William Shakespeare - humanist, playwright and renaissance man

No one knows the truth about Shakespeare, there are only legends,
opinions, some documents and his great works.

William Shakespeare. The only surviving lifetime portrait

No one has surpassed Shakespeare as a playwright. The role of Hamlet, created back in the 16th century, is the dream of all actors, like athletes dream of a gold medal at the Olympics. Shakespeare's plays are still being staged, film studios are making films based on his works, and regardless of whether the characters are dressed in historical costumes or modern clothes (as in the Hollywood movie Shakespeare, for example), all dialogues and thoughts sound very relevant. What explains the phenomenon of Shakespeare as a poet and playwright? First of all, by the fact that even then, in the Renaissance, he touched upon universal values. He literally "blew up" the dramaturgy of that time when he showed the inner world of a person on the stage, turning edifying and farcical plots into immortal works.

My eye has become an engraver and your image
Imprinted in the chest truthfully.
Since then I have served as a living frame,
And the best thing about art is perspective.

By the lines of wrinkles in the truthful glass
We all keep track of our losses...
.......................................................
If you fall out of love - so now,
Now that the whole world is at odds with me,
Be the bitterest of my losses
But not the last straw of grief!
........................................................
No wonder the name given to me means
"A wish". We torment with desire,
I beg you: take me in addition
To all your other desires.
..........................................................
I love, but I rarely talk about it,
I love more tenderly, - but not for many eyes.
trades in feeling the one who is in front of the light
Shows off his whole soul...
...........................................................

Sonnets translated by Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak

William Shakespeare was a humanist. The ideals of the Renaissance, where the Man was the main thing, his ability to love and the strength of his personality, he transferred to the stage. There is different information about his biography. At various times, "anti-Shakespearean" campaigns were started, where his authorship was disputed. But this only emphasizes the significance of his work.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford, a small town on the banks of the river.

No one knows the exact date of the birth of William Shakespeare. In the arsenal of historians there is only a church record of the baby's baptism, which took place on April 26, 1564. Researchers suggest that the ceremony was performed on the third day after birth. Accordingly, in an incredible way, the date of birth and death of the playwright fell on the same date - April 23.

William's mother, Marie Arden, came from a noble family, his father was a wealthy citizen and at one time played important roles in local politics - he was the mayor of the town and the alderman. His father owned several houses in Stratford, he traded in grain, wool and meat, so little William had the opportunity to study at the local "grammar" school.

Living in a small provincial town, where everyone knew each other and communicated regardless of class, Shakespeare was well acquainted with the life of ordinary citizens. He became a connoisseur of folklore, and many features of the future heroes were written off from the locals. Savvy servants, prim nobles, suffering people who were cramped within the framework of conventions - all these heroes subsequently appeared in his comedies and tragedies.

William was distinguished by diligence, especially since he had to start working very early - from the age of 16, because his father got confused in business and could not support the whole family. Biographical information about this time varies. According to one source, William worked as a village teacher. According to another legend, he was an apprentice in a butcher's shop, and, according to legend, he was already a humanist at that time - before slaughtering animals, "he delivered a solemn speech over them."

At the age of eighteen, William married Anna Hathaway, who was 26 at the time.In 1583, the young couple had a daughter, Susan, William was happy. All his life he was especially attached to her, even after the birth of twins, a son, Hemnet, and a second daughter, Judith, two years later.

Three years after his marriage, he moved to London. According to legend, Shakespeare fled from a local landowner who pursued him because William killed deer on the estates of a noble (it was considered valor to kill a rich man's deer).

In London, Shakespeare got a job in the theater. He looked after the horses of visitors, and was at first a "darmer of plays" ("playpatcher"), or, in modern terms, a rewriter - he reworked old plays for new productions. He probably tried himself as an actor. Soon Shakpier became a theater playwright. His work during his lifetime was appreciated by his contemporaries. In 1599, the Globe Theater was formed, Shakespeare became one of the shareholders.

Shakespeare is as important to England as Pushkin is to Russia. In tragedies, and especially comedies, Shakespeare made extensive use of turns of folk speech, which subsequently organically entered the literary language. But the value of his work was not only in this. For 20 years creative life he created something that remains relevant for five centuries. His sonnets, tragedies and comedies have become classics. Thanks to Shakespeare, new ideas appeared in literature, a new outlook on life. In the theater on the stage, real people became heroes, and not carriers of strictly defined ideas, as was typical of the dramaturgy of that time. William took common stories as a basis, and brought into them the advanced ideas of that time - the Renaissance.

William Shakespeare's youthful comedies "Two Veronians", "Comedy of Errors", "The Taming of the Shrew" can deserve a reproach for the intricacy of the intrigue, the appearance of the comic, the naivety of the action, but excellent scenes, situations and characters are vividly outlined in them.

The well-known and beloved comedy "The Taming of the Shrew" is one example. The comedy was based on the plot of the Domostroy farce, when a man, in general, rude and narrow-minded - Fernando, tames the "obstinate" and grumpy Katarina. At the end, Katarina gives a monologue in which she glorifies patriarchy, and the essence of which is how wonderful it is to be a married submissive wife. Shakespeare managed to show several ideas that are still modern today. In general, the essence of the play is not to glorify the resourcefulness of men, and not even the equality of men and women. Shakespeare showed the "equivalence" of a man and a woman who harmoniously complement each other, and the last monologue of the "submissive" wife Katharina about this.

"...In caring for you
He works on land and sea,
Does not sleep at night in a storm, endures a cold,
While you are at home basking in warmth,
Dangers not knowing and hardships.
All he wants from you is love
A friendly look, obedience -
Little pay for his labors."

The first period of creativity is particularly bright and cheerful. Shakespeare during these years created a brilliant series of comedies: in addition to The Taming of the Shrew, the plays Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing are widely known. sonnets, unlike his predecessors, the poet in sonnets sings of friendship.According to Shakespeare, it is richer than love passion.The poet's different thoughts and feelings found expression in sonnets.He talks about friendship, love, and about ... the state.Even a cycle of historical chronicles - bloody dramas: "Henry IV", "Henry V", written at that time, are not so gloomy: everything ends with the triumph of the protagonist, there is also a comedic character - Sir Falstaff. Shakespeare - wishing it or not - tried to show life as it is is - with joy and tragedy.

The tragedy "Hamlet" opens the second stage of the work of the poet and playwright. There is no more reckless fun here, and the heroes of the winners are increasingly turning into victims, but they still fight and live. Almost all actors dream of playing Hamlet. On the stage, the inner world of Hamlet unfolds, his throwing, suffering, torment of choice. Hamlet tries to comprehend his actions, he thinks heavily about life and sees no way out even in death.

If it were not for the fear of something after death,
Of an unknown country, from where none
So far, the traveler has not returned.
This is what shakes and confuses the will,
What makes us endure suffering more quickly,
Than to run away to other, unknown troubles,
Yes, doubt makes us cowardly...

After meeting with the ghost of the father, the worldturned over, turnedbeforeHamletothers:

"How tiresome, dull and unnecessary,

I think everything in the world! O abomination!"

In "Othello" and "Macbeth" passions overthrow with a destructive hurricane what was previously the seal of prosperity and contentment. In Shakespeare's King Lear, great injustice and arrogance are redeemed by great suffering, and on that terrible night when the old king wanders in the rain and whirlwind, having no roof for his gray head, on that night a mysterious renewal of the human soul takes place, which learns to love. and compassion.

Not inferior in artistic beauty and power to the named plays are those three dramas of this period from ancient life, which were written by William Shakespeare mainly on the basis of Plutarch: "Julius Caesar", "Coriolanus», « Anthonyand Cleopatra.

The drama “Measure for Measure” is distinguished by a gloomy character, in which the poet dealt another blow to Puritan exclusivity and intolerance. Pessimistic notes are also heard in the works of the last period of Shakespeare's work, in such plays as "Troilus and Cressida" and "Timon of Athens", but the harmoniously developed nature of the great poet did not stop at disappointment, but came to reconciliation with life and calm in the idea of ​​forgiveness .

Works of the last creative cycle: "Cymbeline", " winter fairy tale", "Storm",not so famous. They are written in the genre of allegorical fantasy, as the theater for which Shakespeare wrote is already being ordered by a noble audience who wanted fun and entertainment. But here, too, humanistic ideals also find their expression - this is the belief of a talented poet and playwright in the bright future of mankind, the promise of serene tranquility.

Chapter VII

Scientific and philosophical ideas of the Renaissance in the worldview of Shakespeare. - Three cultural types: Henry V, Falstaff and Hamlet. - Henry V. - Falstaff.

We know how ardently and actively Shakespeare responded to the poetry of the Renaissance, but how did he react to its thought? Indeed, in addition to Boccaccio, Petrarch, Rabelais, the same era produced Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Montaigne, Bacon. Shakespeare was even born in the same year as Galileo; Bruno lived in London for about two years from 1583 and enjoyed great popularity in secular and literary societies. A volume of Montaigne's writings was preserved as if with Shakespeare's inscription, and Bacon created his philosophy, one might say, next to Shakespeare the playwright. Researchers have long discovered and continue to discover in his work many echoes of the scientific Renaissance, especially from the works of Bruno and Montaigne. But it is not the particulars that occupy us, but the general warehouse of Shakespeare's thought. Did Petrarch's leading rival stand at the same height as the reader of philosophers?

One can argue about Shakespeare's individual scientific views. In our opinion, for example, the best German connoisseurs of Shakespeare are wrong when they deny the poet's belief in a new astronomical system. Hamlet's obviously mocking letter to Ophelia does not prove anything, and Ulysses' speech in Troilus and Cressida about the subordination of the planets to the Sun is by no means a defense of Ptolemy. On the other hand, it can be doubted that Shakespeare clearly understood the law of blood circulation, announced by Harvey only two years after the death of the poet. Even more dubious are Shakespeare's ideas about gravity. But the conclusions of psychiatrists, on the other hand, are quite reliable. Shakespeare, in his views on the mentally ill, in his amazingly accurate knowledge of ailments, was two centuries ahead of his contemporaries. There was still a deep conviction in the intrigues of Satan, and the sick were subjected to the most severe tortures; the poet, on the other hand, was able to unravel the soil and causes of diseases and even pointed to healing, humane means. Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, King Lear are immortal monuments of brilliant penetration into the most complex secrets of nature and truly cultural ideas about suffering humanity...

