Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero

Javed Akhter; Shumaila Abdullah; Khair Muhammad

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

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Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero

Javed Akhter, Shumaila Abdullah, Khair Muhammad

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 3, Issue 5)

Received: 5 August 2015 Accepted: 14 August 2015 Published: 10 November 2015

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Abstract

The aim of this research paper is to prove William Shakespeare’s most popular literary type Hamlet as a superfluous hero, because he resembles strikingly and astonishingly in his character with the superfluous heroes of the nineteenth-century Russian, American and the other European novels. In fact, the term superfluous hero signifies an ineffectual aristocrat, dreamy, useless and incapable intellectual at odd with the given social formation of his age. No doubt, though, Hamlet is prior to the coinage of the term of the superfluous hero, but he shares many common characteristics with the superfluous heroes of world literature. Thus, the study revolves around the question whether Hamlet is the superfluous hero? Therefore, the comparison of Hamlet’s character with those of the other superfluous heroes of world literature will be highlighted in this research paper in terms of Marxist hermeneutics, which is scientific theory and method of analysing the social and literary types in the socio-economic context of class milieu. Applying Marxist literary hermeneutics to the art of characterisation of William Shakespeare and the authors of the nineteenth-century, the present study tries to introduce new portrait and re-evaluation of the personages of Hamlet and the other superfluous types in an innovative perspective.

Published in	International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 3, Issue 5)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18
Page(s)	120-128
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamletism, Superfluous Heroes, Indecision, Procrastination

References

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[2]	Belsey, Catherine. (1980). Critical Practice. London: Great Britain: Routledge.
[3]	Belsey, Catherine. (1985). the Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama, London: Methuen.
[4]	Caudwell, Christopher. (1977). Illusion and Reality. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
[5]	De Grazia, Margreta. (1999). “Teleology, Delay, and the Old Mole”. Shakespeare Quarterly 50.3: pp. 251-267.
[6]	Eagleton, Terry. (1986). William Shakespeare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
[7]	Hooper, T. (2003). Dangerous Doubles: Puns and Language in Shakespeare’s Hamlet Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research at the College of Charleston Volume 2, pp. 120-134.
[8]	Hooti, Noorbakhsh. (2013). William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: A Deconstructive Study. International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences 2013 www.irjabs.com ISSN 2251-838x/ Vol, 4 (12): pp.3903-3909. Science Explore Publication.
[9]	Jameson, Fredric, (1995). Marx’s Purloined Letter. New Left Review. 1/209, January-February 1995.
[10]	Jenkins, Harold. (1982). Introduction. Hamlet. Arden ed. London: Methuen.
[11]	Jones, Ernest. (1976). Hamlet and Oedipus. New York: Norton.
[12]	Jump, John. (ed.) (1968). Shakespeare: Hamlet: A Selection of Critical Essays. London: Macmillan.
[13]	Keys, Charlotte. Shakespeare’s Existentialism. Royal Holloway, University of London. A Ph.D. Thesis.
[14]	Lacan, Jacques (1959). “Desire and the interpretation of desire in Hamlet,” in Felman, Shoshana (ed.), Literature and Psychoanalysis, the Question of Reading: Otherwise, Yale French Studies 55/56, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp.11-52.
[15]	Lermontov, Mikhail. (1966). A Hero of Our Time. Trans. Paul Foote. New York: Penguin Books.
[16]	Lukacs, Georg. (1981). the Historical Novel. London: Penguin Books.
[17]	Lunacharsky, Anatoly. (1973). “Bacon and the characters of Shakespeare’s Plays” in Lunacharsky on Literature and Art, pp. 218-243.Moscow: Progress Publishers.
[18]	Maleki, N. (2012). The Paradigm Examples of Polar Concept in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Global Journal of Human Social Science, Volume 12, Issue 1, pp.19-23.
[19]	Niekerk, Marthinus Christoffel Van. (2003). Shakespeare’s Play: deconstructive Reading of the Merchant of Venice, the Tempest, Measure for Measure and Hamlet.
[20]	Pupavac, Vanessa. (2008). “Hamlet’s Crisis of Meaning, Mental Wellbeing and Meaninglessness in the War on Terror” in: Mental Health Review Journal Volume 13 Issue 1, March 2008, pp. 14-26.
[21]	Shakespeare, William. (2005). Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark. London: Penguin.
[22]	Smirnov, A.A. (1936). Shakespeare: A Marxist Interpretation, New York: Critics Group.
[23]	Turgenev, Ivan. (1990). Sketches from a Hunter’s Album, trans. Richard Freeborn. London: Penguin.

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Javed Akhter, Shumaila Abdullah, Khair Muhammad. (2015). Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3(5), 120-128. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

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Javed Akhter; Shumaila Abdullah; Khair Muhammad. Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2015, 3(5), 120-128. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

