‘The undiscovered country’: Hamlet and the birth of modern consciousness

This article examines Hamlet as a pivotal text in the transition from classical and medieval conceptions of the human to a distinctly modern anthropology. Through a comparative analysis of three central themes—death, justice, and revenge—the study situates Shakespeare’s tragedy against foundational works of Western thought: Homer’s Iliad, Plato’s Republic, and Dante’s Divine Comedy. While the classical and mediaeval traditions presuppose a cosmos ordered by honor, rational harmony, or divine love, Hamlet dramatizes a consciousness marked by uncertainty, fragmentation, and the collapse of transcendence. By tracing these contrasts, the paper argues that Hamlet anticipates the dilemmas of modernity: the tension between freedom and necessity, the burden of responsibility without ultimate guarantees, and the haunting awareness that death may have the final word. This reading underscores Shakespeare’s role not merely as a dramatist but as a profound interpreter of the anthropological shift that shaped the modern world.