Shakespeare’s 1599 Hamlet manifests verisimilitude as it is seen through the eyes of a troubled intellectual and how the enduring power of Hamlet’s characterisation has affected personal responses towards the text. Shakespeare evokes many different and contrasting opinions of Hamlet through the way he has articulated the title character and also in the way Hamlet treats those around him and how Hamlet’s troubling nature affects his loved ones, for better or worse. Hamlet forces the line between reality and fiction to be reconsidered and reevaluated due to Hamlet’s characterisation, as well as a range of other literary techniques.
Hamlet’s inability to distinguish reality from fiction is one of the most prominent reasons for his demise. In …show more content…
This is seen in Act 1 Scene 2 when Hamlet announces through a soliloquy that he feels that the world is “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable…” and this starts off the inclination that Hamlet was always insane and that this has caused much of his disconnect with reality, critics in the 19th century even stating that Hamlet was ‘dissatisfied with commonplace realities and (was) retreating into a life of the mind’. This leads audiences to believe that Hamlet was insane before the events of the text began and that these events just accelerated Hamlet 's demise. More evidence that Hamlet was always insane is seen in his statement, “I do not set my life in a pin’s fee…”, and this helps support the claims that Hamlet wasn’t just pretending to be crazy, as this …show more content…
In Act 5 Scene 1, Hamlet displays an odd stroke of sanity in his conversation with the gravedigger, questioning “How came he mad?” showing that although Hamlet is mad, he still has his wit and his ability to fool people around him. Later in the same Act, Hamlet, once hearing of Ophelia’s death, Hamlet throws himself into her grave only for Laertes to pull him out for which Hamlet replies with “...For though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I something in me dangerous…” displaying that Shakespeare was able to show Hamlet’s inability to understand verisimilitude and was also able to display that while Hamlet has become insane, he is able to break through of that and warn others around him of what he plans to do. In Act 5 Scene 2, the most well known scene of the text to this day, Hamlet reverse foreshadows his descent into madness and the loss of his grip on verisimilitude in this statement to Horatio, “...what a damaged reputation I’m leaving behind me, as no one knows the truth. “ Shakespeare, in just this one line, completely changes the meaning of many of Hamlet’s previous statements during the play and causes audiences to reconsider previous assumptions about Hamlet, the most potent one being their theories on Hamlet’s madness. However, many 18th century critics
Hamlet’s inability to distinguish reality from fiction is one of the most prominent reasons for his demise. In …show more content…
This is seen in Act 1 Scene 2 when Hamlet announces through a soliloquy that he feels that the world is “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable…” and this starts off the inclination that Hamlet was always insane and that this has caused much of his disconnect with reality, critics in the 19th century even stating that Hamlet was ‘dissatisfied with commonplace realities and (was) retreating into a life of the mind’. This leads audiences to believe that Hamlet was insane before the events of the text began and that these events just accelerated Hamlet 's demise. More evidence that Hamlet was always insane is seen in his statement, “I do not set my life in a pin’s fee…”, and this helps support the claims that Hamlet wasn’t just pretending to be crazy, as this …show more content…
In Act 5 Scene 1, Hamlet displays an odd stroke of sanity in his conversation with the gravedigger, questioning “How came he mad?” showing that although Hamlet is mad, he still has his wit and his ability to fool people around him. Later in the same Act, Hamlet, once hearing of Ophelia’s death, Hamlet throws himself into her grave only for Laertes to pull him out for which Hamlet replies with “...For though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I something in me dangerous…” displaying that Shakespeare was able to show Hamlet’s inability to understand verisimilitude and was also able to display that while Hamlet has become insane, he is able to break through of that and warn others around him of what he plans to do. In Act 5 Scene 2, the most well known scene of the text to this day, Hamlet reverse foreshadows his descent into madness and the loss of his grip on verisimilitude in this statement to Horatio, “...what a damaged reputation I’m leaving behind me, as no one knows the truth. “ Shakespeare, in just this one line, completely changes the meaning of many of Hamlet’s previous statements during the play and causes audiences to reconsider previous assumptions about Hamlet, the most potent one being their theories on Hamlet’s madness. However, many 18th century critics