the tale of a man
who was compelled to seek for a pure virgin) made so deep an impression on me
(I had read it in the evening while my mother was mending stockings) that I was
haunted by spectres whenever I was in the dark – and I distinctly remember the
anxious and fearful eagerness with which I used to watch the window in which
the books lay – and whenever the sun lay upon them, I would seize it, carry it
by the wall, and bask, and read."
Throughout his life,
Coleridge idealised his father as pious and innocent, while his relationship
with his mother was more problematic. His
childhood was characterised by attention seeking, which has been linked to his
dependent personality as an adult. He
was rarely allowed to return home during the school term, and this distance
from his family at such a turbulent time proved emotionally damaging.
He later wrote of his
loneliness at school in the poem "Frost at Midnight": "With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt/Of my
sweet birthplace."
Literary criticism
Biographia Literaria
In addition to his poetry, Coleridge also wrote influential
pieces of literary criticism including Biographia Literaria, a
collection of his thoughts and opinions on literature which he published in
1817.
The work delivered both biographical
explanations of the author's life as well as his impressions on literature. The
collection also contained an analysis of a broad range of philosophical
principles of literature ranging from Aristotle to Immanuel
Kant and Schelling and
applied them to the poetry of peers such as William Wordsworth.
Coleridge's
explanation of metaphysical principles
were popular topics of discourse in academic communities throughout the 19th
and 20th centuries, and T.S. Eliot stated
that he believed that Coleridge was "perhaps the greatest of English
critics, and in a sense the last." Eliot suggests that Coleridge displayed
"natural abilities" far greater than his contemporaries,
dissecting literature and applying philosophical principles of metaphysics in a
way that brought the subject of his criticisms away from the text and into a
world of logical analysis that mixed logical analysis and emotion. However,
Eliot also criticises Coleridge for allowing his emotion to play a role in the
metaphysical process, believing that critics should not have emotions that are
not provoked by the work being studied.
Hugh Kenner in Historical
Fictions, discusses Norman Fruman's Coleridge,
the Damaged Archangel and
suggests that the term "criticism" is too often applied to Biographia Literaria, which
both he and Fruman describe as having failed to explain or help the reader
understand works of art. To Kenner, Coleridge's attempt to discuss complex
philosophical concepts without describing the rational process behind them
displays a lack of critical thinking that makes the volume more of a biography
than a work of criticism.[44]
In Biographia
Literaria and his poetry,
symbols are not merely "objective correlatives" to Coleridge, but
instruments for making the universe and personal experience intelligible and
spiritually covalent. To Coleridge, the "cinque spotted spider,"
making its way upstream "by fits and starts," Biographia Literaria is
not merely a comment on the intermittent nature of creativity, imagination, or
spiritual progress, but the journey and destination of his life. The spider's
five legs represent the central problem that Coleridge lived to resolve, the
conflict between Aristotelian logic and Christian philosophy. Two legs of the
spider represent the "me-not me" of thesis and antithesis, the idea
that a thing cannot be itself and its opposite simultaneously, the basis of the
clockwork Newtonian world view that Coleridge rejected. The remaining three
legs—exothesis, mesothesis and synthesis or the Holy trinity—represent the idea
that things can diverge without being contradictory. Taken together, the five
legs—with synthesis in the center, form the Holy Cross of Ramist logic. The
cinque-spotted spider is Coleridge's emblem of holism, the quest and substance
of Coleridge's thought and spiritual life.
Works
of Coleridge’s:-
Coleridge is one of the most important figures in English
poetry. His poems directly and deeply influenced all the major poets of the
age. He was known by his contemporaries as a meticulous craftsman who was more
rigorous in his careful reworking of his poems than any other poet, and Southey
and Wordsworth were dependent on his professional advice. His influence on
Wordsworth is particularly important because many critics have credited
Coleridge with the very idea of "Conversational Poetry". The idea of
utilising common, everyday language to express profound poetic images and ideas
for which Wordsworth became so famous may have originated almost entirely in
Coleridge’s mind. It is difficult to imagine Wordsworth’s great poems, The Excursion or The
Prelude, ever having been written without the direct influence of
Coleridge’s originality.
As important as Coleridge was to poetry as a poet, he was
equally important to poetry as a critic. His philosophy of poetry, which he
developed over many years, has been deeply influential in the field of literary
criticism. This influence can be seen in such critics as A. O.
Lovejoy and I. A.
Richards.
The Rime
of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan.
Coleridge is probably best known for his long
poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Even those who have never read the Rime have come under its influence: its
words have given the English language the metaphor of an albatross around
one's neck, the quotation of "water, water everywhere, nor any drop to
drink" (almost always rendered as "but not a drop to drink"),
and the phrase "a sadder and a wiser man" (again, usually rendered as
"a sadder but wiser man"). The phrase "All creatures great and
small" may have been inspired by The
Rime: "He prayeth best, who loveth best;/ All things both great and
small;For the dear God who loveth us;He made and loveth all." Christabel is known for its musical rhythm,
language, and its Gothic tale.
Kubla
Khan, or, A
Vision in a Dream, A Fragment, although shorter, is also widely known. Both Kubla Khan and Christabel have an additional "Romantic" aura
because they were never finished. Stopford Brooke characterised
both poems as having no rival due to their "exquisite metrical
movement" and "imaginative phrasing."
In
xanadu did Kubla Khan
A
stately pleasure-dome decree
Where
Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through
caverns measureless to man
Down
to a sunless sea.
Conclusion:-
The
work of Coleridge’s criticism and biographia literaria and lectures on
Shakespeare are very important in our English Literature. He was influenced by
many contemporary writers of his age. The influences which were most potent in
shaping the views and theories of Coleridge and wordswarth.
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