“To Be or Not to Be”: Was That the Question? On My Book Los poemas del ser y el no ser y sus lenguajes en la historia

Abstract

This article presents my interpretation of Shakespeare’s monologue “To be or not to be” in the framework of my book Los poemas del ser y el no ser y sus lenguajes en la historia (2017). It develops my thesis that “to be or not to be” proves not to be the real question for Hamlet, since he immediately abandons this metaphysical contraposition and proceeds to formulate in moving verses his real problem: the tragic misery of human life and of his own life, and the anguish and uncertainty of what comes beyond it if one takes one’s own life. The difference between sleep and death is that, after the latter, consciousness will lack a body, and nobody can imagine what dreams could look like without it. But the whole monologue is an argument against trying to solve real life problems through rising to the utmost abstractions.

Keywords

• being and non-being
• abstraction as domination of
• and escape from
• reality
• prose and poetry
• epistemology and philology
• critical philology and philosophy
• translation