1.

Social Background

1.1Education and religion

William Shakespeare, born in 1564, is one of the greatest play writers in human kind’s history.
He was part of a numerous family, his grandfather being part of the Yeomanry branch. They
were known as reach because they had lands. . His father went from a merchant to a chamberlain
and member of the town council. We are talking about a time that lost people like Michelangelo
but won people like Shakespeare, who was about to be considered a genius through his work.
The society which represented the background for Shakespeare’s masterpiece, was one where a
religious reform was ongoing and the education was mostly for the ones that could afford it.

Every writer has a background. There is always a start point for their works. Shakespeare lived in
a difficult period for England. Plenty diseases hunted London during his time.
We can encounter syphilis, smallpox, typhus, malaria and the worse of them, plague.
“From a disease standpoint, Shakespeare was living in arguably the worst place and time in
history. Shakespeare's overcrowded, rat-infested, sexually promiscuous London, with raw
sewage flowing in the Thames, was the hub for the nastiest diseases known to mankind.”
Most probably this is part of the inspiration for his works. Life and death have a big importance
in his plays.

There were some main problems that Elizabethan period encountered and which influenced
Shakespeare. One of them was the plague. First of all he was one of the lucky citizens who
survived to this disease. According to Mircea Gheorghiu , his family send him to his mother’s
relatives , so he can be safe. During that tragic period, young William was marked by one morbid
scene. A young girl was buried alive and the real reason that she died of , was the lack of air
from her coffin. Later on, on ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Shakespeare uses this image to build a part of
Juliet’s character. The agony and the fear of being buried alive is highlighted when Juliet has to
fake her death.
Apparently, Shakespeare didn’t pay that much attention around him , while he was a children.

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There were several rebellious acts, like the repression of the Duke Fernando de Alba or the
expulsion of Mary Stuart from Scotland throne. But on a psychological level , he remembers
later, is the uproar around him. Is exactly what he is going to describe in “King John” in act IV,
scene two, where he talks about how the peasants were reacting when they were receiving when
news were brought to town.
‘Pe uliţi am văzut bătrâni, neveste,
Prorocind tot felul de năpaste…
Un potcovar pe ilău şi căsca gura
La cîte-i povestea un croitor ‘1

So Shakespeare describes the way of acting of the people around him. He lived the feeling of the
agitation and build on that the historical facts.

From historical facts and way of thinking we get to the educational side from Shakespeare’s life.
The time when he lived was time when pupils had to learn by heart , the system being a pretty
rough one. As a main instrument, they were using the fear and the pupils were treated almost like
animals. Considering the times, they were studying Latin, Greek and Rhetoric mainly.
Shakespeare himself studied these ones. He has these way of highlighting this fact, that he
learned Latin in high school in many lines from his plays. According to Mihnea Gheorghiu, there
were authors like Dover Wilson and E. Tripp who made a whole research based on the
educational system from the Elizabethan period. So , Shakespeare learned about Latin authors
and every time it came about them, he used to say that’ he used to know about them in school’.

Shakespeare got his knowledge from school , but the passion for theatre came from the ambulant
actors that were popular during those times. He was fascinated by their performances. During
Queen’s Elizabeth visit , a so called Kenilworth , organized street performances for this event.
Here the writer had the opportunity to see this world of the theatre better and enjoy it. Besides
from these, he had a good time spent on school, even though there were some isolated events
when he was oppressed by the teachers who were indoctrinate in the religion. This fact seems to
be mentioned in Sonnet number 31. ‘ How many a holy and obsequious tear/ Hath dear religious

1
Gheorghiu,(1963:17)

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love stol’n from mine eye.’ The religion had an important role in that society and young
Shakespeare felt that on his own.
At a certain point Shakespeare’s father has to deal with difficult situations which affects his
image. He has to pay different sums of money and he decrease in his position. Besides from that,
an earthquake happens and Shakespeare finds in this an another source of inspiration. This
specific event which happened in 1580, appears in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ when the author talks
about Juliet’s age. All these problems made Will taking a job in order to support his family.
From here we can imagine that he wasn’t able to go to college anymore. This wasn’t yet a bad
thing, considering the fact that he overcame certain situations that inspired him lately when he
wrote his plays. In chapter III of his book,Gheorghiu mentiones the following:
‘Astfel nimic nu putea fi mai caracteristic pentru turmentata epocă al lui Shakespeare, decât
viaţa din portul Newcastle, unde îşi dădeau întâlnire: lumea feudală a seniorilor de
Northumberland şi Westmoreland, clanurile şi triburile briganzilor de pe coline, lumea prosper
a negustorilor şi armatorilor de corăbii şi tânărul proletariat din minele de cărbuni’ 2

the age of 16 a huge tragedy happens in the town. A girls dies by drowning. This event causes
uproar in the society. What for the society was tragedy, for Shakespeare represented an another
source of inspiration. He uses these scene later when he creates Ophelia’s death. ( Hamlet, IV:7)
‘Faptul că nici una din sursele istorice ale lui Hamlet(nici Cronica daneză a lui Saxo
Grammaticus şi nici istoria tragică a lui Belleforest) nu pomenesc nimic despre sfârşitul Ofeliei,
iar coincidenţa cu întâmplarea din Stratford este atât de pregnantă ar fi trebuit să dea, singur
de gândit adepţilor, teoriei antistratfordiene. Fiindcă orice s-ar invoca,întreaga operă a lui
Shakespeare mărturiseşte legătura lui cu pământul natal’ (p 41, cap 3, Alta Scoala)

The Anti-Stratfordians were the ones who believed and supported the idea that Shakespeare
wasn’t the one who wrote his plays. But we can clearly see that there are resemblances between
his writings and several events that were happening during his childhood or youth. The problem
was that there weren’t official records of them, reason why these anti-stradfordians decided to
have doubts about the origins of Shakespeare’s writings.

2
( Gheorghiu 1963:35)

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According to Gheorghiu, the priest from Romeo and Juliet is associated with priest Hall who was
arrested because of some conspiracies that he joined. It is the same period when Shakespeare’s
father was arrested. This is an another argument against the anti-stradfordian .
The political situation wasn’t that favorable, and this aspect is seen in Hamlet’s character. During
his monologue, Shakespeare make Hamlet to talk about the whole political system and how the
law was applied, especially in Stradford.
Later on, Shakespeare gets married with Anne Hathaway . ‘Ceva din ceremonia aceasta
romantică va străbate în oficierea căsătoriei secrete dintre Romeo şi Julieta.’ (p 43, cap IV,
Familia Braconierului)

This secret ritual that happens during his ceremony with his future wife is used in the scene
where Romeo and Juliet decide to get married. The reasons were different but the ceremony was
hidden in both cases. William was younger than his wife and some rumors claim that she was
pregnant. If we consider this rumor, Will had to marry her in order to avoid a scandal for both
families.

