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Many heroes of the works of the English playwright had either real prototypes, or legendary and semi-legendary prototypes ...

Many heroes of the works of William Shakespeare had either real prototypes or legendary and semi-legendary prototypes, the historicity of which is still disputed by researchers. However, there are no less disputes regarding the English playwright himself and his work.

"Romeo and Juliet"

Many researchers were concerned about the question of whether Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet really were, or their images are just fiction. "Go to Verona - there is a Lombard cathedral and a Roman amphitheater, and then Romeo's tomb ..." - the poet Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy wrote in 1875 to his beloved Sophia Miller. And Germaine de Stael in the novel “Corinne or Italy” mentions: “The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is written on an Italian plot; the action takes place in Verona, where the tomb of two lovers is still being shown.

Romeo and Juliet. Scene on the balcony. Ford Madox Brown, 1870

Until today, a special ceremony Patto d'Amore (Vow of Love) for newlyweds is practiced in Verona. It takes place in the very place where, according to the old Veronese legend, Romeo and Juliet made a vow of love for each other. Their secret marriage was consecrated in the church of the monastery of St. Francis. The surviving premises of the church of San Francesco have now become a museum of frescoes, next to which is the famous crypt with the sarcophagus of Juliet - Tomba di Giulietta. This place is the oldest of all associated with the story of Romeo and Juliet in Verona, and its veneration began even before the appearance of the great Shakespearean tragedy. Many celebrities paid tribute to this tomb: Marie-Louise of Austria, Madame de Stael, Byron, Heine, Musset and others. All of this evidence suggests that legendary story could be true despite the lack of direct historical evidence.

Except beautiful legend, there is no reliable information about Romeo and Juliet

The Italians attribute the story of Romeo and Juliet to the period of the reign of the Verona lord Bartolomeo I della Scala (Escala according to Shakespeare), that is, to 1301 - 1304. Dante Alighieri in Divine Comedy"He even mentions some Cappeletti and Montagues: "Come, careless, just throw a glance: Monaldi, Filippeschi, Cappeletti, Montagues - those are in tears, and those are trembling!"

It is known that families with similar surnames lived in Verona in the 13th century - Dal Capello and Monticolli. But what kind of relationship they had, the researchers failed to establish. Perhaps hostile, which was not uncommon for that time. Almost every Italian city was then split into rival factions. And it is quite possible that the unfortunate lovers could become victims of this struggle, ongoing in Verona itself.

"Macbeth"

The king of Scotland from the Moray dynasty Mac Bethad mac Findleich, who lived in 1005 - 1057, became the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth". It should be noted that the plot of the work does not fully correspond to historical reality.

Henry Fuseli. Macbeth and the Witches

Macbeth was the ruler of Moray and led Scotland after the death of King Duncan I, who died during the invasion of Moray on August 14, 1040. In 1045, Duncan's father Crinan rebelled against Macbeth, but was killed, after which the power of the Scottish ruler only strengthened. This continued until the invasion of Siward's troops into southern Scotland, who defeated Macbeth. Three years later, he was killed by Duncan's son Malcolm.

In 1040 Macbeth, the prototype of Shakespeare's play, became king of Scotland.

"King Lear"

Leir, the eleventh legendary king of Britain, became the prototype of Shakespeare's King Lear in his tragedy of the same name. According to legend, Leir, born in 909 BC, was the son of King Bladud. Unlike his ancestors, he had no sons. But he had three daughters: Gonerilia, Regan and the youngest - Cordelia.

King Leir with his daughters

The king wanted to divide the kingdom into three parts so that each of the daughters would get her own. However, the elders began to weave intrigues behind their father's back in order to seize power. As a result, the monarch was forced to flee to Gaul, where he united with his youngest daughter and went on a campaign against Britain at the head of a large army. The victorious Leir ruled for another three years, and then transferred the throne to Cordelia.

Leir, the legendary king of Britain, became the prototype of King Lear

"Hamlet"

Hamlet, like other heroes of Shakespeare, had historical prototype, about which "English everything" learned from the works of the Danish chronicler of the XII century Saxo Grammar. It turns out that a long time ago Prince Amlet lived quietly in Jutland. But serene life prince ended when evil enemies killed his father Gorvendil. To avenge the death of his parent, Amlet pretended to be insane, thereby outwitting the enemies, after which he brutally dealt with them, putting to death, among others, his stepfather. By the way, it seems that he did not reflect on the occasion and without it, but was a rather decisive person. He lived, unlike the literary Hamlet, for a long time and, perhaps, happily, until he died in battle with the king of Denmark.

Hamlet's prototype was smarter than his literary hero

Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet. Photograph by James Lafayette

"Othello"

The prototype of the famous Othello from the play "Othello, the Moor of Venice" is probably an Italian named Maurizio Otello. He was at the head of the Venetian troops in Cyprus from 1505 to 1508. During this period, the wife of the commander died, and the circumstances of her death were very mysterious. Since then, there has been Othello's castle in Famagusta in Cyprus, where Desdemona was allegedly strangled.

Desdemona's Tower is another name for Othello's castle. Photo from 1900

Continuing to look at the site, I often wonder who is actually here goodies, and who are negative? And I can not clearly answer this question. It would seem that the most bad guys, later, they do very good deeds, and the heroes, it would seem, are positive - quite the opposite.