Undoubtedly, the poet himself carried out the most important conquest of the new time, marked by the development of free thought, the victory personal experience over legends and prejudices. And the implementation was quite conscious. Richard II, deposed from the throne, considers the discord between him, the king, and the requirements of the time to be one of the reasons for his fall. Subsequently, Coriolanus will express even more vigorously the ideas of inevitable and certainly legitimate progress:

If we obeyed the custom in everything, no one would dare to sweep away the dust of antiquity, and the truth would forever sit behind the mountains of delusions!

And here the patrician expresses the truth, not for the sake of the pleasure of arrogant self-will, but in the name of personal dignity and noble independence from the habits and demands of the crowd.

But the sources of personal freedom are thought, enlightenment, the knowledge of life and nature, and Shakespeare zealously defends all these foundations of civilization:

In learning is the power, By which we soar to heaven, In ignorance is God's curse.

So says one of the heroes of the second part of Henry VI, and we do not know whether these words belong exactly to Shakespeare; but they are constantly confirmed by the undoubtedly genuine thoughts of the poet in other plays. Father Francis calls "experience" a "companion of science" (Much Ado About Nothing), and other heroes carefully emphasize the unreliability of the old medieval way of life. Richard II and the Venetian Antonio are unanimous about the abuses of interpretation of the Holy Scriptures that flourished in the Catholic realm. The king is confused by the opposite conclusions that thought can draw from texts. Antonio - in response to Shylock's biblical story in justification of usury - points to the art even of villains to hide behind sacred authority. The poet is convinced that dialectics and malicious intent will be able to "consecrate and season with texts and cover with external decoration" any delusion.

And he shows the validity of this thought by a life example - in an eloquent scene at the burial of Ophelia.

Obviously, Shakespeare fully assimilated the main ideas of the philosophical and critical teachings of his era, and the speeches of his heroes often breathe the energy of Luther's denunciations. But the great preacher of the Reformation, who shook the power of tradition, did not find immediate satisfaction in his personal thought either. On the contrary, the new man had to redeem his liberation through the most severe torments of doubt and endless research. Luther at times fell into despair, experienced the real suffering of Prometheus in search for one clear, unshakable truth. The same inheritance went to his descendants. And Shakespeare knows how much enticing charm, but also the thorns lurk in independent mental work - and Hamlet's world motive begins to sound even in Richard's meditation:

Thoughts are the same people; Like them, they can never find peace or be satisfied with themselves.

It is clear that the poet will sincerely and mercilessly rise up against all fanaticism - theoretical, moral and religious. He will subject to ridicule and punishment the frivolous or hypocritical enemies of natural laws human nature, he will destroy puritanical hypocrisy and intolerance, and one of his cheerful heroes will express the meaning of this humane and liberation struggle in this way: "Or do you think - because you are virtuous, so there will be neither pies nor wine in the world?" (Twelfth Night).

Thanks to the breadth of his worldview, Shakespeare could cover in his work the main types of different cultural epochs and to fulfill the lofty purpose of art indicated by Hamlet - to embody its age and its time in their true features. He had to act in the transition of the old life to new way. He saw and personally experienced the collision of the progressive principles of the Reformation and the Renaissance with the customs and authorities of the Middle Ages. Before his eyes, the rapid development of the liberated nature and thought, feelings and mind took place; he himself resolutely took the side of freedom and progress. From the very first works, he began to defend the new and after some time captured a number of psychological types that embody the various historical currents of the era. One of them, a type of medieval man. Others, the brightest, extreme representatives of the two main ideas of the Renaissance: free natural instincts and free critical thought. All three heroes are depicted with great care and strength, but not all of them are equally simple and accessible in terms of psychological composition. The primacy in clarity and integrity belongs, of course, to the hero of antiquity.

Prince Gal, later King Henry V, is one of the most popular figures in English dramatic chronicles, and Shakespeare, for example, undoubtedly used one of the early plays - The Glorious Victories of Henry V. But for us, the question of actual borrowings is again not essential, psychology is always original property of our poet, and he historical personality able to raise to the height of the universal type. The moral development of Henry, his nature, his vices and talents - all this is a perfect reflection of the Middle Ages, brief, but full story a whole period of human culture, eliminated from the scene by the people of the Renaissance.

Prince Gal - an ideally healthy, normal young man - enjoys youth with all the power and ardor of Anglo-Saxon blood. He is the embodied contrast to the thoughtful but naive philosopher - the king of Navarre and consistently reproduces the worldly wisdom of the poet, scattered in comedies.

He does not at all intend to force his nature with deliberate art and a deliberate school of morality. The restlessness of abstract thought is also completely alien to him; for him, as for a medieval person, all higher questions are resolved by those who should know this. Carelessly and without further ado, he slyly takes life as it is given, does not make ideal and impossible demands on it. But an innately balanced, full-night nature will not wither and unwind in a whirlwind of pleasures. And the prince from the experiences of his youth will not endure either disappointment or a decline in moral strength. Experiments will only be a manifestation of a powerful physical organism. They are not so much the result of frivolity and a thirst for pleasure as an excess of blood and energy. The prince has nothing to spend this surplus on: his father, suspicious and autocratic, does not allow him to participate in state affairs - the son labors in a tavern and plays the role of king with Falstaff, sometimes not refusing much more responsible fun. But the moral element and the organic common sense of the prince are unshakable. They make a brilliant young man out of the heir to the throne, they will create the wisest and most popular ruler out of the king. The prince is every moment aware of his passions, and we believe his promise to appear later on like the sun, only temporarily covered by "despicable clouds." This is not only strength, but also a deep consciousness of it, and, consequently, firmness and confidence in actions, proud modesty and restrained, unobtrusive, but in no way invincible nobility. And we see how Prince Gal, Falstaff's drinking companion, is transformed into the Prince of Wales and a courageous warrior. We are present at the amazing scene of the duel of a born and humble hero with the brilliant knight Percy: how much valor and calm power, and so little words and effect! The prince even unquestioningly concedes the glory of his victory to Falstaff. The war is over, and the prince is again a prankster and a reveler. Falstaff is unable to understand the mysteries of this transformation; Henry's simple but morally powerful psychology is a mystery to him, and when the prince decides to "bury all the ancient vices in the grave with his father" and be worthy of power and the throne, Sir John sees no point in a completely natural history. Meanwhile, stormy youth, even for Henry the Sovereign, was not in vain. He personally knew the life of the common people, the hopes and soul of the last of his subjects; on the throne, he will be the most national and practically knowledgeable ruler. In his youth he was not a dreamer - now he will not be an idealist, the creator of broad political plans; all his activities are inextricably linked with the essential reality, without the slightest interference of theories and ideas. This is an efficient owner of a huge state house with all the advantages and disadvantages of an exceptionally practical mind; the same yeoman, soldier, only in the vast field. The poet depicts his touching participation in ordinary soldiers, a rare ability to get close to their lives and moral world and it is into the mouth of Henry V that he puts an enthusiastic speech to the English settlers. Finally, - this is the only scene of its kind - we see the king's declaration of love to the princess, by no means more cunning and elegant than the novel of any English sailor!

Such is the ideal man of the old age, organically strong, spiritually uncomplicated, directly intelligent and chivalrous, in general, whole and happy in his wholeness. New currents have brought into being incomparably more complex natures, and this complexity is the deeper, the nobler the current. The simplest and most accessible ideal of the Renaissance is freedom of feeling, unlimited epicureanism, extreme opposition to the medieval oppression of the flesh and the denial of the earth. This opposition was not slow to create its own philosophy and establish freedom of instincts on ideological foundations. They are known even to the heroines of Boccaccio, and the reasoning of one of them is especially curious for us. We have to deal, apparently, with the most exceptional example of depravity and unscrupulousness, and yet we hear distant echoes of these horrors even in the most elegant poet of the Italian Renaissance.

A lady comes to an experienced woman - to ask for help in some kind of love and not particularly moral enterprise. She immediately agrees and even hurries to refute any objections of strict moralists in advance.

"My daughter, the Lord knows - and He knows everything - that you will do very well. Even if you did not do this for some reason, you, like every young woman, should have done so, so as not to lose the time of youth, because for a man of understanding there is no sorrow higher than the consciousness that he has missed the time. And what the hell are we good for, having grown old, if not only to guard the ashes by the fire ... "

The author himself unconditionally approves of this philosophy and, having told one or another love story, often very reprehensible to the generally accepted moral view, he ends with a prayer to the Lord, "so that He, by His holy mercy, will lead" to the happiness just described and him, the narrator, and "everything Christian souls who desire it."

Naturally, Boccaccio's heroines honor Cupid "on a par with God" and for this "devotion" they count on bliss even in a future life...

Now imagine that such a "religion" will fall into the hearts and heads of people of incomparably more powerful temperaments and abundant physical strength than Italian ladies - it will fall into the sons of a nation that for centuries has generated a huge number of heroic figures, considered in its family the Norfolks, Ghents as ordinary phenomena. , even Richards ...

Cupid here will inevitably turn into a deity of the most frank and by no means elegant and not poetic sensuality, the longing for the "flying hour" will become a frantic cry and insane indomitable pursuit of the grossest sins of the mortal body, all covers and tricks will disappear - only defiant and often cynical passion will remain. ... Falstaff is the most typical English embodiment of the physical ideal of the Renaissance. He is frankly depraved, cynically unprincipled, a humble servant of his belly. And in all these vices, he is only an extreme and at the same time, in English, an integral and consistent exponent of the practice and morality of the Renaissance. The natural rights of human nature to love, earthly happiness are not enough for him, simple freedom of feeling is not enough - he needs an orgy, a riot, a whole storm of instincts, just like the English of the Middle Ages needed uprisings, civil strife - for "the movement of blood and juices of life", according to aptly an eyewitness account, the Bishop of York. It is not enough for Falstaff to destroy pedantry, scholasticism, theory scientists that disfigure the natural course of life - he will generally go against everything that is not material and not sensual and will generally reject all concepts and ideas: honor, conscience, truth. He will not confine himself to recognizing rights behind "pies and wine" - he will fill his existence with them only, just as he will reduce the feeling of love to corrupt debauchery. In a word, this is the same fanatic of new views that scholasticism and asceticism used to create. This is the opposite pole for Malvolio and even more "virtuous" people, for those very Puritans who, under Shakespeare, thundered curses even at poetry and the theater.

From the basic position of Falstaff, the most selfless son of the Renaissance, all other features of his psychology follow. Falstaff is a coward because he values ​​life here too much; to gray hair considers himself a young man, because youth is the highest good for such a "wise man"; finally, Falstaff is unusually gifted and original. These properties are developed by the poet with the same force as the depressing morality of the hero, and in them lies the secret of the strange attraction that surrounds the personality of Falstaff.

