Plot

Act I

The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark, son of the recently

deceased King Hamlet, and nephew of King Claudius, his father's brother and

successor. Claudius hastily married King Hamlet's widow, Gertrude, Hamlet's

mother, and took the throne for himself. Denmark has a long-standing feud

with neighbouring Norway, in which King Hamlet slew King Fortinbras of

Norway in a battle some years ago. Although Denmark defeated Norway and

the Norwegian throne fell to King Fortinbras's infirm brother, Denmark fears

that an invasion led by the dead Norwegian king's son, Prince Fortinbras, is

imminent.

On a cold night on the ramparts of Elsinore, the Danish royal castle,

the sentries Bernardo and Marcellus discuss a ghost resembling the late King

Hamlet which they have recently seen, and bring Prince Hamlet's
friend Horatio as a witness. After the ghost appears again, the three vow to tell

Prince Hamlet what they have witnessed.

As the court gathers the next day, while King Claudius and Queen Gertrude

discuss affairs of state with their elderly adviser Polonius, Hamlet looks on

glumly. During the court, Claudius grants permission for Polonius's son

Laertes to return to school in France and sends envoys to inform the King of

Norway about Fortinbras. Claudius also scolds Hamlet for continuing to grieve

over his father and forbids him to return to his schooling in Wittenberg. After

the court exits, Hamlet despairs of his father's death and his mother's hasty

remarriage. Learning of the ghost from Horatio, Hamlet resolves to see it

himself.
Horatio, Hamlet, and the ghost (Artist: Henry Fuseli, 1789)[5]

As Polonius's son Laertes prepares to depart for a visit to France, Polonius

gives him contradictory advice that culminates in the iconic maxim "to thine

own self be true."[6] Polonius's daughter, Ophelia, admits her interest in

Hamlet, but Laertes warns her against seeking the prince's attention, and

Polonius orders her to reject his advances. That night on the rampart, the

ghost appears to Hamlet, telling the prince that he was murdered by Claudius

and demanding that Hamlet avenge him. Hamlet agrees, and the ghost

vanishes. The prince confides to Horatio and the sentries that from now on he

plans to "put an antic disposition on", or act as though he has gone mad, and

forces them to swear to keep his plans for revenge secret. Privately, however,

he remains uncertain of the ghost's reliability.

Act II

Soon thereafter, Ophelia rushes to her father, telling him that Hamlet arrived

at her door the prior night half-undressed and behaving erratically. Polonius
blames love for Hamlet's madness and resolves to inform Claudius and

Gertrude. As he enters to do so, the king and queen finish

welcoming Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two student acquaintances of

Hamlet, to Elsinore. The royal couple has requested that the students

investigate the cause of Hamlet's mood and behaviour. Additional news

requires that Polonius wait to be heard: messengers from Norway inform

Claudius that the King of Norway has rebuked Prince Fortinbras for

attempting to re-fight his father's battles. The forces that Fortinbras had

conscripted to march against Denmark will instead be sent against Poland,

though they will pass through Danish territory to get there.

Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude his theory regarding Hamlet's behaviour

and speaks to Hamlet in a hall of the castle to try to uncover more information.

Hamlet feigns madness but subtly insults Polonius all the while. When

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive, Hamlet greets his "friends" warmly but

quickly discerns that they are spies. Hamlet becomes bitter, admitting that he

is upset at his situation but refusing to give the true reason why, instead
commenting on "what a piece of work" humanity is. Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern tell Hamlet that they have brought along a troupe of actors that

they met while traveling to Elsinore. Hamlet, after welcoming the actors and

dismissing his friends-turned-spies, asks them to deliver a soliloquy about the

death of King Priam and Queen Hecuba at the climax of the Trojan War.

Impressed by their delivery of the speech, he plots to stage The Murder of

Gonzago, a play featuring a death in the style of his father's murder and to

determine the truth of the ghost's story, as well as Claudius's guilt or

innocence, by studying Claudius's reaction.