Types of William Shakespeare's Characters: The Most Famous
Characters of William Shakespeare: the most famous

Hamlet(English Hamlet) - central character Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In the play, he is the prince of Denmark, the nephew of King Claudius and the son of the former king, Hamlet.

Claudius - Hamlet's uncle who killed his father and became king of Denmark. Fearing Hamlet's revenge, Claudius sends him to England. When he returns, Claudius kills Hamlet with poison, setting him and Laertes off, but Hamlet manages to hit the king with a poisoned blade and Claudius dies.

Laertes(English Laertes) - fictional character William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. His name is supposedly taken from Homer's Odysseus. Laertes is the son of Polonius, brother of Ophelia. Laertes is an original Shakespearean character, before him there was no such character in the stories about Hamlet.

The Ghost of Hamlet's Father(eng. Ghost of Hamlet "s father; King Hamlet, eng. King Hamlet) - a character in William Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." In the play, he is the ghost of the murdered King of Denmark Hamlet, the father of Prince Hamlet.

>Ophelia(Eng. Ophelia) is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. A young noblewoman, daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and beloved of Hamlet.

Fortinbras(English Fortinbras) - the name of a fictitious minor character William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. He is the Crown Prince of Norway.

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John Falstaff- a good-natured, overweight and slightly cowardly drunkard who spends all his time in a circle of revelers and depraved girls like him from the works of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2

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King Lear is the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. The tragedy is based on real events, it relies on ancient legends Britain about King Lear and his daughters.

Goneril and Regan the eldest daughters of King Lear from the tragedy "King Lear". Greedy and vile daughters, to whom their father, King Lear, bequeathed the kingdom, having retired. Having seized the kingdom by flattery and deceit, they hunt their father and want to kill him. They destroy the Earl of Gloucester, Lear's friend, by tearing out his eyes and killing him. younger sister Cornelia by strangling her. When their crimes are revealed, Goneril kills herself with a dagger, having poisoned her sister before that.

Mercutio- Romeo's friend, the hunter for ladies' hearts from William Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet".

Tybalt(Tybalt, English Tybalt, Tybaldo, Italian. Tebaldo) is a character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet. He is the cousin of Juliet Capulet. Killed by Romeo, who took revenge on him for the murder of his friend Mercutio.

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Juliet- a meek and naive girl, gradually turning into an experienced and mature woman, ready for anything for her feelings, into a true heroine of the play from the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet".

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Romeo Juliet's lover from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Othello(eng. Othello, Italian. Otello) - the hero of William Shakespeare's tragedy "Othello, the Moor of Venice", written in 1603, as well as a number of secondary works on the same plot, in particular operas, films and game programs.

>Iago- lieutenant, assistant commander Othello from the drama "Othello". He hates the Moor and, wanting to take his place, with the help of intrigues inspires him that his beloved girl, Desdemona, is cheating on him with Cassio.

Desdemona- Othello's wife, killed by him out of jealousy

Shylock- a character in William Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice", a greedy Jewish usurer, whose name has become a household name for greedy and stingy people.

Miranda- the heroine of William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", a naive 15-year-old girl, the only daughter of Duke Prospero. She and her father became hermits on the island through the fault of her uncle Antonio, who wanted to take the throne.

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Caliban(eng. Caliban) is one of the main characters in William Shakespeare's romantic tragicomedy The Tempest. Caliban is the antagonist of the sage Prospero, a servant who rebels against the master, a rude, evil, ignorant savage.

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Richard- an ugly hunchback who is jealous of his brother King Edward IV from the tragedy "Richard III". When Edward dies, Richard takes over, killing his brother Clarence and Edward's children, who were to inherit the title. Everyone hates Richard, and uprisings rise in the country. Richard executes one of the leaders, the Earl of Buckingham, but the Earl of Richmond defeats him and takes the throne. “A horse, a horse, half a kingdom for a horse!” - this famous phrase says Richard as he fights Richmond.

>Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth from the tragedy Macbeth. Warlord Macbeth, having defeated the rebellious MacDonald, meets witches, one of whom predicts him to be the king of Scotland. Believing the prediction, Macbeth tells everything to his wife and they meanly kill King Duncan, blaming everything on the servants. Having become king, Macbeth pursues the sons of Duncan and kills his comrade, the military leader Banquo, who, according to the prophecy of the witches, should become the ancestor of the royal dynasty. Then Macbeth kills all those close to thane Macduff (the witches foretold that he should be feared).

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Probably you like negative characters because they are the first beautiful, the second they all have sad story, thirdly, they must be smart, fourthly, he must be unhappy and lonely. But I think that the negative characters are mysterious, brave, but it's a pity that sometimes these characters often die at the end of the movie or at the end of the anime... But some heroes realize their guilt and start fighting for the side of good.

Shakespeare and his heroes

The whole world is a stage and all men and women are just actors,

which have their moment of appearance and disappearance.

