The meaning of parallel lines in Shakespeare's tragedies Hamlet and King Lear. Plot structure of the tragedy "Hamlet" Composition and artistic features

The basis of the dramatic composition of William Shakespeare's Hamlet is the fate of the Danish prince. Its disclosure is structured in such a way that each new stage of the action is accompanied by some change in Hamlet’s position, his conclusions, and the tension increases all the time, right up to the final episode of the duel, ending with the death of the hero.

From the point of view of action, the tragedy can be divided into 5 parts.

Part 1 - the beginning, five scenes of the first act. Hamlet's meeting with the Ghost, who entrusts Hamlet with the task of avenging the vile murder.

The tragedy is based on two motives: the physical and moral death of a person. The first is embodied in the death of his father, the second in the moral fall of Hamlet's mother. Since they were the closest and dearest people to Hamlet, with their death that spiritual breakdown occurred when for Hamlet his whole life lost its meaning and value.

The second moment of the plot is Hamlet's meeting with the ghost. From him the prince learns that the death of his father was the work of Claudius, as the ghost says: “Murder is vile in itself; but this is the most disgusting and most inhuman of all.”

Part 2 - the development of action arising from the plot. Hamlet needs to lull the king's vigilance; he pretends to be crazy. Claudius takes steps to find out the reasons for this behavior. The result is the death of Polonius, the father of Ophelia, the prince's beloved.

Part 3 - the climax, called the “mousetrap”: a) Hamlet is finally convinced of Claudius’s guilt; b) Claudius himself realizes that his secret has been revealed; c) Hamlet opens Gertrude's eyes.

The culmination of this part of the tragedy and, perhaps, of the entire drama as a whole is the episode of the “scene on the stage.” The random appearance of the actors is used by Hamlet to stage a play depicting a murder similar to the one committed by Claudius. Circumstances favor Hamlet. He gets the opportunity to bring the king to such a state where he will be forced to give himself away by word or behavior, and this will happen in the presence of the entire court. It is here that Hamlet reveals his plan in the monologue that concludes Act II, at the same time explaining why he has been hesitating until now:

Part 4: a) sending Hamlet to England; b) the arrival of Fortinbras in Poland; c) Ophelia's madness; d) death of Ophelia; d) the king’s agreement with Laertes.

Part 5 - denouement. Duel of Hamlet and Laertes, Death of Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, Hamlet.

MONOLOGUE
Hamlet's behavior, actions, his thoughts are a search for answers to these questions. His thoughts about the meaning of life and doubts about the correctness of his chosen actions were reflected primarily in his monologues, especially in the monologue of the third act “To be or not to be?” The answer to this question revealed the essence of Hamlet's tragedy - the tragedy of a person who came into this world too early and saw all its imperfections. This is a tragedy of the mind. A mind that decides for itself the main problem: should it fight the sea of ​​evil or avoid the fight? Rise “on a sea of ​​turmoil” and defeat them or submit to “the slings and arrows of furious fate”? Hamlet must choose one of two possibilities. And at this moment the hero, as before, doubts: is it worth fighting for a life that “breeds only evil”? Or give up the fight?

Hamlet is worried about “the unknown after death, the fear of a country from which no one has returned.” And therefore, he probably cannot “give himself a settlement with a simple dagger,” that is, commit suicide. Hamlet realizes his powerlessness, but cannot give up his life, because he has the task of avenging his father, restoring the truth, punishing evil. The decision has almost been made: he must make a “reckoning with a dagger,” but not on himself. However, such a decision requires action from Hamlet. But thought and doubt paralyze his will.

And yet Hamlet decides to go to the end. The choice is made - “to be!” To fight against evil, against hypocrisy, against deception, against betrayal. Hamlet dies, but before his death he thinks about life, about the future of his kingdom.

Monologue “To be or not to be?” reveals to us the soul of a hero who finds it extremely difficult in the world of lies, evil, deception, and villainy, but who, nevertheless, has not lost the ability to act. Therefore, this monologue is truly the highest point of Hamlet’s thoughts and doubts.

Shakespeare's tragedies. Features of conflict in Shakespeare's tragedies (King Lear, Macbeth). Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his literary career. One of his first plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, and a few years later the play Romeo and Juliet appeared. However, Shakespeare's most famous tragedies were written during the seven years of 1601-1608. During this period, four great tragedies were created - Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, as well as Antony and Cleopatra and the lesser-known plays Timon of Athens and Troilus and Cressida. Many researchers have associated these plays with the Aristotelian principles of the genre: the main character should be an outstanding, but not devoid of vices, person, and the audience should have a certain sympathy for him. All of Shakespeare's tragic protagonists have the capacity for both good and evil. The playwright follows the doctrine of free will: the (anti) hero is always given the opportunity to extricate himself from the situation and atone for his sins. However, he does not notice this opportunity and goes towards fate.