Apparently, he takes care to use his wife as a muse for his plays. For example the feminine
character from ‘Winter’s tale’ resembles to her character. Of course that there are critics who
find resemblances between Shakespeare’s wife and an another character. It’s about the character
from The Comedy of Errors.

Besides from all the political and social issues that Shakespeare’s period had it, we can also
came along with the religious one. During those times a religious reform was happening. The
queen was smart enough to manipulate the population in a way that brought the church next to
her. Gheorgiu talks about turning the church into a branch of monarchy. The reform was
something new and as anything that is new, it had definitely problems. Not only that the
protestants were having secret meetings, but also the fact that the ones who were sustaining the
Catholic Church were persecute.

Queen Elizabeth was supporting the Protestants, even though she was aware of the threats that
were visibly coming from the Pope of Spain. She was the one that made sure this doctrine was

4
spread around the kingdom. It was compulsory for the people to join this doctrine and to
participate to the religious services. According to an article from “ National Endowment for the
arts”, the people who didn’t attend these ceremonies were about to be punished. Relating this to
Shakespeare now, it looks like his father and sister were between the persons who declined this
demand, but it might be only a speculation.
The relation between education and religion was really tight. The educational cycle was related
to church and its ideas.

1.2 Renaissance

Renaissance had as a main purpose the idea of removing the ideology of the Middle Ages which
was dominating the countries around the world. The power was in the hand of the Catholic
Church and obviously they were using the religion in order to manipulate and to lead the society.
With this change coming across, the artists had more chances to get in front and make their ideas
heard. Without a full power of Church and its rules, people were free to express their thoughts.
‘Thus what is fascinating about the Renaissance is precisely the rich variety of conflicting
intellectual and ethical positions it produced, resulting in part from the encounter of two
traditions which were already highly developed and which challenged each other’s fundamental
assumptions’

Shakespeare was a fair represented of this movement and there are at least two reasons for this.
He utilized Greek and Roman writings which were forbidden by the Catholic Church and he
created characters that weren’t flawless. His characters were complex and brought them to
another level by using psychology in order to define them and to offer them a full complexity of
their actions and behavior. More than that, Shakespeare speaks out the truth, showing the flaws
even in priests or other people related to the Church.

“Shakespeare was a humanist in everything he wrote.” In an era preoccupied with religion,

5
This is what Natalie Haynes mentioned in an article about Shakespeare. She tries to emphasize
the idea that he brought a huge impact through his writings and also that he was some kind of an
ambassador of Renaissance. Shakespeare creates characters that can think for their own and they
are not that afraid of saying the truth out loud. That’s why he created for instance the fool, who is
able to say the truth in a funny way but in the same time is able to highlight flaws of the people
around him without having the fear that he might get punished.

The term “renaissance” came from French and means rebirth. Playhouses were build and people
had the chance to go and watch the plays.
One obstacle that this period had was to defeat was the Church, the Catholic one. They actually
said that the plague was spreading because of them, or more specifically the persons who were
going to see the plays on the playhouses.

“An earthquake had occurred in 1580, and in the following year there was a recurrence of the
plague. At a bear-baiting show, given on a Sunday, a wooden scaffolding had given way, killing
several people and injuring others. A few years later, a brawl outside the theater caused serious
disturbance. To many of the good people of London, all these things were signs of the wrath of
heaven against the play-acting profession, and arguments for its extermination. When it was
recognized that play-acting, not long before, had been utilized as a means of teaching the
lessons of the Church, the argument against it was that it was popish. At the very time when
England was making the greatest single contribution that any modern nation has ever made to
the literature of the stage, preachers both Puritan and Anglican, pamphleteers, and politicians
were loud in their denunciations.” (Fletcher-Bellinger) Insert

As we may know, Renaissance was the period when people start realizing who they are as
individuals. The scientists discovered that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Shakespeare
brings in front of them characters like Hamlet and Macbeth who can take own decision, and all
of a sudden don’t leave their lives in God’s hands. During this period the Protestantism was
ongoing. They were trying to get rid of the Catholic Church and its ideology. Shakespeare used

6
his plays to bring this new culture in front of normal people that surrounded him. He was
actually considered the “ultimate product of Renaissance humanism”.
Freedom is maybe one of the key words of that period and also of Shakespeare’s writings.
Characters with full rights on their own lives and actions that were perfectly highlighting the
reality of their community.

2. Death and life during Renaissance

2.1The symbol of life

Life! Such an abstract and large term. We know about it from the earliest times if not since
forever. Even tough people weren’t able to define it, they knew this is the process that give them
the opportunity to have activity for a certain period of time.

Philosophers, poets, writers, musicians and even common people talked about this topic since
ever. They put it in so many different forms and they created lots of analogies in order to define
it. They venerated it and tried to understand it. Religious people put it in the hands of a God
while later on, scientists tried to define it by using concrete tools.

They find it precious. Of people were able to breath and see the daylight, they were definitely
alive. Considering that, the biggest punishment, in certain periods, was the sentence to death.
This leads to the idea that was a blessing and it should have been respected.

We can refer to life in different ways. It can be a symbol highly appreciated and dissected by
philosophers or the concrete way people were acting and living on a daily basis.

Life as a way of acting, the act of living itself was a tough one before Renaissance: a lack of
employment, the power of Church and a lot of diseases. The Renaissance though, didn’t come all
alone either. The plague was all over the place. So people were dying. From here we can go to
Shakespeare, his period and hometown. This way of living was turned into a symbol. How was
life seen by the citizens? Maybe Shakespeare didn’t put this question to himself, but certainly he
paid attention around him, sometimes without even knowing that. Middle Ages had a
perspective over this subject and Renaissance brought changes.

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Middle Ages were under the cover of God. Life was is his hands. He was the one who had the
right to give life and he was the one who had the right to take it away. Life itself was a problem
though, because of the diseases and hard moments that those peasants had. Freedom of speech
was something that people were not allowed to do. The classical view of life was based on piety
and love for God.

Renaissance developed the way of thinking and the capacity of thinking that people had. There is
a specific term called “Renaissance”. We can relate this nomination to the idea of life and way of
living of the people from Renaissance. The Latin term was “ Studia Humanitas” which is as a
matter of fact, the study of the human being. Life becomes more than a symbol which should be
dedicated to God only. Life gets more carnal if we can put it in these terms. It starts being related
to the body not only to the soul. The ideas are related more to the human being and to the
individual. Life gets new aspects and has as equivalents pleasure, individualism, luxury and self
thinking.

Pleasure comes in a combination with pain. According to an essay from UKESSAYS, this
relation exists because they relate a lot on the use of Greek and Roman literature and history of
humanism. In the same essay is quoted Isabel Rivers who said the following:” both classical and
Christian cultures shared a belief in an original state of human perfection, in which man lived
effortlessly and in complete harmony with nature, free from time, change and death”. This idea
of the pleasure as a symbol for life comes from Italian culture represented by Petrarch.
Shakespeare develops this in England through his dramas but also through his comedies. In order
to live their lives they had to endure certain obstacles that obviously brought them certain kind of
pain, physical or psychological. For example in Romeo and Juliet their relationship is a mix
between pain and love. These two elements led their life.