Shakespeare As you like it"

Today, the Stratford School of Shakespeare has prevailed almost entirely in recognizing Shakespeare as the undisputed author of everything famous. literary heritage. For four centuries she has maintained that the 37 greatest plays and 154 most beautiful sonnets produced by a genius in Elizabethan England were written by William Shakespeare of Stratford. This was not hindered by the gaping lack of factual and textual evidence common to writers of the past, confirming their authorship with the evidence of credible contemporaries, the presence of indisputable handwritten and other materials linking the writer with his creations.

Much is known about the personality of William Shakespeare. He was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small town 35 km from Birmingham, in the family of an artisan (his father made gloves and traded in various farm products, was later elected a member of the municipality and court administrator of the city). At the age of 18, William married Anna Hathway, who was 8 years older than him. They had three children. In 1585 In 1589 William left Stratford and appeared in London, where he became an actor at the Globe Theatre. In 1612, William returned to Stratford, where he engaged in business and trade. In 1616 he caught a cold and died on his birthday.

Nowadays, every tourist interested in culture, having arrived in England, visits the city of Shakespeare. In Stratford, England showcases five houses that at various times belonged to the family of William Shakespeare. Mary Ardens House, where William's mother spent her childhood, the house where William was born and spent the first 5 years of his life, the house of William's wife Anna Hathway with her beautiful garden, Hall Croft - the house of William's eldest daughter Susanna and her husband - a famous doctor in the city John Hall and, finally, Nash House - the home of the first husband of William's granddaughter, on the site of which stood a burnt New house in which Shakespeare died in 1616. This impressive exposition of realities leaves no doubt about the existence of William Shakespeare, whom the nation and the world, following the Stratfordians, consider the greatest poet and a playwright who ever wrote in English language. The authorship of William Shakespeare is confirmed by the authority of the royal house. In 1879, the Royal Shakespeare theater and established the Royal Shakespeare Company, funded by state budget. The company has its theaters in several cities in England.

However, there are those who doubt the authorship of William Shakespeare. They are haunted not only by the absence of reliable literary evidence, but by the very personality of the master of the word. There are doubts about the lack of his education, the lack of information about his expanding intellectual horizons, the contradiction between the detailed knowledge of court etiquette resulting from the plays and William's far from aristocratic origin. His life as a city dweller in a small town, businessman, actor, moneylender, investor, theater impresario, is in no way consistent with the life of a great poet and playwright.

The Stratford version of Shakespeare's authorship is based almost entirely on a touching verse dedication by the playwright Ben Jonson, a contemporary of Shakespeare, published in the introduction to the First Folio, published after the poet's death in 1623, containing almost all the plays of the great playwright. The dedication is titled In memory of my dear friend, Author, Mr William Shakespeare. In it, he calls Shakespeare the Swan of Avon. And this is practically all that connects William Shakespeare with the literary heritage attributed to him. Attention is drawn to the special emphasis on the fact of authorship in the dedication, which is unusual in the circumstances. It would seem that the author's name of William Shakespeare on the title page of the book is quite sufficient.

The main reasons for doubting the identity of the author is the insurmountable gap between known facts the life of William Shakespeare and the breadth of education, the acquaintance of the author of the dramatic and poetic heritage with classical literature, the achievements of astronomy and other sciences, his knowledge of law and the laws of legal proceedings. William Shakespeare was not a student at any of the universities in the country. There are no traces of William Shakespeare's visit and detailed acquaintance with the cities of Italy, about which the author wrote 9 of his 37 plays, the country in which the great poet and playwright and all educated Englishmen drew the ideas of the European Renaissance.

The huge vocabulary of the poet and his mastery of the language, and most importantly the depth and strength of his thinking, do not agree well with the known facts of William's life.

More often than others, doubts are expressed by writers who understand well the mechanism of the creative literary process. Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Vladimir Nabokov, John Galsworthy doubted the authorship of William. Actors of the theater and people of cinema, Chaplin, Orson Welles, doubted. Some of the leading actors of the Shakespeare company itself, such as Sir John Gielgud, and the living Sir Derrick Jacobi, Mark Rylance, Michael York, also belong to the doubters.

Henry James said that "I am haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the greatest and most successful fraud of a patient world." Mark Twain published in 1909 the book " Is Shakespeare Dead? in which, referring to the lack of knowledge about the author, he wrote that "Satan and Shakespeare are the most famous among unknown persons that have ever existed on our planet."

A number of names of possible and more probable authors of the classical heritage have emerged among researchers. In their support, many works of textual critics, researchers of the era, and collectors of biographical evidence appeared.

There were also doubts about the uniqueness of the author, but the work of many textual critics has convincingly shown that everything attributed to Shakespeare was written by the same master.

However, it is not so important for the Nation which of its sons owns world fame, and the presence of many candidates for it violates the tradition of worshiping a genius, brings chaos to the ritual of his adoration. In this regard, Thomas Eliot declared that "honest criticism and careful approach is directed not at the poet, but at poetry", as if to say: forget to think about the author and admire poetry!

