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The latter portion of the essay is dedicated to Eliot's criticism of Hamlet based on his concept of the objective correlative. He begins by arguing that the greatest contributor to the play's failure is Shakespeare's inability to express Hamlet's emotion in his surroundings and the audience's resultant inability to localize that emotion.
Hamlet is perhaps most affected by the prevailing skepticism in Shakespeare's day in response to the Renaissance's humanism. Humanists living prior to Shakespeare's time had argued that man was godlike, capable of anything. Skepticism toward this attitude is clearly expressed in Hamlet's What a piece of work is a man speech: [50]
Eliot uses Lady Macbeth's state of mind as an example of the successful objective correlative: "The artistic 'inevitability' lies in this complete adequacy of the external to the emotion….", as a contrast to Hamlet. According to Eliot, the feelings of Hamlet are not sufficiently supported by the story and the other characters surrounding him.
During the Victorian era, Quillian argues, there was an "enormous and positive hold that Hamlet exerted on the literary imagination." [2] This was followed by a "shift in perception" [3] during the period of Modernism (c. 1911–1922) when T. S. Eliot and James Joyce condemned the play as a "failure."
Hamlet welcomes them as "excellent good friends", but, seeing through their guise, comments that they won't "deal justly" with him about their mission. [1] Realising that he lacks allies except for Horatio, Hamlet gives the speech "What a piece of work is a man" to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. [1]
"To be, or not to be" is a speech given by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The speech is named for the opening phrase, itself among the most widely known and quoted lines in modern English literature, and has been referenced in many works of theatre, literature and music. In ...
Hamlet Goes Business (Hamlet liikemaailmassa) (1987), written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki, is a comic reworking of the story as a power struggle in a rubber duck factory. [45] In the 2009 children's film "Coraline" Hamlet's "What a piece of work is man" soliloquy is recited as part of a circus act. [46] [47]
Hamlet admits that he is upset at his situation but refuses to give the true reason, instead remarking "What a piece of work is a man". Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet that they have brought along a troupe of actors that they met while travelling to Elsinore.