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{"id":17599,"date":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T00:00:00","slug":"hamlets-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/09\/hamlets-passion\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamlet’s Passion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

In her 1959 study of\u00a0Shakespeare\u2019s Tragic Heroes<\/a>, Lily Campbell treats the four main tragedies of tragedies of passion. Shakespeare places characters of different humor in similar circumstances, and depicts how the characters react. Hamlet <\/em>is a tragedy of grief, Othello <\/em>of jealousy, Lear <\/em>of old-age wrath, Macbeth <\/em>of fear.<\/p>\n

To see how this works in Hamlet<\/em>, it\u2019s necessary to realize that Hamlet is not the only son who has lost a father. Laertes and Fortinbras do as well: \u201ceach is called upon to mourn the death of a father, each feeling himself summoned to revenge wrongs suffered by his father. Grief in each for the loss of his father is succeeded by the desire for revenge. But each must act according to the dictates of his own temperament and his own humour (109).<\/p>\n

Hamlet and Laertes feed their grief, which enslaves them. Letting their grief run free, they are dominated by it, and their excessive grief feeds fantasies of revenge that end in destruction for both of them.<\/p>\n

The survivors of the play \u2013 Fortinbras and Horatio \u2013 survive because their passions are properly subordinated to reason: \u201cAt the en of the play Fortinbras and Horatio live to dominate the scene, Fortinbras and Horatio being the two characters in the play in whom reason has swayed passion. Fortinbras has been called to grief for a father whose honour he has undertaken to revenge, but his passion has yielded to reason, and his Poland expedition has been undertaken for \u2018divine ambition\u2019 and honour\u2019s sake. Horatio is not passion\u2019s slave, but one in whom \u2018blood and judgement are so well commingled\u2019 that he is not a mere pipe for Fortune to play one. And this is but to say . . . that those who balance passion by reason are not Fortune\u2019s puppets. And such is the lesson of tragedy\u201d (147).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"