The 'Gothic' in Hamlet: The Functions of Macabreness to Create Cathartic Horror

• Main Author: Murat ÖĞÜTCÜ
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Ankara University 2017-06-01
• Series: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi
• Subjects: Shakespeare; Hamlet; Ürkme; Gotik Katarsis; Rönesans Amtiyatrosu; Seyirci Tepkisi
• Online Access: http://dtcfdergisi.ankara.edu.tr/index.php/dtcf/article/view/1747

Built on Elizabethan dramatic conventions and religious debates about ghosts, Hamlet employs linguistic and dramatic means to chill its audience. Audio-visual means, along with the manner of entrances and exits, are used in order to horrify the audience. These create a uctuation between belief and disbelief towards the macabre elements in the play, which in turn heightens the fear in the audience. Thus, through these elements, gothic catharsis is achieved, which creates cathartic horror that generates fear in the audience. The overall sensory experience in the Early Modern amphitheatre in which the play was enacted had a great effect on the creation of this form of catharsis. Therefore, this article aims to illustrate how the Elizabethan playhouse experience affected audience reaction towards macabre elements and triggered gothic catharsis in Hamlet.