The fact is that Falstaff is still a product of a liberating, progressive trend. True, he brought completely legitimate and healthy aspirations to the point of absurdity and ugliness, but the original grain could not disappear without a trace. Falstaff is a representative of the natural and humane compared to the "virtuous" Malvolio. For Falstaff - life and light, on the side of his enemies - moral death and the darkness of slavery or hypocrisy. And, undoubtedly, Shakespeare, who knew contemporary "saints" so closely, involuntarily had to have a certain sympathy for his sinner, in any case, condescendingly look at falsity alongside fanaticism.

And he gave Falstaff a brilliant gift of wit, gaiety, gave him the ability to captivate others and seriously bind them to himself. He reached the point where we feel sorry for the great sinner, when he is rejected and punished by the king, we sympathize with the simple but heartfelt story of his death and understand the tears of Falstaff's friends and servants... This man, who absorbed all the scum that fell to the bottom, settled, standing out from the muddy liquid (Dictionary of V. Dahl).) of his time, also borrowed the spark of his genius - and it, like gold, does not lose its luster or value to the end.

The poet urgently wanted to show that he was creating exactly one of the types of his era. Already in the comedy The End is the Crown of Things, the approaching breath of the epic was felt. Parol is rewarded with many of Falstaff's traits - boastfulness, cowardice, and his attitude towards the count is reminiscent of Falstaff's "friendship" with the prince. But Parol can be successfully tied to the type of boastful warrior in the old comedy: he is just an impudent and pathetic fanfaron, there is not a trace of Jack's incomparable "philosophy", his inexhaustible humor and ingenious resourcefulness in him. The password is out of time and space, Falstaff is an English knight of the 16th century. Internal and external wars have completely destroyed many noble families and ruined even more noble estates. The old chivalry fell into decay - both morally and materially - and whiled away its life among various unseemly acts and tricks: in happy occasions profitable marriage alliances with plebeian families, otherwise just a fake dice game, nightly robberies, drinking parties at the expense of patrons. All this is reproduced in the chronicle, and Falstaff, with his grandiose figure, continues the gallery of comic types familiar to us from the era of Shakespeare. But the poet, with amazing skill, was able to merge such apparently heterogeneous signs of the time: the decline of the aristocracy and the influence of the Renaissance. It turns out that the extremes of the new Epicurean hobbies, moral unscrupulousness and all kinds of adventurism are most naturally embodied in the personality of a ruined knight, and in the fall he retained aristocratic claims to a careless parasitic life. The class pride of the good-natured and materially helpless Falstaff by nature added only an extra amusing feature to this abyss of wit and comedy.

But Falstaff was destined to appear in the most unexpected guise, not characteristic of his philosophy and his character. They say that Elizabeth was delighted with Sir John of the Chronicle, wished to see him in the role of a lover, and according to the will of the Queen, Shakespeare began a new play and finished it in two weeks.
Elizabeth, Queen of England in a large royal outfit. Engraving by Christine de Passe, after a painting by Isaac Olivier. The inscriptions on the engraving (above): "God is my helper." Under the coat of arms: "Always unchanged". Below: "Elizabeth, B.M., Queen of England, France, Scotland and Virginia, the most zealous defender of the Christian faith, now resting in Bose"

This took place, in all probability, in the spring of 1600. On March 8, the comedy Sir John Oldcastle was played for the Queen. That was the name of Falstaff before - the poet changed the name, having learned that Oldcastle was a famous Puritan in his time and suffered for his beliefs. But in what chronological relation the Merry Wives of Windsor, remade from Sir John Oldcastle, stand for Henry IV, it is difficult to decide: maybe they arose after the first part of the chronicle, and maybe after the second and even after Henry V. For the queen, the poet could resurrect his hero, but for us, in fact, the fate of Falstaff as a character is important.

In comedy, his morality is at the same level, but the same cannot be said about his mind. Before, Falstaff did not consider his appearance to be captivating for women - now he is full of self-deception on this account; before, he could hardly have fallen into repeated and very transparent swindles and subjected his person to ridicule and insults of the philistines and petty-bourgeois; but most importantly, was Sir John able to reach such cowardice and repentance, which are portrayed as a result of his misadventures? It is true that Falstaff, at the hour of his death, cries out to the Lord and curses the sherry, but this by no means proves the inclination of such a sinner by nature and by reason to repentance and moral truths. On the other hand, it is by no means natural for our poet to compose plays for the sake of final teachings. But even if the Falstaff of the chronicle could get caught in the most stupid alteration, he would hardly talk about his journey in a laundry basket with such frankness, as the Falstaff of the comedy does to the imaginary Mr. Brooke. With all the riddles, one impression is quite certain: the comedy was written hastily. This, incidentally, explains its prosaic form. The scenes were set with a predetermined intention - to amuse the audience with curious incidents and in a particularly funny way to present the protagonist, who is least fit for a knight of love. Naturally, the last mockery of Falstaff under such conditions could have ended with the complete humiliation of the hero, leading him through all the steps of senile stupidity to pitiful tearful repentance. In terms of the content of the comedy itself, this outcome is plausible, but only the comedy itself should not be viewed as a logical continuation of the chronicle, although the hero retains some common features in all plays.
Shakespeare theater. Engraving from the London "Rishgitz Collection". Depicts one of the theaters of the early 17th century.

Regardless of Falstaff's role, The Merry Wives of Windsor stands in stark contrast to Shakespeare's other comedies. There, the action takes place in an ideal atmosphere of subtle feelings and lyrical idylls (the only exception is the Taming of the Shrew), and only occasionally the sounds of everyday life burst into poetic harmony when jesters appear on the stage. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, on the contrary, everyday life reigns supreme. Moreover, everyday life is provincial, simple-hearted, sometimes rude, little poetic, although not devoid of a kind of humor. Almost all the actors are from the simple class and are not able to pour out their feelings in the privileged form of sonnets and canzones. Only one ray of the usual Shakespearean lyricism is thrown into this gray atmosphere: among the prosaic fathers and mothers, the romance of a daughter and her lover, full of all the freshness of first love. But most of the scenes were to please the undemanding taste of Elizabeth: the poet wrote a lively, frank farce and, for the sake of amusement, even partly sacrificed his incomparable hero. The emergence of such a play is all the more original because it coincided with the work of the poet on a work of a completely different nature. This piece is Hamlet.

The heyday of English drama began in the late 1580s, when a galaxy of writers, now called "university minds" appeared: Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), Robert Greene (c. 1560-1592), John Lily (c. 1554-1606) and several others. The milestones that marked the beginning of this heyday were two tragedies - “Tamerlane the Great” (1587) by K. Marlo and “Spanish Tragedy” by T. Kdda (c. 1587). The first marked the beginning of the bloody drama, the second - the genre of revenge tragedies.
There is every reason to believe that Shakespeare began his dramatic career

OK. 1590. In the first period of creativity, he created a number of bloody historical dramas- the trilogy "Henry VI" and "Richard III" and the revenge tragedy "Titus Andronicus". Shakespeare's first comedies, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew, were notable for their rather crude comedy, close to farces.
In 1593-1594, there was a turning point. Although Shakespeare never abandoned farce and clowning, in general his new comedies “Two Veronese”, “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, “The Merchant of Venice”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, “As You Like It”, “Twelfth Night” , "The Merry Wives of Windsor" are distinguished by subtle humor. They are dominated by adventurous and adventurous motives and dominated by the theme of love.
Most of the historical plays of this period are colored by faith in the triumph of the best beginnings in public life, which is especially noticeable in three chronicle plays - "Henry IV" (two parts) and "Henry V". Although in them a dramatic struggle between the feudal lords is an indispensable element of action, a fair amount of humor is noteworthy in them. It is in "Henry IV" that the image of Falstaff appears - a masterpiece of Shakespeare's comedy.
The only tragedy of this period, which lasts until the end of the 16th century, is Romeo and Juliet (1595). Its action is imbued with deep lyricism, and even the death of young heroes does not make this tragedy hopeless. Although Romeo and Juliet die, reconciliation of the warring families of Montagues and Capulets takes place over their corpses, love wins a moral victory over the world of evil.
The tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" embodies the optimistic attitude of Shakespeare in the second period. In comedies and the only tragedy of these years, humanity triumphs over the bad beginnings of life.
At the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, a new turning point took place in Shakespeare's mindset. The first signs of it are felt in the historical tragedy "Julius Caesar" (1599). Her true hero, however, is not great commander, and another Roman figure is Brutus, the sworn enemy of tyranny. He joins a conspiracy against Caesar, striving for sole despotic power, and participates in his assassination. Adherents of Caesar, and first of all Mark Antony, deceive the people with demagogic speeches, the Romans expel Brutus. The noble hero is defeated and commits suicide. Victory goes to the supporters of tyranny. The tragedy is that the people (namely, they play a decisive role in this tragedy) have not matured to understand who are their true and who are imaginary friends. Historical conditions have developed unfavorably for those who wished to establish noble ideals in life, and this is expressed in Julius Caesar.
.Like other representatives of the new worldview, Shakespeare believed that the best beginnings must triumph over evil. However, he and his generation had to make sure that life went a different way. For three centuries European humanism has developed, preaching the need to reorganize life on new, more human principles. It is time to see the consequences of this. Instead, the negative traits of bourgeois development became more and more apparent in all aspects of life. The all-destroying power of gold was added to the remnants of the previous feudal-monarchical injustices.
Shakespeare felt with all his heart that humanistic ideals could not be realized in life. This is expressed in Sonnet 66. Although his translations by S. Marshak and V. Pasternak are more famous, I give another version:
- I call death, I can’t look anymore,
- How a worthy husband dies in poverty,
- And the villain lives in beauty and hall;
- How the trust of pure souls tramples,
- As chastity is threatened with disgrace,
- How honors are given to scoundrels,
- How strength droops before the insolent gaze,
- As everywhere in life the rogue triumphs,
- How arbitrariness mocks art,
- How thoughtlessness rules the mind,
- How painfully languishes in the clutches of evil
All that we call good.
- If it weren't for you, my love, I would have long ago
- I was looking for rest under the canopy of the coffin.
– Translation by O. Rumer
The sonnet was probably written in the late 1590s, when the turning point in Shakespeare's mentality began, leading to the creation of the tragedy Hamlet. It was created, apparently, in 1600-1601. Already in 1603 the first edition of the tragedy appeared. It was released without the permission of the author and the theater in which the play was being played, and was called the quarto of 1603.