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Javed Akhter, Shumaila Abdullah, Khair Muhammad. Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero. Int J Lit Arts. 2015;3(5):120-128. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18,
  author = {Javed Akhter and Shumaila Abdullah and Khair Muhammad},
  title = {Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {3},
  number = {5},
  pages = {120-128},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20150305.18},
  abstract = {The aim of this research paper is to prove William Shakespeare’s most popular literary type Hamlet as a superfluous hero, because he resembles strikingly and astonishingly in his character with the superfluous heroes of the nineteenth-century Russian, American and the other European novels. In fact, the term superfluous hero signifies an ineffectual aristocrat, dreamy, useless and incapable intellectual at odd with the given social formation of his age. No doubt, though, Hamlet is prior to the coinage of the term of the superfluous hero, but he shares many common characteristics with the superfluous heroes of world literature. Thus, the study revolves around the question whether Hamlet is the superfluous hero? Therefore, the comparison of Hamlet’s character with those of the other superfluous heroes of world literature will be highlighted in this research paper in terms of Marxist hermeneutics, which is scientific theory and method of analysing the social and literary types in the socio-economic context of class milieu. Applying Marxist literary hermeneutics to the art of characterisation of William Shakespeare and the authors of the nineteenth-century, the present study tries to introduce new portrait and re-evaluation of the personages of Hamlet and the other superfluous types in an innovative perspective.},
 year = {2015}
}

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T1  - Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero
AU  - Javed Akhter
AU  - Shumaila Abdullah
AU  - Khair Muhammad
Y1  - 2015/11/10
PY  - 2015
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DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18
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JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
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PB  - Science Publishing Group
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AB  - The aim of this research paper is to prove William Shakespeare’s most popular literary type Hamlet as a superfluous hero, because he resembles strikingly and astonishingly in his character with the superfluous heroes of the nineteenth-century Russian, American and the other European novels. In fact, the term superfluous hero signifies an ineffectual aristocrat, dreamy, useless and incapable intellectual at odd with the given social formation of his age. No doubt, though, Hamlet is prior to the coinage of the term of the superfluous hero, but he shares many common characteristics with the superfluous heroes of world literature. Thus, the study revolves around the question whether Hamlet is the superfluous hero? Therefore, the comparison of Hamlet’s character with those of the other superfluous heroes of world literature will be highlighted in this research paper in terms of Marxist hermeneutics, which is scientific theory and method of analysing the social and literary types in the socio-economic context of class milieu. Applying Marxist literary hermeneutics to the art of characterisation of William Shakespeare and the authors of the nineteenth-century, the present study tries to introduce new portrait and re-evaluation of the personages of Hamlet and the other superfluous types in an innovative perspective.
VL  - 3
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Author Information

Javed Akhter

Department of English Literature and Linguistics, University of Balochistan, Quetta, Pakistan
Shumaila Abdullah

Department of English Literature and Linguistics, University of Balochistan, Quetta, Pakistan
Khair Muhammad

Department of English Literature and Linguistics, University of Balochistan, Quetta, Pakistan

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Javed Akhter, Shumaila Abdullah, Khair Muhammad. (2015). Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3(5), 120-128. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

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ACS Style

Javed Akhter; Shumaila Abdullah; Khair Muhammad. Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2015, 3(5), 120-128. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

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AMA Style

Javed Akhter, Shumaila Abdullah, Khair Muhammad. Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero. Int J Lit Arts. 2015;3(5):120-128. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18,
  author = {Javed Akhter and Shumaila Abdullah and Khair Muhammad},
  title = {Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {3},
  number = {5},
  pages = {120-128},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20150305.18},
  abstract = {The aim of this research paper is to prove William Shakespeare’s most popular literary type Hamlet as a superfluous hero, because he resembles strikingly and astonishingly in his character with the superfluous heroes of the nineteenth-century Russian, American and the other European novels. In fact, the term superfluous hero signifies an ineffectual aristocrat, dreamy, useless and incapable intellectual at odd with the given social formation of his age. No doubt, though, Hamlet is prior to the coinage of the term of the superfluous hero, but he shares many common characteristics with the superfluous heroes of world literature. Thus, the study revolves around the question whether Hamlet is the superfluous hero? Therefore, the comparison of Hamlet’s character with those of the other superfluous heroes of world literature will be highlighted in this research paper in terms of Marxist hermeneutics, which is scientific theory and method of analysing the social and literary types in the socio-economic context of class milieu. Applying Marxist literary hermeneutics to the art of characterisation of William Shakespeare and the authors of the nineteenth-century, the present study tries to introduce new portrait and re-evaluation of the personages of Hamlet and the other superfluous types in an innovative perspective.},
 year = {2015}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Hamlet as a Superfluous Hero
AU  - Javed Akhter
AU  - Shumaila Abdullah
AU  - Khair Muhammad
Y1  - 2015/11/10
PY  - 2015
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18
T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
SP  - 120
EP  - 128
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2331-057X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150305.18
AB  - The aim of this research paper is to prove William Shakespeare’s most popular literary type Hamlet as a superfluous hero, because he resembles strikingly and astonishingly in his character with the superfluous heroes of the nineteenth-century Russian, American and the other European novels. In fact, the term superfluous hero signifies an ineffectual aristocrat, dreamy, useless and incapable intellectual at odd with the given social formation of his age. No doubt, though, Hamlet is prior to the coinage of the term of the superfluous hero, but he shares many common characteristics with the superfluous heroes of world literature. Thus, the study revolves around the question whether Hamlet is the superfluous hero? Therefore, the comparison of Hamlet’s character with those of the other superfluous heroes of world literature will be highlighted in this research paper in terms of Marxist hermeneutics, which is scientific theory and method of analysing the social and literary types in the socio-economic context of class milieu. Applying Marxist literary hermeneutics to the art of characterisation of William Shakespeare and the authors of the nineteenth-century, the present study tries to introduce new portrait and re-evaluation of the personages of Hamlet and the other superfluous types in an innovative perspective.
VL  - 3
IS  - 5
ER  -

Copy | Download