For national glory, knowing the real name and life of the author is not so important. There are many interesting and beloved writers who have completely hidden themselves behind their nom de plume, or, having revealed their name, withheld the facts of their lives from readers. At the same time, their work does not cause problems of interpretation. However, for a genius of Shakespeare's magnitude, knowledge of the facts of his biography is of great importance. The interpretation of his works without knowing the important events of his personal life and the lives of his friends, the circle of ideas that owned the people of his environment, without a sense of the meaning invested by the author in his words, loses an important anchor of their understanding, leaves the profane free to devalue his masterpieces, their false, empty interpretations to the needs of an undemanding viewer. Suffice it to recall the sensational in 1968 and awarded 4 Oscars, including an Oscar for directing, a film by Florentine Franco Zeferelli about Romeo and Juliet. In it, the drama of all-conquering hatred dissolved into endless ballet fencing and love dance beautifully dressed young actors against the backdrop of a sun-drenched Italian medieval landscape with castles.

With the passing centuries, doubts and the search for a more credible author do not die. Here is an example from a Russian search for a candidate for authorship. While the Shakespeare Commission organized in 1975 Russian Academy sciences adhered to the Stratford version of authorship, Ilya Mikhailovich Gililov (1924-2007), the permanent secretary of this commission, published in 1997 a sensational book A play about William Shakespeare or a mystery great phoenix, in which carefully reasoned arguments are presented in favor of the collective authorship of Sir Roger Manners - the Fifth Earl of Rutland and his wife Elizabeth Sidney, daughter of the famous court poet, diplomat and warrior who died in battle, Philip Sidney.

Both of these authors have long been on the list of likely candidates. Manners, an Elizabethan aristocrat and intellectual, after studying at Oxford and Cambridge, continued his education at the University of Padua along with English classmates Messrs. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Manners, who died at the age of 36, was a member of the legation in Denmark and was known for a number of literary hoaxes.

Calvin Goffman, who died in 1987, American writer and theater critic, provides numerous detailed textual and biographical evidence in favor of the authorship of the literary heritage attributed to Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe. He argued that this famous Elizabethan playwright and poet was not killed at all in Depfort in 1593 at the age of 29, but, having fled from England, found refuge in France and Italy, where he wrote everything attributed to Shakespeare.

Oxford Shakespeare scholars and Sigmund Freud are convinced that the author was the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, an educated aristocrat and able poet who had a conflict with the Jewish pawnbroker Michael Lock regarding "3,000 ducats".

Earl completed his course at Cambridge at the age of 14 and continued his education in Italy, where he studied Italian language, literature and jurisprudence, earning an LL.M. Naturally, De Vere was well acquainted with the mores of aristocrats.

Kreiler is convinced that " Merchant of Venice", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Julius Caesar" written by De Vere and that Hamlet is almost an autobiographical play from the life of Earl Oxford. The image of Polonius in it is a parody of the father of Earl William Cecil's wife, Lord Barley.

Mark Twain and a number of other researchers are convinced that the author of the plays and poetry attributed to Shakespeare is Francis Bacon, the famous Elizabethan philosopher, scientist, lawyer, and statesman.

However, a detailed analysis of the possible authorship of the above-named candidates inevitably runs into insurmountable contradictions, does not provide sufficiently strong evidence for any of the candidates and does not allow William to be reliably excluded from them, inevitably leaving the name of Shakespeare in force.

But the list of candidates does not end with the listed names. There are researchers who are convinced that William Stanley Earl Derby and even Queen Elizabeth herself performed under the name of Shakespeare.

The queen loved and supported theaters, the public adored them, but the Puritan and Anglican churches fought with actors and accused the theater of harmful influence on morals, blasphemy, blasphemous dressing men in women's clothes, since women were forbidden to perform on stage.

In the 16th century, the Corporation of London waged a merciless war on theaters, declaring them a place of lawlessness, brawls, violence, interference with urban transport, a hotbed of dubious taverns and prostitution that spring up around the theaters, and most importantly - a zone of the plague epidemic.

Among the aristocracy, the theater was considered a vulgar art form, and its members were not inclined to show their interest in it. From this arose the assumption of a titled author of Shakespeare's plays hiding his name.

Whoever was this genius of the theater, today called Shakespeare, the images he created have survived the centuries and exist regardless of doubts about the identity of their creator. The author was a great connoisseur human souls, a humanist and a rare person for his time, devoid of racial prejudice, a writer who declared the inconsistency of his characters, made the dual voices of his heroes convincing, described the coexistence of alternative worlds in his creations.

In the fates of the numerous and varied characters of the plays, masterfully generalized without loss of realism and truthfulness, dramatic analysis behavior of people in different critical situations human life.

For more than four centuries, Shakespeare's images have been living among us, making us reflect on their feelings, thoughts and actions. Images of Hamlet, Claudius and Ophelia; Romeo Juliet, members of the Montecchi (Montague) and Capulet families, Mercutio and Tybaldo; King Lear and his three daughters; Falstaff; Prospero; Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and King Duncan; the black Venetian general Othello, Iago and Desdemona; Jews Shylock, Antonio, Basanio and Portia are known to the reading public throughout the world.

"Romeo and Juliet"- a play about the invincible power of hatred. In Verona, there is a longstanding feud between the members of the Romeo clan and the Juliet clan. She is personified by a bloodthirsty relative of Juliet Tybaldo. In a street fight, Tybaldo kills Mercutio, Romeo's friend. In the return duel, Romeo kills Tybaldo, and the hatred of the clans gets bloody nourishment. Despite the enmity of the clans, young Romeo and fourteen-year-old Juliet fell in love. In Verona, there is hope that the love of young people will lead to oblivion of the enmity of the clans. But Shakespeare does not entertain the audience with empty hope. He knows that human hatred is stronger than love. The great connoisseur of human souls does not follow the liberal Christian thesis about the natural goodness of man. The tragedy ends with the death of the heroes.