The tragedy "King Lear" is one of the most profound socio-psychological works of world drama. It uses several sources: the legend about the fate of the British king Lear, told by Holinshed in the Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland based on earlier sources, the story of old Gloucester and his two sons in Philip Sidney's pastoral novel Arcadia, some moments in Edmund's poem Spencer's "The Faerie Queene". The plot was known to the English audience because there was a pre-Shakespearean play, “The True Chronicle of King Leir and His Three Daughters,” where everything ended happily. In Shakespeare's tragedy, the story of ungrateful and cruel children served as the basis for a psychological, social and philosophical tragedy that paints a picture of injustice, cruelty, and greed prevailing in society. The theme of the antihero (Lear) and conflict are closely intertwined in this tragedy. A literary text without conflict is boring and uninteresting to the reader; accordingly, without an antihero, a hero is not a hero. Any work of art contains a conflict between “good” and “evil”, where “good” is true. The same should be said about the importance of the antihero in the work. The peculiarity of the conflict in this play is its scale. K. grows from a family into a state and already covers two kingdoms.

William Shakespeare creates the tragedy “Macbeth”, the main character of which is a similar person. The tragedy was written in 1606. "Macbeth" is the shortest of William Shakespeare's tragedies - it has only 1993 lines. Its plot is borrowed from the History of Britain. But its brevity did not in any way affect the artistic and compositional merits of the tragedy. In this work, the author raises the question of the destructive influence of individual power and, in particular, the struggle for power, which turns the brave Macbeth, a valiant and renowned hero, into a villain hated by everyone. In this tragedy of William Shakespeare his constant theme sounds even stronger - the theme of fair retribution. Fair retribution falls on criminals and villains - a mandatory law of Shakespearean drama, a peculiar manifestation of his optimism. His best heroes die often, but villains and criminals always die. In Macbeth this law is especially evident. In all his works, William Shakespeare pays special attention to the analysis of both man and society - separately, and in their direct interaction. “He analyzes the sensual and spiritual nature of man, the interaction and struggle of feelings, the diverse mental states of a person in their movements and transitions, the emergence and development of affects and their destructive power. W. Shakespeare focuses on turning points and crisis states of consciousness, on the causes of the spiritual crisis, external and internal causes, subjective and objective. And it is precisely this internal conflict of a person that constitutes the main theme of the tragedy “Macbeth”.

The tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" (1595). The plot of this tragedy was widespread in Italian short stories of the Renaissance. Particularly famous was Bandello's novella (“Romeo and Juliet. All sorts of misadventures and the sad death of two lovers”) and its adaptation by Arthur Brooke in the poem “The Tragic History of Romeus and Juliet,” which served as a source for Shakespeare.

The events of the play take place in the city of Verona, which is overshadowed by the long-standing enmity of two influential families: the Montagues and the Capulets. At the ball, Romeo Montague first saw young Juliet Capulet and fell in love with her dearly. Friar Lorenzo secretly marries them, hoping that this marriage will end the protracted feud between the two families. Meanwhile, avenging the death of his closest friend, the cheerful Mercutio, Romeo kills the frantic Tybalt. He is sentenced to exile, and Juliet's parents decide to marry her to Count Paris. Lorenzo persuades Juliet to drink a sleeping pill, which will temporarily create the appearance of her death. Mistaking the sleeping Juliet for a dead woman, Romeo drinks poison and dies. Juliet, awakened from sleep, finding her beloved husband dead, stabs herself to death with his dagger.

The leading theme of Romeo and Juliet is the love of young people. One of the achievements of European culture of the Renaissance was precisely a very high idea of ​​human love.

Romeo and Juliet, under the pen of Shakespeare, turn into genuine heroes. Romeo is ardent, brave, smart, kind, ready to forget about the old enmity, but for the sake of a friend he enters into a duel. Juliet's character is more complex. The death of Tybalt, and then the matchmaking of Paris, puts her in a difficult position. She has to dissemble and pretend to be a submissive daughter. Lorenzo's bold plan frightens her, but love eliminates all doubts.

A number of colorful figures appear near Romeo and Juliet in the tragedy: the lively nurse, the learned monk Lorenzo, the witty Mercutio, Tybalt, personifying the protracted turmoil, etc. And the story of Romeo and Juliet is sad, but this sadness is light. After all, the death of young people is a triumph of their love, ending the bloody feud that has disfigured the life of Verona for many decades.

