"Hamlet and Counter-Humanism"

In Ronald Knowles article, "Hamlet and Counter-Humanism" from Renaissance Quarterly he discusses Shakespeare's play Hamlet and through the lens of the human condition.

In the article Knowles discusses through five sections different ideas and concepts that are used in Hamlet. The first section, "Alexander Died" focuses on the question within the play. Sections two and three expand upon the "later Middle Ages, Humanism, and skepticism" and section four discusses the rhetoric that is used throughout the writing of the play. There is a fifth section present where he discusses role playing and how that affects Hamlet throughout his journey.

The main section that was the most useful to me was the second, titles, "The Goodly Frame". Within this section he discusses, specifically Act II Scene II where Hamlet, talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, looks at humanity as dust and seen as dust but how he contemplates that understanding by stating, "What a piece of work is a man" thus stating, and Knowles goes on to explore this idea, how much more complex humanity is than just dust. Knowles discusses that this concept and idea is holding both pessimism and optimism, macrocosm and microcosm, and humanism and skepticism. Because Hamlet questions this idea of man and what he is he goes into a deeper theological thought.

Knowles then goes onto explain older thinkers who were important to the development to the thought that Shakespeare is presenting through his character Hamlet. It discusses sin and man's separation from the divine and if that in anyway disrupts the small epiphany that Hamlet has within his monologue.

This was a very interesting article and can be found on JSTOR.