Hamlet is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others."[1] It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time.[2] Three different early versions of the play are extant: theFirst Quarto (Q1, 1603); the SecondQuarto (Q2, 1604); and theFirst Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others.[3] Many works have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play, from ancientGreek tragedies toElizabethan dramas.
Player King, Player Queen, Lucianus, etc. – players
Plot
Kronborg Castle is immortalized as Elsinore in the play Hamlet
Act I
Prince Hamlet of Denmark is the son of the recently deceasedKing Hamlet, and nephew ofKing 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 neighbouringNorway, 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, PrinceFortinbras, is imminent.
On a cold night on the ramparts ofElsinore, the Danish royal castle, thesentries Bernardo and Marcellus discuss aghost resembling the late King Hamlet which they have recently seen, and bring Prince Hamlet's friendHoratio as a witness. After the ghost appears again, the three vow to tell Prince Hamlet what they have witnessed.
The court gathers the next day, and King Claudius and Queen Gertrude discuss affairs of state with their elderly adviserPolonius. Claudius grants permission for Polonius's son Laertes to return to school in France, and he sends envoys to inform the King of Norway about Fortinbras. Claudius also questions Hamlet regarding his continuing to grieve for his father, and forbids him to return to his university inWittenberg. 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)[4]
As Polonius's son Laertes prepares to depart for France, Polonius offers him advice that culminates in the maxim "to thine own self be true."[5] 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, tells the prince that he was murdered by Claudius (by pouring poison into his ear as he slept), and demands that Hamlet avenge the murder. 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. Hamlet forces them to swear to keep his plans for revenge secret; however, he remains uncertain of the ghost's reliability.
Act II
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 are welcomingRosencrantz and Guildenstern, two student acquaintances of Hamlet, to Elsinore. The royal couple has requested that the two 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 againstPoland, though they will pass through Danish territory to get there.
Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude his theory regarding Hamlet's behaviour, and then speaks to Hamlet in a hall of the castle to try to learn more. Hamlet feigns madness and subtly insults Polonius all the while. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive, Hamlet greets his "friends" warmly but quickly discerns that they are there to spy on him for Claudius. Hamlet admits that he is upset at his situation but refuses to give the true reason, instead remarking "What a piece of work is a man". Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet that they have brought along a troupe of actors that they met while travelling to Elsinore. Hamlet, after welcoming the actors and dismissing his friends-turned-spies, asks them to deliver a soliloquy about the death ofKing Priam, as witnessed byQueen Hecuba, at the climax of theTrojan War. Hamlet then asks the actors to stageThe Murder of Gonzago, a play featuring a death in the style of his father's murder. Hamlet intends to study Claudius's reaction to the play, and thereby determine the truth of the ghost's story of Claudius's guilt.
Act III
Polonius forces Ophelia to return Hamlet's love letters to the prince while he and Claudius secretly watch in order to evaluate Hamlet's reaction. Hamlet is walking alone in the hall as the King and Polonius await Ophelia's entrance. Hamlet muses on thoughts oflife versus death. 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 thePlayer King murdered by his rival pouring poison in his ear, Claudius abruptly rises and runs from the room; for Hamlet, this is proof of his uncle's guilt.
Hamlet mistakenly stabs Polonius (Artist: Coke Smyth, 19th century).
Gertrude summons Hamlet to her chamber 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 atapestry, 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.
Unhinged 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's 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 caused by her madness.
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. Twogravediggers 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 ajester from Hamlet's childhood,Yorick. Hamlet picks up the skull, saying "Alas, poor Yorick" as he contemplates mortality. Ophelia'sfuneral 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 among 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 from Laertes. 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.