1. At first glance, the convergence of "Henry VIII" with the rest of the plays written after 1608 looks rather artificial. What unites "Pericles", "Cymbeline", "The Winter's Tale", "The Tempest"? Enlightened fairy-tale color, the victory of good, on the side ...
2. For a thinking person, the problem of choice, especially when it comes to moral choice, is always difficult and responsible. Undoubtedly, the final result is determined by a number of reasons and, first of all, by the value system of each individual ...
3. If we compare how Hamlet is seen by those who sympathize with him, it turns out that everyone has their own idea of ​​him. Let us add to this that there are those who, highly appreciating Shakespeare's tragedy...
4. What, in fact, is this courtier, apparently the closest to the throne. He probably held a high position under the former king. The new king favors him with his favors and he is the first to be ready ...
5. This comedy has two storylines: comic and love. The love line is formed by Benedict and Beatrice, Claudio and Hero. The Comic Line is formed by Margarita, Ursula, Leonato, Claudio and Don Juan. The main...
6. Juliet Capulet is one of the central characters of the tragedy. D. is shown at the moment of transition from the naive self-sufficiency of a child who has no doubts that the world around her can be different, to ...
7. During the Renaissance in England, dramatic literature became widespread, which was associated with the development of theatrical performances at that time. The theater in England had its characteristics distinguishing it from...
8. The use of borrowed plots, which in his processing received a new artistic embodiment, poetic breath and philosophical content; The special role of the jester in the plays - the character who most vividly illustrated the idea of ​​​​world theatricality and ...
9. The loneliness of the protagonist of the tragedy becomes apparent. The appearance of Rosencrantz and Gildenruhl only adds to the disappointment. According to the literary tradition, these characters are considered as Hamlet's friends who betrayed him by conspiring with the authorities. “Playing in...
10. Stratford-upon-Avon - an ancient city located about a hundred miles north-west of London, among picturesque hills, is a monument to Shakespeare. On its winding streets it is easier to meet the inhabitants of London, Manchester and...
11. More than one century has passed since the creation of Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet", but the audience is still worried, following the fate of lovers from Verona, and the actors who got the role ...
12. The hero of the tragedy by W. Shakespeare "Julius Caesar" (1599). Despite the fact that Shakespeare's tragedy is named after him, C. is not the main character, but rather the spring of action. It is around him (at first ...
13. In the last years of Shakespeare's work (1608-1612), his plays take on a different character. They move away from real life. They sound fabulous, fantastic motifs. But even in these plays - "Pericles", "Winter...
14. Love triumphs in the play. Romeo at first only imagines that he loves Rosaline. Her absence from the stage emphasizes the illusion of her existence and infatuation with Romeo. He is sad and seeks solitude. Meeting with...
15. In the tragedy "Hamlet" (1601), William Shakespeare, taking as a basis the plot of a medieval legend and an old English play about Prince Amlet, displayed the tragedy of humanism in the modern world. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is beautiful...
16. The beginning of the first period falls on the years of national upsurge that came after 1588, which is of decisive importance for the whole tone of Shakespeare's work at that time. The first period contains the most brilliant ...
17. William Shakespeare is a representative of the Renaissance, when the thoughts and feelings of a person were filled with new ideas. But in that cruel era, the humanistic ideas of the Renaissance were not destined to win, and Shakespeare bitterly...
18. The tragedy "Hamlet" was the first of the "great tragedies" by W. Shakespeare. The main idea of ​​the work is the idea that humanity has lost its highest meaning, the word “man” has ceased to be a designation of the highest value, the highest ...
19. ROMEO and JULIET (eng. Romeo and Juliet) are the heroes of W. Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" (1595), who forever became a symbol of the beautiful, but tragic love of two young creatures, irreparably separated by age-old enmity ...
20. The relevance of Shakespeare's chronicles is explained not by Shakespeare's intention to turn the historical events depicted by him into a political allegory of the present, but by the presence of some similar trends in the historical development of England as in the times when...

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Topic: Shakespeare and the Renaissance

Content

• Introduction
• 1. Renaissance
• 1.1 The term "Renaissance"
• 1.2 Renaissance culture
• 2.1 Biography of the writer
• 3.1 A play for all ages
• 3.3 Location
• 3.4 Validity
• 3.5 The play as a whole
• 4.1 Humanist and knight
• 5. Aesthetic concerns
• 5.1 Language and style
• 5.2 Tragic in Hamlet
• 5.3 "Hamlet"? and bring it to an end
• 6. History and modernity
• Conclusion
• List of used literature

Introduction

Shakespeare created immortal works in which humanity has been the brightest embodiment of itself for four centuries now. A great master of revealing characters, Shakespeare showed the tragedies of life with extraordinary power.

Shakespeare happened to live in a remarkable time. He was a contemporary great era in the history of mankind, called the Renaissance. That was a long period of social and spiritual development of Europe, when the centuries-old feudal system was broken and the bourgeois system was born. The growth of cities, the emergence of money capital, the development of commodity production, the formation of the world market, geographical discoveries - all this destroyed age-old concepts. An end was put to the spiritual domination of the church, the beginnings of a new science appeared, a new worldview began to take shape.

The heralds of a new worldview, called humanists, opposed the study of human life to faith in the divine.

The revival was born at the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries. A forgotten spiritual culture, based on a sound attitude towards human nature and free thought, opened up before the astonished West. Excavations of the ruins of Rome have unearthed sculptures of extraordinary beauty. The cult of antiquity arose. They saw in it the prototype of free humanity.

Shakespeare reflected all aspects of this complex process. In his works we see people who are still inclined to live the old fashioned way, as well as those who have thrown off the shackles of obsolete morality, and those who understand that human freedom does not at all mean the right to build one's well-being on the misfortunes of others.

The heroes of Shakespeare's plays are people of just such a warehouse. They have great passions, a powerful will, immeasurable desires. All of them are outstanding people. The character of each is manifested with extraordinary clarity and completeness. Everyone determines his own destiny, choosing one way or another in life.

However, Shakespeare does not have ideal heroes. He saw and captured in the images he created the complexity of human nature. As true people, nothing human is alien to them, including weaknesses, delusions, mistakes and even crimes. Shakespeare had a great gift for seeing the contradictions inherent in people, the clash of wills and aspirations. This is what made him a playwright. At the same time, he was far from looking at the behavior of his heroes from the point of view of some strict morality. Shakespeare clearly depicted evil and good, but did not fall into instructiveness.

While reading Shakespeare's plays, we, however, often come across how the characters talk about morality, give an assessment of various phenomena, primarily the behavior of each other.

Shakespeare's thought is dissolved in the images and situations of his plays, and he was able to reveal the characters and circumstances so fully, comprehensively that the pictures he created are rich and complex, like reality itself. That is why, by the way, when interpretations of Shakespeare's plays are offered, they are as diverse and sometimes contradictory as the opinions of different people about reality.

Time passed, and Shakespeare's creations not only did not die, but more and more entered the cultural life of mankind. Already a hundred years after his death, he was recognized as a classic, and then elevated to the rank the greatest writers peace.

As the importance of Shakespeare was more and more recognized, each generation interpreted his works in a new way for themselves, interpreted them in a new way. More and more, the deep thoughts laid down by Shakespeare in his plays were revealed, his artistic skill became more and more clear.

1. Renaissance

1.1 The term "Renaissance"

In the XV-XVI centuries. in European countries, "the greatest progressive upheaval of all experienced until that time by mankind" takes place. Marx K. and Engels F. Soch. Ed. 2, vol. 20, p. 346.,? the transition from the feudal Middle Ages to the new time, marked by the initial period of the development of capitalism. This transitional era was called the Renaissance, or Renaissance.

The crisis of medieval social foundations and scholastic culture was sharply outlined in connection with the agrarian revolution, the development of cities, the emergence of manufactories, and the establishment of extensive trade relations. It was the era of great geographical discoveries, bold sea voyages that contributed to the formation of relations between countries. It was the era of the formation of national states, the emergence of a new culture that broke with religious dogmas, the era of the rapid development of science, art and literature, which revived the ideals of antiquity and turned to the study of nature.

It was the era of humanism, when the spiritual dictatorship of the church was broken, and the individual became the center of public interests. The man of the Renaissance is distinguished by faith in reason, in his strength, his valor.

"It was the greatest progressive upheaval that mankind has experienced up to that time, an era that needed titans and which gave birth to titans in power of thought, passion and character, in versatility and learning. The people who founded the modern domination of the bourgeoisie were anything but only not by people who were bourgeois? Ed. 2, vol. 20, p. 346. . "The heroes of that time have not yet become slaves to the division of labor. Almost all of them live in the very thick of the interests of their time, take an active part in the practical struggle, take the side of one party or another and fight, some with a word and a pen, some with a sword, and some with both together. Hence the fullness and strength of character that make them whole people "Marx K. and Engels F. Op. Ed. 2, vol. 20, p. 347. .

1.2 Renaissance culture

The worldview of a Renaissance man is characterized by free-thinking, the desire to create new ideas about society and the universe. However, for the development of new concepts, there was still not enough extensive information about the world. In this regard, the Renaissance man's worldview is characterized by a combination of real ideas with poetic conjectures; often new ideas appear in the form of medieval mystical ideas, and real knowledge is inseparable from fantasy.

The art of the Renaissance is folk in its spirit. The revival of the pagan poetry of antiquity is combined with an appeal to the motives of modern folk art, to full-blooded folklore images. In this era, the formation of the literary language and national culture takes place.

The various stages of the formation of the Renaissance culture are distinguished by their peculiar features. Realism in the literature of this time develops in a successive change of different genres. At an early stage in the formation of Renaissance culture, the leading role in literature is played by lyrical genres and novella. At a later stage, drama becomes the dominant genre. The early stage is marked by a belief in the free development of man. In his creative possibilities. At a later stage, it is already revealed that the formation of an absolutist state comes into conflict with the ideals of humanism, turns out to be hostile to these ideals. Tragic collisions between a developed personality and the tyrannical regime of an absolutist state were the basis of the drama late renaissance. The heyday of humanism in an era of rapid social change by the beginning of the 17th century. is replaced by a crisis.

In England, the Renaissance began in the 16th century, later than in Italy, France, Spain, but did it develop more intensively, while relying on the ideas of European humanists? from Petrarch and Pico della Mirandola to Erasmus of Rotterdam and Montaigne.

The representative of the early stage of the English Renaissance was Thomas More. He studied at Oxford University, where he was strongly influenced by the English humanists Lynacre, Grosin and Colet. Thomas More became a famous political figure.