Act III

Polonius forces Ophelia to return Hamlet's love letters and tokens of affection

to the prince while he and Claudius watch from afar to evaluate Hamlet's

reaction. Hamlet is walking alone in the hall as the King and Polonius await

Ophelia's entrance, musing whether "to be or not to be". When Ophelia enters

and tries to return Hamlet's things, Hamlet accuses her of immodesty and
cries "get thee to a nunnery", though it is unclear whether this, too, is a show

of madness or genuine distress. His reaction convinces Claudius that Hamlet is

not mad for love. Shortly thereafter, the court assembles to watch the play

Hamlet has commissioned. After seeing the Player King murdered by his rival

pouring poison in his ear, Claudius abruptly rises and runs from the room; for

Hamlet, this is proof positive of his uncle's guilt.

Hamlet mistakenly stabs Polonius (Artist: Coke Smyth, 19th century).

Gertrude summons Hamlet to her room to demand an explanation.

Meanwhile, Claudius talks to himself about the impossibility of repenting,

since he still has possession of his ill-gotten goods: his brother's crown and

wife. He sinks to his knees. Hamlet, on his way to visit his mother, sneaks up

behind him but does not kill him, reasoning that killing Claudius while he is
praying will send him straight to heaven while his father's ghost is stuck in

purgatory. In the queen's bedchamber, Hamlet and Gertrude fight bitterly.

Polonius, spying on the conversation from behind a tapestry, calls for help as

Gertrude, believing Hamlet wants to kill her, calls out for help herself.

Hamlet, believing it is Claudius, stabs wildly, killing Polonius, but he pulls

aside the curtain and sees his mistake. In a rage, Hamlet brutally insults his

mother for her apparent ignorance of Claudius's villainy, but the ghost enters

and reprimands Hamlet for his inaction and harsh words. Unable to see or

hear the ghost herself, Gertrude takes Hamlet's conversation with it as further

evidence of madness. After begging the queen to stop sleeping with Claudius,

Hamlet leaves, dragging Polonius's corpse away.

Act IV

Hamlet jokes with Claudius about where he has hidden Polonius's body, and

the king, fearing for his life, sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to
accompany Hamlet to England with a sealed letter to the English king

requesting that Hamlet be executed immediately.

Demented by grief at Polonius's death, Ophelia wanders Elsinore. Laertes

arrives back from France, enraged by his father's death and his sister's

madness. Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is solely responsible, but a

letter soon arrives indicating that Hamlet has returned to Denmark, foiling

Claudius' plan. Claudius switches tactics, proposing a fencing match between

Laertes and Hamlet to settle their differences. Laertes will be given a poison-

tipped foil, and, if that fails, Claudius will offer Hamlet poisoned wine as a

congratulation. Gertrude interrupts to report that Ophelia has drowned,

though it is unclear whether it was suicide or an accident exacerbated by her

madness.
The gravedigger scene[a] (Artist: Eugène Delacroix, 1839)

Act V

Horatio has received a letter from Hamlet, explaining that the prince escaped

by negotiating with pirates who attempted to attack his England-bound ship,

and the friends reunite offstage. Two gravediggers discuss Ophelia's apparent

suicide while digging her grave. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and banters with

one of the gravediggers, who unearths the skull of a jester from Hamlet's

childhood, Yorick. Hamlet picks up the skull, saying "alas, poor Yorick" as he

contemplates mortality. Ophelia's funeral procession approaches, led by

Laertes. Hamlet and Horatio initially hide, but when Hamlet realizes that
Ophelia is the one being buried, he reveals himself, proclaiming his love for

her. Laertes and Hamlet fight by Ophelia's graveside, but the brawl is broken

up.

Back at Elsinore, Hamlet explains to Horatio that he had discovered Claudius's

letter with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's belongings and replaced it with a

forged copy indicating that his former friends should be killed instead. A

foppish courtier, Osric, interrupts the conversation to deliver the fencing

challenge to Hamlet. Hamlet, despite Horatio's pleas, accepts it. Hamlet does

well at first, leading the match by two hits to none, and Gertrude raises a toast

to him using the poisoned glass of wine Claudius had set aside for Hamlet.

