Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

"So critics want to see Shakespeare as early modern and secular, but Shakespeare is also Late Medieval and Christian. And tragedy for Shakespeare is, I would say, essentially the same thing it is for 15th century, 16th century vernacular drama: tragedy is the failure of a sinner to repent. Whereas for Aristotle, tragedy is something very alien to a Christian sensibility. Aristotle doesn't really care about moral character. [PF note: in the context of his poetic, though he does care about moral character in his ethics]. What Aristotle means by 'hamartia' is not sin, but something more like a mistake. And what he means by 'anagnorisis' is not repentance, but something more like a discovery, like a correction of an error as regards to matters of fact. So for Aristotle, tragedy is amoral: it's like the process of legal discovery that occurs in a court of law. Nonetheless, I think many critics continue to use Aristotle's terms to describe Shakespeare's...

A feature of the period called the English Renaissance is its attention to Greek and Latin classical texts, which includes not only poetry and drama, but also philosophy - including Aristotle. Many students of Shakespeare are told to consider his tragedies in terms of Aristotle's poetics, which says that the main character has some tragic flaw which eventually brings out his downfall. But a number of elements in Hamlet invite us to scrutinize this limited approach. [L: Roman copy Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos, c. 330 BC. R: Detail from the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare , 1610.] By this, many claim Hamlet's flaw is that his conscience makes him overthink and hesitate; but in fact as some scholars have recognized, many of his worst moments (his unkindness to Ophelia, his stabbing of Polonius) come from not thinking enough, not pausing before acting. If Hamlet simply kills Claudius at prayer, not only does he risk sending Claudius to heaven and failing at re...