Thomas More was the first to suggest that a society can exist without private property. Without denying the idea of ​​state structure. More seeks to depict a society in which the state is based on collective property and social labor.

In the literature of the early stage of the English Renaissance, poetry plays a leading role. Renaissance poetry in England is a magnificent summation of the entire previous history of English literature, which knew almost no other genres than poetry. At the same time, the poetry of the 16th century reached a much higher level in comparison with the previous periods of its development.

The first humanist poets Wyatt and Sarri were aristocrats close to the court of Henry VIII, whose rigidity and despotism affected their fate: Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower, and Sarri was executed.

shakespeare revival hamlet tragic

The 16th century in England was the heyday of drama. The English theater responded to popular interests and was unusually popular in an atmosphere of national upsurge. By the end of the XVI century. there were about twenty theaters in London; among them, the James Burbage Theater and the Philip Hensloe Theater were especially famous. The development of theatrical culture did not go without difficulties, the main obstacle was the actions of the Puritans, who considered the theater to be a "demonic" affair.

Combination of folk farce and classical drama was carried out in the work of playwrights, who are called "university minds". These include Robert Green, Christopher Marlo, Thomas Kidd and others.

Thomas Kyd is considered the author of the lost play "Hamlet", which served as the basis for the Shakespearean tragedy. But already in the "Spanish Tragedy" there are situations close to Shakespeare's "Hamlet": the implementation of revenge, an interstitial scene of the play? stage on stage. Thomas Kyd's skill in creating convincing characters and dramatic action set the stage for Shakespeare's dramatic art.

2. The folk character of Shakespeare's work

2.1 Biography of the writer

Creativity of the great English writer William Shakespeare is of worldwide importance. Shakespeare's genius is dear to all mankind. The world of ideas and images of humanist poets is truly enormous. The global significance of Shakespeare? in realism and the nationality of his work.

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in the family of a glover. The future playwright studied at a grammar school, where they taught Latin and Greek, as well as literature and history. Life in a provincial town provided the opportunity for close contact with the people from whom Shakespeare learned English folklore and wealth. vernacular. When the father of the future poet, a wealthy merchant at that time, went bankrupt, fifteen-year-old William was forced to earn his living on his own. For a while, Shakespeare was a junior teacher. In 1582 he married Anna Hathaway; he had three children. In 1587, Shakespeare left for London and soon began to play on the stage, although he did not have much success as an actor. From 1593 he worked at the Burbage Theater as an actor, director and playwright, and from 1599 he became a shareholder of the Globe Theatre.

Shakespeare began performing as a playwright in the late 80s of the 16th century. Researchers believe that at first he worked out and "updated" already existing plays and only then moved on to creating his own works. Shakespeare's plays were very popular, although few people knew his name at that time, because the audience paid attention primarily to the actors.

In 1612 Shakespeare left the theatre, stopped writing plays and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare died April 23, 1616 and was buried at Stratford-upon-Avon.

2.2 Periods of the writer's work

Shakespeare's career is divided into three periods. In the first period (1591-1601), the poems "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucretia", sonnets and almost all historical chronicles, with the exception of "Henry VIII" (1613); three tragedies: "Titus Hadronicus", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Julius Caesar". The most characteristic of this period was a cheerful light comedy ("The Taming of the Shrew", "Much Ado About Nothing", etc.).

The pinnacle of English poetry of the Renaissance and the most important milestone in the history of world poetry were Shakespeare's sonnets. By the end of the XVI century. the sonnet became the leading genre in English poetry. Shakespeare's sonnets, in their philosophical depth, lyrical force, dramatic feeling and musicality, occupy an outstanding place in the development of the art of the sonnet of that time.

The 154 sonnets created by Shakespeare are united by the image of a lyrical hero who sings of his transmitted friendship with a wonderful young man and his ardent and painful love for a swarthy lady. Shakespeare's sonnets? this is a lyrical confession; the hero tells about the life of his heart, about his conflicting feelings; this is? a passionate monologue, angrily denouncing the hypocrisy and rigidity that reigned in society, and opposing them with enduring spiritual values? friendship, love, art.

The essence of the genre of historical chronicle consists in the dramatic depiction of real persons and events of national history. Unlike tragedies, where Shakespeare, in the interests of the general idea, departed from an accurate depiction of historical facts, the chronicle is characterized by a faithful reproduction of historical events, which, however, involves artistic conjecture and artistic re-creation of the material.

Also in the first period of creativity, along with historical chronicles, Shakespeare created cheerful, optimistic comedies in which a person acts as the creator of his own happiness, overcoming sometimes difficult dramatic situations.

The second period (1601–1608) was marked by an interest in tragic conflicts and tragic heroes. Shakespeare creates tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens. The comedies written during this period already bear a tragic reflection; in the comedies "Troilus and Cressida" and "Measure for Measure" the satirical element is intensified.

Shakespeare's tragedies are characterized by deep penetration into the historical essence of the tragic contradictions of their time. In the dramaturgy of Shakespeare, the social and political conflicts of the Renaissance are surprisingly truthfully reflected. The most profound changes in life, associated with a gigantic upheaval in history, when feudalism was replaced by a new bourgeois system,? This is the foundation of the tragic in Shakespeare. Historicism of Shakespeare? in comprehending the main tendencies of the real struggle unfolding between the old and the new, in revealing the tragic meaning of the social relations of that time. With all his naive? political view of the world, Shakespeare was able to show the importance of the people in the life of society.

Shakespeare's tragic hero is active and capable of moral choice. He feels responsible for his actions. If circumstances, society contradict the ideals of morality and violate them, then the moral choice of the hero? in the struggle against circumstances, in irreconcilability to evil, even if this leads to his own death. This is most evident in Hamlet.

The third period (1608-1612) includes the tragicomedies "Pericles", "Cymbeline", "The Winter's Tale", "The Tempest", in which fantasy and allegorism are manifested. AT last period Shakespeare remains faithful to the ideals of humanism, although he no longer had any illusions about the humanism of the new capitalist order. Having not found an embodiment in life, the ideals of humanism in Shakespeare's creative fantasy took the form of a dream about the future, about a beautiful new world. This dream, in the absence of the possibility of realizing it in reality, was embodied in the form of fantastic elements, pastoral scenes and allegories, characteristic of Shakespeare's work of the last period.

In the dramas of the third period, Shakespeare turns to mixing fantasy with reality, to folklore motifs, to fairy tales and utopian situations, to picturesque scenes unfolding against the backdrop of nature. In the later tragicomedies of Shakespeare, the lyric-heroic principle dominates, the romance of exceptional events. These plays are characterized by the theme of the opposition of society and nature. Rigid court manners and idyllic rural life. However, the break with society is here a form of moral and ethical criticism of this society, and not a call to flee from it. It is no coincidence that heroes return to society. To keep fighting evil.

An important problem for Shakespeare is the problem of human character. At the center of the plot of most of Shakespeare's dramas is a person who is revealed in the struggle taking place in the present. Shakespeare does not give any background to his characters. The person in Shakespeare's works is connected with the life of contemporary society for the playwright.

2.3 Popularity in Shakespeare's work

Shakespeare conveyed National character English reality, the nature of English folk culture. No one before him could depict the course of history itself, show the various strata of society in a single dynamic system.

Shakespeare captured in his works the turning point of the era, the dramatic struggle between the old and the new. His works reflected the movement of history in its tragic contradictions.

Shakespeare's folk tragedy is based on the plot material of history and legend, which reflects the heroic state of the world. But on this legendary and historical material, Shakespeare raised acute contemporary problems. The great tragedies of Shakespeare are characterized by tyrannical pathos.

In tragedies on ancient themes, Shakespeare sharply posed political problems, expressed his attitude to the republican and monarchical forms of government. In these tragedies, Shakespeare showed the importance of the people in the political struggle, with the formidable power of which the rulers were forced to reckon.

The nationality of Shakespeare is that he lived by the interests of his time, was faithful to the ideals of humanism, embodied the ethical principle in his works, drew images from the treasury of folk art, depicted heroes against a wide folk background. In Shakespeare's work? the origins of the development of drama, lyrics and the novel of modern times.

The folk character of Shakespeare's dramaturgy is also determined by the language. Shakespeare used wealth spoken language residents of London, gave the words new shades, new meaning See: Morozov M. Articles about Shakespeare. M., 1964. . The lively folk speech of the heroes of Shakespeare's plays is full of puns. The imagery of language in Shakespeare's plays is achieved by the frequent use of precise, pictorial comparisons and metaphors.

Shakespeare's language is idiomatic and aphoristic. Many Shakespearean expressions have become catchphrases.

3. Shakespeare? Renaissance playwright

3.1 A play for all ages

Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" is the most famous of the plays of the English playwright. According to many highly respected connoisseurs of art, this is one of the most thoughtful creations of human genius, a great philosophical tragedy.

It deals with the most important issues of life and death, which cannot but excite every person. Shakespeare the thinker appears in this work in all his gigantic stature. The questions posed by the tragedy are of truly universal significance. Not without reason on different stages In the development of human thought, people turned to Hamlet, looking for confirmation of their views on life and world order in it.

However, "Hamlet" attracts not only those who are inclined to think about the meaning of life in general. Shakespeare's work puts sharp moral issues which are by no means abstract. The situations of the tragedy, and especially the thoughts and experiences of its hero, deeply touch the souls of readers and viewers.

As a true work of art, "Hamlet" attracts many generations of people. Life changes, new interests and concepts arise, and each new generation finds something close to itself in the tragedy. The power of tragedy is confirmed not only by its popularity with readers, but also by the fact that for almost four centuries it has occupied one of the first, if not the very first place in the repertoire of theaters in Western civilization, and is now conquering the stages of theaters of other cultures. Performances of the tragedy invariably attract the audience, and the dream of every actor is to play the role of the hero of this tragedy. The popularity of "Hamlet" in recent decades has been greatly facilitated by its screening in films and television shows.

Sensitive and thoughtful readers are concerned about the fate of many literary heroes and heroines. They are sympathized with, they are pitied or rejoiced with them, but there is always some distance between readers and viewers, separating them from the pretty and beautiful heroes created by writers. Hamlet enters our souls.