Individualism was one of the fundamental elements for that period. As we may know,
Renaissance was the period when people start realizing who they are as individuals. This means
that they start going to a more selfish and individualistic way of working and being. There is no
God to lead their lives and also they don’t have to think as a collective but more for themselves.
Ernst Cassirer speaks about individualism that Renaissance has been created and he relates to
Petrarch:

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“We can clearly see worldly individualism and the ideal of the new culture and the new
humanity encountered and dealt with in a singular way by a religious individualism rooted in
mysticism, especially in the German mysticism of Eckhart and Tauler.”3

Even though he speaks about Italian Renaissance, this relates a bit to England and Shakespeare’s
writings. He creates characters that behave different and put their lives in different situations that
lately build their characteristics.

This is how we get to luxury and self thinking. As they didn’t have boundaries, people had the
chance to explore their mind and in the same time to explore life in a different way. We can talk
about freedom but the term itself is huge and not quite relevant. I am saying that is not relevant
because it is relative and it is not something that people are able to achieve. When we talk about
luxury we refer to that part of life when peasant didn’t have to live poorly. They had the chance
to behave in a certain way, to dream to a better and rich life. It is about money and wealth of
course. During Middle Ages people had that piety imposed by Church and their beliefs. By this
self thinking people developed a critical way of seeing the things around him. This is why the
Church stopped having such a great impact.

2.2The symbol of death

If until now, I stopped over the symbol of life and how was is perceived by people from
Renaissance and from England specially, now I will take a look over the death symbol. How was
it perceived by the people, which was the balance between life and death and how did
Shakespeare make up a system of symbol out of it.

‘There is in English literature a very singular taste for death. Whatever is mysterious and
unknown in the idea of death, whatever is horrible, nay, repulsive, in its attributes, seems to
possess a peculiar charm to the English mind. It is curious to note this taste for death in
Shakespeare's heroes. It is not alone Hamlet, melancholy and gloomy, that loves to dwell upon
this idea; the young and beautiful Juliet, before taking the sleeping draught, does not think of
Romeo and Romeo alone, who is to come and deliver her from the tomb; her love never enters

3
Cassirer,(1963:39)

9
her thoughts, but she dwells with terror on the funeral vault in which she must be laid, on that
abode of death and ghosts; she describes the frenzy which may seize her, and how she may
profane the bones of her ancestors’4

As we mentioned previously this new era of Renaissance brought a new ideology around people.
There was no more oppression from Church and a critical way of thinking start developing.
Basically was a certain kind of freedom that people were able to join. The question is, if they
weren’t lead by the Church, was that mean that death wasn’t part of their lives? Were they
leaving in a safety society that allowed them to leave forever? And the answer is of course not.

Death existed still and again there was a certain kind of freedom there too. Not in idea that death
offered people freedom, but the fact that some of them were choosing to kill themselves. It
wasn’t really well seen by the society but the rate of suicidal was bigger than in middle Ages.

Before turning into a symbol, death had a physical connotation as well. People were dying and
most of them because of the plague. It was an important factor for the death rate, especially in
England. Shakespeare’s childhood was a bit morbid considering the fact that people were dying
around him because of this cruel disease. Besides from that, death was watching them even from
birth. A lot of children didn’t leave too much after they were born. The poverty was all over
Shakespeare’s society and more than that poor women had to take care of other babies than their
own. Rich women gave their child to poor one in order for them to feed the children.

Death is a symbol in Shakespeare’s works. Ghosts, injustice, violence and betrayals are elements
that lead to death. When it comes to it, we can encounter more than one section: suicide, murder,
assassination, execution and combats. But what is actually beyond these murders, assassinations
and suicides? Which are the reasons and also the background that lead to these?

There is a paradox. The audience felt repulsion for the violence that was presented on the stage,
but in the same time those were the most famous plays. The humankind nature, which is deeply
weird, couldn’t stand the violence but they were fascinated by it. That’s why they were so

4
Cours de Litterature Dramatique. Vol. 1., by Saint-Marc Girardin. 

10
numerous every time the plays were met in the scene. In the end, it was the reality of their own
kingdom, a reality that no one was talking about, but everyone was aware of it.
Suicide was one of the most used practices. We can find in plays like “Julius Caesar” when
Brutus, aware of the fact that he lost his battle against to Octavius and Antonius , decides to put
an end to his life, and also do not forget about Cassius who takes the same decision.
Probably one of the most dramatic and romantic suicide is the one of Juliet from “Romeo and
Juliet”, the well known story where Juliet who thought that the love of her life was gone, decides
to end up her life by poisoning herself. In the same play we have Romeo who does the same
when he finds his fiancée dead. If we take a look over the Christianity, that Protestants tried to
replace it, we can see that suicide wasn’t quite a good thing. On the contrary, it was considered a
sin, while in Shakespeare’s writings is seen as an act of courage or a romantic one. Examples are
plenty, from Romeo and Juliet to Julius Caesar who killed himself for saving his last pieces of
honor.
“It may be only a coincidence that the most famous soliloquy in English Renaissance drama,
a speech that has virtually come to symbolize the dramatic art itself, is an abstract
contemplation of suicide. Nevertheless, the fame of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” is suggestive
and appropriate: it hints at a deeply felt, if rarely articulated, connection between suicide and
play-acting and it calls attention to the centrality of suicide as a dramatic topos in the English
Renaissance.”5
Suicidal which was a sin suddenly turns into a muse for writers and in our case for Shakespeare.
Something was hidden behind this act. Shakespeare followed the psychology behind these acts in
order to create the story line of his works. The controversies that suicide was producing, offered
him a more interesting way of putting in scene characters lives. People were attracted by morbid
and more than usual death they were fascinated by these act of suicidal. As I mentioned before,
they were curious to watch the plays even though they were terrified by the act itself. In the end a
person who was killing herself was definitely damaged, psychologically speaking.
“The great symbolic potency of real suicide makes stage-suicide suitable for displaying courage
and cowardice, love and aggression, self-assertion and self punishment. Like its real-life
counterpart, stage-suicide can express a wish for posthumous control over the lives and feelings

5
Sanderson,(1992:199)

11
of survivors. It can manifest a desire for oblivion or for reunion with the dead. It can gesture
toward rebirth or even toward immortality.”6
This is exactly what Sanderson highlights. The way people were reacting to these scenes full of
psychological violence turned suicide into a symbol. Depending on the situation the act had a
certain meaning. If the event was labeled as an act of courage or weakness depended a lot on the
context.

When it comes to murder there are two main techniques: stabbing and poisoning. These two
were often used in that period. In “Hamlet” for example, we have Polonius who is stabbed by
Hamlet and Gertrude who is poisoned by the same character.
Assassination is the point from where starts part of Shakespeare’s writings. The assassination of
Hamlet’s father runs the whole play and Julius Caesar from the play with the same name, is
assassinated by his conspirators.

