Ambiguity in Shakespeares Hamlet Essay -- Essays on Shakespeare Hamlet

Ambiguity in Hamlet Ambiguity of two language and action is commonplace in Shakespeares tragedy Hamlet. permit us examine what can be found relative to this equivocalness in the play. D.G. James says in The New Doubt that the Bard of Avon has the evasive habit of charging a word with several meanings at once sense of right and wrong does make cowards of us. There has been, I am aware, much dispute as to what the word means here. For my part, I find not the least barrier in believing that the word carries both its usual meaning and that of contemplation and anxious thought. It is a platitude of Shakespeare study that Shakespeare could, with wonderful ease, charge a word with two or three meanings at once on that point is hardly a page of Shakespeare which does not illustrate this and, in whatever case, the word conscience means for us all both a command to do what is right and anxious reflection as to what is, in fact, the right thing to do. If I had to choose (what I feel low no compulsion whatever to do) between the two meanings proposed, I should unhesitatingly choose the former and usual meaning (43). Harold Bloom in the approach to Modern Critical Interpretations Hamlet expounds on the ambiguity and mysterious calculate of the hero during the final act When Horatio responds that Claudius will hear shortly from, presumptively that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been executed, Hamlet rather ambiguously my italics makes what might be necessitate as a final vow of revenge It will be short. The interim is mine. And a mans lifes no more than to say one. However this is to be interpreted, Hamlet forms no plot, and is capability with a wise passivity, knowing that Claudius mu... ...es An Impulsive but Earnest young Aristocrat. Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ Univ. of Delaware P., 1992. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusett s Institute of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/ hamlet/full.html West, Rebecca. A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption. Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT Yale University Press, 1957. Wright, Louis B. and Virginia A. LaMar. Hamlet A homosexual Who Thinks Before He Acts. Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. N. p. Pocket Books, 1958.