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KMID : 0368019830060010103
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Journal of Soonchunhyang University
1983 Volume.6 No. 1 p.103 ~ p.116
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Hamlet and His Idealism
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Abstract
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Of Hamlet´s tragedy, many perceptive commentaries have been written and many brilliant -theories advanced, and yet it appears that one very important point remains unexplained. The purpose of this study is to point out an important part of Hamlet´s character that has been ignored or misinterpreted by previous critics and scholars, and also to explain the main cause of his inaction and tragic end.
Hamlet has a peculiar quality that touches the imagination of people and appeals ceaselessly to their minds. The imagination of people remains untouched by morbid, weak and realistic characters and cannot be made to feel sympathy for such characters. The imagination always desires something remote, sublime and idealistic, Hamlet´s character is idealistic through and through. Man is mainly distinguished from animal in that he can live in the pursuit of his idealism while animal lives only in the satisfaction of a given moment and circumstance.
It is praiseworthy for man to strive for ideals, but at the same time, man must strike a balance between idealism and reality. Lack of balance is horrlibe, both in man and nature, because at any moment it might bring chaos upon both. God created man in His own image and bestowed upon him the solemn privilege of control over meaner animals. Man´s heavenly duty, therefore, is to be reasonable in his thoughts and actions. To be reasonable is to maintain balance. When balance is lost, calamity is certain.
It may be said that balance is the state of harmony between ambivalent forces of thought and action, idealism and reality: If a man is too idealistic, he tends to indulge in his peculiar thought and lose the power of concrete fact and truth, and consequently he dissipates the power of healthy action. Shakespeare drew a highly idealistic man and placed him in circumstances which obliged him to immediate action. Brave, and careless of his life as Hamlet sometimes is, owing to this over-powering activity of his mind he cannot escape from lingering procrastination and tragic end. Idealism is the centre of Hamlet´s tragedy and .deliberately to ignore it or to underrate its intensity is to make the play ambiguous and melodramatic.
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