Shakespere's Hamlet

Résumé. ― Ce qui s’y passe est un deuil décompensé qui déclenche un délire, lequel mène à brève échéance à un carnage. L’arrière-plan du « cas » est un Œdipe resté en suspend depuis l’enfance, n’ayant trouvé à l’âge d’homme, dans l’amour pour Ophélie, qu’un exutoire fragile et momentané. La mort du père intervient à un moment critique. Le complexe assoupi se réveille avec virulence. La spécificité du « cas » est constituée par un rêve d’incubation où une conviction morbide s’insinue dans l’esprit de Hamlet. Le déroulement de la pièce met en scène les luttes de Hamlet contre cette conviction délirante. Hamlet mobilise toutes ses ressources intellectuelles, mais ses défenses s’effritent les unes après les autres. L’attitude fluctuante et équivoque d’Ophélie contribue à sa déstabilisation. Le dernier rempart s’effondre avec la mort d’Ophélie par noyade, ce qui précipite la cascade des passages à l’acte meurtriers.

Mots-Clés. ― Œdipe en suspend → Moment critique → Rêve d’incubation → Deuil décompensé → Effondrement des défenses → Passages à l’acte meurtriers.

When viewed through the lens of Lutheran political polemic, as Luther attempted to reconcile Christianity with the politics of the reformed Christian state, the main action of Hamlet manifests as a work of thematic coherence. Rather than support Luther's contention that Christians are sometimes justified in killing and sometimes not, Shakespeare presents a middle ground that allows for governments to go to war and execute law breakers who warrant death, while preserving a Christian's freedom to abstain from these roles that might jeopardize salvation.

Hamlet is known as one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. It follows the story of the prince and his vendetta journey on his uncle Claudius, the murderer of his father. Many theories have been connected with the ambiguous message that Shakespeare left in this tragedy. One of the main questions regarding Hamlet is that some experts considered him as the outstanding hero of the story, meanwhile others describe him as only a victimized human. Given this, in order to know if Hamlet can be considered or not a hero, the three main focuses will be the identity of Hamlet, if he can be considered a threat and if his death is a consequence of his heroic acts, or just human mistakes. To begin with, the identity of Hamlet is broken up at the beginning of the play, which is influenced by not only internal factors but also external ones. Hamlet finds himself fighting against the external influences that can affect his internal being, and this is related to the public and the private issue of the story. As Hamlet says in Act I, Scene II, But I have that within which passeth show; these but the trappings and the suits of woe; in this quote, the duality of the character is being exposed. Hamlet has obligations that not only affect him, but also the whole state. By way of illustration, a clear example of this idea would be the consequences that would take place if Hamlet finally decides to kill the monarch, creating an unstable politic disorder within the society of the country. Thus, this is closely connected with the idea of the public and the private, which it is illustrated in the famous statement to be or not to be (III,i,58-60) that states the difference between the public behaviour, where Hamlet plays a dual character pretending to be mad, and the private life, where he is actually acting rational.

Questions of “habit” and “custom” recur throughout William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as they do elsewhere in early modern culture, in theological, legal and moral philosophical debate as well as in popular literature of improvement. In this article, I will argue that the Second Quarto edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1604) is a crucial text in the early modern writing on habit, as it holds up commonplace notions of habitual learning and habitual corruption for scrutiny in ways that test Puritan and humanist educational ideas of habit available in the period, and that link ideas of personal habit with national custom and international imitation. Habit will remain troublesome in the history of modern thought; by playing off against each other different ideas of habit current at the time, Hamlet anticipates enduring problems of programmable life.

This study explores the revenge theme in Shakespeare's play Hamlet and Mahfouz's novel The Thief and the Dogs by discovering similarities and differences between the two works. First, this paper is examining the meaning of the word revenge from a linguistic and social perspective, and gives a brief summary of both works, in addition to a short biography of Naguib Mahfouz and its impact on the novel. Second, this paper demonstrates the elements and reasons that created revenge in both works through the analysis of the texts in detail. Finally, illustrating the political and social dimensions of both workers, and its effect on the individual, which resulted in the tendency to take revenge from the others and the ruling class.

Inspired by Said's methodology of contrapuntal reading, this article examines Edward Said's reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet (1604) in his memoir, Out of Place (1999) to shed light on his experiences of exile and displacement. We contend that Hamlet gives voice to Said's incestuous desire and his inability, like that of Hamlet, to live up to the standards required of him by his dominating father who, like Hamlet's father, is a ghostly figure that dominates Said's life even after his death. We argue that while Said points out that Shakespeare is an extension of imperial authority, his readings of Hamlet with his mother destabilises the colonising force of Shakespeare and displaces Western hegemony over performance and interpretations.

