„Świat cały jest sceną…”. Szekspirowskie aluzje w „Hamlet, Revenge!” Michaela Innesa

Abstract

While some of the golden age detective novels tend to rather concentrate on the social background or the psychology of the characters, thus utilizing the novel of manners conventions (Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Martha Grimes), others focus on the criminal puzzle itself, presenting it as a challenge both to the fictional detective and to the reader. This is the case with Michael Innes’s novel, where the context of the murder is a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, while quotations from this and other Shakespeare’s plays function as clues. The paper explores both the utilization of Shakespeare’s play as a code to decipher the puzzle, as well as the theatralization of the presented reality itself, turning — even as viewed from the internal perspective — into a stage on which a drama is played.