"Othello" (1604). The love of the Venetian Moor Othello and the daughter of the Venetian senator Desdemona forms the plot basis of the play. Othello, believing Iago’s slander, raises his hand against an innocent woman. Knowing well that the Moor is by nature a man of a free and open soul, Iago builds his low and vile plan on this. The world of Othello and Desdemona is a world of sincere human feelings, the world of Iago is a world of Venetian egoism, hypocrisy, and cold prudence. For Othello, losing faith in Desdemona meant losing faith in man. But the murder of Desdemona is not so much an explosion of dark passions as an act of justice. Othello takes revenge both for desecrated love and for a world that has lost harmony.

In this regard, it is interesting to compare Shakespeare's tragedy with Geraldi Cintio's novella The Moor of Venice. This is an ordinary bloody story about an unbridled Moor who, due to bestial jealousy, with the help of a lieutenant, kills Disdemona and even under torture does not admit to the crime he has committed. Shakespeare's tragedy is written in a completely different vein. In her, Othello was able to arouse the love of the educated and intelligent Desdemona.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. The eternal questions raised in the text concern humanity to this day. Love conflicts, themes related to politics, reflections on religion: this tragedy contains all the basic intentions of the human spirit. Shakespeare's plays are both tragic and realistic, and the 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 Kyd. Researchers and literary scholars suggest that Shakespeare borrowed the plot from him. However, Thomas Kyd himself probably consulted earlier sources. Most likely, these were short stories from the early Middle Ages.

Saxo Grammaticus, in his book “The History of the Danes,” described the real story of the ruler of Jutland, who had a son named Amlet and a wife Geruta. The ruler had a brother who was jealous of his wealth and decided to kill him, 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 differently and penetrates deeper into the psychology of each character.

The essence

Hamlet returns to his native castle Elsinore for his father's funeral. From the soldiers who served at the court, he learns about a ghost who comes to them at night and whose outline resembles the late king. Hamlet decides to go to a meeting with an unknown phenomenon, a further meeting horrifies him. The ghost reveals to him the true cause of his death and persuades his son to take revenge. The Danish prince is confused and on the verge of madness. He doesn’t understand whether he really saw his father’s spirit, or was it the devil who visited him from the depths of hell?

The hero reflects on what happened for a long time and ultimately decides to find out on his own whether Claudius is really guilty. To do this, he asks a troupe of actors to perform 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 a sinister truth is revealed. All this time, Hamlet pretends to be crazy, and even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who were sent to him, could not find out from him the true motives of his behavior. Hamlet intends to talk to the queen in her chambers and accidentally kills Polonius, who hid behind the curtain in order to eavesdrop. He sees in this accident a 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 himself dies from poison. The kingdom passes into the hands of the Norwegian ruler Fortinbras.

Genre and direction

“Hamlet” is written in the genre of tragedy, but the “theatrical” nature of the work should be taken into account. After all, in Shakespeare’s understanding, the world is a stage, and life is a theater. This is a specific worldview, a creative look at the phenomena surrounding a person.

Shakespeare's dramas are traditionally classified as. She is characterized by pessimism, gloom and aestheticization of death. These features can also 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 hero’s emotional experiences, 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 on all sides, the prince is going to fight it, despite all the difficulties.

Composition

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

The action can be divided into five parts:

1. First part - plot. Here Hamlet meets the ghost of his deceased father, who bequeaths him to take revenge for his death. In this part, the prince for the first time encounters human betrayal and meanness. This is where his mental torment begins, which does not let him go until his death. Life becomes meaningless for him.
2. 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 advisor, 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, using 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. Part four - 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 is forced to fight Laertes. In this part, all the main participants in the action die: Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet himself.

