Myth Criticism In Practice By 余璐（ ）

1. The Sacrificial Hero: Hamlet Gilbert Murray--- “Hamlet and Orestes” He indicated a number of parallels between the mythic elements of Shakespeare’s play and those in Oedipus and in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus. The heroes of all three works derive from the Golden Bough kings Haunted, sacrificial figures

The story of Hamlet was drawn from legend In 12th century, Saxo Grammaticus--- History of the Danes In A.D. 980, Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend--- Hamlet’s Mill The core of Shakespeare’s play is mythic.

Francis Fergusson--- The Idea of Theater The scenes in Shakespeare’s play follow the same ritual pattern as those in Greek tragedy, specifically in Oedipus. “in both plays a royal sufferer is associated with pollution, in its very sources, of an entire social order. Both plays open with an invocation for the well-being of the endangered body politics…”

The moral norms in Shakespeare’s play and those of ancient vegetation Philip Wheelwright--- The Burning Fountain The organic source of good and evil is directly relevant to the moral vision in Hamlet. “Disease and blight, however, interrupt the cycle; they are the real destroyers; and health is the good most highly to be prized.” The murderer does violence to both the natural cycle of life and the social organism, so it is symbolically diseased.

The myth of divine appointment Tudor myth: Not only had the Tudors been divinely appointed to bring order and happiness out of civil strife but also any attempt to break this divine ordinance would result in social, political, and natural chaos. Cf. Richard Ⅲ, Macbeth, and King Lear.

Hamlet’s thematic heart is the ancient, archetypal mystery of the life cycle itself. intensify Claudius’s murder diseased and rotten state of Denmark The kinship between victim and murder (the primal blood curse of Cain) Civil strife within and war without

Hamlet as Scapegoat Hamlet’s reluctance to accept the role of cathartic agent is a principal reason for his procrastination in killing Claudius, but finally he accepts Laertes’s challenge. The bloody climax of the tragedy is therefore not merely spectacular melodrama but an essential element in the archetypal pattern of sacrifice-atonement- catharsis. All the characters who have been infected by the evil contagion have to die.

Hamlet’s initiation enhances the motif of the sacrificial scapegoat. archetypal images in the initiation: Hamlet is an autumnal, nighttime play dominated by images of darkness and blood, and the hero appropriately wears black, the archetypal color of melancholy Hamlet’ quest is not only to solve the riddle of his father’s death but also to quest the mystery of human life and destiny. self- knowledge