The Politics of Delay in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Artistic or Political Failure?

Résumé

Abstract: Hamlet can be best described as the play of dispossession. Not only has the hero been dispossessed or, in other words, usurped, but so has the text. In this paper, I will be addressing the famous question of delay. My argument in this paper is that Hamlet’s delay is not a mystery as has been always claimed. I will attempt to read the hero’s delay from the politico-philosophical theories contemporary to the text to show that ‘delay’, rather than being a political or artistic failure, is the political alternative Hamlet offers. I will be analysing the hero’s delay from the politico-philosophical context contemporary to the play. Instead of subscribing to the claims that the delay is due to indecisiveness or uncertainty, I will be arguing that the hero’s delay, if it can be termed so, is political action per se.