The main characters and their characteristics

• Hamlet– from the very beginning of the play, the reader’s interest is focused on the personality of this character. This “bookish” boy, as Shakespeare himself wrote about him, suffers from the disease of the approaching century - melancholy. At his core, he is the first reflective hero of world literature. Someone may think that he is a weak person, incapable of action. But in fact, we see that he is strong in spirit and is not going to submit to the problems that befell him. His perception of the world changes, particles of former illusions turn to dust. This gives rise to that same “Hamletism”—an internal discord in the hero’s soul. By nature he is a dreamer, a philosopher, but life forced him to become an avenger. Hamlet’s character can be called “Byronic”, because he is extremely focused on his inner state and is quite skeptical about the world around him. He, like all romantics, is prone to constant self-doubt and tossing between good and evil.
• Gertrude- Hamlet's mother. A woman in whom we see the makings of intelligence, 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 a time when grief has occurred 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 understands how wrong her behavior was, and how wise and fearless her son turned out to be.
• Ophelia- daughter of Polonius and lover 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 fake move invented by someone. This is the same madness that occurs at the moment of true suffering; it cannot be stopped. There are some hidden indications in the work that Ophelia was pregnant with Hamlet's child, and this makes the realization of her fate doubly difficult.
• Claudius- a man who killed his own brother to achieve his own goals. Hypocritical and vile, he still carries a heavy burden. The pangs of conscience devour him daily and do not allow him to fully enjoy the rule to which he came to in such a terrible way.
• Rosencrantz And Guildenstern– Hamlet’s so-called “friends” 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 a worthy punishment for them: as a result, they die instead of Hamlet.
• Horatio- an example of a true and faithful friend. The only person the prince can trust. They go through all the problems together, and Horatio is ready to share even death with his friend. It is to him that Hamlet trusts to tell his story and asks him to “breathe some more in this world.”

Themes

1. Hamlet's Revenge. The prince was destined to bear the heavy burden of revenge. He cannot coldly and calculatingly deal with Claudius and regain the throne. His humanistic principles force him to think about the common good. The hero feels responsible for those who have suffered from the evil that is widespread around him. He sees that it is not Claudius alone who is to blame for the death of his father, but all of Denmark, which blithely turned a blind eye to the circumstances of the death of the old king. He knows that to take revenge he needs to become an enemy to everyone around him. His ideal of reality does not coincide with the real picture of the world; the “shaken age” arouses hostility in Hamlet. The prince understands that he cannot restore peace alone. Such thoughts plunge him into even greater despair.
2. Hamlet's love. Before all those terrible events, there was love in the hero’s life. But, unfortunately, she is unhappy. He loved Ophelia madly, and there is no doubt about the sincerity of his feelings. But the young man is forced to give up happiness. After all, the proposal to share sorrows together would be too selfish. To finally break the connection, he has to inflict pain 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. Hamlet's friendship. The hero values ​​friendship very much and is not used to choosing his friends based on his assessment of 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 man in this world, strength and weakness, the right to revenge and murder.

One of the main ones is problem of choice, which the main character faces. There is a lot of uncertainty in his soul; alone he 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 understands 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, makes him think about suicide, but he is stopped by his reluctance to commit another sin. He began to become increasingly concerned about the topic of death and its mystery. What's next? Eternal darkness or a continuation of the suffering he endures during his life?

Meaning

The main idea of ​​tragedy is to search for the meaning of life. Shakespeare shows a man of education, eternally searching, with 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 how exactly it arose and why. He is shocked by the fact that one place can so quickly turn into hell on Earth. And his act of revenge is to destroy the evil that has entered his world.

Fundamental to the tragedy is the idea that behind all these royal squabbles there is a great turning point in the entire European culture. And at the forefront of this turning point, Hamlet appears - a new type of hero. Along with the death of all the main characters, the centuries-old system of understanding the world collapses.

Criticism

In 1837, Belinsky wrote an article dedicated to Hamlet, in which he called the tragedy a “brilliant diamond” in the “radiant crown of the king of dramatic poets,” “crowned by entire humanity and having no rival before or after himself.”

The image of Hamlet contains all the universal human traits "<…>this is me, this is each of us, more or less...”, Belinsky writes about him.

S. T. Coleridge, in his Shakespeare Lectures (1811-12), writes: “Hamlet hesitates due to natural sensitivity and hesitates, held back by reason, which forces him to turn his effective forces to the search for a speculative solution.”

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

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

Hamlet is a philosophical tragedy.

The purpose 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 through the image of a hero. By posing questions to himself, he encourages us to think about them and 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 is that they contain the thoughts of many generations. .

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

Othello is a tragedy of betrayed trust.

The structure of the play can easily lead to an analysis of Othello as a tragedy of a purely personal nature. However, any exaggeration of the intimate-personal principle in Othello to the detriment of other aspects of this work ultimately inevitably turns into an attempt to limit Shakespeare's tragedy to the narrow framework of the drama of jealousy. True, in the vernacular of the whole world, the name Othello has long become synonymous with a jealous person. 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, in appearance, is the generally recognized savior of Venice, the support of its freedom, a revered general with royal ancestors behind him. But morally he is alone and not only alien to the republic, but even despised by its rulers. In the entire Venetian council there is no one except the Doge who could believe in the naturalness of Desdemona’s love for the Moor. When the thought that he might lose Desdemona first creeps into Othello’s soul, the Venetian commander, with a feeling of doom, remembers that he is black.

