Main directions of the English Literature in the Early Middle ages

23.HAMLET.“H a m l e t, Prince of Denmark”“Hamlet” is one of Shakespeare’s greatest creations, but it is also considered the hardest of his works to understand. Some critics count it even mysterious. The source of the plot can be found in a Danish chronicle written around 1200. The plot of the tragedy is following: a usurper Claudius murders his brother, the lawful king, and seizes the throne. The son of the murdered king and lawful heir to the throne Hamlet, discovering the crime, struggles against usurper. But the struggle ends tragically for him too.As you see, there is nothing mysterious in the plot of the tragedy, but mysterious is the complex character of Hamlet himself. First we see Hamlet plunged into despair: he is grieved by the death of his father, shocked and horrified by the inconstancy and immorality of his mother, filled with disgust and hatred for Claudius, and begins to be disgusted with life in general.Later, after talking to the Ghost, he learns of the murder of his father. He sincerely wants to kill Claudius, and avenge for his father. The readers also want him to do so. But Hamlet delays and goes on delaying. He even rejects a chance to kill Claudius while he is on his knees in prayer. Why does he delay avenging his father’s murder? Why can’t he make up his mind? This is the mystery. Various explanations have been offered by a number of critics, but still they have not come to a conclusion, which could satisfy all the readers and investigators of Shakespeare.Instead of Claudius Hamlet, by mistake, kills Polonius, Ophelia’s father. It happens because Polonius, the king’s adviser, decides to eavesdrop on Hamlet while the prince is visiting his mother in her sitting room. He hides behind a curtain, but Hamlet becomes aware that someone is there. Hamlet stabs Polonius through the curtain and kills him.The king, Claudius, exiles Hamlet to England for the murder. He also sends secret orders that the prince be executed after he arrives in England. But Hamlet intercepts the orders and returns to Denmark safe and sound. He arrives in time and sees Ophelia’s burial.Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and the girl whom Hamlet loves. She goes insane after her father’s death and drowns herself. Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, blames Hamlet for his sister’s and father’s death. He agrees to Claudius’s plan to kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword in a fencing match. Laertes wounds Hamlet during the duel, and is wounded himself by the poisoned weapon. Hamlet’s mother, watching the match, accidentally drinks from a cup of poisoned wine prepared by Claudius for Hamlet. Dying from the wound, Hamlet kills Claudius. At the end of the play, Hamlet, his mother, Claudius, and Laertes all lie dead. The role of Hamlet in this outstanding play is considered one of the greatest acting challenges of the theatre.

24.OTHELLO.In Othello Desdemona is the only daughter of Brabantio, an aging senator of Venice, who dies heartbroken because his daughter has eloped with a darkskinned man who is her senior by many years and is of another culture. With Othello, Desdemona is brief happy, despite her disobedience, until a terrible sexual jealousy is awakened in him, quite without cause other than his own fears and susceptibility to Iago’s insinuations that it is only “natural” for Desdemona to seek erotic pleasure with a young man.Driven by his own deeply irrational fear and hatred of women and seemingly mistrustful of his own masculinity, Iago can satisfy his own inner torment only by persuading other men like Othello that their inevitable fate is to be deceived.As a tragedy, the play exemplifies the traditional Classical model of a good man brought to misfortune tragic mistake. As Othello grieves, he is one who has “loved not wisely, but too well”