The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0330  Monday, 2 August 2010

From:         Hardy M. Cook <
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Date:         Monday, August 2, 2010      
Subject:      Available for Comment: Hamlet and Indian Idea of Kingship

As a service to its members, SHAKSPER makes selected papers for which the author 
would like comments available for a short time on the SHAKSPER server.   

The following paper is now available: "Hamlet: An Interpretation in the Light of 
Indian Idea of Kingship" by Susheel Kumar Sharma, Professor of English, 
University of Allahabad <
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"Hamlet: An Interpretation in the Light of Indian Idea of Kingship" was recently 
published in the Indian journal Points of View (XVI, 2 (Winter 2009): 25-35) and 
was co-authored by Vinod Kumar Singh.

You should send your comments directly to the author Professor Susheel Sharma at 

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normal SHAKSPER channels by sending it to the list at 
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From "Hamlet: An Interpretation in the Light of Indian Idea of Kingship":

       Hamlet is considered to be "the 'Mona Lisa' of Literature" (Eliot 47) 
mainly because "[critical] minds often find in Hamlet a vicarious existence of 
their own artistic realization" (Eliot 45) which gives it an enigmatic touch of 
Mona Lisa's smile. T. S. Eliot judges it as "an artistic failure" for lacking 
"an objective correlative" and being "full of some stuff that the writer could 
not drag to light, contemplate, or manipulate into art" (45-49). But contrary to 
Eliot's observation the play has attracted a great deal of critical attention. 
The critics have variously answered several vexing issues regarding structure, 
character, theme and action of the play but an all encompassing and acceptable 
interpretation is still elusive. A number of critics from Coleridge to Bloom 
have subjected the play to their critical faculty and tried to explore the crux 
of the tragedy. Most of them believe that tragedy occurs because Hamlet "delays 
action till action is of no use" (Coleridge 87). The critical speculations for a 
viable cause of Hamlet's delay have given birth to an unending discourse. . . .  

. . . by applying the Indian idea of kingship one may arrive at a possible cause 
of tragedy in the play.


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