PRINCE HAMLET AND THE IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE

Abstract

This article proposes a hermeneutic reading of Hamlet centered on the concept of hybris, understood not merely as individual arrogance but as a structural and spiritual transgression of limits. Beginning with the mythological figure of Hybris and its philosophical-literary legacy, the analysis moves through the biblical allegory of Babylon and the Christian theology of finitude and infinity, as articulated by Dumitru Stăniloae, to frame Shakespeare’s tragedy within a fundamentally Christian horizon. The text argues that Shakespeare deliberately transforms his sources by staging truth as a gradual revelation, thereby shifting the tragic focus from vengeance itself to the impossibility of moral choice within a divided spiritual order. Hamlet’s paralysis is interpreted as the consequence of a profound cultural and theological conflict between lex talionis (the law of retaliation) and lex remissionis (the law of forgiveness), embodied respectively by Fortinbras and Hamlet. Caught between these two irreconcilable paradigms, Hamlet attempts to superimpose them, constructing a symbolic “Tower of Babel” of laws and values. This attempt constitutes his hybris and leads inevitably to tragedy. The essay thus reads Hamlet as a drama of civilizational transition, in which the Christian ethos destabilizes the archaic logic of revenge without yet providing a viable political alternative.