"Hamlet": Shakespeare at Metaplay

Abstract

Since 1960s meta-discourse has become an important approach to literary works of various genres. Lionel Abel, a pioneer of meta-strategy in the field of drama, has pointed out a common character in what he terms as ”metaplays”: ”All of them are theater pieces about life seen as already theatricalized.” Embedded in this notion is the idea of theater as self-exposure, exposing its theatricality to its audience and thus distablizes stage illusion. Beginning with a brief survey of Shakespeare-oriented metadramatic criticisms, this essay aims to situate ”Hamlet” in The Globe where the Bard created the most powerful roles including Hamlet, King Lear, arid Othello and where he must have moved most easily. The essay traces the rich theatrical aspects of ”Hamlet” as an alternative model for describing the over-charged play. Predicated on theater's self-referentiality, the paper proposes an alternative view to look at a few problems of the play which have, thus far, not been settled down, particularly Hamlet's procrastination, his frequent appeal to soliloquies, discredited by T. S. Eliot as ”in excess of the facts as they appear,” and, last but not least, his real age: Shakespeare is therefore seen as a playwright who has constant anxiety about the deficiencies of the theater, which underscores, on the contrary, his strengths in dealing with his working medium, be it the black and white printed pages or the more colorful boards of stage.