Murder was an act that was creating an intrigue. Just like in the case of suicide, there were
certain reasons behind this act. For suicide it was about more sentimental issues while for
murders there were more materialistic reasons. Back in those times a really good reason for
killing someone was the supremacy of a function. We have people who kill their “friends” in
order to take their place on the throne, as is the case in Hamlet. One murder leads to another as
the principle of revenge is presented all over Shakespeare’s plays. It was a natural wish to

Also besides from the many reasons why people were killed, as I mentioned previously there
were certain ways of killing someone and Shakespeare’s preferences were the stabbing and the
poisoning. The modality that the killers were choosing their “weapons” let the critics build a
profile of each character. Through their choices they were revealing their psychological profile.

Death in terms of symbols is best represented in Shakespeare’s plays through ghosts or other
apparitions that had the purpose to inspire fear or to reveal the truth about their death in points of
how things happened and who was responsible for it.

6
Sanderson,(1992:199)

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According to SymbolDictionary.Net, this period made up certain kind of symbols to define
death. They took Christian symbols; they put them away and tried to create new ones.
“Medieval and Renaissance art made use of a number of emblems to symbolize death and
mortality. Although a central theme of Christianity for hundreds of years the was triumph over
death, the onset of the black plague altered public perception, and the emphasis was placed on
the triumph of death over life and the necessity of repentance. Symbols of resurrection common
in Christian art became less popular as reminders of the impermanence of life and the
punishments of hell became ubiquitous.”
This was one of the results of Protestantism and its instauration in the society. People’s life was
not in God’s hands so they looked different on death. The security of an another life after death
was not that sure anymore and mostly this is why people had to create new symbols in order to
define death.

3. From John Milton to Harold Bloom(a critical view of Shakespeare’s works )

During the years, critics had different opinions about Shakespeare. From the 17 th century until
nowadays, they were analyzing his works. He can be accused for misogynist or violence in his
writings, but he is definitely considered a genius.
In the seventieth century, critics like John Milton or Ben Jonson, wrote and studied
Shakespeare’s works. Both of them have poems dedicated to William. Later on, we have Freud
and Harold Bloom, who are working on Shakespeare’s plays. More than a literary analysis,
Freud is focusing on a psychological one, based on the characters and their behaviors. For him
Shakespeare’s characters are patients. He makes analyses over Hamlet and over the characters
from “The Merchant of Venice”.

James Shapiro in one of his articles said that “Shakespeare was born in the right place and time:
his genius flourished in the richly collaborative world of the Elizabethan theater, and his dyer's
hand was steeped in the social and spiritual contradictions of an age poised between the
medieval and the modern.” This was an article for Harold’s Bloom book, “SHAKESPEARE
the Invention of the Human”. So Harold Bloom highlights how Shakespeare is still an alive

13
legend through his originality. The passing of the years only brought him more credit and offered
to the critics the opportunity to look closer and closer to his work in order to find new meanings.

Milton recognizes Shakespeare’s genius and relates his work to a natural talent and not
necessarily to art.

‘Milton explicitly contrasts the Christian notion of passive virtue with the classical notion of
active, and clearly prefers the former while rejecting the celebration of warfare as a noble
activity in the classical epic. He insists that he is offering an ‘argument/Not less but more Heroic
than the wrath/ Of stern Achilles’(IX.13-15), thereby summing up the Christian revaluation of
classical values.’7

Milton confirms Shakespeare’s opening for the new era and its ideas. Shakespeare makes a
transition from the classical values and arguments to the Renaissance. He pays homage to
Shakespeare by writing poems about him.

‘Our discussion of Renaissance epic has uncovered the wide spectrum of possibilities for
heroism available to the age. The variety of heroic models is reflected in the diversity of
Shakespeare’s tragic heroes. Who range from the pure man of action, Coriolanus, to the
introspective and contemplative Hamlet.’8

Shakespeare brings diversity through his characters. He builds characters with personality who
wants to break through any limits in order to achieve their purpose. As I mentioned before they
have this freedom in thinking that was not very usual for Middle Age. Even though we are
talking about Hamlet who was schooled and has this philosophy in his head or we talk about
Lady Macbeth who tries to put her husband on a better position through unchristian methods,
Shakespeare has a genius way of putting his characters in play.

Milton was representative for the 17th Century. In the next one hundred years others critics have
talked about Shakespeare and brought good and bad sides in front of the readers. For the 18 th
Century, an important name that talks about Shakespeare is J.W. Goethe. He considers
Shakespeare as well and in his vision he ‘meets with the spirit of the world’.

7
Paul A. Cantor(2004:9)
8
Paul A. Cantor(2004:11)

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In the 19th Century, Thomas Carlyle brings his opinions about Shakespeare in front of the
readers. He speaks about the heroic leaderships, and Shakespeare’s characters fit in this category.
He compares Shakespeare with Goethe and mentioned that he is representative for the Modern
Age. So he agrees that Shakespeare brought new things in literature and more than that he is
defines very well the ideology of his era.

In the 20th century lots and lots of writers bring opinion about the poet. From Freud that speaks
about him in the Interpretation of dreams to T.S Eliot who said that’ modern world is divided
between Dante and Shakespeare’. The end of the this century is marked by Harold Bloom that
speaks about Shakespeare in his book The Western Canon. There he mentioned that Shakespeare
is the one who’ sets the standards and limits of literature’.

4.The symbol of life and death in Shakespeare’s tragedies

4.1Conspiracy and death in main tragedies

4.1.1Hamlet

Hamlet is probably one the best pieces of work that Shakespeare wrote. He created a frame and
build characters that resemble a lot the period of Renaissance. Self consciousness, no more fear
for religion, revenge thoughts and desire for power. If we had to sum up the play these would be
the key words for it.

Death is not something that happens all of a sudden. There are plans of conspiracy that lead to
the death of the characters, in this case to the death of Hamlet’s father. In short, the king is killed
by his brother in order for him to take his place on the throne. Hamlet finds out about this
through his father’s ghost who asks him to avenge him. Hamlet gets into a deep kind of
depression in the eyes of the others. In fact he was just looking for a way to avenge the death of
his father. The play is disposed on more plans as we can see the evolution of more characters and

15
it is inserted the technique of the play within the play where the genius of Shakespeare is
highlighted again.

This play is highly representative for the idea of death build as a conspiracy. All starts from idea
and desire for having a better position in society.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” From here we can see how many
troubles had Hamlet thanks to his capacity of thinking and in his case of over thinking. As I
mentioned previously, one of the reasons why this play is representative for Renaissance is the
fact that its main character, Hamlet, has this ability of thinking and not letting the things as they
are. The fact that he was schooled gives him special aptitudes that doesn’t make him a good
successor to the throne but definitely gives him the air of a philosopher. This was both a good
and a bad thing.

