Hamlet and Don Quixote: an Essay by Ivan Turgenev
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Please join us for a discussion and read through of Ivan Turgenev’s essay Hamlet and Don Quixote.
The essay Hamlet and Don Quixote was written in 1860, which was the time when Turgenev was already an experienced author who had published the whole range of successful works (not only prosaic but also dramatic, lyrical, and epical); he was in his prime as for his artistic work and was concerned with not only literature itself but also with philosophy and he often dealt with theoretical questions and problems.
Turgenev himself saw Hamlets of his time in the type of “superfluous people” who are “eaten away” by reflection, suffer from the lack of will and are not able to complete the tasks of life. For Turgenev, the character of Hamlet is an egoistic man whose reason and will are separated from each other and that is why Hamlets are completely needless, redundant for other people, they do not lead the people anywhere as they themselves do not head anywhere. As said above this kind of personality is useless, superfluous for society does not profit from these people, they would not be able to become a national leader if needed. On the other hand, Turgenev tries to find a piece of rationality in Hamlet’s ambivalence; the author also compares the character of Hamlet to the character of Goethe’s Mephisto. The objective of Turgenev ́s interpretation of Hamlet’s type was to show social vanity and the disadvantages of scepticism and egoism.
In Turgenev ́s essay, Don Quixote, as well as Hamlet, integrates retrospective and perspective, the past and the future, trying to “interconnect the times”.
For Turgenev Don Quixote was the personalization of new social power and this is also how the character is shown in the essay: the writer sees mainly belief, belief in something eternal, irreversible, belief in the truth that calls for sacrifices but that can be reached; Quixote is devoted to his ideal and for this ideal he is able to suffer agony and even sacrifice his own life as life is dear to him only in the case when he can be a means of reaching the ideal and establishing justice in the whole world.
Online PDF:
http://www.donquixote.com/uploads/4/3/9/6/43962907/turgenev_-_hamlet_and_don_quixote-libre.pdf