"Hamlet" is undoubtedly the greatest play written for the theatre. Essays about Hamlet were written by Goethe, Coleridge, Hegel, Nietzsche, Turgenev, Freud, Eliot, Asimov, Derrida and many others. In her we are talking about the difficult choice of duty by a man of his path in the labyrinth of life, where Evil triumphs. Faced with him, Prince Hamlet, who has returned from the university, ponders whether he should leave the labyrinth, where the insidious enemy, using treachery and criminal methods, inevitably wins, leave the battlefield, "die, or maybe fall asleep." The alternative is to go into battle and inevitably resort to the dirty weapons of the enemy.

Hamlet's despair before the triumph of Evil is in tune with the motive of Shakespeare's famous 66th sonnet.

Story Danish prince goes far beyond the genre of the Elizabethan tragedy of revenge. "The Tragedy of the Danish Prince Hamlet", is not only the greatest masterpiece of drama, but also one of the most perfect and profound literary attempts to create the image of an ideal hero, a person, as he should be, according to the author.

More than four centuries have passed since the publication of the play about Hamlet, people's customs and moral norms have been transformed, and knowledge of human psychology has deepened. However, neither the relevance of the problem of Hamlet, nor the recognition of the moral force of this young man have not lost their power. The need to fight against the shape-shifting World Evil and the inextricably linked difficult problem of choosing an effective, but not polluting hand, weapon, has not diminished either.

Hamlet left the court of his father, the Danish king, becoming a student at the famous Wittenberg University, whose name is associated with the Reformation of the 16th century and the name of its graduate, Martin Luther.

Hamlet (as well as his creator), an agnostic who does not believe in eternal life. He is aware of modern science and literature. In connection with the death of his father, the prince returns home, where the carefree, court life of the heir to the throne, the nephew of the new king, awaits him. However, at the court, Hamlet is faced with Evil, demanding the restoration of justice, the punishment of the criminal, a dangerous struggle, a deadly battle. Hamlet discovers that his uncle - new king, treacherously killed his brother - the father of the prince, and his mother became the wife of the new king. King Claudius is the personification of the criminal lust for power, cunning, readiness to kill. However, Shakespeare draws in it real person, gives him the state mind of a responsible monarch who diplomatically avoided conflict with aggressive Norway, the ability to help Hamlet overcome depression. Claudius confesses his sins and, in the quiet of his private chapel, tries to beg for forgiveness.

Hamlet, a man of thought, is not at all eager to cross his sword, shed the blood of his enemies, plunge into a battle that promises him almost inevitable death in the existing alignment of forces. He knows that the fight against an insidious enemy, who is ready for anything for his victory, will require from him actions that are contrary to his soul. He contemplates suicide, but after much deliberation, he chooses to fight. Before entering into a deadly fight, he seeks irrefutable evidence of the guilt of his enemy - he sets up an investigative experiment with the help of a wandering troupe of actors.

Evil seeks not only to win, but also to soil its opponent. But Hamlet understands that in order not to lose the fight, he will have to respond with deceit for deceit and blood for blood. He accepts this inevitable condition - the need to use the weapons of the enemy in defense of a just cause. Shakespeare shows that even at the same time Hamlet remains pure. On the example of the story of Laertis, a childhood friend of Hamlet, the son of the adviser to King Polonius, the difference between a fair fight and murder with a poisoned weapon is emphasized. By mistake, Hamlet kills Laertis' father. He drives Ophelia, his sister, to suicide. Thirsty for revenge, Laertis challenges Hamlet to a duel. However, in a duel with the prince, Laertis agrees to fight with the poison-coated weapon offered to him by Claudius.

The modern generation again faces the difficult problem of choosing a form of struggle in a decisive battle with an enemy that adheres to other moral rules and uses inhuman methods, the problem of choosing a weapon for defense that does not contradict humane ethical standards.

The attitude towards Hamlet as a noble hero, despite his "non-vegetarian" actions in conflict with enemies, is connected with the motives behind his actions. Hamlet is driven by a mysterious moral imperative, about which Kant wrote almost two centuries later, as a given, inaccessible to reason, embedded in the minds of people. Hamlet's struggle with evil is devoid of personal gain, he is disinterested.

In a tragedy, all its heroes die. The Norwegian Fortinbras, the new monarch who came to rule Denmark, succinctly, in a nutshell, concludes the story of the Danish prince, calling him “noble Hamlet” – noble Hamlet.

Hamlet does not expect a heavenly reward for his noble struggle against Evil. He dies with the words the rest is silence, meaning that the mission is over, and after that there is only a welcome silence.

"The Merchant of Venice" is a play about a Jew living among Christians. The reason for the author's address to the Jewish theme is unknown. The immediate occasion for Shakespeare's conversion in 1596-97. to the history of Shylock, to the tragedy of a Jew in medieval Venice, the lawsuit ended with the execution of Dr. Rodrigo Lopez (1525-1594), who lived in London as a “converse” (baptized Jew), served. Fleeing from the Portuguese Inquisition, Dr. Lopez fled to England, where he made a successful medical career and became the personal physician of Queen Elizabeth I. During this era, Jewish doctors often served at the court of monarchs. The Queen of France had a Jewish “converse” as a doctor, the Spanish king and Pope Paul III also had Jewish doctors.