Besides from the fact that death is not caused by natural factors, this play brings in front of the
public magic elements. Of course we are talking about the ghost that pulls the trigger of the
whole story. There were different opinions about it. In some cases the ghost is real and it really
appears in front of Hamlet and in other cases it is just Hamlet’s imagination. This is why Hamlet
is considered crazy at certain point. The complexity of this play is given by the multitude of way
that characters are using to kill each other. The use the poisoning, the stabbing and there is a case
of suicide as well.

Suicide is represented by the death of Ophelia. Her story brings a bit romantic and dramatic in
the same time. She gets insane after Hamlet refuses her, fact that brings her in the stadium of
wanting to kill her. There is a love story between them but not that powerful as it is in Romeo
and Juliet.

“There is nothing more profoundly conceived in this play than the Prince's relation to Ophelia.
Hamlet is genius in love -- genius with its great demands and its highly unconventional conduct.
He does not love like Romeo, with a love that takes entire possession of his mind. He has felt
himself drawn to Ophelia while his father was still in life, has sent her letters and gifts, and
thinks of her with an infinite tenderness; but she has not it in her to be his friend and confidant.
"Her whole essence," we read in Goethe, "is ripe, sweet sensuousness." This is saying too much;
it is only the songs she sings in her madness, "in the innocence of madness," as Goethe himself

16
strikingly says, that indicate an undercurrent of sensual desire or sensual reminiscence; her
attitude towards the Prince is decorous, almost to severity.”( William Heinemann,1898)

The idea of madness is the one that leads finally to her suicide. As we know, Shakespeare is
often blamed for being misogynic. There is a difference between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet is
representative for Renaissance era while Ophelia is still part of an era where women were not
allowed to do a lot of things. As Shawna Maki mentions in one of her articles “Ophelia has
limited options as a woman in a patriarchal society and this is what separates her from Hamlet,
who has the freedom to change his own fate. Ophelia needs to be obedient and is not allowed to
express herself and her true feelings. What happens in her life is determined by the whims of the
men who control her. She is obedient to her father and brother and also to the king, and
although she tries to do what is right, she is often pulled along by these men. Unlike Hamlet,
who can act according to his own will and speak his mind as he wants, Ophelia must find an
alternative to express herself. The only out that she sees is in madness and eventually death. As a
mad woman, Ophelia would not be bound by the societal restrictions of women; she could voice
herself; however, even in madness she is not free. Even though she is able to have a voice, she
still has no freedom of choice and she is ultimately regarded as nonsensical and her words are
taken to be simply mad-talk. “

Besides from her love issues, Ophelia is a bit of victim of a society that doesn’t allow her to
express her feelings and more than that, a society that doesn’t let her to express her thoughts. On
a psychological level these are the reasons that led to Ophelia’s wish of killing herself. This is
what was in her head before her act. The point is that there are some consequences of her death.
Here suicide can be considered a weakness. And as we are talking about a woman who did this,
then more than weakness is general, we can refer to women who weak and are not able to
confront their feelings. According to the same article of Shawna Maki, Ophelia was suffering of
hysteria. Through this character, Shakespeare points out the fact that the woman was totally
dependent of men.

Ophelia’s death created issues among the society and its customs. There is a problem, because
Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, speaks up her voice and says that Ophelia’s death was an accident so
she should be buried as a normal Christian. Apparently, some rituals were still up even though
Protestantism was on its through Shakespeare’s society.

17
“The three kinds of burials given suicides in the church yard are shown -- one by the
gravedigger, as was customary in some parts of England and Wales, where the grave was "out
of the sanctuary" and not "straight," that is, east and west, and another was by Christian burial
by the priest, when it was in the parish church-yard, and the other was by the coroner when not
at cross roads, marked by a stake where stones, &c., were thrown at it. Blackstone only
mentions the burial of suicides at cross roads, and law students are led to believe that the law
was the same over all England and Wales in that particular. It was only a legal custom and did
not prevail generally”

Ophelia’s death created controversies in the society and turned her into a symbolic figure for
centuries after that. Critics say that she has found a certain type of freedom in her act. This
offered Shakespeare the opportunity to create though that freedom that wasn’t that well seen
during Middle Ages. This act it can be seen as one of unleashing herself from the torture of a
society where a woman was not allowed to speak out her mind.

Even though it has a certain impact on the public, this scene is not the most important one. The
whole play is build around Hamlet’s father poisoning. This technique is present the most in this
play. The poisoning represents on the one hand a really cowardly way of killing someone and on
the other hand a really genius one. Considering that period, it was almost impossible to find out
when someone was killed by being poisoned.

In his famous monologue, Hamlet associated death with sleep. He finds in this process not an
end but a pause, a state for dreaming.

“That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come”

This happens most probably because of the ghost of his father. Death was an end only in the case
when it was caused by natural reasons. In his father’s case, death came when he expected less

18
and that wasn’t a natural cause. Being killed by his brother, did not let him rest in peace, reason
why he came back as a ghost and asked for revenge.

I mentioned previously about ghosts and that they are a symbol for death. According to a
paranormal dictionary, ghost is seen as “a disembodied manifestations of the spirits or souls of
deceased humans or animals that survive after death”. If we are going to refer to this assumption,
Hamlet’s father was still “alive” and the reason why his spirit was around was that he wanted
justice. The way that the justice could be done was to ask his son to avenge him.

The conspiracy goes two ways in this play. First of all it is about the plan of killing the king,
Hamlet’s father and second of all it is about Hamlet’s plan of avenging his father.

Hamlet’s father death goes in the category of conspiracy, because there was a whole plan behind
that. Even though Claudius was the one who poisoned his father, Gertrude and Polonius were
part of this murder as well. I consider that is one of the reasons why Hamlet delayed his plans of
revenge. He had the wish to do it, but it was about a more complex plan than just killing
Claudius. E created the appearance of being insane so he can think his plan really well, opinion
sustained by many other critics. It is true that maybe he lost himself during this scenario but in
the end the three persons who were part of the conspiracy died. And ironically is that Claudius
and Gertrude were poisoned as well. The second conspiracy of Claudius turned against him,
being killed by the poison that was prepared for Hamlet. Polonius dies in an ironically way as
well, being stabbed by Hamlet while he was trying to listen to his conversation.

“All that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity”9

These lines belong to Claudius who tries to speak about death and the fact that human beings
were born to die, and that this is a normal process. An irony is present here considering the fact
that he created a conspiracy in order to kill his brother. His desire for power was bigger than the
love for his own blood.

As for the society, this conspiracy became more or less obvious when Hamlet decided to put in
scene that play which reproduced the way his father died. Of course his intentions were to find
9
Hamlet, Act 1, scene ii

19
out which was Claudius reaction to it. Shakespeare created complex characters which were able
to interpret psychological sides of the other persons around them. More than these symbolic
scenes we can see the pleasure that the public has it for violence. Besides for the psychological
violence to which characters are exposed to there is also this physical one. At the end of the play,
there are one suicide and four murders. This creates a lot of noise among the people. Just like I
mentioned previously in this work, Shakespeare’s society was one that could not stand the
violence but it was amazed by it. I mentioned about the psychological violence because there are
violent thoughts in the mind of each character. Hamlet’s tries to find a way to avenge his father,
Claudius, Gertrude and Polonius try to cover up the death of the king, Ophelia that cannot
figured out her thoughts and feelings and then her brother who has the duty to avenge his family.
We can almost see a balance between psychological and physique pain and desire for death and
revenge.

