A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE NATURE AND THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HAMLET

Abstract

Like other tragic dramatists of his time, Shakespeare followed a dramatic tradition which by then had become well established in England. This tradition came partly from the Roman tragic dramatist Seneca, and partly from the medieval ‘mystery’ plays. As a tragic dramatist, worked in this style, though his genius saved him from some of the crudity of Senecan tradition. It was however from this tradition, added to the tradition of the English medieval plays and actual conditions of the Elizabethan stage, that the Elizabethan drama took its form and structure. On the surface therefore we shall not expect a Shakespearean tragedy to look like the plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Like many of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet began as rewriting of an older play by an unknown writer. Basically, Hamlet is a story of murder and revenge in the tradition of Seneca, not like Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy. Thousands of books have been written about Hamlet. In the current research paper, the researcher attempts to study critically the Nature and the Characteristics of Shakespearean tragedy with Special reference to Hamlet.