This paper is a psychological analysis of Prince Hamlet the character's psychological disorder in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The paper focuses on Hamlet's mental and psychological condition, based on his behavior, acts, and reactions to the traumatizing event that he goes through, when his father (The king of Denmark) gets murdered and ends up being replaced by the murderer. I argue that Hamlet suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The paper aims to analyze prince Hamlet's psychological reaction to the traumatizing event he experiences, considering him as a mentally disordered character who needs immediate treatment since he is unaware of his mental and psychological condition that affects his actions and puts his life and the life of others in danger.

Al comenzar esbozaremos sucintamente el contexto en el que fue escrita La Gaviota y la popularidad de Hamlet en aquellos tiempos en el círculo de intelectuales rusos, para continuar con un análisis de las particularidades del texto. Luego desarrollaremos una indagación de las relaciones de los personajes en La Gaviota y sus semejanzas con Hamlet (centrándonos en Treplev, Nina, Arkadina y Trigorin) ya que desde ahí es de donde se desprenden las similitudes más ricas, junto con el tema del “Teatro dentro del teatro” fenómeno que se da en ambas obras.

HROUGHOUT most of written history the Earth was believed to lie at the center of creation, while the seven ancient planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) revolved about it. The entire arrangement was encased in a shell of stars beyond which was the abode of the Prime Mover. This geocentric model reached an advanced state of refinement in the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy of 140 AD (depicted in Figure 1, page 6). In 1543, the book De revolutionibus by the Polish mathematician Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) completely revised the cosmic world view, for it removed the Earth from the center of the planetary system and placed the Sun there instead. Figure 2 (page 7) shows the Copernican heliocentric model with the six planets that were known at the time orbiting the Sun, while the Moon orbits the Earth. Like the geocentric model, the helio-centric model was encased in a sphere of stars. In 1576 the English mathematician, Thomas Digges (c.1546-1595) shattered the last and outermost sphere of the stars in a work entitled A perfit description of the caelestiall orbes. This was included in his book Prognostication Everlasting, written in partnership with his father, Leonard Digges. This book was first issued in 1553 and reprinted many times until 1605. Their model embraced Copernicanism, advancing beyond it to a new and even more revolutionary model of an infinite universe of stars like the Sun. Figure 3 (page 8) shows the model of a Copernican Solar System imbedded in a matrix of stars which are more-or-less u n i-formly distributed. The distribution of stars extends to the limit of the borders of the diagram and seems intended to fill all of space. The legend in the sphere below the stars reads: This orbe of starres fixed infinitely up extendeth hit selfe in altitude sphericallye, and therefore immovable the pallace of foelicitye garnished with perpetuall shininge glorious lightes innumerable farr excellinge our sonne both in quantitye and qualitye the very court of coelestiall angelles devoyd of greefe and replenished with perfit endless joye the habitacle for the elect.

El presente ensayo busca explorar las principales tradiciones
interpretativas con las que se ha entendido el final de Hamlet, especialmente, el arribo de Fortinbras. ¿Debería consolarnos en alguna medida la llegada de Fortinbras, al que Hamlet le otorga
su beneplácito con su “dying voice”? ¿Amortigua este fenómeno la tragicidad de la historia o por el contrario la potencia? ¿Podemos decir que “la casa está en orden”? ¿Se trata simplemente de la puesta en escena de aquel viejo supuesto/mecanismo por el cual Shakespeare, siempre restituye el orden al finalizar las tragedias? ¿Es acaso un futuro venturoso lo que aguarda a Dinamarca, ahora en proceso de ser absorbida bajo la égida del imperio Noruego? ¿O capaz el hecho de que el invasor extranjero, que acechaba desde el comienzo
la obra y por el cual -y contra el cual- las defensas eran preparadas febrilmente, finalmente termine quedándose con todo sin disparar un sólo tiro nos está mostrando una suerte de “historia con moraleja” respecto a lo que puede suceder cuando proliferan las luchas intestinas2? ¿Será que Hamlet y Fortinbras, trabajando en conjunto sin
saberlo, ayudaron a purgar a Dinamarca de sus males y venenos? ¿O capaz debamos entender más bien que Hamlet junior no ha hecho más que deshacer todo lo que su padre lograra, ayudando a entregar el reino llave en mano al histórico enemigo de su reino al asesinar a un gobernante que, si bien de indudable arribo ilegítimo, la obra nos da algunas pistas que, en una de esas, no estaba gobernando tan mal (otro dilema político clásico)?  Posiblemente, veremos, no se trate de elegir excluyendo, sino de ver cómo todas ellas conviven, y que Shakespeare, más que ser un “bajalínea”, era un gran presentador de problemáticas que le interesaban. Y como en un juego de roles, era capaz de dar voz y verdad a varias de esas posiciones.mostrar sus distancias, sus acentos y posicionamientos, sus consolaciones optimistas y sus enconadas diatribas pesimistas.

