Conscience does make cowards of us all. Hamlet the sceptic thinker - an anti-hero?

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature grade: 10 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz language: English abstract: As the protagonist of Shakespeare's play Hamlet the young Hamlet Prince of Denmark is popularly considered a heroic figure revenging the murder of his father who was poisoned by Claudius Hamlet's uncle. He appears to be an archetypical Renaissance figure a versatile character that contains something of everything within him: He is the sophisticated thinker and the powerless politician; the resentful child and the sober student; the moral Puritan and the deranged Prince; the witty murderer and the cold-blooded jester.Since Michael Davies speaks of Hamlet's supposed renaissance variety as a compendium of selves and therefore of a rather modern man of no fixed identity we will in the context of this work examine the question whether Hamlet could be considered an anti-hero by pointing out certain traits of his introverted nature and the significant impact of self-reflection on Hamlet's behaviour throughout the play.