4.1.2 Macbeth

This is another masterpiece of the conspiracy for getting the power through killing somebody. If
in Hamlet, the weak characters are women, here we find the opposite. Lady Macbeth is the one
who initiates the conspiracy and more than that she is more eager to keep up with the guilt, more
than Macbeth, even though she is the one who committed suicide. This play brings more than
conspiracy in front of the audience. It starts with a magical scene, where three witches predict to
Macbeth that he is going to be a king. He is skeptically about this prediction and writes to his
wife. There is the point where the conspiracy starts. Lady Macbeth is an exception among the
women from Shakespeare’s writings. She is the one who wants the power, more than her
husband, reason why she starts the plan of how to kill King Duncan and make her husband the
king instead.

Even though Lady Macbeth seems strong at the beginning, Shakespeare turns her again in to the
weak part of the story when she kills herself. This was a consequence of her plan though. She
wasn’t able to take all the pressure but in the same time she made sure her husband will survive
to all that period.
20
“Death is not only linked with a transition of power but emotions as well. Macbeth’s character
changes throughout the play as death occurs naturally and unnaturally. Macbeth goes through a
variety of emotions until finally his senses are dulled as he becomes accustomed to very intense
emotions. Towards the end of the book, when Lady Macbeth dies, Macbeth shows almost no
emotion. Death stirs up mixed emotion such as guilt, instability, fear and paranoia, and finally
detachedness in Macbeth as the play progresses.”10

The series of crimes change Macbeth’s characteristics. From a proud soldier he turns into a
murder that kills people around for achieving his own goals. These were the consequences of the
murders that he was responsible for. On a psychological level, guilt torn him apart but that did
not stop him from killing. He already started so a murder more or less was almost irrelevant.

‘Of all men else I have avoided thee:

But get thee back; my soul is too much charged

With blood of thine already’11

Critics say that more than his murders, the suicide of his wife is the one that drove him insane.

‘The death of his wife in Act V, Scene IV is the death that sends him over the abyss and into
mental instability.’ She is the one that keeps him sane and her death makes him feel the guilt
harder than at the beginning. As we can see here appears the suicide as well as in Hamlet. It turns
into a representative symbol for Shakespeare.

4.2 Death as a romantic symbol in Romeo and Juliet

10
http://deathinmacbeth.wikispaces.com/
11
Hamlet ,Act V, Scene VIII

21
Only the name of this play brings up in our minds two words: love and sacrifice. The well known
story of two lovers from different families that want to be together beyond any limit, hides
behind different meanings.If so far death was a way to get on the throne or to avenge someone,
here it has a more deep meaning. Death is seen as a way of freedom and also a way to complete a
love story. There is a supreme sacrifice in what these two lovers do in order to achieve what they
want.

Their love is represented by certain violence though. The way they have to hide and the way they
had to act in order to accomplish their goals. Everything starts from the bonding that exists
between the two lovers.
’ Kissing becomes a reciprocal act, and in the end Juliet adds a teasing note( “You kiss by
th’book”) that gives her an edge of control, suggesting this will be one of those Shakesperean
love-relationships in which the woman is stronger and brighter than the man.’12
The magic is their love itself. In Romeo and Juliet, society and family rules are more important
than simple feelings. Pride is the main characteristic that leads their lives. Indirectly this is the
reason that leads to Romeo and Juliet’s death.

I was talking about sacrifice and its nobility in the context of this play. Poison turns into a
symbolic element for freedom here. If in the other two plays, suicide was the result of frustration,
guilt or unaccomplished love, here is a beautiful way of escaping from reality in order to achieve
a dream. They could have chosen to escape and run into another country but destiny had
something different prepared for them. The unity was magical and supreme in their case. Even
though their story is seen as a tragedy, I find more like a transcendental union. Their love was
too pure and too big for this world. The tragedy was more among their families who realized
they have contributed to the death of their own children.

In the context of the other two plays I was talking about conspiracies. Here we can see not a
conspiracy but a strategy of how to use death in order to escape. Initially, the plan wasn’t to kill
each other in order to be together, but to try to cheat death. As the end reveals, this was not
possible. As a conspiracy of the universe, their trial to trick the death turned against them.

12
Alexander Leggatt (p30)

22
 4.3 Life in Shakespeare’s tragedies

4.3.1 Hamlet and Macbeth

Well, if death is a symbol and represented either a sacrifice for love or a way of revenge, life can
be seen as a threat for part of the characters from these two plays. The life of certain characters is
literally an obstacle for the negative characters from Shakespeare’s plays. For example in
Hamlet, as long as the king would be alive, Claudius couldn’t be king himself. Then in Macbeth,
as long as Duncan is still alive, he can achieve the throne.

Life is on the limit of fantastic here. Hamlet for example is led by the words of a ghost while
Macbeth is creating a future based on a prediction made by some witches. The reality and the
logos are in a tremendous connection which is able to create art.

‘Logica vieţii, în virtutea careia se ordonează cauzele şi efectele, nu are în domeniul artei decât
o valoare relativă. Realul experienţei şi cel al artei se suprapun, dar nu se confundă
niciodată(...) Teatrul înseamnă, de fapt, o transpunere a realului.’ (Dumitriu,1996:111)

Even though Shakespeare speaks about some specific data that could be easily interpreted as
historical, the characters from these two plays have a highly inclination for the supernatural
world. As human characters, they present flows which made them week. For example Hamlet
needs to avenge his father’s death while Macbeth turns from a hero to an assassin with huge
desire for power. ‘Macbeth, în urma metamorfozei suferită sub influenţa celor trei vrăjitoare,
intră în coridorul de întuneric al făpturii crimelor şi nu va ieşi până la final din acest
comportament.’( Dumitriu, 1996:127).

4.3.2 Romeo and Juliet

In this play, life seems an obstacle for Romeo and Juliet’s love story. Life is significant only
reported to love. It can be related to youth and a fight for accomplishing several feelings.
Shakespeare approaches life in an abstract way. No material things can be more important than

23
Romeo and Juliet’s love. The characteristics of Renaissance are well developed here. As
Renaissance has to deal with rebirth, Shakespeare creates his characters in a way that resemble to
two main beliefs: honor and love. The characters can’t see their lives without these two values. It
also highlighted the idea of family. Both families have a huge ego and they try to keep their
honor despite of the love between their children.

As I mentioned already, life doesn’t have much of a pragmatically side. The real time when
Romeo and Juliet start living was the moment when both of them were dead. Their life was not
complete with them apart so they find continuity in death. Their life is beyond humanity.
Humanity is just a stage where they meet and through death they are able to live and this happens
because life is the equivalent for love.