To understand Hamlet and sympathize with him, you don't need to be in his life situation? find out that the father was murdered villainously, and the mother betrayed her husband's memory and married another. Of course, those whose fate is at least partly similar to Hamlet's will feel more acutely and vividly everything that the hero experiences. But even with the dissimilarity of life situations, Hamlet turns out to be close to readers, especially if they have spiritual qualities similar to those inherent in Hamlet,? a tendency to peer into oneself, to plunge into one's inner world, painfully acutely perceive injustice and evil, to feel someone else's pain and suffering as one's own.

Great works of art, over time, acquire one quality that is difficult to define. They become in the eyes of many people a spiritual treasure, a kind of shrine that causes admiration. But for a complete understanding of aesthetic values, certain knowledge and skills are needed, which allow not only with the heart, but also with the mind to comprehend the meaning and meaning of this work.

3.2 Poetic view of the world

Much of the work on Hamlet is written as though it were a mere document recounting the story of the death of the Prince of Denmark; events, causes of actions, psychology of heroes are investigated. It would seem that this is the surest way, if Shakespeare is an artist of the truth of life. But at the same time, we must not forget that he is an artist, a writer who created a work from an old legend that has come down to him and his own observations and thoughts about life. It must be remembered that "Hamlet" in the most precise sense of the word work, something created by an artist, and not a simple fixation of facts that took place in reality. If we take Hamlet as a picture of life and its hero as a living person, then this is the result of a great, almost incomprehensible art that was inherent in such a genius as Shakespeare. Many of the critics' mistakes have come from forgetting these simple truths.

In order to correctly understand the meaning of the work, you need to know how it is written. A simple technique - to parse first the content and then the form of the work often leads to a misunderstanding of the meaning. First of all, we must remember that a work of art is not equivalent to reality. This is a reflection of it, achieved by special means. Many errors in the interpretation of "Hamlet" come from the fact that they see in the play the same reflection of life as the plays of Gogol, Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky give. And they do not provide a direct naturalistic depiction of reality, and as for Shakespeare, his artistic method is fundamentally different from the method underlying the realistic dramas of modern times.

The first noticeable difference between "Hamlet" and dramas (most of our time) is that the play is written in verse. This does not mean at all that Shakespeare put ordinary speech into verse. Hamlet is a poetic drama in the full sense of the word. Tragedy is based on a poetic view of the world. Shakespeare's poetry inspires the whole world. Nature is also seen by him and his heroes in a poetic light. For a poetic eye, the world holds many wonderful and fantastic things. From the unusual, from the miracle, the tragedy begins - the Ghost appears. This causes excitement among the guards who saw him, but one of them, Marcellus, says:

There is a rumor that every year around that time,

When a savior was born on earth,

The singer of the dawn is not silent until the morning;

Then the spirits do not dare to move,

Healing nights, do not smash the planet,

Fairies are harmless, witches do not enchant.

(I, I, 158- 164) "Hamlet is quoted in M. Lozinsky's translation" .

This is the world in which the Danish prince lives. Here they believe in spirits, ghosts, witchcraft, in the fact that the planets have a direct impact on the fate of people.

The world depicted in the tragedy is not quite similar to the current ideas about life, and the people living in it think differently than we do - in poetic images and concepts.

The point, therefore, is not that Shakespeare's tragedy was written in verse, but in a special view of the world, for which the miraculous was natural.

3.3 Location

It seems clear: the scene is Elsinore, the seat of the Danish kings. The text of the play repeatedly emphasizes that everything takes place in Denmark in those remote times when it conquered part of England and English king became a tributary of the Danish crown. The reader is left with the feeling that, with the exception of references to Denmark, there is nothing specifically Danish in the tragedy. Shakespeare intentionally brought the action closer to the concepts of the audience of his theater. No wonder Goethe noted that wherever the action of Shakespeare's plays takes place, we always have "England washed by the seas" before us, and Shakespeare's Romans are not so much Romans as Englishmen.

The impression is unmistakable, and Goethe explained it: Shakespeare's heroes are first of all people. The artist so subtly and accurately captured the universal in the heroes, whom he extracted from Roman history, the Scandinavian saga and Italian short stories, that, with rare exceptions, the scene is perceived in a generalized way. This was even more pronounced in the Shakespeare Theatre, where the performances were stageless and the actors played in contemporary costumes.

When does the tragedy take place? In the pre-Christian times of the legendary Amleth or in the era of Shakespeare? Knowing how things stand in Shakespeare's plays with the place of action, we are already on the way to answering the question of the time of the action. It is now and always. Therefore, it makes no difference what kind of scenery they will furnish "Hamlet" in the theater. He was played as a tragedy taking place in the Middle Ages, during the Renaissance, in wigs and tanks of the 18th century, in tailcoats and uniforms, in costumes of our time. The essence of the tragedy remained unchanged.

And yet, despite all the fact that the universal, contained in the tragedy, is effective at all times, "Hamlet", of course, is a work of the very era when he first appeared on the stage. The tragedy bears the indelible stamp of the Renaissance, when individuality flourished brightly and the heroism of a single feat was still alive. The people depicted in the tragedy are not bound by traditional morality. Of course, there was a state with all its apparatus of coercion. Such was the monarchy of Queen Elizabeth I, such is the state headed by Claudius. But it was not yet the absolutism that suppresses a separate person and to the smallest detail regulates the life and life of all classes. For a part of society, for its elite, that individual freedom was preserved, which was inherent in the freedom of the nobility. At the same time, the culture of the Renaissance gave rise to such self-awareness of the individual, which could not have been in the Middle Ages. Although literal privileges were still preserved, humanism established new criteria for evaluating a person, based on personal merit, regardless of origin.

The transitional nature of time also affects the image of the hero of the tragedy. In Hamlet there is a chivalry inherited from the old days, and a commitment to the principles of humanism that arose in new era. Without this combination, the image of Hamlet cannot be correctly understood.

3.4 Validity

The duration of the action in Shakespeare's plays varied from several years, as, for example, in The Winter's Tale, where sixteen years pass between the initial three acts and the final fourth and fifth acts, up to one day, as in The Tempest.

And how long do the events in Hamlet take? An analysis of the actions and remarks of the characters showed the following.

The first scene of the first act begins around midnight, when the Phantom appears, and ends at dawn.

The second scene - in the palace - takes place in the morning or in the middle of the day.

The third - seeing off Laertes - in the afternoon of the same day. Thus I, 1-3 cover one day.

The fourth and fifth scenes of the first act take place at midnight, when Hamlet meets the Ghost. With the first glimpse of dawn, when the rooster crows, this episode ends. These two days fall in the month of March. Then there is a break lasting two months, and new scenes of the play take place in May.

Sending Reynaldo to France, Ophelia's story about Hamlet's madness, the return of ambassadors from Norway, Polonius's message to the king about the cause of the prince's madness, the arrival of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Denmark, their meeting with Hamlet, the arrival of wandering actors in Elsinore - all this happens on the same day (P , 1-2).

The next day comes immediately) without a break. They are also filled with events: Hamlet's meeting with Ophelia, Hamlet's lecture to the actors before the performance, the performance of The Murder of Gonzago, the king's prayer and Hamlet's refusal to kill him at that moment, the prince's conversation with his mother, the murder of Polonius, the search for his body, Hamlet's arrest and the king's decision send him to England occupy four scenes of the third act and the first three scenes of the fourth act.

Hamlet's departure for England takes place, apparently, the next day, the fifth in a row.

The duration of a new break in action is difficult to determine. During it, news of the death of Polonius reaches France, Laertes returns to Denmark, and Hamlet, sailing to England, encounters pirates who help him return to Elsinore. The final events take two days.

During the sixth day (IV, 5-7) the following happens: the madness of Ophelia, the storming of the palace by Laertes, the message of the sailors about the return of Hamlet to Denmark, the conspiracy of Claudius with Laertes against the prince, the death of Ophelni.

Seventh day - events at the cemetery: Hamlet's conversation with the First Gravedigger, Ophelia's funeral, the prince's skirmish with Laertes (V, 1).

It is difficult to say how much time passes between the first and second scenes of the fifth act. There is no long break between them. By hardly court entertainment - "friendly" duel between Laertes and Hamlet takes place immediately after the day of the funeral. Probably several days passed before the mourning for Ophelia was lifted.

It has long been noted that in a number of Shakespeare's plays there is a double counting of time. On the one hand, it is obvious that the events depicted take up enough for a long time- months, years; on the other hand, the action of the plays takes place so rapidly that we do not have time to keep track of time and it seems to us that it goes on continuously or without pauses. Shakespeare does not have exactness and complete consistency of time.

3.5 The play as a whole

The striking feature of "Hamlet" is the interconnection of all parts, the unity of the entire dramatic action. Everything that happens on the stage ultimately "works" for the main conflict.

The variety of external circumstances of the action in Hamlet is striking. There is a lot here: from naive religious ideas about the other world to minor everyday details. The splendor and solemnity of the palace setting, where the fate of the state and individuals are decided, are replaced by a picture of family life; then we see one of the halls or galleries of the palace, then a stone platform where night guards stand; the audience is shown a court performance of actors and a gloomy spectacle of a cemetery.

Not only the external setting of the action is varied, but also its atmosphere; Shakespeare loves such contrasts: the court festivities are painted in gloomy tones, and the cemetery scene begins with jokes. At times, we, together with the hero, find ourselves on the mysterious edge of being, beyond which begins other world, and the viewer is covered by a mystical feeling; but he is here same becomes a witness to the scenes are quite real.

On the whole, however, the spirit of the tragedy is determined by the fact that it starts with a murder in order to seize power, and throughout the whole action there is a typical palace setting: eavesdropping, surveillance, suspicions, cunning, insidious traps, a conspiracy.

"Hamlet" is a tragedy not only in the sense that the fate of the hero turns out to be ill-fated. The tragedy depicts evil in a wide variety of manifestations - treason, betrayal, deceit, murder. Shakespeare even earlier, even in the optimistic period of creativity, showed different kinds evil, its bearers appeared in some of his comedies, but in the end, good always triumphed. In the works of the first two periods, evil was portrayed as an unlawful force. In "Hamlet" evil appears as the dominant force of life. "To be honest with what this world is," Hamlet says to Polonius, "is to be a man fished out of ten thousand" (II, 2, 178-179). When Rosencrantz, covering up his and Guildenstern's hypocrisy, tries to assure Hamlet that "the world has become honest" (II, 2, 241-242), the prince resolutely objects: "So, it means that judgment day is near; but only your news is false" (II , 2, 243-244).