"Magda Romanska argues that with the rise of nationalism in late nineteenth-century Europe, the pattern of the patriarchal covenant in Hamlet paralleled the process of nation-building. Hamlet’s filial loyalty toward his Father’s ghost was perceived as a symbol of
patriotic loyalty towards one’s nation/Father-land. Conversely, as a “gift of death” that cements the patriarchal contract, Ophelia became a model of the nineteenth-century feminine ideal." - Editor, Ghost Stories and Alternative Histories, 2007

Este estudio surge a raíz de la puesta en escena de una de las últimas versiones de ​ Hamlet exhibidas en Buenos Aires, en que el director presentó al fantasma del Rey Hamlet suspendido en lo alto de unos rieles, con una actuación en extremo estilizada y una expresión vocal propia de otros géneros teatrales que le quitaron profundidad al personaje del Espectro, que es quien provoca en Hamlet la tan contemporánea duda del "Ser o no ser". Las risas de la audiencia al ver al actor simulando ser un fantasma, evidenciaron el desacierto de la elección. Es decir, el hecho de mostrar de forma inverosímil y cómica las escenas que dan origen a la peripecia del protagonista, debilitaron la puesta en escena completa, haciendo surgir la pregunta acerca de si el montaje fue concebido como una tragedia realmente. Si atendemos a las referencias bibliográficas, cinematográficas y teóricas de la obra ​ Hamlet, el denominador común y fuerza temática más significativa en todas ellas, es la venganza que debe emprender el príncipe para restituir el honor de su padre, el Rey Hamlet. Asimismo, se debe entender que el factor desequilibrante del orden inicial, es la aparición de La Sombra o El Espectro, puesto que es quien induce a Hamlet a la venganza. Lo fascinante del texto dramático ​ Hamlet ​ está en que se estructura (luego del acontecimiento que precede) en las formas confusas que pueden asumir los valores que dan cuenta de ​ las relaciones de poder en una familia (que es la que gobierna Dinamarca), como lo son, el amor de pareja y el amor filial, la lealtad y la sinceridad; valores que son trastocados por la primacía de inclinaciones y deseos egoístas, y por la futilidad de las acciones resultantes. Esta futilidad pretende dejar la impresión global de que, en definitiva, los valores ideales en que dichas acciones se basan, son aparentes y su realización es fallida.

Cervantes, Calderón, and Shakespeare (With Some Remarks on René Descartes and Francis Bacon)

0. Great minds have judged the oeuvre of Miguel de Cervantes to be equal in quality to that of William Shakespeare. However, the former falls behind the latter as far as the breadth of its influence is concerned. This may be due to various overarching trends of more recent times, among which questions of language and genre may be the most important-that is, factors not pertinent to literary value in the strict sense. In an age when English is turning into the desperately needed lingua franca of a globalized world and when, for the very same reasons, visual encoding has gained in importance to a spectacular degree, a dramatist who wrote in English will of necessity reach a wider audience than a novelist who wrote in Spanish.

// Людина. Екзистенція. Культура. Підхід філософської антропології як метаантропології : збірник наукових праць [III та IV Всеукраїнських науково-практичних конференцій, що проводять кафедра культурології та філософської антропології, лабораторія метаантропологічних досліджень факультету філософії і суспільствознавства НПУ імені М.П. Драгоманова] / За редакцією Н. Хамітова і С. Крилової. – К. : КНТ, – 2020. – C. 89-96.

This brief review posits that Hamlet’s hesitancy to take action could be rooted in his profound rational and intellectual disposition. The essay explores Hamlet’s apparent struggle with indecision within the axis of his inclination towards extensive contemplation, dedication to human dignity, and relentless commitment to rational and moral principles. As will be shown, these facets foreground pivotal arguments for the discussion of Hamlet’s impasse of (in)activity.