Don Antonio, an English-supported pretender to the Portuguese throne, who lived in exile in London, was at the center of intrigues and espionage by the Spanish King Philip, who had captured Portugal, a longtime enemy of the English crown. Robert De Vero, 2nd Earl of Essex, the queen's favorite who suffered from spy mania, in connection with the Spanish intrigues around Don Antonio, accused Dr. Lopez of treason and conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth. Under torture, Lopez admitted that the Spaniards tried to persuade him to poison the queen, but he rejected the betrayal. Despite the queen's doubts about Lopez's guilt and her long refusal to sign his death warrant, the Earl of Essex secured his conviction and execution (practiced at that cruel time for state criminals - consecutive hanging, drowning and quartering).

Obviously, Christopher Marlowe's five-act tragedy " Jew from Malta(1590), whose theme and separate plot elements repeated in Merchant of Venice" Shakespeare, influenced the great poet's play about the Jew Shylock.

The plot of the play is borrowed from one of the stories in a collection of short stories by Giovani Fiorentino published in Milan in 1565, entitled "I l Pecorone (simpleton)"(1378). This collection is similar in form to The Decameron. Boccaccio(1350 g). Contemporary Shakespeare English translation of this collection is unknown, which suggests that it was read by the author of the play in the Italian original. The story tells the story of a wealthy Florentine, Senora Belmont, who married a young entrepreneur in need of money, preparing an expedition to search for treasures across the seas. His friend helped to find the money necessary for the expedition from a Jewish usurer. A pound of the debtor's meat is appointed as a pledge of debt (a custom borrowed from the practice of ancient Rome). The expedition was unsuccessful and the merchant appeared before the court for the inevitable fulfillment of the terms of the loan. However, Senora Belmont, the merchant's wife, convinces the judge of the unfairness of the contract with the Jew and saves her unlucky husband.

The play, which could be called a “revenge comedy”, was considered entertaining at that time, since no one was killed in it and the “intruder” was punished. She appeared on stage at the Globe Theater under the title " The comic story of the Merchant of Venice, or otherwise called the Venetian Jew", is in fact one of the most complex in its moral message. In it, the author tells the story of the pawnbroker Shylock with his usual wisdom and objectivity.

It is not known whether the author of the play visited Venice, but he was not directly acquainted with the Jews. The play was written in 1596-98, more than three centuries after the expulsion of the Jews from the English kingdom by the edict of King Edward I. Since then, more than ten generations have changed in the country and direct knowledge of Jews did not exist. Anti-Semitism was only a tradition, nourished by the memories of the past, or borrowed from the experience of the countries of continental Europe. In England, in 1275, a law was passed accusing the Jews of usury, issuing defective gold and silver coins, and forbidding Jews to engage in money lending. The edict demanded from the Jews a complete rejection of usury within the next 15 years. Since all other ways of earning were practically forbidden to them, they were forced to continue lending. In 1290, they were expelled from the country for violating the edict.

Later, individual Jews, fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions, settled in England, converting to Christianity. King Henry VIII, the father of Queen Elizabeth, brought from Venice to London the Jewish families of musicians and composers Bassano and Lupos expelled from Spain. (It is assumed that 27 of Shakespeare's sonnets (from 127 to 152) are dedicated to the "Dark Lady of the Sonnets", the poet and feminist Emilia Lanier, daughter of Baptiste Bassano).

The choice of the usurer as a Jewish character is natural. The origin of the unusual name of Shylock, the hero of the play " The Merchant of Venice" unknown. It should be noted that the plot of the play is based on the behavior of this hero, which is unusual for a religious Jew, which, of course, was Shylock. Shakespeare's description of Shylock's desire to avenge the insults inflicted on him by murder does not correspond to Jewish morality, which prohibits the killing of a person. In addition, an insult inflicted on Shylock, even the heaviest, is not equal to and exceeds the demand for retribution, parity with the crime (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth), on which Jewish justice is based. (In the event of a legal conflict, when a murderer appears before a Jewish court, for whom death is a punishment equal to a crime, the court offers him eternal exile). However, the attitude towards Shylock on the part of the Venetian fellow citizens is presented with complete realism.

In England's Juden Frei, Shakespeare and Marlowe, who were familiar with the problems of the Jewish diaspora in Europe, did not have sufficient knowledge of Judaism and its moral standards and, therefore, in many ways endowed their Jewish characters - Shylock and Barabas (the hero of Marlowe's play "The Jew of Malta") - with the characters and morals of contemporary Christians.

Venice, as the place where the story of Shylock unfolded, was not chosen by Shakespeare by chance. It was in this city, where a large Jewish community of Spanish, Portuguese and German Jewish exiles formed in the 15th century, that the first Jewish ghettos arose. The life of the Jews of Venice was embarrassed by a number of prohibitive laws. They were forbidden to leave the ghetto after dark, to appear without a special red hat, and later without a yellow scarf. The occupations he permitted were limited to running change shops, lending money, trading in textiles, printing Jewish books, and practicing medicine. At the same time, the amount of interest charged for lending money was established by the authorities of Venice.