Honesty is the most important quality in human relationships. It consists in directness, truthfulness, a conscientious attitude towards each other and the absence of any guile. Hamlet's answer has two meanings - a general one. for he, by the example of his mother and Claudius, had already made his conclusion about what this world is, and - private, referring directly to his former university comrades. Hamlet immediately suspected that they had come to him for a reason. Compared with Claudius, their dishonesty is small, but it is included in the gloomy conclusion of Hamlet: dishonor has seized the whole world.

Shakespeare's tragedy is not only a depiction of a society afflicted with evil. Already the earliest chronicle plays: "Henry VI", "Richard III", as well as "Titus Andronicus" gave such a picture. "Hamlet" is a tragedy, the deepest meaning of which lies in the awareness of evil, in the desire to comprehend its roots, to understand the different forms of its manifestation and to find means of fighting against it. The artist created the image of a hero, shocked to the core by the discovery of evil. But not only the hero, the whole tragedy is imbued with such a spirit. Shakespeare does not look at what is happening through the eyes of a dispassionate observer. This creation expresses the consciousness of the artist, deeply moved by the spectacle of the horrors of life, revealed to him in all their terrible power. The pathos of tragedy is indignation against the omnipotence of evil. It was with this feeling that Shakespeare created his tragic masterpiece.

No elements of form can be considered on their own, divorced from the artistic whole. Each formal element is meaningful, it cannot be torn off from the ideological meaning of the work. On the other hand, the spiritual richness of the great creation is due to the abundance artistic means used by Shakespeare in the creation of "Hamlet".

4. The Ideal Renaissance Man

4.1 Humanist and knight

In Shakespeare's plays there is such a feature: whatever the length of time when the action takes place, during it a person goes through his life path. The life of the heroes of Shakespeare's tragedies begins from the moment when they are involved in a dramatic conflict. Indeed, the human personality reveals itself completely when, voluntarily or involuntarily, it is involved in a struggle, the outcome of which sometimes turns out to be tragic for it.

The whole life of Hamlet passed before us. Yes exactly. Although the action of the tragedy covers only a few months, they were the period of the true life of the hero. True, Shakespeare does not leave us in the dark about what the hero was like before the fatal circumstances arose. With a few strokes, the author makes it clear what Hamlet's life was like before the death of his father. But everything that precedes the tragedy is of little importance, because the moral qualities and character of the hero are revealed in the process of life's struggle. Of course, it is not indifferent what the Danish prince was like before the events with which the tragedy begins, he is revealed to us already when the upheavals of life caused changes in his views and behavior.

Shakespeare acquaints us with Hamlet's past by two means: his own speeches and the opinion of others about him.

From the words of Hamlet "I lost my gaiety, I abandoned all my usual activities" (II, 2, 306-307) it is easy to conclude that state of mind Hamlet the student. He lived in a world of intellectual interests. It is no coincidence that Shakespeare the artist chose Wittenberg University for his hero. The fame of this city was based on the fact that it was here that Martin Luther on October 31, 1517 nailed his 95 theses against the Roman Catholic Church to the doors of the cathedral. When the Pope condemned him in a special bull, Luther burned this document in 1520. Thanks to this, Wittenberg became synonymous with the spiritual reformation of the 16th century, a symbol of free thought. Not princes, not courtiers made up the circle in which Hamlet revolved, but his university comrades. With all the savings necessary for the drama, Shakespeare introduced three of Hamlet's classmates at the university - Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - into the number of characters. From these latter we learn that Hamlet was a theater lover. At the same time, he was not limited to attending performances, but was well received backstage, personally knew the actors. We also know that Hamlet not only read books, but also wrote poetry himself. This was taught in the universities of that time. There are even two examples of Hamlet's literary writing in the tragedy: a love poem addressed to Ophelia, and sixteen lines of poetry inserted by him into the text of the tragedy "The Murder of Gonzago".

The author emphasizes the intellectuality of Hamlet, his wide interest in culture and especially in art (literature, theater). But this is not the whole Hamlet.

Shakespeare presented him as a typical "universal man" of the Renaissance. This is exactly how Ophelia draws him in the words already quoted, pitying him, having lost his mind, Hamlet has lost his former qualities:

Oh, what a proud mind smitten! nobles,

Fighter, scientist? gaze, sword, tongue;

The color and hope of a joyful state,

A stamp of grace, a mirror of taste,

An example of exemplary.

II, 1, 18?162

Hamlet is depicted as a follower of the principles of humanism. As the son of his father, he must take revenge on his murderer and is full of hatred for Claudius. Moreover, as a broad-minded person, Hamlet realizes that Claudius is not only a villain himself, but also a hotbed of evil in the country. He seduced not only the prince's mother, but also everyone around, forced him to serve him, drawing him into the general abyss of evil. This is depicted in the tragedy very clearly. Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Laertes and even Ophelia become accomplices of Claudius.

A profound contradiction arises in Hamlet's mind. It is necessary to avenge his father for his sacred duty, to destroy Claudius, for he sows evil everywhere. But Hamlet can accomplish the task facing him only by murder, that is, he must commit the very evil that caused his deepest indignation.

Hamlet leads the fight, morally destroys those who betray human dignity, and finally, he uses weapons. Hamlet would like to fix the world, but does not know how! He realizes that with a simple dagger. By killing yourself, you will not destroy evil. Can it be destroyed by killing another?

For a correct understanding of the hero, two more important circumstances must be taken into account. The first of them is Hamlet's chivalry and his high concept of honor. Shakespeare did not accidentally choose the prince as the hero. Rejecting the obscurantism of the Middle Ages, the humanists by no means crossed out the valuable that they saw in the heritage of this era. Already in the Middle Ages, the ideal of chivalry was the embodiment of high moral qualities. Real chivalry was far from ideal, but people appeared in its midst and they had their own singers who demanded a combination of military prowess with the protection of the weak and offended. The ideal of a courageous, just, kind knight in many respects anticipated humanistic ideas about what a genuine person should be like. Not only in literature, but also in reality in the Renaissance, this trend took place. Among English humanists, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was considered such an ideal knight? warrior, scientist, poet, novelist, author of A Defense of Poetry. He fell in battle for thirty-two years.

There is no contradiction between Hamlet's chivalry and his humanism. They combine organically. Among the most important ideals of chivalry was fidelity in general, and especially in love. It is no accident that it was in knightly times that beautiful legends about true love arose, such as, for example, the story of Tristan and Isolde. In this legend, love was sung not only to death, but beyond the grave. Hamlet experiences his mother's betrayal both as a personal grief and as a betrayal of the ideal of fidelity. Any betrayal? love, friendship, duty - is regarded by Hamlet as a violation of the moral rules of chivalry.

In this regard, the attitude of Hamlet towards Fortinbras is very indicative. He is his knight of honor. The squad of Fortinbras is admired by Hamlet:

Here is the army, a heavy bulk,

Led by a graceful, gentle prince,

Whose spirit, embraced by wondrous ambition,

Laughing at the invisible outcome

Doom what is mortal and unfaithful,

To all that happiness and danger can,

Yes, for the shell.

VI, 4,47-53

Fortinbras is depicted as a knight, an adventurer, boldly looking for an excuse to show his prowess. He is driven by ambition, which was by no means considered a vice among the knights. On the contrary, they saw a high virtue in him, and this is how his Danish brother evaluates the desire of the Norwegian prince for exploits and glory. According to Hamlet, Fortinbras is driven by "divine ambition".

Knightly honor did not tolerate any, even the slightest damage. This is where Hamlet comes from when he says:

Truly great

Who is not disturbed by a small cause,

But will enter into a dispute because of a blade of grass,

When honor is hurt.

IV, 4, 53-56

Hamlet reproaches himself precisely with the fact that he hesitates when his honor is offended by not trifling reasons, while the soldiers of Fortinbras "for the sake of whim and absurd glory / Go to the grave." (IV, 4, 56-62).

Hamlet does not condemn Fortinbras with these words, he only emphasizes how much his reason for action is greater than that of the Norwegian prince. As we know, it was then, seeing the passing of the Norwegian warriors, that Hamlet finally matures for revenge: "Oh, my thought, from now on you must // Be bloody, or the price is your ashes!" (IV, 4, 65-66).

However, there is a clear contradiction here. One of the rules of knightly honor is truthfulness. Meanwhile, in order to carry out the first part of his plan and to make sure that Claudius is guilty, Hamlet pretends not to be what he really is. Paradoxical as it may seem, Hamlet decides to pretend to be crazy, and this is exactly what hurts his honor the least. Hamlet puts "nature, honor" side by side, and, perhaps, it is no coincidence that "nature" comes first, because in his tragedy it is the nature of man that is first of all affected. The third reason, called by Hamlet, is not a "feeling" at all - a feeling of resentment, insult. After all, the prince said about Laertes: "In my fate, I see the reflection of His fate!" (V, 2, 76-77). Indeed, Hamlet's nature is also hurt by the murder of his father, that is, his filial feeling, and honor.

5. Aesthetic concerns

5.1 Language and style

Most of the text is written in blank verse, but in some scenes the characters speak prose. The relationship between verse and prose in Shakespeare's plays is a rather complicated problem; in Hamlet it is solved simply.

All prose dialogues have a comic tone. Wherever Hamlet, playing a madman, talks with Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Ophelia, the king, Osric, he speaks in prose and laughs at them, his speech is full of sarcasm, satirical remarks. It is easy to verify this by referring to the relevant passages of the text: the second line of the second act (172-439) contains Hamlet's mockery of Polonius, a playful conversation with former university comrades, then a friendly, but not devoid of mockery, reception of the actors (440-471), an order Hamlet It is good for Polonius to accept the whole troupe (440-471); the conversation between the prince and Ophelia is full of sarcasm (III, 1, 103-157).

Hamlet's advice to actors contains satirical attacks against bad acting (III, 2, I-50); before and during the performance of "The Mousetrap" Hamlet's conversation with his mother, Ophelia, the king is full of biting substitutions. ny (III, 2, 97-147, 233-265), such is the conversation about the flute with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (III, 2, 360-389), a mockery of Polonius about what a cloud looks like (III, 2 , 390-405). The prince's answers are full of caustic mockery when he is interrogated where he hid the corpse of Polonius (IV, 2, 1-33; 3, 17-55). Humor, satire, irony sound in the conversation of the gravediggers with Hamlet (V, 1, 1-240), the conversation with Osric has a parodic and satirical character (V, 2, 81-202). Of the prose dialogues, only two are free from such a tone: a letter from Prince Horatio (IV, 6, 6-31), his own conversation with a friend before the duel (V, 2, 203-235), but, notifying the king of his return, Hamlet does not could deny himself irony (IV, 7, 43-48).

