translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

and his uncle as “mighty opposites.” All through the play the war imagery
reminds us of the characters’ struggle. Laertes urges his sister: “And keep
you in the rear of your affection,/Out of the shot and danger of desire.” (I,
3, 34-35) Polonius, in the same scene, exhorts her to set her “entreatements
at a higher rate/Than a command to parley.” (I, 3, 122-123) Later, he
compares the temptations of the flesh with a “general assault.” Hamlet
speaks of “The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” (III, 1, 58) All
these images suggest that the characters’ minds and souls are tormented by
the same idea of death.
Madness, disease, rotteness, corruption, decay make up the imagery
of death that is determined by the plot, uttered by the characters and
contributes organically to the whole that is Hamlet. This suggests that
Shakespeare saw the problem at the heart of his play
not as the problem of an individual at all, but as something greater
and even more mysterious, as a condition for which the individual
himself is apparently not responsible, any more than the sick man is
to blame for the infection which strikes and devours him, but which,
nevertheless, in its course and development, annihilates him and
others, innocent and guilty alike. That is the tragedy of Hamlet as it is
perhaps the chief tragic mystery of life. (Spurgeon, 1952: 318-319)
References
Prosser, E. (1967). Hamlet and Revenge, California: Stanford University Press.
Shakespeare, W. (2005). The Complete Illustrated Works of William Shakespeare,
London: Bounty Books.
Spurgeon, C. (1952). Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
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