Another belief that rules the life of our characters is fate. This is a concept that comes in
completion for the idea of life as an abstract concept. According to it everything that happen in
Romeo and Juliet’s life is not part of their choice but of some alignment of planets or of some
supernatural force.

It is not merely a coincidence that Romeo and Julie meet in the first place. A serving man comes
across Romeo and Benvolio in the first act, unaware that they are Montagues, and informs them
about the Capulet party: “My master is the great rich Capulet, and, if you be not/ of the house of
Montagues, I pray come and crush a / cup of wine”(I ii, 86-88). It is by fate that Romeo and
Benvolio run into the Capulet serving man and discover the party. It is just a simple accident
that the serving man tells the two cousins about the party at which Romeo is destined, yet
unaware, that he will meet his love. Furthermore, before Romeo attends the Capulet party, he
says,” Some consequence yet hanging in the stars/ shall bitterly begin this fearful date”13

If we are going to agree with this statement, Romeo and Juliet didn’t choose their life but when
they decided to put their lives aside for their relationship they worked against faith and this is the
real reason why they had to die.

In this play another aspect of life that is shown up is the weakness that human beings are capable
of. Romeo and Juliet not only that they give up to their pride but also have really well developed
a weak point. Each of them is the weakness for the other one.’ Eroii dramaturgului elisabetan
13
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16066

24
sunt individualizaţi prin existenţa unor puternice limite umane’ (Dumitriu. 1996:114). This is
again a reason for Romeo and for Juliet to find their life more valuable in an afterlife.

25
 5 The symbol of life and death in historical plays

5.1King Richard the Second

If so far, life was see in a romantic or tragic way, in this historical play we are talking about life
as an entity that can offer luxury and pleasures. Life is not anymore a state of mind where you
can a philosopher as in Hamlet or to accomplish a love story as in Romeo and Juliet.The main
character, King Richard himself, reveals that side of life which doesn’t praise philosophy, states
of mind or soul but a continuous love for immediate things. King Richard was well known for
his exaggerating way of living. instead of trying to rule his kingdom, he was more interested in
fashion, parties and all those things which were evanescent.

What he encourages is a hedonic way of living. Here Shakespeare relates again to the Antiquity
and its ideas.The idea of hedonism was  born in Antiquity, in Greece and it was part of Epicur’s
philosophy. according to him people don’t believe in afterlife and this why they are trying
everything here on Earth. They don’t like pain and this is why they are trying to stay as far as
possible from it.

Not only did in himself hold a position unique among English kings, he maintained a court of
excessive splendour. Froissart writes as follows in the last pages pages of his chronicle:

This King richard reigned king of England twenty-two year in great prosperity, holding
great estate and signory,much in his house as he did by a hundred thousand florins every
year. For I,  Sir John Froissart, canon and treasurer of Chinay, knew it well, for I was in
his court more than a quarter of year together and he made me good cheer. .... And when
I departed from him it was at Windsor; and at my departing the king sent me by a knight
of his, Sir Golofer, a goblet of silver and within it a hundred nobles, y the which I am  as
yet the better and shall be as long as I live; wherefore I am bound to pray to God for his
soul and with much sorrow I write of his death. (Dean,1957:178)

From King Richard’s actions we can see a good case practice of this philosophy. He is really
interested in everything that is new and is really carefull with his friends so they can have fun

26
and a life without many worries. But this way of living sends him in exile. He goes too far with
his ideas reason for why he is sent away and his throne goes in his cousin’s hands.

What has in common this play with many others written by Shakespeare, is that life is an
obstacle for the ones who are trying to achieve their own purposes and in this case to rule a
kingdom. The play is opened by a trial where Bolingbroke accuses a man of betrayal. Apparently
Richard’s place on the throne wasn’t a fair one. Life in this play can be associated with desire for
power, hypocrisy and guilt. It is a vicious circle. King Richard participates to a complot against
his uncle whose life was an obstacle for him and his reign. The hedonic way of leaving send him
into an exile and brings on the throne his cousin who turns in King Henry IV. After all the
events, the new king makes sure that the old one is murdered. Here comes the part of guilt. After
King Richard’s life is taken away, King Henry feels the pressure of his conscience which reveals
his hypocrisy. He accuses a man of conspiracy at the beginning of the play and later on he is part
of one as well. The idea of life is build on conspiracies, because is the only way they can achieve
their purposes. For these characters, life meant power. Without power they can’t build a way of
living. The idea of life doesn’t have a philosophical background. It is taken as it is and in the
moment when it becomes an obstacle is put aside even though consequences as guilt and remorse
start leading the characters lives.

We are in fact in a world where means matter more than ends, where it is more important to
keep strictly the rules on an elaborate game than either to win or to lose it.

Now though compared to ourselves the Elizabethans put a high value on means as against ends
they did not to go to the extreme. It was in the Middle Ages that means were so elaborated, that
the rules of the game of life were so lavishly and so minutely set forth. Richard II is
Shakespeare’s picture of that life. (Dean, 1957:175)

Dean speaks here about the way Shakespeare used more of the Middle Age set of mind than of
the Renaissance. In his historical plays he brings more of a real side of life than in his other
writings and this happens because of the use of concrete facts. There is a stream on conscience
for King Richard. At a certain point he realizes that he didn’t rule his kingdom as it should.
Richard însuşi îşi va da seama până la urmă că,rege fiind, nu a folosit vremea cum trebuie, nu a
fost în pas cu ea sau nu i-a simţit pulsul. ( Leviţchi,1984:220)

27
 5.2 Parallel perspectives between life and death symbol between tragedies and
historical plays

When it comes to a comparison between two entities we have to take in consideration differences
and resemblances that overcome. Both tragedies and historical plays have conspiracies included
in the plot and a strong desire of aspiring for a better position in society. Bayley speaks about
tragedies and the way they should be perceived.

Tragedies are no good if, like O’Neil’s and a hundred others of every date, they concentrate
fiercely on showing how stark and awful life is. Able to concentrate on nothing but effective
moments, the tragedian emancipated from any local necessities often impresses the groundlings
but makes the judicious grieve. (Bayley, 1981:50)

So according to Bayley, Shakespeare’s tragedies don’t focus on the awfulness of life but on key
moments. The characters don’t praise life but they don’t complain about it either. Instead of that
they find it as an obstacle in their way of achieving certain things. And this is it what happens in
historical plays as well. This is one of the resemblances that is found between these two types of
writings.

Death is the instrument that helps certain characters to take their position to another level. Here
we can take as examples Hamlet, Macbeth and King Richard II. In both types of writings we
have characters that practice the complot in order to kill their enemies. Claudius kills his brother
in order to take his place on the throne, Macbeth kills Duncan for the same reason and in King
Richard, Bolingbroke kills him at the end of the play in order to assure his place on the throne.
Macbeth complots with his wife lady Macbeth, Claudius complots with Gertrude and
Bolingbroke hires an assassin to kill Richard.