Claudius tries to stop her but is too late: she drinks, and Laertes realizes the

plot will be revealed. Laertes slashes Hamlet with his poisoned blade. In the

ensuing scuffle, they switch weapons, and Hamlet wounds Laertes with his

own poisoned sword. Gertrude collapses and, claiming she has been poisoned,

dies. In his dying moments, Laertes reconciles with Hamlet and reveals

Claudius's plan. Hamlet rushes at Claudius and kills him. As the poison takes
effect, Hamlet, hearing that Fortinbras is marching through the area, names

the Norwegian prince as his successor. Horatio, distraught at the thought of

being the last survivor and living whilst Hamlet does not, says he will

commit suicide by drinking the dregs of Gertrude's poisoned wine, but Hamlet

begs him to live on and tell his story. Hamlet dies in Horatio's arms,

proclaiming "the rest is silence". Fortinbras, who was ostensibly marching

towards Poland with his army, arrives at the palace, along with an English

ambassador bringing news of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's deaths. Horatio

promises to recount the full story of what happened, and Fortinbras, seeing

the entire Danish royal family dead, takes the crown for himself and orders a

military funeral to honour Hamlet.

Sources

Main article: Sources of Hamlet

A facsimile of Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, which contains the legend

of Amleth

Hamlet-like legends are so widely found (for example in Italy, Spain,

Scandinavia, Byzantium, and Arabia) that the core "hero-as-fool" theme is

possibly Indo-European in origin.[8] Several ancient written precursors

to Hamlet can be identified. The first is the anonymous Scandinavian Saga of

Hrolf Kraki. In this, the murdered king has two sons—Hroar and Helgi—who

spend most of the story in disguise, under false names, rather than feigning

madness, in a sequence of events that differs from Shakespeare's.[9] The

second is the Roman legend of Brutus, recorded in two separate Latin works.

Its hero, Lucius ("shining, light"), changes his name and persona to Brutus
("dull, stupid"), playing the role of a fool to avoid the fate of his father and

brothers, and eventually slaying his family's killer, King Tarquinius. A 17th-

century Nordic scholar, Torfaeus, compared the Icelandic

hero Amlóði (Amlodi) and the Spanish hero Prince Ambales[dubious – discuss] (from

the Ambales Saga) to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Similarities include the prince's

feigned madness, his accidental killing of the king's counsellor in his mother's

bedroom, and the eventual slaying of his uncle.[10]

Many of the earlier legendary elements are interwoven in the 13th-century

"Life of Amleth" (Latin: Vita Amlethi) by Saxo Grammaticus, part of Gesta

Danorum.[11] Written in Latin, it reflects classical Roman concepts of virtue

and heroism, and was widely available in Shakespeare's day.[12] Significant

parallels include the prince feigning madness, his mother's hasty marriage to

the usurper, the prince killing a hidden spy, and the prince substituting the

execution of two retainers for his own. A reasonably faithful version of Saxo's

story was translated into French in 1570 by François de Belleforest, in

his Histoires tragiques.[13] Belleforest embellished Saxo's text substantially,

almost doubling its length, and introduced the hero's melancholy.[14]

Title page of The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd

According to one theory, Shakespeare's main source is an earlier play—now

lost—known today as the Ur-Hamlet. Possibly written by Thomas Kyd or even

William Shakespeare, the Ur-Hamlet would have existed by 1589, and would

have incorporated a ghost.[15] Shakespeare's company, the Chamberlain's Men,

may have purchased that play and performed a version for some time, which

Shakespeare reworked.[16] However, since no copy of the Ur-Hamlet has

survived, it is impossible to compare its language and style with the known
works of any of its putative authors. Consequently, there is no direct evidence

that Kyd wrote it, nor any evidence that the play was not an early version

of Hamlet by Shakespeare himself. This latter idea—placing Hamlet far earlier

than the generally accepted date, with a much longer period of development—

has attracted some support.[b]

