Resonance of Other Texts in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Megha Ghosh College

Starting from his early career as a journalist and dramatic critic up to his current career as playwright and Hollywood writer Tom Stoppard has long held a strong alliance with Shakespeare. Based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead draws heavily in several contemporary directions previously covered by Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Oscar Wilde, to name a few. The product was not another Hamlet but rather a post-absurdist take on modern man’s metaphysical position.

Shakespeare’s story in Stoppard’s play remains only as a setting, the reader’s focus is mainly on Stoppard’s two creations that carry little resemblance to Shakespeare’s forerunning figures. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as dramatic characters are more identical to Beckett’s Gogo and Didi in the play Waiting for Godot than to Shakespeare’s original courtiers. Both the pairs are two lost souls waiting for something to happen. Though Stoppard is respectful of the contents and aesthetics of Shakespeare’s works, he is nonetheless no idolizer. Ruby Cohn in an essay correctly describes the play as: “Extremely skillful in dovetailing the Hamlet scenes into the Godot situation, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a witty commentary rather than a...