Hamlet-like legends are so widely found (for example in Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Byzantium, and Arabia) that the core "hero-as-fool" theme is possiblyIndo-European in origin.[7] Several ancient written precursors toHamlet can be identified. The first is the anonymous ScandinavianSaga of Hrolf Kraki. In this, the murdered king has two sons—Hroar andHelgi—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.[8] The second is the Roman legend ofBrutus, 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 heroAmlóði (Amlodi) and the hero Prince Ambales (from theAmbales Saga) to Shakespeare'sHamlet. 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.[9]
Many of the earlier legendary elements are interwoven in the 13th-century "Life of Amleth" (Latin:Vita Amlethi) bySaxo Grammaticus, part ofGesta Danorum.[10] Written in Latin, it reflects classical Roman concepts of virtue and heroism, and was widely available in Shakespeare's day.[11] 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 byFrançois de Belleforest, in hisHistoires tragiques.[12] Belleforest embellished Saxo's text substantially, almost doubling its length, and introduced the hero'smelancholy.[13]
According to one theory, Shakespeare's main source may be an earlier play—now lost—known today as theUr-Hamlet. Possibly written byThomas Kyd or by Shakespeare, theUr-Hamlet would have existed by 1589, and would have incorporated a ghost.[14] Shakespeare's company,the Chamberlain's Men, may have purchased that play and performed a version for some time, which Shakespeare reworked.[15] However, no copy of theUr-Hamlet has survived, and it is impossible to compare its language and style with the known works of any of its putative authors. In 1936Andrew Cairncross suggested that, until more becomes known, it may be assumed that Shakespeare wrote theUr-Hamlet.[16]Eric Sams lists reasons for supporting Shakespeare's authorship.[17]Harold Jenkins considers that there are no grounds for thinking that theUr-Hamlet is an early work by Shakespeare, which he then rewrote.[18] Professor Terri Bourus in 2016, one of three general editors of the New Oxford Shakespeare,[19] in her paper "Enter Shakespeare's Young Hamlet, 1589" suggests that Shakespeare was "interested in sixteenth-century French literature, from the very beginning of his career" and therefore "did not need Thomas Kyd to pre-digest Belleforest's histoire of Amleth and spoon-feed it to him". She considers that the hypothesizedUr-Hamlet is Shakespeare's Q1 text, and that this derived directly from Belleforest's French version.[20]
The precise combination of Shakespeare's use of theUr-Hamlet, Belleforest, Saxo, or Kyd'sThe Spanish Tragedy as sources forHamlet is not known. However, elements of Belleforest's version which are not in Saxo's story do appear in Shakespeare's play.[21]
Most scholars reject the idea thatHamlet is in any way connected with Shakespeare's only son,Hamnet Shakespeare, who died in 1596 at age eleven. Conventional wisdom holds thatHamlet is strongly connected to legend, and the name Hamnet was quite popular at the time.[22] However,Stephen Greenblatt has argued that thecoincidence 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.[23][24]
Scholars have often speculated thatHamlet'sPolonius might have been inspired byWilliam Cecil (Lord Burghley)—Lord High Treasurer and chief counsellor to QueenElizabeth I.E. K. Chambers suggested Polonius's advice to Laertes may have echoed Burghley's to his sonRobert Cecil.[25]John Dover Wilson thought it almost certain that the figure of Polonius caricatured Burghley.[26]A. L. Rowse speculated that Polonius's tedious verbosity might have resembled Burghley's.[27] Lilian Winstanley thought the name Corambis (in the First Quarto) did suggest Cecil and Burghley.[28]Harold Jenkins considers the idea of Polonius as a caricature of Burghley to be conjecture, perhaps based on the similar role they each played at court, and perhaps also based on the similarity between Burghley addressing hisTen Precepts to his son, and Polonius offering "precepts" to his son, Laertes.[29] Jenkins suggests that any personal satire may be found in the name "Polonius", which might point to a Polish or Polonian connection.[30] 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 atOxford University. (Robert Pullen, was the founder of Oxford University, andJohn Rainolds, was the President ofCorpus Christi College.)[31]
"Any dating ofHamlet must be tentative", states theNew Cambridge editor,Phillip Edwards. MacCary suggests 1599 or 1600;[32] James Shapiro offers late 1600 or early 1601;[33]Wells andTaylor suggest that the play was written in 1600 and revised later;[34] the New Cambridge editor settles on mid-1601;[35] the New Swan Shakespeare Advanced Series editor agrees with 1601;[36] Thompson and Taylor, tentatively ("according to whether one is the more persuaded by Jenkins or by Honigmann") suggest aterminus ad quem of either Spring 1601 or sometime in 1600.[37]
In 1598,Francis Meres published hisPalladis 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. AsHamlet was very popular, Bernard Lott, the series editor ofNew Swan, believes it "unlikely that he [Meres] would have overlooked ... so significant a piece".[36]
The phrase "little eyases"[40] in theFirst Folio (F1) may allude to theChildren of the Chapel, whose popularity in London forced the Globe company into provincial touring.[41] This became known as theWar of the Theatres, and supports a 1601 dating.[36]Katherine Duncan-Jones accepts a 1600–01 attribution for the dateHamlet was written, but notes that theLord Chamberlain's Men, playingHamlet in the 3000-capacityGlobe, 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 friendJohn Marston's very similar piece.[42]
A contemporary of Shakespeare's,Gabriel Harvey, wrote a marginal note in his copy of the 1598 edition ofChaucer's works, which some scholars use as dating evidence. Harvey's note says that "the wiser sort" enjoyHamlet, and implies thatthe 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 dateHamlet". This is because the same note also refers toSpenser andWatson as if they were still alive ("our flourishingmetricians"), but also mentions "Owen's new epigrams", published in 1607.[43]
Texts
Three early editions of the text, each different, have survived, making attempts to establish a single "authentic" text problematic.[44][45][46]
First Quarto (Q1): In 1603 the booksellersNicholas Ling and John Trundell published, andValentine Simmes printed, the so-called "bad" first quarto, under the nameThe 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[47] (most likely to avoid offendingJames I's queen,Anne of Denmark).[48]
This list does not include three additional early texts,John Smethwick's Q3, Q4, and Q5 (1611–37), which are regarded as reprints of Q2 with some alterations.[49]
