University of Missouri, St. Louis IRL @ UMSL Theses UMSL Graduate Works 4-11-2011 Shakespeare Wrote No Characters Alexander Patrick Detmering University of Missouri-St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://irl.umsl.edu/thesis Recommended Citation Detmering, Alexander Patrick, "Shakespeare Wrote No Characters" (2011). Theses. 128. https://irl.umsl.edu/thesis/128 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the UMSL Graduate Works at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Shakespeare Wrote No Characters Alexander Patrick Detmering B.A., English, University of Missouri – St. Louis, 2009 A Thesis Submitted to The Graduate School at the University of Missouri – St. Louis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in English with an emphasis in Literature May 2011 Advisory Committee Kurt Schreyer, Ph.D. Sylvia Cook, Ph.D. Deborah Aldrich-Watson, Ph.D. Shakespeare Wrote No Characters Abstract: The purpose of my research was to answer a simple question: “What can be said about Hamlet's character?” When analyzing any Shakespearean play, it is commonplace to begin (and end) with the characters that inhabit it. But is this sort of analysis appropriate for Renaissance plays? Freud's famous interpretation of Hamlet operates in this fashion, determining the meaning of the play through the vehicle of Hamlet's character—specifically, the psychology of Hamlet's character. Such a reading assumes, however, the interiority of character: that fictional characters have mental landscapes, complete with pasts that lead to the present as related in the events of the play.