As accessible as it is complex, as clever and witty as it is tragic and unsettling, as mesmerizing as it is inexhaustible, it has entranced audiences for centuries and given rise to countless adaptations, some brilliant and challenging, some I'd rather not dignify with a response, and some that have carved out a niche in between, vaulting past lesser, uninspired productions only to fall short of greatness. As the Bard's longest work and most frequently adapted play, Hamlet is as iconic and essential as they come a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Moore's Battlestar Galactica have put more stress on my laptop keys. Only the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (might I offer my eternal, sarcasm-ridden thanks to Mr.
And that doesn't include whatever high school term papers and college exam essays I've lost track of over the years.
Over the course of my education and professional career, I've written upwards of 85,000 words about William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, August 11, 2010 Before Hamlet himself dies, he manages to stab Claudius and to entrust the clearing of his honour to his friend Horatio.įor a discussion of this play within the context of Shakespeare’s entire corpus, see William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays and poems."All is not well. Gertrude, also present at the duel, drinks from the cup of poison that Claudius has had placed near Hamlet to ensure his death. Hamlet dies of a wound inflicted by a sword that Claudius and Laertes have conspired to tip with poison in the scuffle, Hamlet realizes what has happened and forces Laertes to exchange swords with him, so that Laertes too dies-as he admits, justly killed by his own treachery. Claudius is only too eager to arrange the duel. Upon his return to Denmark, Hamlet hears that Ophelia is dead of a suspected suicide (though more probably as a consequence of her having gone mad over her father’s sudden death) and that her brother Laertes seeks to avenge Polonius’s murder. Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library CC-BY-SA 4.0 ( A Britannica Publishing Partner) See all videos for this article Short excerpts from a Folger Shakespeare Library production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, with critical analysis by the cast and crew. Hamlet adopts a guise of melancholic and mad behaviour as a way of deceiving Claudius and others at court-a guise made all the easier by the fact that Hamlet is genuinely melancholic. Though instantly galvanized by the ghost’s command, Hamlet decides on further reflection to seek evidence in corroboration of the ghostly visitation, since, he knows, the Devil can assume a pleasing shape and can easily mislead a person whose mind is perturbed by intense grief. The ghost of his father appears to Hamlet, informs him that he was poisoned by Claudius, and commands Hamlet to avenge his death.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library CC-BY-SA 4.0 ( A Britannica Publishing Partner) See all videos for this articleĪs Shakespeare’s play opens, Hamlet is mourning his father, who has been killed, and lamenting the behaviour of his mother, Gertrude, who married his uncle Claudius within a month of his father’s death. This video provides a brief synopsis of the plot of Shakespeare's masterpiece Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.