The upshot is that scholars cannot assert with any confidence how much

material Shakespeare took from the Ur-Hamlet (if it even existed), how much

from Belleforest or Saxo, and how much from other contemporary sources

(such as Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy). No clear evidence exists that

Shakespeare made any direct references to Saxo's version. However, elements

of Belleforest's version which are not in Saxo's story do appear in

Shakespeare's play. Whether Shakespeare took these from Belleforest directly

or from the hypothetical Ur-Hamlet remains unclear.[23]

Most scholars reject the idea that Hamlet is in any way connected with

Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet Shakespeare, who died in 1596 at age eleven.
Conventional wisdom holds that Hamlet is too obviously connected to legend,

and the name Hamnet was quite popular at the time.[24] However, Stephen

Greenblatt has argued that the coincidence of the names and Shakespeare's

grief for the loss of his son may lie at the heart of the tragedy. He notes that

the name of Hamnet Sadler, the Stratford neighbour after whom Hamnet was

named, was often written as Hamlet Sadler and that, in the loose orthography

of the time, the names were virtually interchangeable.[25][26]

Scholars have often speculated that Hamlet's Polonius might have been

inspired by William Cecil (Lord Burghley)—Lord High Treasurer and chief

counsellor to Queen Elizabeth I. E. K. Chambers suggested Polonius's advice to

Laertes may have echoed Burghley's to his son Robert Cecil.[27] John Dover

Wilson thought it almost certain that the figure of Polonius caricatured

Burghley.[28] A. L. Rowse speculated that Polonius's tedious verbosity might

have resembled Burghley's.[29] Lilian Winstanley thought the name Corambis

(in the First Quarto) did suggest Cecil and Burghley.[30] Harold

Jenkins considers the idea that Polonius might be a caricature of Burghley is a

conjecture, and may be based on the similar role they each played at court,

and also on the fact that Burghley addressed his Ten Precepts to his son, as in

the play Polonius offers "precepts" to Laertes, his son.[31] Jenkins suggests that

any personal satire may be found in the name "Polonius", which might point

to a Polish or Polonian connection.[32] G. R. Hibbard hypothesised that

differences in names (Corambis/Polonius:Montano/Raynoldo) between the

First Quarto and other editions might reflect a desire not to offend scholars

at Oxford University.[c]

Date
John Barrymore as Hamlet (1922)

"Any dating of Hamlet must be tentative", cautions the New Cambridge editor,

Phillip Edwards.[d] The earliest date estimate relies on Hamlet's frequent

allusions to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, itself dated to mid-

1599.[40][41] The latest date estimate is based on an entry, of 26 July 1602, in

the Register of the Stationers' Company, indicating that Hamlet was "latelie

Acted by the Lo: Chamberleyne his servantes".

In 1598, Francis Meres published his Palladis Tamia, a survey of English

literature from Chaucer to its present day, within which twelve of

Shakespeare's plays are named. Hamlet is not among them, suggesting that it

had not yet been written. As Hamlet was very popular, Bernard Lott, the series

editor of New Swan, believes it "unlikely that he [Meres] would have

overlooked ... so significant a piece".[38]

The phrase "little eyases"[42] in the First Folio (F1) may allude to the Children

of the Chapel, whose popularity in London forced the Globe company into
provincial touring.[e] This became known as the War of the Theatres, and

supports a 1601 dating.[38] Katherine Duncan-Jones accepts a 1600–01

attribution for the date Hamlet was written, but notes that the Lord

Chamberlain's Men, playing Hamlet in the 3000-capacity Globe, were unlikely

to be put to any disadvantage by an audience of "barely one hundred" for the

Children of the Chapel's equivalent play, Antonio's Revenge; she believes that

Shakespeare, confident in the superiority of his own work, was making a

playful and charitable allusion to his friend John Marston's very similar

piece.[44]

