Characterization in Hamlet if Shakespeare's Essay

This contrasts the identification process of medieval works, in which the reader was encouraged to identify with a hero's inhuman qualities -- inhuman virtue in the case of books of chivalry. In those works the reader was called to identify himself with a god -- or even God proper -- but in Hamlet the reader is called only to identify himself with another, equally flawed man.

Finally, in the question of denouement the treatment is also renaissance; the answer, ambiguous at best. Whether Hamlet leaves Denmark improved is anyone's guess; whether anyone in this story was able to make a difference is tangential to the question. The question, it seems, is not whether Hamlet will be able to overcome his uncle, but whether he will be able to overcome himself. The treatment implies that even if a man is able to overcome himself, it may still be impossible to change anything.Of course, a thousand pages might barely scratch the surface of the characterizing techniques and complexities of Hamlet. But it is important for any reader to follow this play with the knowledge that Hamlet is a renaissance man displaced into a medieval world. Understanding Hamlet, requires the point-of-view of a renaissance man and what he thought a human being was. By developing those thoughts Shakespeare paved the way for the great body of English literature, and the characters therein, which followed.

Bibliography

1. SparkNotes Editors. (2007). SparkNote on Hamlet. Retrieved March 23, 2010, from http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/

2. Eliot, T.S. (2007) Hamlet and His Problems. In T.S. Eliot The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism Whitefish, MT. Kessinger Publishing

3. De Grazia, Margreta (2002) Hamlet's Thoughts and Antics Retrieved 1 April 2010 from Early Modern Culture: An Electronic Seminar website: http://emc.eserver.org/1-2/degrazia.html.....