Names: Belha C. de Dios & Pinky Xiena M.

Ibo Year & Section: BSED 3A

ELEC 1 - STYLISTICS AND DISCOURSE

WEEK 6: Assessment 1

Drama: Hamlet

Hamlet is a tragedy, a type of drama, written by William Shakespeare

sometime between 1599 and 1601. Hamlet is widely recognized as one of the
most powerful plays in the history of English theater.

The style of Hamlet is like all of other Shakespeare's tragedies. It is mostly

written in verse, but more than thirty percent of the lines are written in prose.
One reason for the extensive use of prose is that Hamlet contains more comic
scenes than any other of Shakespeare’s tragedies (SparkNotes Editors, n.d.).

William Shakespeare had no definite purpose in writing Hamlet.

Shakespeare was inspired by an earlier play dramatizing the same story of
Hamlet, the Danish prince who must avenge his father, and felt sorry for the
young prince, and as an expression of his sympathy, he wrote about him. He
probably had no intention of giving the drama any more of himself than he
gave to any other of his plays. He gradually grew into the play as he wrote it,
without any special reason (Cather, 1891).

Hamlet is packed with expertly-used figurative language. Figurative

language is the use of various descriptive techniques to create poetic,
dramatic, or descriptive effects. Figurative language is the opposite of literal
language. The figurative language in Hamlet includes metaphor, simile, puns,
and allusion.

Hamlet contains literary elements, such as character, setting, theme, and

plot, just like other literary works. The main protagonist is Hamlet, and the
main antagonist is Claudius. The setting in Hamlet is in the late middle ages in
Denmark and at the royal palace. Its theme revolves around the mystery of
death, madness, and revenge. The plot includes exposition information, rising
action, climax, falling action, and denouement. The exposition information
in Hamlet is that Hamlet's father, the king of Denmark, died. Claudius,
Hamlet’s uncle, marries Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, and owns the throne. One
day, a ghost tells Hamlet he is his father and that he was killed by poison by his
uncle, Claudius. He then asks Hamlet to avenge him. The rising action is
Hamlet begins to act crazy. No one knows if it is real or just an act. Hamlet puts
on a play to determine if his ghost father was telling the truth. The climax is
Hamlet kills Polonius, the chief counselor of Claudius, by mistake. Enraged,
Laertes, Polonius' son, wants a duel with him. The falling action is that Hamlet
finds a letter written by his "friends" with instructions to kill him. Also, Ophelia,
Polonius' daughter, decides to suicide because of her father’s death. The
denouement is Claudius and Laertes plan to kill Hamlet in a fencing match. In
the match, both Hamlet and Laertes get fatally poisoned, and before he dies,
Hamlet kills Claudius.

Hamlet is indeed Shakespeare's greatest play. Because while the play

depicts the struggles of Danish royals, what Shakespeare has really written
about are the core elements that drive people: grief, betrayal, and
family. Hamlet is not just written in a good and lucid form but also explores
human emotions.