Hamlet's Symbiotic Relationship

Analyzing the many works presented in the course, it was imperative to acknowledge the outside influences on the texts. Indeed examining the correlations between a text and its environment enables the reader to note relationships inherent not only in the text, but also across various works. Thus emerges the direct result of literature’s symbiotic relationship with its surroundings: shared characteristics across works in regards to culture, language, and form. One of the most apparent cultural observations about the works is the fact that they were all initially written (or eventually translated) by individuals from the United Kingdom. An examination of a work’s subject matter thus serves to reflect the political and social climate of the particular …show more content…
Take William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Written in the police state of Elizabethan England, Shakespeare’s daily life was one marred by the paranoia and fear of persecution – two characteristics that are heavily mirrored in his Danish character of Prince Hamlet. Where Shakespeare owed his paranoia to the unsteady nature of his surroundings – tremendous religious upheaval in the wake of the English Reformation – Hamlet’s paranoia stems from the discovery that his uncle murdered Hamlet’s father, the king. Further embodying the religious confusion distinctive of Shakespeare’s era is the presence of both Protestant and Catholic motifs; religions respectively championed and rejected by Queen Elizabeth. The notion that King Hamlet’s ghost is trapped in purgatory serves as the play’s nod to Catholicism whereas the play’s setting in the predominately Protestant Denmark highlights the Protestantism that dominated Shakespeare’s experience. Also mirroring the environment in which she inhabited, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein serves as a visceral rejection of the rapidly approaching Age of Reason. Indeed, Dr. Frankenstein defies the natural order by endowing his creation with life and is punished accordingly: all of his loved ones die. As the great thinkers of the Victorian Age began to eschew imagination in favor of science, Shelley’s novel emerged as a cautionary tale for those …show more content…
Not only does language convey the meaning of the work through an author’s precise word choice, but it also dictates how a reader will interact with the piece. If a novel is in the reader’s native language, for example, they may be able to discern subtleties in the text that would be lost on a non-native speaker. Furthermore, if a text is a translation into the reader’s native language, there is no question that some of the original author’s intent has been lost. Such is the case with both the translation of The Canterbury Tales provided in the course and Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. Despite the fact that the obvious common denominator among the many works is the English language, the older works were originally expressed in Middle and Old English respectively. As translations, both Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales are rendered approximations of the original tale; a translator’s job capturing both the meaning and spirit of a text is taxing and easily corruptible. Further exposed to the evolution of the English language, grasping Shakespeare’s use of Early Modern English and discerning his original intent in Hamlet was a much less harrowing task. Save for the occasional archaic word usage, successfully comprehending Hamlet can be an individual endeavor. To safeguard against misinterpreting The Canterbury Tales and Beowulf, on the other hand, a translator is