Wawel Meets Elsinore. The National and Universal Aspects of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Vision of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Authors

  • Andrzej Wicher University of Łódź

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1515/texmat-2017-0012

Keywords:

Hamlet, Wyspiański, Shakespeare, the dilemmas of nationalism, old-fashioned heroism vs. modernity

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show the role, the possibilities and the limits of Wyspiański’s national thinking through Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Of particular importance, in this context, is the role the Ghost takes in Wyspiański’s celebrated interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. By the Ghost we mean the spirit of history, the ghost of a father, the spirit of the fatherland, the voice of the ancestors, and particularly that of the Polish king Casimir the Great, as well as the Holy Ghost and the Evil Spirit because all these aspects of the Ghost belong to Wyspiański’s vision. The play in question bears witness to what the Polish poet calls “the truth of other worlds,” as well as the truth of the theatre, which Wyspiański calls the labyrinth. The poet manages to reduce, to some extent, this difficult truth to the truth of the world he cared most about, that is the present and historical reality of Poland, more specifically the city of Cracow, known as Poland’s spiritual, that is “ghostly,” and only virtual, capital. It is also remarkable that Wyspiański saw the Ghost in Hamlet in the context of other Shakespearean ghosts, apparitions and magicians, such as those that appear in Macbeth, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Richard III. At the same time, Wyspiański realizes that the Ghost, with its irrationalism, offends the spirit of post-medieval times, and as such, is understandably neglected by Hamlet, who for Wyspiański, in anticipation of Harold Bloom, stands for modernity.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Andrzej Wicher, University of Łódź

Andrzej Wicher is Professor at the Department of Studies in Drama and Pre-1800 English Literature and the head of the Centre for Research on English Medieval and Renaissance Literature in the Institute of English Studies, University of Łódź. He published three scholarly books: Archaeology of the Sublime. Studies in Late-Medieval English Writings (Katowice, 1995), Shakespeare’s Parting Wondertales: A Study of the Elements of the Tale of Magic in William Shakespeare’s Late Plays (Łódź, 2003), and Selected Medieval and Religious Themes in the Works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (Łódź, 2013), and almost 90 articles, mainly on Medieval and Renaissance studies, cultural studies, and modern fantasy literature, with a special emphasis on the presence of folktale motifs in works of literature. He also translated some Middle English poems, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, into Polish. The most important of his latest publications is: Some Remarks on the Epic Dimension of “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien published in Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny LXIII 3 (Warszawa, 2016).

References

Artress, Lauren. “Enter the Labyrinth.” Laurenartress.com. 2009. Web. 14 Jan. 2016.
Google Scholar

Blok, Alexander. “I’m Hamlet.” Trans. Alec S. Vagapov. Samlib.ru. 2007. Web. 14 Jan. 2016.
Google Scholar

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare. The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead, 1998. Print.
Google Scholar

Boyce, Charles, ed. Shakespeare A to Z. New York: Dell, 1991. Print.
Google Scholar

Eliot, T. S. Selected Poems. London: Faber, 1975. Print.
Google Scholar

Friedberg, Harris A. “Hamlet, Revenge.” Hfriedberg.web.wesleyan.edu. 2012. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Google Scholar

Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990. Print.
Google Scholar

Graves, Robert, The White Goddess. London: Faber, 1960. Print.
Google Scholar

Joynes, Andrew, ed. Medieval Ghost Stories. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006. Print.
Google Scholar

Kerényi, Karl. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of the Indestructible Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1996. GoogleBooks. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Google Scholar

Kott, Jan. Szekspir współczesny [Shakespeare Our Contemporary]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1990. Print.
Google Scholar

Mahiques, Myriam. “Labyrinths Concepts.” Myriammahiques.blogspot. com.2009. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Google Scholar

Morawiec, Elżbieta, ed. Stanisław Wyspiański. Myśli i obrazy [Stanisław Wyspiański, Thoughts and Images]. Olszanica: BOSZ, 2008. Print.
Google Scholar

Wyspiański, Stanisław. Akropolis. Trans. The Wooster Group. Thewoostergroup.org. 2008. Web. 14 Jan. 2016.
Google Scholar

Wyspiański, Stanisław. Dzieła zebrane t. 1–16 [Collected Works vol. 1–16]. Ed. L. Płoszewski. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1958. Print.
Google Scholar

Wyspiański, Stanisław. Hamlet. Ed. Maria Prussak. Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 2007. Print.
Google Scholar

Downloads

Published

2017-10-16

How to Cite

Wicher, A. (2017). Wawel Meets Elsinore. The National and Universal Aspects of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Vision of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, (7), 214–238. https://doi.org/10.1515/texmat-2017-0012