A contemporary of Shakespeare's, Gabriel Harvey, wrote a marginal note in

his copy of the 1598 edition of Chaucer's works, which some scholars use as

dating evidence. Harvey's note says that "the wiser sort" enjoy Hamlet, and

implies that the Earl of Essex—executed in February 1601 for rebellion—was

still alive. Other scholars consider this inconclusive. Edwards, for example,

concludes that the "sense of time is so confused in Harvey's note that it is

really of little use in trying to date Hamlet". This is because the same note also
refers to Spenser and Watson as if they were still alive ("our

flourishing metricians"), but also mentions "Owen's new epigrams", published

in 1607.[45]

Texts

Title page of the 1605 printing (Q2) of Hamlet

Three early editions of the text have survived, making attempts to establish a

single "authentic" text problematic and inconclusive.[46] Each surviving edition

differs from the others:[47][48]

 First Quarto (Q1): In 1603 the booksellers Nicholas Ling and John

Trundell published, and Valentine Simmes printed, the so-called "bad"

first quarto, under the name The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of

Denmarke. Q1 contains just over half of the text of the later second

quarto.

 Second Quarto (Q2): In 1604 Nicholas Ling published, and James

Roberts printed, the second quarto, under the same name as the first.

Some copies are dated 1605, which may indicate a second impression;

consequently, Q2 is often dated "1604/5". Q2 is the longest early

edition, although it omits about 77 lines found in F1[49] (most likely to

avoid offending James I's queen, Anne of Denmark).[50]

 First Folio (F1): In 1623 Edward Blount and William and Isaac

Jaggard published The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke in the

First Folio, the first edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works. [51]

Other folios and quartos were subsequently published—including John

Smethwick's Q3, Q4, and Q5 (1611–37)—but these are regarded as

derivatives of the first three editions.[51]

The first page of the First Folio printing of Hamlet, 1623

Early editors of Shakespeare's works, beginning with Nicholas Rowe (1709)

and Lewis Theobald (1733), combined material from the two earliest sources

of Hamlet available at the time, Q2 and F1. Each text contains material that the

other lacks, with many minor differences in wording: scarcely 200 lines are

identical in the two. Editors have combined them in an effort to create one

"inclusive" text that reflects an imagined "ideal" of Shakespeare's original.

Theobald's version became standard for a long time,[52] and his "full text"

approach continues to influence editorial practice to the present day. Some

contemporary scholarship, however, discounts this approach, instead

considering "an authentic Hamlet an unrealisable ideal. ... there are texts of

this play but no text".[53] The 2006 publication by Arden Shakespeare of

different Hamlet texts in different volumes is perhaps evidence of this shifting

focus and emphasis.[f] Other editors have continued to argue the need for well-

edited editions taking material from all versions of the play. Colin Burrow has

argued that "most of us should read a text that is made up by conflating all

three versions ... it's about as likely that Shakespeare wrote: "To be or not to

be, ay, there's the point" [in Q1], as that he wrote the works of Francis Bacon. I

suspect most people just won't want to read a three-text play ... [multi-text

editions are] a version of the play that is out of touch with the needs of a wider

public."[58]

Traditionally, editors of Shakespeare's plays have divided them into five acts.

None of the early texts of Hamlet, however, were arranged this way, and the

play's division into acts and scenes derives from a 1676 quarto. Modern

editors generally follow this traditional division but consider it unsatisfactory;

for example, after Hamlet drags Polonius's body out of Gertrude's

bedchamber, there is an act-break[59] after which the action appears to

continue uninterrupted.[60]

Comparison of the 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy in the first three editions of

