Hamlet and Shakespeare’s Poetics of Refining Gold
Hamlet and Shakespeare’s Poetics of Refining Gold

Also on the Significance of Shakespeare’s Poetics of Refining Gold

Summary/Abstract: The author of this paper argues that, in the view of Gantong aesthetics, Hamlet plays the roles of both the implicit artist and the alchemist in Hamlet. Hamlet not only possesses many characteristics of an artist (especially of a dramatist), but also carries out the missions of an artist and thus functions as an artist / alchemist. Starting as a youngster who is fond of plays, Hamlet, who has experienced the phases of melancholy, weakness and split personality, has gradually grown up into an autonomic artist; he has fought hard and fiercely in every respect against himself, others and social circumstances, and has finally achieved his own rebirth in the course of becoming a real man and bringing others to the realm of beauty. In the meantime, he has also fulfilled the mission as an artist – to build up a perfect gold-like soul and to set right the universe of humanity. Theoretically speaking, the tragedy Hamlet typically reflects Shakespeare’s poetics of refining gold. Shakespeare’s poetics of refining gold has indeed influenced American contemporary theatre, and it could also enlighten contemporary Chinese drama out of the wrong way, so as to improve the quality and the value of contemporary drama and to set it right to the way of aesthetic drama.

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