. "Cause of Hamlet's destiny. . . in intellectual terms . . . is a tragedy . . . of
excessive thought." (Mack. 43) Hamlet's role was to make a transcendental move from
scholarly prince to man of action. Hopefully this report will help open another, or even
stress a classic, view as to Hamlet's character and his prolonged delay.
When a student goes to write about Hamlet's character they often begin by
hitting a wall. Not the usual writers block in which the mind goes blank, but one of
information loaded upon information. Where does a pupil begin? In this vast mound of
information, where do we start? The Beginning would be a proper place.
The background of Hamlet may help to bring some insight onto his
character analysis. "Hamlet is . . . a man who, at thirty, still lives among students." As
the play opens, Hamlet has just returned from Wittenberg Germany, most likely attending
Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg. Hamlet was in-fact so found of this
Wittenberg university, that he had requested for his immediate return there. Hamlet
probably felt a little out of place in a political environment. For the hasty marriage of his
uncle and his mother may have been one only of convince.
To add fuel to this enraged fire, Claudius so boldly denies Hamlet's return
to his asylum. This could not have angered Hamlet anymore. For where Hamlet saw that
"the time is out of joint," Hamlet himself was "out of joint." How? Hamlet saw Elsinore
as a prison rather than a sanction.
Denmark's a prison. . . world. . . in which there are many confines, wards, and
dungeons . . . Denmark's oath' worst . . . I could be bounded in a nutshell and cut
myself a kind of infinite space [thought]. (II.II.243-255)
A man who is a mere "prince of philosophical speculators," as F.E. Halliday puts it,
would not feel at home in ...