Hamlet, showing the varying quality of the text in the Bad Quarto, the Good

Quarto and the First Folio

The discovery in 1823 of Q1—whose existence had been quite unsuspected—

caused considerable interest and excitement, raising many questions of

editorial practice and interpretation. Scholars immediately identified

apparent deficiencies in Q1, which was instrumental in the development of

the concept of a Shakespearean "bad quarto".[61] Yet Q1 has value: it contains

stage directions (such as Ophelia entering with a lute and her hair down) that
reveal actual stage practices in a way that Q2 and F1 do not; it contains an

entire scene (usually labelled 4.6)[62] that does not appear in either Q2 or F1;

and it is useful for comparison with the later editions. The major deficiency of

Q1 is in the language: particularly noticeable in the opening lines of the

famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy: "To be, or not to be, aye there's the

point. / To die, to sleep, is that all? Aye all: / No, to sleep, to dream, aye marry

there it goes." However, the scene order is more coherent, without the

problems of Q2 and F1 of Hamlet seeming to resolve something in one scene

and enter the next drowning in indecision. New Cambridge editor Kathleen

Irace has noted that "Q1's more linear plot design is certainly easier [...] to

follow [...] but the simplicity of the Q1 plot arrangement eliminates the

alternating plot elements that correspond to Hamlet's shifts in mood."[63]

Q1 is considerably shorter than Q2 or F1 and may be a memorial

reconstruction of the play as Shakespeare's company performed it, by an actor

who played a minor role (most likely Marcellus).[64] Scholars disagree whether

the reconstruction was pirated or authorised. It is suggested by Irace that Q1

is an abridged version intended especially for travelling productions, thus the

question of length may be considered as separate from issues of poor textual

quality.[57][65] Editing Q1 thus poses problems in whether or not to "correct"

differences from Q2 and F. Irace, in her introduction to Q1, wrote that "I have

avoided as many other alterations as possible, because the differences...are

especially intriguing...I have recorded a selection of Q2/F readings in the

collation." The idea that Q1 is not riddled with error but is instead eminently

fit for the stage has led to at least 28 different Q1 productions since

1881.[66] Other productions have used the probably superior Q2 and Folio

texts, but used Q1's running order, in particular moving the to be or not to

be soliloquy earlier.[67] Developing this, some editors such as Jonathan

Bate have argued that Q2 may represent "a 'reading' text as opposed to a

'performance' one" of Hamlet, analogous to how modern films released on

disc may include deleted scenes: an edition containing all of Shakespeare's

material for the play for the pleasure of readers, so not representing the play

as it would have been staged.[68][69]

Analysis and criticism

Main article: Critical approaches to Hamlet

Critical history

From the early 17th century, the play was famous for its ghost and vivid

dramatisation of melancholy and insanity, leading to a procession of mad

courtiers and ladies in Jacobean and Caroline drama.[70][71] Though it remained

popular with mass audiences, late 17th-century Restoration critics

saw Hamlet as primitive and disapproved of its lack

of unity and decorum.[72][73] This view changed drastically in the 18th century,

when critics regarded Hamlet as a hero—a pure, brilliant young man thrust

into unfortunate circumstances.[74] By the mid-18th century, however, the

advent of Gothic literature brought psychological and mystical readings,

returning madness and the ghost to the forefront.[75] Not until the late 18th

century did critics and performers begin to view Hamlet as confusing and

inconsistent. Before then, he was either mad, or not; either a hero, or not; with
no in-betweens.[76] These developments represented a fundamental change in

literary criticism, which came to focus more on character and less on

plot.[77] By the 19th century, Romantic critics valued Hamlet for its internal,

individual conflict reflecting the strong contemporary emphasis on internal

struggles and inner character in general.[78] Then too, critics started to focus

on Hamlet's delay as a character trait, rather than a plot device.[77] This focus

on character and internal struggle continued into the 20th century, when

criticism branched in several directions, discussed in context and

interpretation below.

Dramatic structure

Hamlet departed from contemporary dramatic convention in several ways.