The action of the play centers around the relationship of the Jew Shylock with her non-Jewish characters. Proud Shylock, obviously a Spanish exile, middle-aged, widowed, rich. He lives alone with his beloved daughter Jessica and carefully keeps the memory and the ring of his dead wife Leah. In his difficult and despised but necessary business, Shylock constantly experiences undeserved bullying and humiliation from the Venetians.

Gratiano, friend of the hero of the play Venetian merchant Antonio, embodying the feelings of the Venetians towards the Jews, insults Shylock, telling him: "Oh, damn you ruthless dog, whose spirit is controlled by a wolf with bloody greedy wolf desires<…>. O stony, inhuman, despicable enemy." Such abuse Shylock often hears in his address.

Shylock is a man of feeling dignity considers himself an equal citizen of Venice. He can hardly endure constant humiliation and dreams of retribution. According to the laws of honor existing in Europe, only blood shed in a duel can wash away the shame of insults. However, even forgetting about the Jewish prohibition of murder, the very idea of ​​a duel between an elderly Jewish pawnbroker and a noble Venetian seems grotesque. Yes, and the reasons for such a duel arise too often.

The poor aristocrat Basagno asks his friend, the wealthy merchant Antonio, for 3,000 ducats for a marriage trip to Belmont to the rich bride Portia. Antonio did not have free money, since his capital was invested in a sea expedition, but he is ready to guarantee the necessary loan. Basagno finds Shylock, a Jewish pawnbroker, in town. Antonio approaches him for a loan, but on abusive terms of zero interest. Shylock is furious, but sees this as an opportunity for retribution for the humiliation he has endured. He agrees to an interest-free loan, but requires the life of the debtor as collateral in case of non-payment. Antonio agrees, and they sign a contract under which, in the event of default by the set date, the insolvent debtor is obliged to part with "a pound of meat close to the heart"! Both parties to the deal know that the separation from the body of a pound of flesh "close to the heart" inevitably means death.

Shylock does not want a refund at all - he wants retribution and dreams of the opportunity to kill the Venetian.

Describing Shylock, Shakespeare rejects the stereotype of the Jew prevailing in Europe, according to which he was a special, inferior, ugly creature, physically and spiritually different from a Christian. Shylock is not endowed with either a disgusting appearance or a disgusting character. Shakespeare describes a deeply offended man, longing for revenge, a man who is equal and understandable to other people. In his famous monologue, Shylock says:

“Yes, I am Jewish. Doesn't the Jew have eyes? Doesn't he have hands, internal organs, sizes, feelings, attachments, passions? He eats the same food, he is wounded by the same weapons, he suffers from the same diseases, he is treated with the same medicines, he freezes and experiences the heat from the same winter and summer as a Christian. Don't we bleed when we get hurt. Don't we laugh when we're tickled? Don't we die if we are poisoned, and don't we retaliate if you treat us unfairly?

Antonio's expedition failed. He has no money to repay the debt. Shylock arrests him and brings him before the duke's trial. Basano and Portia, having received a letter from Antonio about the impending trial, rush to the rescue and return to Venice. In court in men's clothes young doctor right Balthazar appeared cunning Portia. So that Shylock knows his place at once, Portia asks: “Which of you is a merchant here, and which is a Jew?”

Shylock's right is uncontested. In the form of compensation, he is offered a double amount of the debt. But he refuses and demands strict execution of the contract. The duke does not want to make a difficult decision and transfers the case to a young scientist, Doctor of Law Balthazar - Portia.

Portia cries out for mercy and offers Shylock triple the amount of the debt - 9,000 ducats! But for proud man his dignity is more precious than money. Shylock also refuses this offer, continuing to insist on the fulfillment of the contract. Here the author ascribes to Shylock an apparently uncharacteristic Jew medieval Europe too uncompromising position in the Venetian court.

The mood of the court is changing. Portia suddenly declares that the contract is not valid, since it only talks about meat, but nothing about blood, without which it cannot be separated from the body.

Moreover, since the contract for the separation of meat from the body "near the heart" contains the intent to kill - according to the law of Venice, this is tantamount to an encroachment by a foreigner (Jew) on the life of a Venetian. And such a crime is punishable by the deprivation of the attacker of all his property, half of which goes to the victim, and the other goes to the treasury. This trial is over!

Shylock is defenseless and ruined. His daughter leaves her father's house, converts to Christianity, marries a Christian. The generous Antonio relinquishes his half of Shylock's property on the condition that the Jew converts to Christianity and bequeaths his property after the death of his daughter. Shylock's rejection of the faith of the fathers, which is psychologically much more than the satisfaction of his vindictiveness, is here explained by the author's unfamiliarity with Judaism, but reflects the reality of Jewish life. Saving their lives from the persecution of the Inquisition, the Jews had to leave their religion.

Vladimir Zhabotinsky, analyzing the image of a Jew in literature, wrote: “But nothing real, nothing that, if not in strength, then at least in mood, in penetration into the Jewish soul, could be next to “Nathan the Wise” or “Shylock”, Russian literature did not give ". The writer and thinker Zhabotinsky correctly understood Shakespeare's intention and rejected the anti-Semitic cliche of superficial interpretation of the Shylock story as the story of a disgusting Jew.

