Commedia dell'arte and Hamlet.

Commedia dell'arte to recap, is an Italian form of theatre where the actors usually wear masks to identify themselves. Each character is made up from a group of stock characters that have the same name and personality characteristics in whatever play they are written into.

In Hamlet, Claudius could be seen as the Commedia dell'arte character Pantalone, who is usually a rich and retired, mean man. Pantalone often has a young wife which reminds me of the lust Claudius has shown for Gertrude. Hamlet might be glad to see this comparison as he believes Claudius to be extremely selfish and greedy for lusting after Gertrude.

Hamlet himself could be compared to Pulcinella who is known to be self centered. Hamlet has proven to be a self centred character who introverts a lot of his feelings and makes snide comments behind his breath. Instead of trying to grasp any sort of consideration of empathy for his mother and her decision to be with Claudius, he is very confrontational and dismissive of her actions. Pulcinella is either stupid pretending to be clever or clever pretending to be stupid. He has little care for life and loves to pick a fight and shed blood. This quite obviously, draws to mind when Hamlet kills Polonius believing that he is Claudius. His lack of concern or fear in realizing he has killed a somewhat innocent man, affirms that he may be going a little insane despite only 'pretending' to be insane.

These are only two of the characters taken from Hamlet and the stock Commedia dell'arte characters, but certainly more comparisons could me made. I like it.