METADATA
Title: Space in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Vol. 12(1), 2024, pp. 152-168.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46687/UTUB9773.
Author: Cătălina Bălinișteanu-Furdu, PhD
About the author: Cătălina Bălinișteanu-Furdu is a member of the Department of Foreign Languages at “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău. She delivered her PhD thesis in philology (in the field of Gender in German literature) at “Al.I.Cuza” University of Iași and for more than 20 years has been writing articles and books in the following areas: gender studies, Victorian literature, the English Renaissance and children’s literature. She participated in over 40 (inter)national conferences (Bordeaux - France, Bălți and Chișinău-Republic of Moldova, Chernivtski – Ukraine), was a member in 3 international projects and 1 project funded at “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău.
e-mail: balinisteanu.catalina@ub.ro
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7645-1768
Author: Daniela Anisiei
About the author: Daniela Anisiei holds a BA degree in Political Sciences and graduated a MA programme in Communication Sciences at National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest, Romania and is currently preparing her BA thesis in English Literature, due in July 2024 as a final year student at “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău, Faculty of Letters. She is also a primary school teacher in Piatra-Neamț, Romania. She participated in students’ conferences organised by UVA Bacău (2022, 2023) and in the 2023 “Politics and Poetics of Difference” Conference organised by Nicolaus Copernicus University from Turun, Poland. She has articles pending publishing in scientific journals due in spring 2024, and one was published in RoBrit (Alma Mater, Bacău).
e-mail: daniela.litere@gmail.com
Link: http://silc.fhn-shu.com/issues/2024-1/SILC_2024_Vol_12_Issue_1_152-168_17.pdf
Citation (APA): Bălinișteanu-Furdu, C., & Anisiei, D. (2024). Space in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Studies in Linguistics, Culture, and FLT, 12(1), 152-168. https://doi.org/10.46687/UTUB9773
Abstract: The paper deals with the concept of space in William Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. Not only is the play the most popular and the most internationally known creation of William Shakespeare, but it also attracts readers and critics for its complexity and up-to-datedness. We chose to analyse various aspects of space in this tragedy to underline their influence on different characters. The paper aims at proving that there is a relation between each character and a particular space whose features are partly reflected in the characters’ personality or/and actions. Therefore, the main characters were analysed in connection with the spaces they appear in throughout the play. We were also interested in analysing whether the characters have the necessary power and/or ability to change these spaces, or not. We noticed that some of the characters had their spaces invaded by perpetrators, while other characters became perpetrators themselves. Observing the link between spaces and the characters' personality, we tried to scrutinize their deeds based on the features of certain spaces emphasizing aspects such as: private vs. public, natural vs. artificial.
Key words: space, masculine vs. feminine, natural vs. unnatural, order vs. disorder.
References:
Abrahams, M.H., et al. (2009). Glossary of literary terms. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Adams, A. (1994). Review of Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare’s Plays, ‘Hamlet’ to ‘The Tempest’ by Janet Adelman. Signs, 20 (1), 228–232. https://doi.org/10.1086/494971.
Bălinișteanu-Furdu, C. (2021). Old and Middle English Literature. The Literature of Renaissance. Bacău: Alma Mater Publishing House.
Edwards, L. R. (1979). The labors of psyche: Toward a theory of female heroism. Critical inquiry, 6 (1), 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1086/448026.
Emmerichs, S. (2003). Inside-out and Outside-in: Landscape and the Unnatural in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth. The Upstart Crow – a Shakespeare Journal, XXIII, (pp. 41–52). Clemson University Digital Press.
Gillies, J. (2013). The question of original sin in ‘Hamlet’. Shakespeare quarterly, 64(4), 396–424. https://doi.org/10.1353/shq.2013.0057.
Goodman, L.et al. (1996). Literature and gender. Taylor and Francis Group/Routledge.
Habermas, J., & Burger. T. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. The MIT Press.
Jones, E. (1971). Scenic form in Shakespeare. Clarendon Press.
LaFave, M. (2018). Something rotten: Space, place, and the nation in Hamlet and As You Like It. English MA Theses. Georgia/USA: Georgia College and State University.
Milica, I. A. (2014). Essays on royalty. Iasi: Editura Vasiliana 98.
Mullaney, S. (1994). Mourning and misogyny: Hamlet, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and the Final Progress of Elizabeth I, 1600-1607. Shakespeare quarterly, 45(2), pp. 139–162. https://doi.org/10.2307/2871215.
Newman, K. (1985). Comment on Heilbrun’s review of ‘The Woman’s Part’, ‘Shakespeare’s Division of Experience’, and ‘Man’s Estate’. Signs, 10(3), 601–603. https://doi.org/10.1086/494170.
Rackin, P. (2005). Shakespeare and women. Oxford Shakespeare Topics, (pp. 134–145). Oxford University Press.
Rein, D. M. (1960). Hamlet’s self-knowledge. CEA Critic, 22(3), 8–9.
Ronk, M. C. (1994). Representations of ‘Ophelia’. Criticism, 36(1), 21–43.
Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). Hamlet. Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/
Showalter, E. et al, (1985). Shakespeare and the question of theory. Repressing Ophelia: women, madness and the responsibilities of feminist criticism. (pp. 74–94). Methuen & Co ltd/Routledge.
Stitt, M. J. (1984). Saxo grammaticus and the life of Shakespeare. The classical journal, 80(1), 65–68.
Thomas, K. V. (1983). Man and the natural world: Changing attitudes in England 1500-1800. Pantheon Books. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012.
Wilson, R. R. (2002). The Hydra’s tale: Imagining disgust. University of Alberta Press.
Wood, R. E. (1987). Space and scrutiny in ‘Hamlet’. South Atlantic review, 52(1), 25–42. https://doi.org/10.2307/3199996.