How Is Hamlet Traditionalism

The forces of literary traditionalism must often take the field of battle against the raging hordes of heterodoxy. The standard bearers for traditionalism are often the ghosts of once influential critics, such as the romantic era poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who is assailed by the contemporary Irishman Seamus Heaney. Their battlefield, the Shakespearean play Hamlet, with its spectral overtones, is a fitting text for the living to slay the dead in the combat of ideas and interpretations. Shakespearean tragedies had an insurmountable influence on English literature and literary criticism; with the themes and meanings of Hamlet being agreed upon for generations. Hamlet’s flaw was clear, his inability to act is Shakespeare’s way of impressing …show more content…
Hamlet truly is a “man living in meditation.” His intellectual faculties are unmatched by any character in the play. All of the characters in Hamlet are members of the royal court, from Polonius the elder statesman and advisor, to Horatio the scholar, to the trusted courtesans Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Despite being surrounded by Denmark’s leading lights Hamlet’s intellect is prominently displayed by his rhetorical brilliance and beauty, with his paronomasia evoking the courtly teachings of Baldassare Castiglione. No rhetorical flourish goes unused during Hamlet’s many conversations, speeches, and soliloquies. The famous “To Be Or Not To Be” soliloquy contains both anaphora and asyndeton in the same sentence, “to die: to sleep/To sleep, perchance to dream.” His excoriating speech on human nature to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act Two, Scene Two employs slight of hand rivaling David Vernon. A rhetorical question first appears to be answered with the traditional metaphysical worldview of the day, but then shifts into revealing the Renaissance belief on the “quintessence of dust” being the true state of mankind. This lexicographical illusion requires prodigious intellect, particularly given its extemporaneous …show more content…
He understands that the subconscious mind of Claudius will cause him to reveal his guilt during the play; a display of remarkable psychoanalysis, particularly considering the pre-Freudian world Hamlet inhabits. On matters historical, Hamlet’s intellect remains acute; by having the “election light upon Fortinbras” with his “dying voice,” Hamlet shows his understanding of the ancient rights which give Fortinbras claim over Denmark’s throne. Through this rhetorical brilliance, armchair psychology, and historical erudition, it is clearly proven that Hamlet does have the brilliant faculties of intellect which Coleridge lectured