SHAKESPEARE’S CONCEPT OF MAN

            SHAKESPEARE’S CONCEPT OF MAN

English poet-dramatist William Shakespeare was born on 23^rd April 1564. He also died on the same date in 1616. Though he wrote in England, God inspired him to write for all mankind and for all ages. The universality of his thoughts, feelings and emotions couched in an amazingly powerful language makes him one of the few immortal writers of the world.

            Given below are two extracts which express his Concept of Man through the speeches of Hamlet, the tragic hero of a play of the same name.

                                 

                                     First Extract

“What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!  in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me , what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither . . .”

(Source: Hamlet, Act II, Scene II).

                                   Second Extract

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings of arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patent merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will.

And makes us rather bear  those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry.

And lose the name of action…..”

           

            Source: Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.

27^th April 2020                                   G. R. KANWAL