The purpose of this paper is to show how recent research on the nature of dramatic language can further our understanding of the problematic nature of exporting Shakespearean texts on to the medium of film. This paper is written in three parts. The first part discusses the performance-orientation of dramatic language; the second part considers the possible choreography for spatial organization and kinesics suggested by dramatic language; the third part looks at some of the ways cinema neutralizes the performative potential of dramatic language. The central argument is that a successful modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare's plays will in some ways be hindered by the retention of the original script.

Hamlet es un personaje con el que uno se identifica desde el principio, al que uno justifica y con el que se compenetra, pues desde mi punto de vista personal, tal vez todos quisiéramos ser así de auténticos y leales con nosotros mismos, con nuestra ideología y sentimientos, correspondiendo con nuestros actos a las cosas que decimos y pensamos, así es Hamlet. Pienso que Hamlet era un ser auténtico, pues aún dentro de su locura creada dejaba ver sus pensamientos y sentimientos, y su manera de hablar indicaba un hilo conductor que si los personajes alrededor le hubieran prestado la debía atención a dichas palabras, habrían entendido que en ello había mucho mas que frases aparentemente a la deriva, sin conexión y sin importancia. Hamlet fue únicamente producto de sus circunstancias, puesto que sabe a su tío como asesino de su padre, y a su vez alcanza a ver como la madre no le guarda luto, por lo que no respeta su memoria, siendo que Hamlet lo que quiere es honrar a su padre aún muerto, por lo que Hamlet pudiese sentirse aturdido, frustrado e imposibilitado, y ve en la locura fingida una única escapatoria para indagar sobre los demás, que lo dejen de molestar y tener un plan para salir airoso ante tantas injusticias. Hamlet era un hombre justo, o al menos trataba de serlo, pretendía ser como su padre, seguir sus pasos, y es, con su muerte que se aflige, pero lo que más dolor le causa es ver como su madre aparentemente no le da importancia y por tanto no respeta a su padre y se casa con el hermano de este, hecho que tal vez dentro de ella era necesario para poder seguir teniendo un hombre al lado y no sufrir diversas presiones sociales, además de no perder así la posición jerárquica de la que gozaban tanto ella como su hijo y tener el futuro asegurado, además de que es posible que no supiera cómo manejar su dolor y por ello se casara con el tío de Hamlet, pero este no lo veía así.

O livro se divide em duas partes que discutem, em abordagens distintas, as relações de Hamlet com a filosofia. Na primeira , "A filosofia em Hamlet", trata-se das fontes e referências filosóficas de que Shakespeare se apropriou para escrever a peça, como o estoicismo de Sêneca, o maquiavelismo e o ceticismo tal como apresentado nos Ensaios de Montaigne. A segunda parte, "Hamlet na filosofia", discute a recepção da peça, caracterizada pela variedade de interpretações contraditórias de seu enredo e de seu protagonista, entre as quais se destacam as leituras de Goethe, Nietzsche, Freud, Benjamin, Deleuze e Derrida.

The paper focuses on the most recent translation of Hamlet into Ukrainian. The author questions the typical perception of Yuri Andrukhovych as a postmodern experiment, providing examples of the translator's decisions which illustrate a greater consistency of Andrukhovych the translator and his fidelity to Shakespeare's text even when compared to the 'canonized' translations of the tragedy.

"Shakespeare, the Goddess, and Modernity" was conceived as a companion-piece to  John O'Meara's other big collection, "On Nature and the Goddess." A measure of the close symbiosis between the two works is that the latter collection could well have borne the title "Shakespeare, the Goddess, and Modernity," and perhaps better, though it is more about the Goddess and Modernity than it is about Shakespeare, while the present collection explains  Shakespeare more in relation to the themes of the Goddess and Modernity, but otherwise presents him very much as his own subject. Also, the chapter on Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Plays, which are presented in relation in both Romantic tradition and the Modern scene, could be the first place to go after a reading of "On Nature."

