Welcome to the presentation Ceremony

Presented for: Jahidul Alam

Assistant Professor Department of English

Comilla University

Presented By: Monir Hossen

Masters: 1st Semester Roll: 0900152

Session : 2012-2013 Department of English

Course Code: Eng: 514; Title: Film and Literature Date of Presentation: August 3, 2015

Kingship in Shakespeare's Hamlet, a drama Film

The treatment of Kingship in Shakespearian Plays

Introduction William Shakespeare through 'Hamlet' exposes the corruption

amongst rulers both through his use of disease imagery and in Hamlets continuous comparisons between Old Hamlet and King Claudius. Shakespeare portrays Claudius as a typical Machiavellian king, in his exploration of the necessary qualities of a King, made clear in Claudius' astuteness as a politician. Shakespeare brings to question the traditional view of the King being above the law, punishment and correction, exposing Claudius' human faults, as well as pushing the audience to morally question whether Claudius' means of accession was acceptable. A Shakespearean king differs from that of the Revengers Tradegy, as unlike the Duke, Claudius still has some acknowledgment of his wrongs as seen in his prayer scene, whereas the Duke is openly lecherous and unjust seen in the delay the Youngest sons punishment despite his lack of remorse.

Biography of William Shakespeare Name : William ShakespeareOccupation : Poet, Playwright, Philosopher. Birth Date : April 23, 1564Death Date : April 23, 1616Education : King's New SchoolPlace of Birth : Stratford-upon-Avon, United KingdomPlace of Death : Stratford-upon-Avon, United KingdomNickname : "Bard of Avon“ "Swan of Avon” "The Bard“Works : Poem (154 Sonnets) & Drama: 37 Plays  

William Shakespeare( 1564-1616)

Original Identity of HAMLET DramaFull title : The Tragedy of

Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkAuthor : William

ShakespeareType of work : PlayGenre : TragedyLanguage : EnglishWritten : ( 1600 or 1601)Performed : July 1602Published : 1603 (Printed) Age : The Renaissance

From Hamlet play to Film Hamlet

A short View of Hamlet Film Hamlet is a 1990 drama film based

on the Shakespearean tragedy of the same name directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Mel Gibson as the eponymous character. The film also features Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Paul Scofield, Ian Holm, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Dillane, and Nathaniel Parker. It is notable for being the first film from Icon Productions, a company co-founded by Gibson.

Plot: In Denmark, Prince Hamlet finds himself involved in a conspiracy of power to the royal palace. Cruel uncle Claudius kills his brother and takes the power of the kingdom. After an encounter with the restless ghost of his murdered father, Hamlet feigns madness and plots to take vengeance.

Cast: Mel Gibson as Prince Hamlet Glenn Close as Queen Gertrude Alan Bates as King Claudius Paul Scofield as the ghost of King Hamlet Ian Holm as Polonius Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia Stephen Dillane as Horatio Nathaniel Parker as Laertes Michael Maloney and Sean Murray as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Trevor Peacock as The Gravedigger Pete Postlethwaite as the Player King Christopher Fairbank as the Player Queen John McEnery as Osric Richard Warwick as Bernardo Christien Anholt as Marcellus

Setting of the play and also the film

Characters Map of the Film Hamlet

The Ghost of Hamlet Claudius

Hamlet Ophelia

The Story in Brief Hamlet’s father, king of Denmark has just dead. His brother

Claudius takes the throne and married Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother.

Horatio sees king Hamlet’s ghost and tells it to Hamlet. A night king’s ghost appears to Hamlet and tells him that Claudius murdered him, so Hamlet decides to avenge him.

Hamlet pretends to be mad so Claudius and Gertrude give to Polonius the task of discovering the cause of his madness.

Polonius attributes the cause of madness to Hamlet’s love for Ophelia, Polonius daughter

Hamlet tries to stage a play with a company of actors, in order to re-enact his father’s murder and determine Claudius guilt or innocence.

Gertrude asks to Hamlet the reason of his behaviour and he tells her the truth about his father’s death

Hamlet believing to kill Claudius murders Polonius while he is hidden

Ophelia goes mad for her father’s death and drowns in a river. After this, Claudius sent Hamlet with his close friend, Horatio to

England to study there, even though the real goal is to expel Hamlet from Denmark.

