Nov 16, 2009

Hamlet | The Theme of Pretense in Shakespeare's Hamlet

In this essay, the author examines the theme of pretense in Hamlet, or the contrast between illusion and reality. The essay draws on Maynard Mack's widely cited essay on Hamlet, "The World of Hamlet."

First published in a 1952 issue of The Yale Review, Maynard Mack's essay "The World of Hamlet" remains one of the most widely-cited explications of that Shakespearean tragedy. As Mack observes, Hamlet is the most "elusive" of Shakespeare's works, for the dramatic world that the Bard created in this play is "a world of riddles" that are not conclusively answered by its end and, in fact, appear to have been deliberately intended to create doubt in the eyes of the viewer (1952/1964, p.45). Mack identifies three salient attributes that pervade the "world" which...