For more details, visit the author's website at johnomeara.squarespace.com

“profoundly philosophical ... a most significant contribution to the ongoing discussion of Shakespeare’s values.” {Charles Forker, author of "Fancy’s Images: Contexts, Settings, and Perspectives in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries,'" 1996}

Ce texte est à présent disponible au "format papier", en suivant ce lien : https://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=61856&razSqlClone=1
Le texte qui fournit le premier chapitre de ma thèse intitulée "Mélancolie, scepticisme et écriture du pouvoir à l'âge baroque", est ici précédé d'une brève introduction destinée à souligner l'intérêt d'une réflexion plus vaste à propos de la mélancolie du drame baroque et de sa singulière performativité : tel est, en effet, l'objet de la première partie de ma thèse (qui comprend deux parties interdépendantes, l'une consacrée au drame élisabéthain et au faire-théâtre politique et juridique de Shakespeare en particulier, l'autre consacrée au Léviathan de Hobbes, lequel se trouve rétro-éclairé par le Behemoth relu comme un drame baroque).

Histórias sobre vinganças têm sido recorrentes em diversas culturas ao longo da História. Existe um elemento comum a elas que possivelmente explica essa longevidade: a incapacidade da sociedade representada na obra de aplicar suas leis e fazer justiça, isto é, de compensar de alguma forma o mal sofrido por personagens da trama. Diante dessa falha, o vingador toma para si o poder de retaliação normalmente reservado às autoridades (em quaisquer formas que assumam no contexto da história) e retribui o dano causado; com isso, o leitor ou espectador se regozija ao ver que a justiça pode ser feita mesmo quando cerceada por um sistema corrupto ou inepto, uma espécie de catarse que, em vez de purgar os sentimentos de piedade e terror do público, purga a raiva e o ressentimento.
A partir de discussões de filósofos, juristas e cientistas políticos diversos sobre violência e poder, a força das leis, legitimidade e o direito de punir, esta pesquisa construiu o conceito do fundamento místico da vingança e usou-o para realizar uma análise crítica dos discursos de vingança em três histórias com uma ancestralidade em comum, mas
oriundas de diferentes contextos socioculturais: a narrativa sobre Amleth (parte da obra dinamarquesa do começo do séc. XIII "Gesta Danorum", de Saxo o Gramático), a narrativa sobre Hamblet (parte da obra francesa da segunda metade do séc. XVI "Histoires tragiques", de François de Belleforest) e a tragédia elisabetana do começo do séc. XVII "Hamlet", de William Shakespeare.

IN Shakespeare's Hamlet, Polonius, the chief minister of the Court of King Claudius, reads a love letter to the royal couple that Hamlet wrote to Ophelia. Polonius presents it as evidence for the correctness of his conclusion that love for Ophelia has made Hamlet mad. The contents of the letter are puzzling, as is the verse in it. Since the first two lines of the verse concern the two basic tenets of the medieval cosmic worldview, this article takes a fresh look at the subject from the standpoint of the New Philosophy that emerged in the sixteenth century. A literal interpretation of the love letter indicates that Hamlet is indeed in love with Ophelia, although he was not at his literate best when he wrote it. The love letter and its peculiar style are more readily understood, however, when viewed from the standpoint of the cosmic allegorical interpretation of the play.

This essay argues that in Hamlet, Shakespeare extends the conventional logic of Senecan revenge—the revenger's quest to redress crimes against kin through a course of retributive blood justice—to the matter of Old Hamlet's unsacramental death, which leaves him without the last rites of communion, penance, and unction. Shakespeare scripts revenge in such a way that these denied sacraments feature symbolically in Hamlet's revenge on Claudius. This unique form of retributive justice and the soteriological anxieties it produces are made more poignant in a play set in Catholic Denmark and performed in Reformation England.

Offering a close-reading of T. S. Eliot's 1920 essay, "Hamlet and His Problems", this paper endeavors to scrutinize T.S. Eliot's use of the "text and text alone" approach of New Criticism, a school of literary criticism that Eliot pioneered and refined.
This paper employs the basic terminology that were frequently used by New Critics, including affective fallacy,  intentional fallacy and objective correlative, to summarize the important arguments Eliot made in his essay.