In the face of death, Othello says that jealousy was not the passion that initially determined his behavior; but this passion took possession of him when he was unable to resist the influence exerted on him by 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 gullibility is not in his individual qualities. Fate threw him into a republic that was alien and incomprehensible to him, in which the power of a tightly stuffed wallet triumphed and strengthened - secret and obvious power that makes people self-interested predators. But the Moor is calm and confident. Relations between individual members of Venetian society are practically of no interest to him: he is not associated with individuals, but with the Signoria, which 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 was said above about the nature of Othello’s connections with Venetian society: Iago is outraged that the Moor did not listen to the voice of three Venetian nobles who petitioned for his appointment to the position of lieutenant.

To deal Othello the fatal blow, Iago uses both his deep understanding of the character of the straightforward and trusting Othello, and his knowledge of the moral standards that guide society. Iago is convinced that a person’s appearance is given to him in order to hide his true essence. Now all he has to do is convince the Moor that this statement is also true of Desdemona.

The comparative ease with which Iago managed to win this victory is explained not only by the fact that Othello believes in Iago’s honesty and considers him a person who perfectly understands the true nature of ordinary relations between the Venetians. Iago’s base logic captivates Othello primarily because similar logic is used by other members of Venetian society.

Othello's recognition 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 entire history of the relationship between the main characters of the tragedy.

The content of Hamlet and the ideological and psychological problems arising from it have always occupied criticism so much that the artistic side of the tragedy received much less coverage. Many readers even now take for granted everything that happens in the tragedy. This is due to the deeply ingrained idea of ​​Shakespeare's work as a "document" reflecting an actual incident. And it is often forgotten that the content of Hamlet was constructed by the author according to certain laws and techniques of dramaturgy. If the dramatic merits of Hamlet were insignificant, the tragedy would not have taken the place it belongs to in world culture and in the history of ideas. The ideological problems of tragedy excite with such force because Shakespeare affects primarily aesthetically. Regardless of how much the reader and viewer realizes it, the secret of the impact of Hamlet lies precisely in Shakespeare's artistic mastery. The impression made by this tragedy is determined by the masterful use of the entire arsenal of dramatic art and the art of poetry. How did the artist use the effective dramatic techniques that made the tragedy “Hamlet” so interesting and attractive to viewers and readers?

“Hamlet” is a work with exciting dramatic action. This is an entertaining play in the best sense. Those who, knowing the plot, immediately look for a solution to its problems in the tragedy, forget that when creating the work, Shakespeare considered his first task to be to create an entertaining action. The spectators of his theater did not at all have the reverence for Shakespeare that is characteristic of us. They weren't even interested in who wrote the play. True, before Shakespeare, “Hamlet” by another author had already been performed on stage. But the public's attention had to be won over again. Over the years of work in the theater, the playwright learned this art. It was necessary to structure the play in such a way that in the very first minutes of the performance the audience would be seized with a desire to find out what would happen, and so that their attention would not weaken until the end of the performance. Even if one could imagine a viewer not interested in the ideological content of the tragedy, he would still be captivated by the very course of events.

Each new stage of the action is accompanied by a change in Hamlet's position and state of mind, and the tension increases all the time - right up to the final episode of the duel, ending with the death of the hero. The viewer is constantly waiting to see what the hero's next step will be and how the enemy will react to him. Difficulties and obstacles arise on the character’s path, sometimes he himself complicates his situation, as when, for example, he kills Polonius, thinking that he is killing the king, and he guesses who Hamlet was aiming at. As the action develops, the dramatic knot tightens more and more until the moment when direct confrontation between Hamlet and his opponents arises.

Although Hamlet occupies our main attention, the tragedy depicts not only him, but also the fate of a large group of people around him. If Hamlet is in the center of the action and his figure is highlighted, then in the second are King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Ophelia, Polonius, Laertes. They are directly related to Hamlet, and his fate is intertwined with theirs. The relationship between Hamlet and Claudius is antagonistic from beginning to end; there is first a hidden and then an open struggle between them.

The relationship between Hamlet and his mother is also dramatic. Hamlet cannot forgive her for such a quick betrayal of the memory of her late husband. Having established Claudius's guilt, he decides to open her eyes to the true state of affairs. Without suggesting her complicity in Claudius's crime, Hamlet reveals to her the full horror of her situation: she became the wife of the one who killed her first husband!

