Hamlet by Shakespeare and Ancient Greek Tragic Categories (Analytic Theories)

Natia Pertaia

doi:10.52340/atsu.2020.1.15.08

Authors

Natia Pertaia Akaki Tsereteli State University, Kutaisi, Georgia Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52340/atsu.2020.1.15.08

Keywords:

Ancient Greek, tragedy, Hamlet, Sakespeare

Abstract

“Hamlet’’ can be considered inter-textually linked with ancient Greek tragedy narrative regarding the themes like: murdering the royal family member, inherited fate, phenomenon of ghosts, bloody rivals among generations, poisonous food and wine, violence on the site where a character seeks a shelter, deviation from conventional burial ceremonies. The very first correlation refers to so called original saga - resemblance between stories of Orestes and Hamlet. Making an analysis of the tragedy of Oedipus implies identifying the essence of the tragedy of Hamlet. Freud talks about latent feelings coming true in the case of Oedipus, while Hamlet suppresses them. Claudius is a prototype of Oedipus’s father and Hamlet consciously directs the desire of killing the father towards him. Nietzsche talks about Dionysian and Apollonian origins and analyses these categories in ancient Greek context Apollonian dealing with individuality, distinctiveness, hierarchy while Dionysian means rejection of individuality, forgetting private ego. Hamlet like the protagonists of ancient Greek drama is a traditional, typical hero and despite variety of interpretations of the myth, the essence is always the same. Consequently, on the unconscious level latent parallels already exist.

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