8-Hamlet and others

I really only enjoyed the movie Hamlet because of Mel Gibson. I'd never found it interesting in high school, and now I know why: because Hamlet himself is made more important than the story, which I suppose is why the Mel Gibson version did so well. I must admit it's been quite a while since I've taken the Shakespeare class and don't remember whether or not the play was 'satisfactory' to me when we dealt with it in class. I believe Hamlet could have handled his situation better with a little more communication but don't understand quite how a playwright could have made a better story with less confusion. Since I did enjoy the movie, it wasn't a complete artistic failure, just needed a better setting to succeed than was available when this essay was written. Hamlet is generally portrayed as a buffoon, expressing the" buffoonery of an emotion which he cannot express in art" but how would one react to the death of one's father by his (or her) mother's treachery? I cannot relate to that emotion since I've never experienced such a betrayal; it is an amazing leap to delve into the psyche of the disturbed, especially one so intelligent as Hamlet.

As for the metaphysical poets, I enjoy the reading for the pleasant development of words as the subject progresses. I find the poems to be great works because they are lovely and justified, and do not as a rule try to pick apart pretty things just to discern their underlying meaning. Metaphors are not my strong point, I think, and admire the poets who excel in their use ( I watched too much tv as a child perhaps). "The poets of the 17th century, the successors of the dramatists of the 16th, possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour any kind of experience" I believe suggests what TIT states, that a great work of art is not created simply because the subject is great. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and the poem just preceding the quote, beginning with "One walked between his wife and child;/with measured footfall firm and mild..." simply yet elegantly illuminates the simple beauty of a family, happy together. God made mountains and forests and oceans and humans, all of which are beautiful in themselves, but when human nature lends towards the chaotic, there is great beauty in the harmony we seldom create together and the words that describe this harmony, in my opinion, are greater because the subject is so much more obscure than the simplicity of describing the beauty of the lake or river, because it is less easily obtained.