For example, in Shakespeare's day, plays were usually expected to follow the

advice of Aristotle in his Poetics: that a drama should focus on action, not

character. In Hamlet, Shakespeare reverses this so that it is through

the soliloquies, not the action, that the audience learns Hamlet's motives and
thoughts. The play is full of seeming discontinuities and irregularities of

action, except in the "bad" quarto. At one point, as in the Gravedigger

scene,[a] Hamlet seems resolved to kill Claudius: in the next scene, however,

when Claudius appears, he is suddenly tame. Scholars still debate whether

these twists are mistakes or intentional additions to add to the play's themes

of confusion and duality.[79] Hamlet also contains a recurrent Shakespearean

device, a play within the play, a literary device or conceit in which one story is

told during the action of another story.[g]

Length

Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play. The Riverside edition constitutes 4,042

lines totaling 29,551 words, typically requiring over four hours to

stage.[81][h] It is rare that the play is performed without some abridgments, and

only one film adaptation has used a full-text conflation: Kenneth

Branagh's 1996 version, which runs slightly more than four hours.

Language
Hamlet's statement that his dark clothes are the outer sign of his inner grief

demonstrates strong rhetorical skill (artist: Eugène Delacroix 1834).

Much of Hamlet's language is courtly: elaborate, witty discourse, as

recommended by Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 etiquette guide, The Courtier.

This work specifically advises royal retainers to amuse their masters with

inventive language. Osric and Polonius, especially, seem to respect this

injunction. Claudius's speech is rich with rhetorical figures—as is Hamlet's

and, at times, Ophelia's—while the language of Horatio, the guards, and the

gravediggers is simpler. Claudius's high status is reinforced by using the royal

first person plural ("we" or "us"), and anaphora mixed with metaphor to

resonate with Greek political speeches.[83]

Of all the characters, Hamlet has the greatest rhetorical skill. He uses highly

developed metaphors, stichomythia, and in nine memorable words deploys

both anaphora and asyndeton: "to die: to sleep— / To sleep, perchance to

dream".[84] In contrast, when occasion demands, he is precise and

straightforward, as when he explains his inward emotion to his mother: "But I

have that within which passes show, / These but the trappings and the suits of

woe".[85] At times, he relies heavily on puns to express his true thoughts while

simultaneously concealing them.[86] His "nunnery" remarks[i] to Ophelia are an

example of a cruel double meaning as nunnery was Elizabethan slang

for brothel.[88][j] His very first words in the play are a pun; when Claudius

addresses him as "my cousin Hamlet, and my son", Hamlet says as an aside: "A

little more than kin, and less than kind."[91]

An unusual rhetorical device, hendiadys, appears in several places in the play.

Examples are found in Ophelia's speech at the end of the nunnery scene:

"Th'expectancy and rose of the fair state"[92] and "And I, of ladies most deject

and wretched".[93] Many scholars have found it odd that Shakespeare would,
seemingly arbitrarily, use this rhetorical form throughout the play. One

explanation may be that Hamlet was written later in Shakespeare's life, when

he was adept at matching rhetorical devices to characters and the plot.

Linguist George T. Wright suggests that hendiadys had been used deliberately

to heighten the play's sense of duality and dislocation.[94] Pauline Kiernan

argues that Shakespeare changed English drama forever in Hamlet because he

"showed how a character's language can often be saying several things at

once, and contradictory meanings at that, to reflect fragmented thoughts and

disturbed feelings". She gives the example of Hamlet's advice to Ophelia, "get

thee to a nunnery", which is simultaneously a reference to a place of chastity

and a slang term for a brothel, reflecting Hamlet's confused feelings about

female sexuality.[89]

Hamlet's soliloquies have also captured the attention of scholars. Hamlet

interrupts himself, vocalising either disgust or agreement with himself and

embellishing his own words. He has difficulty expressing himself directly and

instead blunts the thrust of his thought with wordplay. It is not until late in the
play, after his experience with the pirates, that Hamlet is able to articulate his

feelings freely.[95]

Context and interpretation

Religious

John Everett Millais' Ophelia (1852) depicts Lady Ophelia's mysterious death

by drowning. In the play, the gravediggers discuss whether Ophelia's death

was a suicide and whether she merits a Christian burial.