Hamlet loved Ophelia, and she reciprocated his feelings, but his brother and father opposed their rapprochement, based on the fact that the inequality of social status made marriage between them impossible, and an extramarital affair between the prince and a court lady, such as Ophelia, would be a dishonor for her and shame.

Polonius is Claudius' outspoken henchman. In an effort to help the king and find out the secret of Hamlet's madness, he repeatedly talks with the prince. The constant desire to serve the reigning persons puts him at risk in the struggle taking place between Hamlet and the king, and he dies at the hands of the prince. The death of Polonius is the cause of Ophelia's madness and arouses Laertes' thirst for revenge on Hamlet, whom he, in collusion with Claudius, mortally wounds.

This group also includes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whose helpfulness the king uses in the fight against Hamlet. First they are assigned the role of spies, then they arrest Hamlet, and finally they are assigned to take Hamlet to England. They are not aware of the true state of affairs and, like Polonius, perish because of their zeal.

The third plan is formed by persons who are not directly involved in the struggle between Hamlet and Claudius. This is, first of all, the prince's friend - Horatio. In the tragedy he is assigned the role of confidante, confidant of the hero. Besides the king and Hamlet, he is the only one who knows what the essence of the ongoing struggle is. Hamlet bequeaths to him to tell everyone the truth about what happened.

The second important person of the third plan is the Norwegian prince Fortinbras. He appears on stage only twice, and then only briefly, but this is not what determines his significance in the tragedy. The world of Fortinbras is located outside of Denmark. But the Danes also have to reckon with its existence. He is first expected to invade to take back the lands his father lost. Then he abandons his claims to them and instead marches on Poland; returning from there through Denmark, he learns the tragic outcome of Claudius’s struggle against Hamlet and receives the dying man’s vote for the upcoming election of a new Danish king.

The fourth group of characters are those who are involved in the tragedy only as accidental witnesses and messengers. Such are the night guards Bernardo, Marcellus and Francisco, who were the first to see the Phantom; courtiers Cornelius and Voltimand, envoys to Norway; Polonius' confidant Reynaldo, whom he sends to Paris to spy on Laertes; a captain from Fortinbras's army talking with Hamlet before his departure for England; gravediggers digging a hole for Ophelia's coffin; the priest performing the funeral rites for her; sailors bringing news of Hamlet's return to Denmark; Osric and a second nobleman inviting Hamlet to a supposedly friendly duel with Laertes.

For one character the author could not determine his place among the characters. He is not an earthly creature, but a native of the other world. Formally, he should probably be classified in the same group as his brother and wife. The ghost, on the one hand, is outside the action, and on the other, it begins with him and is accomplished in his name - how else can you say about the task he entrusted to the hero? Let's leave him outside the ranks and categories, remembering that without his death and emergence from the other world, the whole tragedy would not have happened...

Hamlet's central place in the tragedy is determined by the fact that the main thing in the plot is revenge for the murdered king, and this task lies with Hamlet. This is confirmed in a purely external way. Of the twenty scenes of the tragedy (according to the traditional division), Hamlet participates in twelve, and in the remaining eight scenes he is constantly mentioned. So, directly or indirectly, he is always on stage.

This circumstance also deserves attention. The king communicates with a relatively small number of people close to and subordinate to him: with the queen, prince, minister Polonius, his son Laertes, Ophelia, envoys to Norway Cornelius and Voltimand, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Here are the names of who he is talking to directly. He, as befits him, does not pay attention to the rest.

Hamlet, of course, also communicates with the court circle, with the exception of Cornelius and Voltimand, with whom he does not say a word. But instead of them, he talks with Osric and another nobleman, who invite him to a duel with Laertes. In addition to them, Hamlet's interlocutors are the warriors Marcellus and Bernardo, sailors, people of ordinary rank who occupy a low position in society - actors and a gravedigger. The breadth of Hamlet's communication is striking when comparing him with other characters. All characters move within their own circle, except for Hamlet, who goes beyond these limits. The exception is Laertes, who raises the people to revolt (there will be a special discussion about this later). One way or another, there is no doubt that Hamlet, in his own way, is more democratic than the reigning and courtiers.

Shakespeare wrote plays not only for the inner eye, but also for the outer eye. He always had in mind the spectators who surrounded the stage in a crowd and greedily demanded an entertaining spectacle. This need was met by the interesting plot chosen by the playwright, which unfolded before the eyes of the audience throughout the performance.

