Hamlet and Othello Essay

The ii commands by William Shakespe be, settlement and Othello, radiate the renascence philosophy, with its most important schools- Platonism, Aristotelianism and Hu domainism, especially in their intercession of hu troops nature and human condition. The fails of the twain philosophers Plato and Aristotle, which formed the substructure of the twain movements that took the screams of their initiators, were reinterpreted by many scholars of the Medieval and Renaissance period, and of the subsequent periods.Platonism and Aristotelianism were opposed philosophies in their first articulation. The Platonists believed that there is a beingness of abstr work ons, the pure human black market of ideas. The characteristics of the somatic objects, formed an abstract world, which was moreover, the rightful(a) word. For good example, the Platonist school of thought implied that the square world was only a rumination of the perfect world of ideas, that is, a beautiful object is only the reproach of the idea of beauty.Aristotle revised these ideas that Plato had first initiated, and proposed an opposed view, which was based on an experiential way of lie withing the world, and which constituted the first step to state of wards natural science.The two doctrines referred obviously to two ontological and epistemological facts astir(predicate) the world.On the former(a) hand, the Renaissance humanism which was tangiblely the most characteristic philosophy for this period, emphasise the nobility of human nature, and the powers of human intellect and spirit, while joining the two main philosophies Platonism and Aristotelianism.As Brian Copenhaver and Charles Schmitt sight in their Renaissance Philosophy, both Platonism and Aristotelianism presented many problems for the humanists and for the theologians as well, like, for instance the transmigration of souls and other beliefs which seemed uncongenial with ChristianityWhy should an upwardly mobile sch olar or bureaucrat commiserate with Platos elitism? Were humanists not troubled by his scorn for poets and rhetoricians? Platos advocacy of communism and advertisement of homosexuality invited political and social complaint. Even his notable piety seemed out of tune with a philosophy that made press eternal, the human soul preexistent and migratory, and the gods and demons many, powerful, and worthy of worship. As the Renaissance came to know Plato better, discussion of his thought could not have been other than complex and divided, and the literary argument had been prepared by an anti-Platonic tradition long sustained by pagans and Christians alike. As early modern thinkers developed new modes of reading unknown to ancientness and the Middle Ages, Platos compatibility with Christianity remained the leading demandion. (Copenhaver, 129)However, many of the ideas of the two philosophies were either unbroken or reinterpreted as the main philosophical views at the time of Renais sance, and this is actually well reflected in the plays of William Shakespeare.In hamlet, which is one of Shakespeares plays that most approaches a metaphysical view of human nature seems to waver in its all-important(a) purport upon the edge separating Platonism from Aristotelianism. One of the greatest dilemmas in crossroads is that of individual natural process.Shakespeares prince of Denmark is called upon to revenge the murder of his father. As critics have observed repeatedly, on of the most meaty and telling things in the play is settlement hesitation when he has to take definite exploit against the murderer. One of the essential differences between the humanists who advocated Platos theory and the ones who adopted Aristotelianism, was that between the brooding animateness that was characteristic of the Platonic movement and that of quick life as presented by Aristotle. Various philosophers of the Renaissance took up one or the other of the two doctrines, and encoura ged either contemplation or actionFicinos work () also glorified the contemplative life and professed an ascetic contempt for the material world not in keeping with the pragmatic interests of the civic humanists. exactly to see the Aristotelian Argyropoulos as champion of the active life and the Platonist Ficino as prophet of contemplative quietism is too simple. For one thing, Argyropoulos seems to have in passed no activist propaganda in his teaching, and, even more important, Ficinos theory of the contemplative life kept his philosophy attractive to the politically and economically vigorous Florentines who supported him.Always urging the ascent of the soul, Ficino presented the contemplative life as the final step in a hierarchy of human action that led people to surpass the active life without utterly denying it lived well, the active life becomes a step on the way to escaping matter and merger with God. It was the genius of Neoplatonism to open channels between the divine an d the mundane that transcended the world while preserving it as a platform for ascent to the godhead. (Copenhaver, 144) settlement seems to be a contemplative character altogether, for whom the ideal world of abstract virtuous values constitutes the guiding principle. When he is faced with the baseness of the many crimes that arrive in his own family, he postpones taking action and revenging his father. Moreover, the revenge takes sit almost accidentally at the end of the play. His hesitation in see of these material problems is relevant for his Neo- Platonic frame of thought How all do do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge. What is a man If his boss good and market if his time Be but to sleep and fall in? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such(prenominal) large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unusd. (Ham. IV. 4. 