This draft chapter for a book concerns the Shakespeare authorship problem. We have ample clues in coded passages from the plays and Sonnets that Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere both had a hand in the plays. Many have acknowledged that they are both concealed Tudor princes, illegitimate sons of Queen Elizabeth I and changeling children. They were half-brothers. It is astonishing that no one until now has ever proposed that the Shakespeare plays were a joint effort by the Tudor brothers, Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount of St. Albans, and Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

‘ওফেলিয়া’ বিষ্ণু দে’র দ্বিতীয় কাব্যগ্রন্থ ‘চোরাবালি’ গ্রন্থভুক্ত দ্বিতীয় কবিতা। রচনাকাল ১৯৩৩, দিনতারিখ উল্লেখ করেননি। কাব্যগ্রন্থটির কবিতাগুলোকে বিষয়ানুসারে শ্রেণীবিন্যস্ত করলে, সেগুলো মূলত তিনটি শ্রেণীতে বিন্যস্ত হয়ে পড়ে- প্রেমবিষয়ক, নগর-জীবন-কেন্দ্রীক এবং পৌরাণিক; ওফেলিয়া মূলত প্রেমবিষয়ক, একইসাথে পৌরাণিকও বটে; কবিতাটিতে পৌরাণিক চরিত্র দেবযানী-কচ-প্রসার্পিনা-হেডিস তো এসেছেনই, আরো এসেছে বৈতরণী, অমরাবতী প্রভৃতি পৌরাণিক স্থান তথা অনুষঙ্গও। আর কবিতাটি মূলত প্রেমবিষয়ক; কবিতাটির মূলভাবটি উপস্থাপিত বা আবর্তিত হয়েছে মূলত শেক্সপিয়রের ‘হ্যামলেট’-এর হ্যামলেট-ওফেলিয়া প্রেমকাহিনির সাব-প্লটকে কেন্দ্র করে। কবিতাটির বর্ণনায় তারা যথাক্রমে 'আমি' ও 'তুমি'। এই নিবন্ধে হ্যামলেট ও ওফেলিয়ার স্বরূপ নির্ণয় এবং কবিতাটির শিল্পসৌন্দর্য উদ্ঘাটনের প্রয়াস পাওয়া গেছে।

It is not an easy task to understand the nature of carnival as it is shown by the many failures of the last century after Mikhail Bakhtin’s work became generally known. My book is an attempt to define carnival in relation to another entity that is always and necessarily associated with the carnival, still, easier to identify. The “Clown or Fool par excellence” embodies the carnival’s topsy-turvy attitude and transgresses all borders of reason and social order. Moreover, her repeated jumps to recover bear ritual laughter mocking the figure of Death. This is how the phenomenology of the clown par excellence and the carnival are ontologically related to each other. But, parallel to the strange fate of the clown “on stage” the carnival can become problematic as well. This is clearly visible in the Early Modern theatre of Shakespeare. The resentful exit of Malvolio leaves us confused in Twelfth Night. When the Fool disappears, others have to take on in the stormy night of King Lear. While the gravedigger and his friend, in Hamlet, are mockingly clowning, the grounds spits back a skull that already whispers: “God is dead.” This is how in Shakespeare’s plays the “decarnivalization of the world” is present on the Early Modern stage. I discuss and develop the concept of decarnivalization in order to reinterpret Shakespeare’s dramatic art.

... Title: Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (review) ... mous (or infamous) for deidealizing the imaginations of canonical European, British, and American writers as ... almost unprecedented fash-ion, his precursor in this matter being Chaucer, Shakespeare invents characters ...

First, I examine the aspects of the political sovereignty on the Shakespearean stage. In the light of Walter Benjamin’s Origin of the German baroque drama (1928) and of Carl Schmitt’s answer to Benjamin in Hamlet or Hecuba (1956), I show that Shakespeare stages the mortality of the political bodies and the new sovereignty of the plotter. Urged to master the art and the tempo of the plot, the prince is nonetheless unable to prevent the decomposition of the state. Then, drawing on the Elizabethan drama, I question the contemporary effort towards order and synchronization within the city. Hobbes’s theory of political and juridical representation breaks with the mystical conception of political unity and with any inspired legislation, whereas the civil scene is dedicated to the peace between individuals in order to ensure the possibility of a real autonomy in the private sphere. Reciprocally, this autonomy must consolidate the solutions to the problems of melancholy and skepticism conceptualized in Leviathan. While endorsing the tragedy of human condition and of knowledge already put on stage by Shakespeare, Leviathan prevents Schmitt’s exaltation as well as the « pure » violence which, according to Benjamin, lies in the subject’s state of exception. Yet, through the ghosts that Leviathan cannot tolerate within the public sphere, the Shakespearean stage unravels the mechanisms of perpetual order and synchronization without rejecting the law and the project of autonomy.

Keywords : Melancholy – Skepticism – Law – Discipline – Elizabethan drama – Shakespeare – Walter Benjamin – Carl Schmitt – Hobbes – Leviathan – Behemoth