What’s Hecuba to Shakespeare?

• Published in: Renaissance quarterly Vol. 65; no. 4; pp. 1060 - 1093
• Main Author: Pollard, Tanya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge The Renaissance Society of America 01.12.2012; Cambridge University Press
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Classical Greek drama; Classical literature; Drama; Early Modern English; English literature; Euripides (c 485-406 BC); Females; Greek language; Greek literature; Grief; Historical text analysis; Laments; Language history; Protagonists; Renaissance period; Revenge; Revenge tragedy; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Sophocles (496?-406 BC); Studies; Theater; Theater criticism; Theater history; Tragic theater; Tyranny; Women; United Kingdom > UK; England
• ISSN: 0034-4338; 1935-0236
• DOI: 10.1086/669345

When Hamlet reflects on the charged power of the tragic theater, the figure who haunts his imagination is Hecuba, Queen of Troy, whose tragedy came to define the genre in sixteenth-century Europe. As a bereaved mourner who seeks revenge, Hecuba offers a female version of Hamlet. Yet even while underscoring her tragic power, Shakespeare simultaneously establishes a new model of tragic protagonist, challenging the period’s longstanding identification of tragedy with women. In exploring why both Hamlet and Shakespeare are preoccupied with Hecuba, this article argues that ignoring the impact of Greek plays in sixteenth-century England has left a gap in our understanding of early modern tragedy. Attending to Hecuba highlights Shakespeare’s innovations to a genre conventionally centered on female grief. In invoking Hecuba as an icon of tragedy, Shakespeare both reflects on and transforms women’s place in the genre.