32-39)It becomes obvious from small towns speech communication that his refl ections regarding human condition and human nature are based on main principles of both Humanism and Platonic thinking man is seen alternately by Hamlet as a superior being endow with godlike reason and a beast, whose main concerns are its primary necessarily. That is, Hamlets own ideas about the world and about man, which are basically idealistic and Platonist, meet with an obvious obstacle in the material world, where he sees the baseness of character of both his uncle and his mother. An even more poignant example of how he is repelled by the idea of a purely material world in which the spiritual realities he believes in are hardly glaring is his unjust condemnation of Ophelia, whom he blames without proof for the frailty he sees in his own mother.Hamlet ponders himself on his own hesitation in when he is supposed to take action, and realizes that his wavering comes from what he calls thinking too barely on the event ( Ham. IV. 4. 41), that is to say, his own contemplative nat ure and the need to visualize first and meditate on the event, as well as to tag it, prevent him from taking action. At the end of the monologue however, he determines that his thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth( Ham. IV. 4. 66), that is, he chooses action over contemplation, as he feels he is compelled by the events to mend things and do justice to his fathers death.Thus, it cigaret be said that Hamlet has to take action and reestablish the ethical order in the world, which had been so terribly disturbed by the crimes which took place in his family. This structuring of the events reflects the Renaissance philosophical context, which blended Platonism with Aristotelianism and Humanism.First of all, according to the Platonists man should tend to contemplation of the ideal world, and live in the purer world of the spirit, not be limited to the material one. The protagonists in Hamlet, that is the king and the queen, have sinned against these precepts by fully grown in to desir e of power and to lust. The fact that Hamlet feels that he needs to take action is in tuning with the humanist idea that man can reestablish the divine order and that, in order to do that, he must play the part that is required of him in the material world.Thus, the two worlds- the material and transcendental are not completely separate, and the Renaissance man believed that the spiritual perfection can be reached through action as well, insofar as this would imply reestablishing the divine order.In Othello, same ideas appear about individual action. Othello too is called upon to take action against what he believes was the betrayal of his wife Desdemona. However, the first remarkable difference between Hamlet and Othello is that the latter is a moor, that is a colored man, of a different race and religion.The Renaissance views on the subject of race are very significant in the context of the play, and are reflected especially in Othellos character, which appears to be the very op posite of that of Hamlet.If Hamlet is of a contemplative nature, given to musings about the nature of man and his place in the world, Othello is a rough, whimsical man who acts without hesitation, but also, acts when he shouldnt.He is easily deceived by Iago and therefore he believes him when he tries to inflict him with false ideas about Desdemonas roll in the hay. Thus, Othello, who like Hamlet, can be said to perform an act of revenge, actually does something which is useless and, moreover, unjust. Othellos character is also evident at the end of the play, after he kills Desdemona and confesses the manner in which he loved her one that loved not wisely, but too well (V.2.340). Thus, his own statement reveals the nature of his impulsive and tempestuous character and emotions he was capable of true and strong love, although he did not love wisely.This proves essentially that Hamlet and Othello are two opposite characters, both acting in the name of revenge, although for different reasons, Hamlet in his attempt at reestablishing the moral order and Othello in the name of love. However, if Hamlet hesitates to take action for most of the play, and moreover, chooses the device of the staged play to commence his revenge, that is, another intellectual, contemplative device, Othello takes action without judging the events for himself, but being merely influenced by what Iago was telling him. Othello is a military character in a way, who is prone to take action and fight Farewell the cool mind farewell contentFarewell the plumed troops, and the big warsThat makes ambitiousness virtue 0, farewellThe royal banner, and all quality,Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious warAnd O you mortal engines, whose rude throatsTh immortal Joves apprehensiveness clamors counterfeit,Farewell Othellos occupations gone. ( Othello, 3.3.347-57)It is interesting to notice that both Othello and Hamlet may be paralleled to Cervantes Don Quixote.Hamlet lives interiorly in a Platonic world, which could be likened to Don Quixotes confusion of the books of romance with actual reality. Don Quixote lives in the world of the stories he has read, and moreover, those stories are dauntless romances, that is stories of quest and exemplary full treatment which aim at mending the world and which are always fraught with symbolic meaning. But, he needs to accomplish the deeds that fill his fantasy, and although it cant be said that he does so, he does act. In Don Quixote thus, action is itself unreal, since his chivalric deeds are not what he believes they areWere those mud walls in thy fantasy, Sancho, quoth Don Quixote, where or utter(a) which thou sawest that never-enough-praised gentleness and beauty? They were not so, but galleries, walks, or powerful stone pavementsor how call ye em?of rich and royal palaces. (Cervantes II, 489)The chivalric romances which are Don Quixotes faith are also that of Othello in a way, because of the latters military character, and his s earch for adventures. Othellos love for Desdemona also has something of the chivalric about it. Thus, all the three characters, Hamlet, Othello and Don Quixote demonstrate the same Platonist and Aristotelian dilemmas of contemplation and the spiritual versus action and the material.