It is naive, however, to think that the action of the play was, as it were, given in advance by the narrative chosen for staging. The epic story had to be turned into a drama, and this required a special skill - the ability to build action. Some aspects of Shakespeare’s compositional skill have already been mentioned above, but not all have been noted. Now we return to the question of how the tragedy is constructed in terms of the development of its action.

Shakespeare wrote the play without dividing it into acts and scenes, because the performance in his theater was continuous. Both the quarto of 1603 and the quarto of 1604 did not have any divisions of the text into acts. The publishers of the 1623 folio decided to give his plays as scholarly a look as possible. To this end, they applied to Shakespeare the principle of dividing plays into five acts, recommended by the ancient Roman poet Horace and developed by Renaissance humanists. However, they did not apply this principle consistently in all the plays of the folio. In particular, in Hamlet the division is carried out only until the second scene of the second act. Further the text proceeds without divisions into acts and scenes. The first complete division of Hamlet was carried out by playwright Nicholas Rowe in his edition of Shakespeare in 1709. Thus, the division into acts and scenes that exists in all subsequent editions does not belong to Shakespeare. However, it is firmly established and we will stick to it too.

Captivated by the mystery of Hamlet's character, many readers involuntarily forget about the play as a whole and measure everything only by the significance of this or that circumstance for understanding the hero. Of course, while recognizing the central significance of Hamlet in the tragedy, one cannot, however, reduce its content to his personality alone. This is evident from the entire course of the action, during which the fates of many individuals are decided.

The composition of Hamlet has been carefully studied by researchers, and their conclusions have been far from uniform. Modern English critic Emrys Jones believes that this tragedy, like the rest of Shakespeare's plays, is divided into only two parts. The first consists of the entire action from the beginning, when the Ghost entrusts the prince with the task of revenge, until the murder of Polonius, after which Hamlet is urgently sent to England (IV, 4). The second phase begins with the return of Laertes (IV, 5). If in the first part the central content was Hamlet’s desire to find out the guilt of Claudius and take revenge on him for the murder of his father, then the second part of the tragedy centers on Laertes’ revenge on Hamlet for the murder of Polonius.

The outstanding English director H. Granville-Barker believes that the tragedy is divided into three phases: the first is the plot, which occupies the entire first act, when Hamlet learns about the murder of his father; the second occupies the second, third and fourth acts until the scene of Hamlet's departure to England; the third phase of Granville-Barker coincides with the second phase of E. Jones.

Finally, there is also a division of action into five parts, which does not quite coincide with the division of tragedy into five acts. It's more traditional. Its advantage is the division of the action into parts, reflecting the complex escalation of events and, most importantly, the various mental states of the hero.

The division of tragedies into five acts was first established by the ancient Roman poet Horace. It was recognized as mandatory by the theorists of Renaissance drama, but only in the era of classicism of the 17th century did it begin to be used everywhere. In the mid-19th century, the German writer Gustav Freitag, in his Technique of Drama (1863), came to the conclusion that the traditional division into five acts had a reasonable basis. Dramatic action, according to Freitag, goes through five stages. A correctly constructed drama has: a) an introduction (commencement), b) a rise in action, c) a peak of events, d) a fall in action, e) a denouement. The action diagram is a pyramid. Its lower end is the beginning, the action that arises after it follows an ascending line and reaches the top, after which there is a decline in the development of the action, ending with a denouement.

Freitag's terms may give rise to the incorrect conclusion that as the action progresses and after the climax, there is a weakening of tension and a corresponding decline in the interest of the audience, which the German writer did not mean at all. He added three more dramatic moments to his pyramid.

The first moment is the initial excitement, the second is the peripeteia, or the tragic moment that comes at the peak of the action, the third is the moment of final tension.

Many Shakespeare scholars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries used Freytag's pyramid to analyze Hamlet. Let us indicate how the action of our tragedy is divided accordingly.

1) The plot is formed by all five scenes of the first act, and it is clear that the moment of highest excitement is Hamlet’s meeting with the Ghost. When Hamlet learns the secret of his father's death and the task of revenge is entrusted to him, then the plot of the tragedy is clearly defined.

2) Starting from the first scene of the second act, the action develops, arising from the plot: Hamlet’s strange behavior, causing the king’s fears, Ophelia’s grief, and the bewilderment of the others. The king takes measures to find out the reason for Hamlet's unusual behavior. This part of the action can be defined as complication, “increase”, in a word, the development of a dramatic conflict.

