- FIRST PUBLISHED 1609 - 89 Pages

The Author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English and . He is considered England’s greatest writer ever and the father of English . He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he also died at the age of 52. He wrote approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long poems and a few other verses. Some scholars believe Shakespeare used his son Hamnet and his tragic death at the age of 11 as inspiration for some of his plays, including Hamlet.

Genre and literary history

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest and one of his most popular . Hamlet has inspired many later writers such as Charles Dickens. Shakespeare wrote the in the literary period we call the Renaissance. In this period the literature focused on self-actualization and the ability to accept what happens in one’s life. Hamlet is a perfect example of someone who can not do this. He can not accept what happens in his life and wants revenge on his uncle.

Summary

After his father’s death, Prince Hamlet of Denmark returns from Germany for the funeral. He falls into depression by the circumstances he finds. His mother already remarried his uncle, who claimed the throne of Denmark, an honor already given to Hamlet. When the ghost of his father visits Hamlet his suspicions are proven to be true. Still Hamlet doubts the trustability of the ghost and summons a group of actors to perform a play which contains scenes of his father’s murder. He tells his loyal friend to keep watching the king, hoping to see him struck by his guilt. And so it happens that during the play, the king has trouble to breath and leaves the room. For Hamlet this confirms the ghost’s story. He now searches revenge. Hamlet stabs the spying Polonius and is sent to England for execution. Nevertheless, Hamlet discovers the plan and arranges a hanging for his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who worked for Claudius. Hamlet returns to Denmark and finds his beloved Ophelia dead. Her brother Laertes claims Hamlet is responsible for her death and he starts a fight with Hamlet in her open grave. Later a sword fight between the two is arranged, where Laertes and Claudius plan to kill Hamlet. Laertes uses a poisoned sword but drops it in the middle of the fight. Hamlet stabs Laertes and he dies. The queen dies by drinking poisoned wine which Claudius arranged for Hamlet. When Hamlet finds this out, he stabs Claudius before dying by the poison himself.

Deeper knowledge

Most of the story is located in Elsinore (Helsingør), Denmark. Norway, Poland, Germany and England are also mentioned in the play. The story is set in the late 1500’s or early 1600’s. The play itself was written in the early 1600’s but it was probably based on earlier works.

Hamlet is the prince of Denmark. He is the of the story. He is around 30 years old and he is the son of the former King, who is now a ghost, and the current Queen, who remarried Claudius. He is a philosophical character with a lot of depression around him, always doubting and considering options. Some scholars believe the events and name of Hamlet are based on the death of Shakespeare’s own son Hamnet. One of the mani antipoles of Hamlet is Laertes. He does not doubt when he takes revenge on Hamlet. A thing Hamlet does when taking revenge on Claudius.

The book is not written through the eyes of a person since it consists of dialogues. At the start of every act we get a brief summary of what is to happen. It is written in chronological order.

The theme in Hamlet is death. The story starts with the death of Hamlet’s father. During the storyline multiple characters die and the last scene consists of the death of the . The deaths in this story have a lot of influence on the further events. For example, the death of Polonius indirectly caused the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and directly caused the death of Hamlet and Ophelia.

There are a lot of motives in Hamlet. One of them is hate. Hamlet hates Claudius because he murdered his father. Laertes hates Hamlet because Hamlet murdered his. Another motive is revenge. Hamlet wants to take revenge on the man who killed his father, Claudius. And Laertes wants revenge on the man who killed his father as well, Hamlet. The most common one is death. Hamlet thinks about death a lot of times during the story and when he takes Yorick’s skull in his hands he is literally looking death in the eyes.

The used language in Hamlet is very challenging. It is considered modern English but the English from the 1600’s is very different from the English today. A lot of words Shakespeare uses don’t exist anymore or have a different meaning nowadays. Some parts of the play are written in rhyme although most of it is written in ‘blank verse’. This means that the sentences don’t have rhyme but do have a certain rhythm. Many of the sentences are considered so magnificent that they’re still quoted today.

Personal Opinion I enjoyed reading Hamlet because it is a very famous story and it’s interesting to read a bit of the old English language. Shakespeare’s use of language is fascinating, using lots of original metaphors. My favourite passage is in act 3 scene 1 where Hamlet has his most famous soliloquy: ​

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: ​ Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,”

Here, Hamlet starts thinking about suicide. He is considering which of his options is the noblest. He realises that he doesn’t know what happens after death and this makes him scared. He decides that his current problems are better than the unknown. Here Shakespeare adds another dimension to the character of Hamlet and that is why it is my favourite passage of the play.