Written at a time of religious upheaval and in the wake of the English

Reformation, the play is alternately Catholic (or piously medieval)

and Protestant (or consciously modern). The ghost describes himself as being

in purgatory and as dying without last rites. This and Ophelia's burial
ceremony, which is characteristically Catholic, make up most of the play's

Catholic connections. Some scholars have observed that revenge

tragedies come from Catholic countries like Italy and Spain, where the

revenge tragedies present contradictions of motives, since according to

Catholic doctrine the duty to God and family precedes civil justice. Hamlet's

conundrum then is whether to avenge his father and kill Claudius or to leave

the vengeance to God, as his religion requires.[96][k]

Much of the play's Protestant tones derive from its setting in Denmark—both

then and now a predominantly Protestant country,[l] though it is unclear

whether the fictional Denmark of the play is intended to portray this implicit

fact. Dialogue refers explicitly to the German city of Wittenberg where Hamlet,

Horatio, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attend university, implying where

the Protestant reformer Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the

church door in 1517.[97]

Philosophical
Philosophical ideas in Hamlet are similar to those of the French writer Michel

de Montaigne, a contemporary of Shakespeare's (artist: Thomas de Leu,

fl. 1560–1612).

Hamlet is often perceived as a philosophical character, expounding ideas that

are now described as relativist, existentialist, and sceptical. For example, he

expresses a subjectivistic idea when he says to Rosencrantz: "there is nothing

either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".[98] The idea that nothing is real

except in the mind of the individual finds its roots in the Greek Sophists, who

argued that since nothing can be perceived except through the senses—and

since all individuals sense, and therefore perceive things differently—there is

no absolute truth, but rather only relative truth.[99] The clearest alleged

instance of existentialism is in the "to be, or not to be"[100] speech, where

Hamlet is thought by some to use "being" to allude to life and action, and "not

being" to death and inaction.

Hamlet reflects the contemporary scepticism promoted by the

French Renaissance humanist Michel de Montaigne.[101] Prior to Montaigne's

time, humanists such as Pico della Mirandola had argued that man was God's

greatest creation, made in God's image and able to choose his own nature, but

this view was subsequently challenged in Montaigne's Essais of 1580.

Hamlet's "What a piece of work is a man" seems to echo many of Montaigne's

ideas, and many scholars have discussed whether Shakespeare drew directly

from Montaigne or whether both men were simply reacting similarly to the

spirit of the times.[102][103][101]

Psychoanalytic
Freud suggested that an unconscious Oedipal conflict caused Hamlet's

hesitations (artist: Eugène Delacroix 1844).

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud’s thoughts regarding Hamlet were first published in his

book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), as a footnote to a discussion

of Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus Rex, all of which is part of his consideration of

the causes of neurosis. Freud does not offer over-all interpretations of the

plays, but uses the two tragedies to illustrate and corroborate his

psychological theories, which are based on his treatments of his patients and

on his studies. Productions of Hamlet have used Freud's ideas to support their
own interpretations.[104][105] In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud says that

according to his experience "parents play a leading part in the infantile

psychology of all persons who subsequently become psychoneurotics," and

that "falling in love with one parent and hating the other" is a common

impulse in early childhood, and is important source material of "subsequent

neurosis". He says that "in their amorous or hostile attitude toward their

parents" neurotics reveal something that occurs with less intensity "in the

minds of the majority of children". Freud considered that Sophocles’

tragedy, Oedipus Rex, with its story that involves crimes of parricide and

incest, "has furnished us with legendary matter which corroborates" these

ideas, and that the "profound and universal validity of the old legends" is

understandable only by recognizing the validity of these theories of "infantile

psychology".[106]

Freud explores the reason "Oedipus Rex is capable of moving a modern reader

or playgoer no less powerfully than it moved the contemporary Greeks". He

suggests that "It may be that we were all destined to direct our first sexual
impulses toward our mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and violence

toward our fathers." Freud suggests that we "recoil from the person for whom

this primitive wish of our childhood has been fulfilled with all the force of the

repression which these wishes have undergone in our minds since

childhood."[106]