Scholars of the Shakespearean style note five distinct types of prose in Hamlet:

1) in formal documents, that is, Hamlet's letters,

2) in the dialogues of people of the lower class (gravediggers),

3) in simple colloquial speech (Hamlet and actors, Hamlet and Horatio),

4) in speeches testifying to the clouding of the mind (several replicas of Ophelia and Hamlet),

5) a special place in prose belongs to Hamlet's words that heaven, earth and people no longer please him (II.2, 306-322). Here Shakespeare's prose reaches a truly poetic loftiness and beauty.

Variations in prose contribute to our understanding of the variety of style of speech of the characters, but even more so is the contrast between the two main elements of the language of tragedy - prose and verse. At the same time, sometimes the transition from poetry to prose serves to weaken the tragic tension or preface pathetic scenes, in other cases, prose also acquires a tensely dramatic sound (Hamlet's break with Ophelia, III, 1, 102-157; the prince's impudent answers to the king, IV, 3, 20 -39).

Poetic speech predominates in Hamlet. Shakespeare's blank verse has reached here an unusual variety and flexibility. In large poetic speeches, different tonality sounds: passion, pathos, prudence, irony, epic calm - you can’t list everything. It is especially noteworthy that, while reading and listening, we begin to perceive poetic speech as normal, it seems colloquial, and we forget about the conventions of the poetic language of tragedy, it sounds so natural.

Hamlet contains a sort of anthology of English Renaissance theater. Shakespeare reflected in this tragedy three stages of the English Renaissance theater. The first, earliest stage is represented by the naive, straightforward tragedy "The Murder of Gonzago". In this spirit, the founders of the secular humanistic theater wrote and performed plays in the 1560s and 1570s. There are no special intricacies of the plot here, the psychology of the characters is still very simple, the abundance of moral maxims resembles the genre from which the humanistic drama began - morality.

The next stage in the development of Renaissance drama was rhetorical tragedy and comedy. "University minds" Christopher Marlo, Robert Green, Thomas Kidd and others abandoned the old "jumping" rhymed verse, replacing it with blank verse. They filled the speeches of the characters with various methods of rhetoric and gave power and strength to the sound of the verse. This stage of the poetic drama of the English Renaissance is represented by a monologue from the tragedy "Dido", which is read by the actor at the request of Hamlet.

Finally, the tragedy itself embodies the stylistic principles of the third, highest period of English drama, marked by the work of Shakespeare himself.

5.2 Tragic in Hamlet

In the history of art, there were two eras of the highest flowering of tragedy - in ancient times in the 5th century BC. and at the beginning of modern times in the 17th century. Shakespeare's tragedies belong to the highest manifestations of this art. In the work of Shakespeare himself, the tragic manifested itself in various ways. "Hamlet" occupies a middle place in it, differing both from his early tragedies, and from those that were created after the story of the Prince of Denmark.

As we have already seen, the action of the tragedy is not entirely filled with horrors. It has relatively quiet moments and even scenes heavily tinged with humor or satire. "King Lear" and "Macbeth" are more "terrible" tragedies, their general atmosphere is darker. Nevertheless, "Hamlet" meets all the main features of the tragedy.

The events taking place here are from the very beginning overshadowed by the vision of death. After the climactic scenes of the third act, the deaths follow one after another: Polonius is stabbed to death, Ophelia drowns, the poisoned queen dies, Laertes, Claudius and Hamlet die from the sword and poison; while four corpses are already lying on the stage, ambassadors from England announce the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. If you count the murder of the old king, nine deaths! You can't call such a tragedy otherwise.

If they were victims of a natural disaster, from a worldly point of view, it would also be terrible and we would say: "There has been a tragedy!" However, in art, not every death is tragic. People who die from catastrophes that did not happen of their own will, from the point of view of aesthetics, are victims of a disaster, but not tragic heroes.

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

The tragic situation in art is ultimately a reflection of such a state when a grandiose social breakdown is taking place in the world. Therefore, the heyday of the tragedy falls on the turning points of history. But not all transitional moments of social development gave rise to tragic art. In a class society, as K. Marx showed, the situation is tragic when a centuries-old way of life, the old social system, perishes, and a new one comes in its place. No matter how unjust the old order of life was, it seems to the people of the old school better than the one that is replacing it. The adherents of the outgoing world consider their death unlawful, they see it as a tragedy. And it is indeed tragic, because the shifts taking place in the social system bring death not only to the entire way of life, but also to the people associated with it.

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Biography of William Shakespeare - the great English playwright and poet. English drama and theater of William Shakespeare, his poems and poems, works in other art forms. Biographical riddles and mysteries connected with the life and work of Shakespeare.

Created more than three centuries ago, Shakespeare's tragedies, historical chronicles and comedies still live, excite and shake the imagination of the audience. Best theaters world and outstanding actors still consider it their test and happiness to stage and play a Shakespearean play.

After seeing such a performance or just reading a Shakespeare play, you might want to know more about who created these works. But it's not that easy.

Little information has been preserved about the life of the great playwright. Shakespeare did not write memoirs and did not keep a diary. We do not have his correspondence with his contemporaries. No manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays have survived. Only a few documents have come down to us, in which various circumstances of his life are mentioned. Each of these documents, even if they contain only a few words about Shakespeare, has been examined and interpreted. The rarest historical values ​​are those few pieces of paper on which a few lines are written by Shakespeare's hand or simply bears his signature.

A lot of work had to be put in so that we could now read about Shakespeare what every educated person should know about him.

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in the small English town of Stratford, located on the River Avon. His father was an artisan and merchant. The story of Shakespeare's childhood and youth is full of colorful details. However, science cannot recognize them as completely reliable. When Shakespeare was a little over 20 years old, he had to suddenly leave Stratford. The young Shakespeare went to London.

Finding himself in an unfamiliar city without funds, without friends and acquaintances, according to popular legends, at first he earned his living by guarding horses near the theater, on which noble gentlemen came. Later, Shakespeare began to serve in the theater. He made sure that the actors went on stage on time, rewrote the roles, it happened that he replaced the prompter. In a word, long before the great playwright brought his heroes to the stage, he knew the difficult backstage life of the theater.

Several years have passed. Shakespeare began to entrust small roles in the theater, later called the Globe, whose performances were a success in London. Shakespeare never became an actor, but his statements about acting, and most importantly, his excellent skill in building a play, testify to his amazing knowledge of the laws of the stage.

However, Shakespeare wrote not only plays. His poems - sonnets captivated contemporaries and continue to captivate descendants with the power of feelings, depth of thought, grace of form. Readers can appreciate Shakespeare's sonnets especially well, thanks to excellent translations.

But the main thing for Shakespeare, the passion of his whole life was the work of a playwright, the creation of plays. Shakespeare's skill as a playwright is enormous. The language of his tragedies is distinguished by extraordinary richness and brilliance. His dramaturgy occupies an honorable place in the repertoire of theaters around the world.

The jubilant joy of life, the glorification of a healthy, strong, courageous, brightly feeling, boldly thinking person - this is the main thing in Shakespeare's first plays - comedies: "The Taming of the Shrew", "Comedy of Errors", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Much Ado About Nothing" , "Twelfth Night", written in 1593-1600. They express an important idea for the Renaissance: a person should be judged not by dress, not by knowledge, not by estate and wealth, but by his behavior and personal qualities.

It is difficult to find in world drama a play as fabulously cheerful, clear, magical as A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare's poetic imagination gave rise in her to fantastic, close to folk tales images of the Mustard Seed, Spider Web, Moth. Their participation in the fate of those who love leads to a happy ending.

But the noble humanistic ideas of the Renaissance were not destined to win in that cruel era. Shakespeare feels this bitterly. In his next plays, the ideas of the Renaissance are also expressed, but the colors of the plays become darker. It depicts the collision of the beautiful ideals of the Renaissance with harsh activities. In Shakespeare's work, the theme of the death of heroes, especially dear to him, embodying bright humanistic ideas, begins to sound.

Young Romeo and Juliet - the heroes of Shakespeare's first great tragedy (1594) - passionately love each other. Their love runs into an insurmountable barrier - the ancient enmity of families. In an unequal duel with age-old prejudices, with bloody and senseless laws, Romeo and Juliet perish. But in their love, which has not come to terms with the prejudices of antiquity, lies a lofty moral victory.

Shakespeare's plays were staged at the London Globe Theatre. The Globe Theater was like a round corral open sky. A visiting foreigner who attended the first performance of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in 1599 called the Globe Theater a house with a thatched roof - he meant a roof over the stage. The theater got its name from the statue of Hercules, supporting the globe with his shoulders.

After the production of "Julius Caesar" from 1601 to 1608. Shakespeare created his greatest tragedies: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello.

Danish prince Hamlet bitterly mourns the death of his father. But suddenly he learns with horror: he did not die, he was killed. The murderer - the brother of the murdered, Hamlet's uncle - not only inherited the throne of the late king, but also married his widow - Hamlet's mother.

The tragedy depicts how Hamlet first denounces the hypocrisy of the crowned criminal, and then takes revenge on him for the death of his father. But these are only the external events of the play.

Tragedy draws complex and difficult reflections noble man about the nature of evil, about the vicious royal court, about the lies lurking in the palace walls, about the diseases that affect the eyelid, as if "dislocated in its joints." The great Russian critic V.G. Belinsky wrote about Hamlet: "This is a soul born for good and for the first time seeing evil in all its vileness."

The loneliness of Hamlet is the loneliness of a man who is ahead of his time, is in tragic disagreement with him and therefore dies.

In the last years of Shakespeare's work (1608-1612), his plays take on a different character. They move away from real life. They sound fabulous, fantastic motifs. But even in these plays - "Pericles", "The Winter's Tale", "The Tempest" - Shakespeare condemns despotism and autocracy, defends his dear ideals, glorifies the power of love, faith and the best motives of man, affirms the natural equality of all people. The exclamation of the hero of one of these plays: "How beautiful mankind is!" - may serve as a sign of the Renaissance, which gave the world Shakespeare.

In 1612 Shakespeare wrote his last play"Storm". He soon left the theatre. Maybe Shakespeare experienced disappointment in the English theater, which deviated from the great path along which he led it. Or maybe, during the years of silence, he hatched ideas for new brilliant creations that were never destined to appear.

Shakespeare died in 1616, the day he turned 52. He was buried in the church of his native Stratford, where admirers of his talent from all over the world still come to bow to the grave of the great playwright, visit the house where he lived, watch his plays at the Stratfor Memorial Theater, where only Shakespeare's plays are staged.