3) Where does this part of the tragedy end? Opinions differ on this matter. Rudolf Franz includes in the second stage of the action both the monologue “To be or not to be?”, and Hamlet’s conversation with Ophelia, and the presentation of the “mousetrap”. For him, the turning point is the third scene of the third act, when all this has already happened and the king decides to get rid of Hamlet. N. Hudson recognizes the climax of the scene when Hamlet can kill the king, but does not lower his sword on his head (III, 3, 73-98). It seems to me that Hermann Conrad’s idea is more correct that the peak of the action covers three important scenes - the presentation of the “mousetrap” (III, 2), the king at prayer (III, 3) and Hamlet’s explanation with his mother (III, 4).

Is this too much for a punchline? Of course, you can limit yourself to one thing, for example, exposing the king: the king guesses that Hamlet knows his secret, and from here everything further follows (III, 3). But the action of Shakespeare's tragedies is rare and difficult to give in to various dogmatic definitions. The opinion of Martin Holmes looks convincing: “This entire third act of the play is like a sea stream, irresistibly striving towards its terrible goal... The mousetrap was invented, prepared and worked, Hamlet finally gained confidence that he had grounds for action, but at the same time he betrayed and his secret and thereby lost no less than one move in the game. His attempt to act resulted in him killing the wrong person; before he can strike again, he will be sent to England."

The culmination of the tragedy, its three scenes have the following meaning: 1) Hamlet is finally convinced of Claudius’s guilt, 2) Claudius himself realizes that his secret is known to Hamlet and 3) Hamlet finally “opens Gertrude’s eyes” to the true state of affairs - she has become his wife the one who killed her husband!

Two moments are decisive in the scenes of the climax: the fact that the king guesses that Hamlet knows the secret of his father’s death, and that during a conversation with his mother, Hamlet kills Polonius, who is eavesdropping on them. Now the king has no doubt that Hamlet intends to kill him too.

4) Freitag’s definition of “decline” is in no way applicable to the beginning of the fourth stage of action. On the contrary, new events arise with increasing tension: Hamlet’s sending to England (IV, 3), the passage of Fortinbras’s troops to Poland (IV, 4), Ophelia’s madness and the return of Laertes, breaking into the palace at the head of the rioters (IV, 5), the news about the return of Hamlet (IV, 6), the king’s agreement with Laertes, the death of Ophelia (IV, 7), Ophelia’s funeral and the first fight between Laertes and Hamlet (V, 1).

All these incident-filled scenes lead to the final part of the tragedy - its denouement (V, 2).

Freitag limited the development of the plot of a well-constructed drama to three “exciting moments.” But Shakespeare’s tragedy, so to speak, is constructed “wrongly,” or rather, not according to the rules. In the first two parts there is only one such moment - the story of the Ghost (I, 5). During the climax, as already noted, there are three moments of acute tension. If Shakespeare followed any rule, it was to increase the tension as the action progresses, introducing more and more events so that the viewer's attention does not weaken. This is exactly what happens in Hamlet. At the fourth stage, much more significant and dramatic events happen than at the beginning. As for the denouement, as the reader knows, four deaths occur in it one after another - the queen, Laertes, the king, Hamlet. It is noteworthy that it is not only the blows of the sword, but the poison that is primarily responsible for the death of all four. Let us remember that Hamlet’s father also died from poison. This is one of the cross-cutting details connecting the beginning and end of the tragedy.

Another similar circumstance: the first person about whom we hear a detailed story from Horatio is Fortinbras. He appears at the very end of the tragedy, and the last words in it belong to him. Shakespeare loved this “ring” construction. These are a kind of “hoops” with which he fastened the broad action of his plays.

It is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that throughout the tragedy the entire royal court and all the main characters appear before the audience three times. This happens in the beginning (I, 2), at the climax of the tragedy during the court performance (III, 2) and at the denouement (V, 2). Let us note, however, that neither in the second scene of the first act, nor in the second scene of the fifth act is Ophelia. This grouping of characters was, of course, intentional.

It is estimated that the central event of the play is the “mousetrap”, and this is confirmed by the following figures:

The court performance thus falls approximately in the middle of the tragedy.

Readers and spectators are so, one might say, accustomed to Hamlet that everything that happens in the tragedy seems natural and self-evident. Sometimes we are too prone to forget that the action of a tragedy is structured and developed down to the details. “Hamlet” is one of those masterpieces of world art in which the highest degree of artistic perfection has been achieved, when the skill is hidden from the superficial eye.

We remember, however, that the play contains some inconsistencies, inconsistencies, even absurdities. We will talk about them later. Now our task was to show that, for all its complexity, Hamlet is not chaotic, but a deeply thought-out artistic creation, achieving effect precisely because its individual parts are carefully adjusted to each other, forming an artistic whole.