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

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 under...