Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Dionysian Man and Hamlet

Who would have thought it would be a good idea to compare Shakespeare's character Hamlet to the Dionysian man? This was Friedrich Nietzsche's idea. It would be awkward if it had been done by a regular person like me or you, but it was a philosopher's thought. That's what they are recognized after all. Thinking, thinking, and thinking. Anyways, there is no need to specialize in his profession to find his ideas interesting and give some thought to them. Reading his analysis on the famous play Hamlet, opened my perspective towards this character. Nietzsche compares the general Dionysian man (from Dionysus) to the troubled Hamlet. He says they have both "gained knowledge", resembling both characters. However, I agree with Camille Connor's Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy", since she claims it is not true that "knowledge kills action". I share this thought with her, since I believe the knowledge gained by Hamlet as he discovers it was Claudius who killed his father, was the reason the book will have action. If it weren't for this information, Hamlet wouldn't proceed on killing his uncle and bring so much trouble into Denmark. The idea of comparing both characters, despite being peculiar, brings a lot of thought into the subject leaving the reader of both texts opened to discuss this comparison.

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