Shakespeare was a great writer and a rare person free from racial prejudice. Shylock is endowed with "Spanish pride" and uncompromising.

Although the Christians - the heroes of the play are characterized by love for each other, a sense of friendship, generosity, while Shylock is shown only undeservedly insulted and, therefore, vindictive and cruel, the main vector of the play is directed not at the accusation of Shylock, but at the criticism of anti-Semitism. The laws do not protect Shylock from constant insults, they are directed against the Jew. Shylock has no chance for justice. He is put in a stalemate, while the Venetians triumph, humiliate Shylock, force him to be baptized.

During the emergence of the slave trade in Elizabethan England, in 1603 Shakespeare wrote the tragedy « Othello ”, in which a black African is endowed with military prowess and nobility. In the play, racist slurs are heard around the black Othello's name. It is difficult for the Venetians to accept the marriage of Othello and the white aristocrat Desdemona. Naive and inexperienced in the realm of feelings, a black Venetian commander falls victim to the slander of a treacherous and cunning Venetian, a sadist Iago, kills his beloved wife.

A Venetian Jew fell victim to the cunning Venetian Portia. In the clash between the Jew and the Venetians, Shylock is not the villain, but the victim. In that main point stories of the Venetian Jew Shylock.

Supporters of the interpretation of the image of Shylock, as an anti-Semitic blueprint of a disgusting, greedy and dangerous Jew, refer to the fact that the author did not endow him with sympathetic features that dispose viewers to sympathize with Shylock.

In the play about Shylock there are no striking contrasts in the display of the characters' characters. The benevolent merchant Antonio demands 3,000 ducats from Shylock without paying interest. The purpose of the author is to tell the truth about the position of a Jew, a person no different from the Venetians around him, but deprived of equal rights with them and living in an atmosphere of contempt and hatred.

From the standpoint of justice and equality of people, the play inevitably condemns Jewish lack of rights.

The unsolved Shakespearean mystery of authorship is a loss for literature and world culture. The spiritual world of this extraordinary, unknown person, poet, playwright, and thinker remains one of the highest peaks of poetry, wisdom and morality that are not washed away by time.

Notes

Shakespeare is a writer who wrote a lot beautiful works that are known all over the world. One of these works is the play "Hamlet", where intertwined different fates and touched upon social and political issues of the 16th-17th centuries. Here in the tragedy both betrayal and the desire to restore justice are shown. Reading the work, the characters and I experience, feel their pain, loss.

Shakespeare Hamlet the main characters of the work

In his work Hamlet, Shakespeare created different heroes, whose images are ambiguous. Each hero of Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" is a separate world, where there are shortcomings and positive sides. Shakespeare in the tragedy "Hamlet" created a variety of heroes of the work, where there are both positive and negative images.

Images of heroes and their characteristics

So, in the work we get acquainted with Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet, who was smart, but weak-willed. Immediately after the death of her husband, she marries his murderer. She doesn't know the feeling maternal love, so she easily agrees to become Claudius' accomplice. And only after she drank the poison that was intended for her son, she realized her mistake, realized how wise and just her son was.

Ophelia, the girl who last breath loved Hamlet. She lived surrounded by lies and espionage, was a toy in the hands of her father. In the end, she goes crazy, because she could not endure the trials that fell on her fate.

Claudius - goes to fratricide, just to achieve his goals. Sneaky, cunning, a hypocrite, who was also smart. This character has a conscience and it also torments him, preventing him from fully enjoying his dirty achievements.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - a prime example what real friends should not be, because friends do not betray, but here, making a characterization of the heroes of Shakespeare's Hamlet, we see that these heroes easily betray the prince, becoming Claudius' spies. They easily agree to take the message, which talks about the murder of Hamlet. But in the end, fate does not play into their hands, because in the end it is not Hamlet who dies, but they themselves.

Horatio, on the contrary, is a true friend to the last. Together with Hamlet, he experiences all his anxieties and doubts and asks Hamlet, after he felt the inevitable tragic end, breathe more in this world, yes tell all about it.

In general, all the characters are bright, unforgettable, unique in their own way, and among them, of course, it is impossible not to recall in Shakespeare's work "Hamlet" the image of the main character, that same Hamlet - the Danish prince. This hero is multifaceted and has extensive image that is filled vital content. Here we see Hamlet's hatred for Claudius, while he has a wonderful attitude towards actors. He can be rude, as in the case of Ophelia, and he can be suave, as in the case of Horatio. Hamlet is witty, wields a sword well, he is afraid of God's punishment, but at the same time, he blasphemes. He loves his mother, despite her attitude. Hamlet is indifferent to the throne, always remembers his father with pride, thinks and reflects a lot. He is smart, not arrogant, lives by his thoughts, guided by his judgment. In a word, in the image of Hamlet we see the versatility human personality, who thought about the meaning of people's existence, which is why he utters the well-known monologue: "To be or not to be, that is the question."

Characteristics of the characters based on Shakespeare's "HAMLET"

Characteristics of the heroes based on Shakespeare's "King Lear" - Lear