| Zusammenfassung: | Why does Shakespeare link the psychological disintegration of Hamlet with the political disintegration of Denmark? This essay answers that question by comparing Shakespeare's tragedy to his later history plays, which foreshadow the "antic" Prince Hamlet in the "frantic" King Richard II and the "madcap" Prince Hal. All of these plays insist that a monarch pays a heavy price for claiming that he represents and even embodies the people he rules: he comes to feel internally divided, multiplicitous, populous. But the plays also cast doubt on the ability of the people to achieve any greater coherence as a sovereign power. Through Henry V and Hamlet in particular, Shakespeare offers the theater as a model of power sharing among diverse forces: not only the monarch and the people, but also the actors, the audience, and the author.
|
|---|