Considering the weapons and the way of killing, there are differences between the two types of
works. The characters use the stabbing, the poisoning, the suicide through poison while in King
Richard II we an assassin who does the dirty job. Here intervene other differences. The historical
play is mostly based on real facts which bring a string of reality among the action of the play.
Bolingbroke couldn’t kill the former king by himself because he has a position to protect. Plus

28
that Shakespeare couldn’t bring much of fantasy in play that is based on historical information.
On the other side, death is full of magic and supernatural elements. From ghosts to witches that
can predict the future, Shakespeare offers to the plays plenty elements that turn them into fantasy
writings. The death is tragic and highlights either the desire for revenge, the desire for throne or
the impossibility of fulfilling a love story. Even though there are political issues on the middle,
tragedies aren’t seen that much as real stories as the historical plays.

Within the form of the art death becomes the experience Wittgenstein said it could not be
(‘Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience!) Elizabethan tragic decorum
regarded death as a ceremony in which all the players participated and were united into a
whole. Curiously enough it is irrelevant whether the Christian idea of survival is present or not.
In the tragedies it is glanced at, as it is in Othelo, or more deliberately excluded, but the effect is
not similar to that in the history plays, with their specifically Christian ethos and their pattern of
descendent and continuity. (…) Tragedy re-enacts itself in its cycle of death and rebirth; the
form of Hamlet remains, his function never dies. (Bayley, 1981:51)

In tragedies we have those heroes who give another sense to life. They either contemplate it or
they can’t find its purpose and find in it just another moment of living where they are not able to
accomplish their dream.14 They put accent more on the philosophical side of it while in historical
plays there is a more practical way of seeing it. In tragedies, Shakespeare focus more on creating
a profile of the heroes and their perspective of life and death while in historical plays he focuses
more on the facts, giving to the readers a history lesson more than philosophy concepts. There is
only one exception at the end of the historical play, were we can see a stream of conscience from
King Henry IV who wants to go to Jerusalem in order to wash away the guilt for the murder.

Tragedies bring that glimpse of magic and unreal. The author creates almost a new world, a
fantastic one but which keeps the life on a track of reality.

Deşi faptele ilogice sunt numeroase în tragedii, acestea nu scad valoarea dramelor, întrucât
construcţia subiectelor nu este rezultatul însumării unor acţiuni selecţionate după criterii logice.
Nu suprapunerea peste faptele unei anumite realităţi dă valoarea unei lucrări dramatice.
Existenţele ilogice, comasarea timpului, hiperbolizarea unei convingeri sau a unor

14
As it happens in Romeo and Juliet

29
comportamente , inconştienţa dragostei(...)- toate acestea împreună, definesc valoarea
tragediilor lui Shakespeare.(Dumitriu,1996:112)

To conclude, the main difference between these two types of writings stands for the way the
characters look over the idea of life and death and the way Shakespeare put the two symbols, life
and death, in a historical and a tragic play. He focuses on an empirical way of treating life and
death in historical plays and on a more abstract way in tragedies.

6. Immortality through writing

6.1 Shakespeare’s works through time

If so far I talked about symbols of life and death on Shakespeare’s work, I decided to stop over
the idea of immortality. It is not about the philosophical term in one of his work, but more like
the way his work of art survived during dozens of years. He went from a genius to a possible
fraud and from that to misogynic writer who doesn’t know how to treat women. But even like
that he kept his position and his works survived over years and years.

A very important point in the way Shakespeare’s works survived during the years is the fact that
they were played. From the very beginning this was what he wanted: to put in scene what he was
writing. In time Shakespeare’s characters were interpreted by many actors who made a
masterpiece from what he wrote. His writings were also restored in order to fit different periods
mostly because the language wasn’t considered well enough. But this wasn’t a rule that last
forever. According to Russell Jackson, from the eighteenth century it was put in the scene the
original plays.

The eighteenth century began gradually restoring to the stage the original texts, or at least
discarding most of the additions and verbal alterations perpetrated in the Restoration. The
movement was engendered partly by an increased awareness of the plays in their original
published form (through such editions as Rowe’s of 1709 and Warburton’s of 1747), partly in
response to changing fashions in drama. (Jackson, 1986:191)

30
So another way through which Shakespeare’s works survived was the struggle of keeping the
text in original. This aspect gave him originality so the actors could have a closer approach to
what happened in the period when the action took place.

But if we analyze a bit the evolution of theatre we can appreciate the fact that the survival of the
works happened thanks to the public. Robert Hapgood mentioned the following statement:

It is sometimes said backstage that a play belongs at first to the playwright. During rehearsals, it
belongs at first to the director. After opening night, it belongs to the actors. And after it has run
for a few weeks, it belongs to the audience, to whose responses the actors cater. (Hapgood,
1988:48).

Shakespeare’s works had a great success thanks to the complex characters that he created. He
puts in scene noble persons, people with a big importance in the society, and turns them into
murderers with huge desires for power or love as is the case of tragedies or historical plays.

Dacă la unii dramaturgi contemporani eroii sunt fiinţe neînsemnate, la Shakespeare-în spiritul
tradiţiei antice-ei sunt spirite înalte, oamenii cu o aleasă poziţie socială.

Titus Andronicus, spre exemplu, coboară de la înălţimea poziţiei sale de salvator al Romei si de
potenţial împărat la grozăvia omorârii fiilor Tamorei si folosirea sângelui acestora pentru a
face bucatele cu care o va servi pe mama copiilor ucişi.(...) Brutus dintr-un respectat cetăţeanal
Romei, ajunge un disperat al sorţii, care se sinucide. Antoniu, unul dintre triumvirii respectaţi ai
Romei, coboară de pe acoperişul lumii,unde deţinea puterea supremă, spre dezonarea şi termină
prin sinucidere o existenţă care ar fi putut fi strălucită(...) Romeo şi Julieta, copiii celor mai
respectate familii din Verona, închid ochii vieţii, sub lacrimile dragostei lor. Hamlet, prinţul
Danemarcei, nu are puterea de a supravieţui evenimentelor pe care le provoacă în căutarea
adevărului şi lasă regatul în mâinile urmaşului la tronul Norvegiei. (Dumitriu, 1996:115)

Hamlet for example uses ethos it in order to motivate him to achieve his purpose. Here
intervenes again human flaw which make Hamlet weak but in the same time creates a character
for eternity.

‘Hamlet, ca personaj, reprezintă o împlinire dramatică, deoarece motivarea acţiunilor sale este
deopotrivă etică şi emoţională. Întalnirea cu fantoma tatălui său naşte motivarea emoţională şi

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ideea de răzbunare. Motivarea etică reiese din interpretarea situaţiei în cadrul unor norme care
trebuie să guverneze relaţiile sociale şi politice.’ (Dumitriu, 1996:129)

All the controversial discussions based on who was Shakespeare, whether he existed or not.

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