At the Ophelia’s funeral procession her brother Laertes and Hamlet brave themselves

When Hamlet returned back to Denmark. There was an Ophelia’s funeral procession. Hamlet was very sad for losing her and suddenly he jumped into Ophelia’s grave when the funeral took place. Laertes, her brother was angry of what Hamlet did.

Laertes decided to kill Hamlet in revenge for his father’s death. He challenged Hamlet to a sword fight. Laertes pierces Hamlet with a poisoned blade but is wounded by it himself

Gertrude drinks a poisoned wine and dies Hamlet manages to kill Claudius and names Fortimbras as his heir Finally, the film is ended with morning song

Kingship in Hamlet Shakespeare exposes through Hamlet the corruption amongst rulers.

Accordingly, Shakespeare explores the different types of kings through Hamlets continuous comparison of Old Hamlet and Claudius.

Shakespeare through Hamlet puts up for the debate the rights of a king to the throne, allowing the audience to question whether Claudius' accession to the throne was acceptable.

In 'Hamlet' Shakespeare explores the necessary qualities of a king and compares and contrasts these with the necessary qualities put forward by King James I, Machiavelli and Erasmus.

Shakespeare questions the traditional view of whether or not the king was above the law and so could do whatever he willed.

Shakespeare draws connections with the state of the court and kings land and the state, with the power of a king and his control over his people.

Shakespeare looks at whether a morally inept king is beyond punishment or correction.

Shakespeare criticizes above-humanity and the almost super-human view of kings and through Claudius reiterates the human element of Kings.

Through the violence and the way in which Claudius gained the throne, Shakespeare presumably is questioning/criticizing the conventional view that Kingship is a God-given rights.

Kingship in the Renaissance In Shakespeare’s time kingship was a complicated concept which varied from country to

country in Europe, accounting for hereditary monarchy, the divine right of kings, primogeniture and elective monarchy.

Within those divisions were subdivisions of where the king’s power came from, for example, from God, from the state, or from documents which regulated and checked the king’s power such as the Magna Carta in England.

Niccolo Machiavelli’s work Il Principe  (The Prince) (c.1513) muddied these unclear waters even further as his concept of kingship was divorced from any moral obligations which an individual ruler felt he had to either himself or his people, and instead was located solely on how to gain and retain power, by any means necessary.

This situation is similar to the one facing the young Prince in Hamlet. While absent at university in Wittenburg he is ‘usurped’ by Claudius despite being the hereditary heir to the throne. To an English Renaissance audience who had become accustomed to the hereditary monarchy of the Tudors, such an action would have the ring of a Machiavellian plot.

However, the Danish throne itself was not subject to the same rules of kingship as the English throne. Instead, the Danes had a form of elective monarchy; therefore under their own rules the election of Claudius to the throne would not, in itself, be illegal.

The main problem is that Claudius has killed the king in order to obtain his position. It is the gross action of regicide which is the catalyst for the cataclysmic events that will result in the destruction of the entire Danish royal family.

For most of the European monarchies of the seventeenth century the divine right of kings, and the proposition, that all their powers were ordained by God was common ground across virtually the entire spectrum of political thinking in early modern Europe.

The phrase: The King is dead, long live the King, was a poignant declaration of the perpetual nature of kingship and was first introduced into English royal funerals with the Tudors.

This understanding of the transference of power from king to king helps to explain Hamlet’s enigmatic lines, ‘The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing –.’

Under the Renaissance idea of kingship the body politic was joined to the king, but the king was not joined to the body politic, but a thing apart.

This political interpretation of the two roles accounts for Hamlet’s words, but it also demonstrates awareness of the Tudor attempts to cement the hereditary line into English political consciousness.

The King is to blame !! I am no more my lord.

Conclusion: William Shakespeare is regarded by many as the greatest

dramatist of all times. An Englishman, Shakespeare was also a poet and an actor. His works such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet hold a significant place in world literature and occupy a major part of literary academics. Often referred to as England’s national poet, Shakespeare is one author whose works have been translated into every major language of the world and his plays are performed more than that of any other playwright living or dead. However, Shakespeare’s great skill is that in Hamlet he is aware not only of English concepts of kingship, but is conscious of, and adept at including, European ideas on kingship to add levels of political theory which complicates the play even further.

Thank you