Title page of the 1605 printing (Q2) ofHamletThe first page of theFirst Folio printing ofHamlet, 1623
Earlyeditors of Shakespeare's works, beginning withNicholas Rowe (1709) andLewis Theobald (1733), combined material from the two earliest sources ofHamlet 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,[50] and his "full text" approach continues to influence editorial practice to the present day. Some contemporary scholarship, however, discounts this approach, instead considering "an authenticHamlet an unrealisable ideal. ... there aretexts of this play but notext".[51] The 2006 publication by Arden Shakespeare of differentHamlet texts in different volumes is perhaps evidence of this shifting focus and emphasis.[a] 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 ofFrancis 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.[56]
Traditionally, editors of Shakespeare's plays have divided them into five acts. None of the early texts ofHamlet, 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[57] after which the action appears to continue uninterrupted.[58]
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 theBad Quarto, the Good Quarto and theFirst Folio
Q1 was discovered in 1823. Only two copies are extant. According to Jenkins, "The unauthorized nature of this quarto is matched by the corruption of its text."[59] 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)[60] 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."[61]
Q1 is considerably shorter than Q2 or F1 and may be amemorial reconstruction of the play as Shakespeare's company performed it, by an actor who played a minor role (most likely Marcellus).[62] 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.[55][63] 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.[64] Other productions have used the Q2 and Folio texts, but used Q1's running order, in particular moving theto be or not to be soliloquy earlier.[65] Developing this, some editors such asJonathan Bate have argued that Q2 may represent "a 'reading' text as opposed to a 'performance' one" ofHamlet: 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.[66][67]
From the early 17th century, the play was famous for its ghost and vivid dramatisation ofmelancholy andinsanity, leading to a procession of mad courtiers and ladies inJacobean andCaroline drama.[68][69] Though it remained popular with mass audiences, late 17th-centuryRestoration critics sawHamlet as primitive and disapproved of its lack ofunity anddecorum.[70][71] This view changed drastically in the 18th century, when critics regarded Hamlet as a hero—a pure, brilliant young man thrust into unfortunate circumstances.[72]
By the mid-18th century, however, the advent ofGothic literature broughtpsychological andmystical readings, returning madness and the ghost to the forefront.[73] 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.[74] These developments represented a fundamental change in literary criticism, which came to focus more on character and less on plot.[75] In the 18th century, one negative French review of Hamlet would be widely discussed for centuries, in particular in publications throughout the 19th and 20th century.[76][77][78][79][80][81][82] In 1768,Voltaire wrote a negative review ofHamlet, stating that "it is vulgar and barbarous drama, which would not be tolerated by the vilest populace of France or Italy... one would imagine this piece to be a work of a drunken savage",[83] while acknowledging that it contains "some sublime strokes worthy of the greatest genius".[84]
By the 19th century,Romantic critics valuedHamlet for its internal, individual conflict reflecting the strong contemporary emphasis on internal struggles and inner character in general.[85] Then too, critics started to focus on Hamlet's delay as a character trait, rather than a plot device.[75] This focus on character and internal struggle continued into the 20th century, when criticism branched in several directions, discussed incontext and interpretation below.
Dramatic structure
Modern editors have divided the play into five acts, and each act into scenes. The First Folio marks the first two acts only. The quartos do not have such divisions. The division into five acts followsSeneca, who in his plays, regularized the way ancient Greek tragedies contain five episodes, which are separated by four choral odes. InHamlet the development of the plot or the action are determined by the unfolding of Hamlet's character. The soliloquies do not interrupt the plot, instead they are highlights of each block of action. The plot is the developing revelation of Hamlet's view of what is "rotten in the state of Denmark." The action of the play is driven forward in dialogue; but in the soliloquies time and action stop, the meaning of action is questioned, fog of illusion is broached, and truths are exposed.
The contrast between appearance and reality is a significant theme. Hamlet is presented with an image, and then interprets its deeper or darker meaning. Examples begin with Hamlet questioning the reality of the ghost. It continues with Hamlet's taking on an "antic disposition" in order to appear mad, though he is not. The contrast (appearance and reality) is also expressed in several "spying scenes": Act two begins with Polonius sending Reynaldo to spy on his son, Laertes. Claudius and Polonius spy on Ophelia as she meets with Hamlet. In act two, Claudius asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet. Similarly, the play-within-a-play is used by Hamlet to reveal his step-father's hidden nature.
There is no subplot, but the play presents the affairs of the courtier Polonius, his daughter, Ophelia, and his son, Laertes—who variously deal with madness, love and the death of a father in ways that contrast with Hamlet's. The graveyard scene eases tension prior to the catastrophe, and, as Hamlet holds the skull, it is shown that Hamlet no longer fears damnation in the afterlife, and accepts that there is a "divinity that shapes our ends".[86]
Hamlet's enquiring mind has been open to all kinds of ideas, but in act five he has decided on a plan, and in a dialogue with Horatio he seems to answer his two earlier soliloquies on suicide: "We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows aught, what is't to leave betimes."[87][88]
Length
The First Quarto (1603) text ofHamlet contains 15,983 words, the Second Quarto (1604) contains 28,628 words, and the First Folio (1623) contains 27,602 words. Counting the number of lines varies between editions, partly because prose sections in the play may be formatted with varied lengths.[89] Editions ofHamlet that are created by conflating the texts of the Second Quarto and the Folio are said to have approximately 3,900 lines;[90] the number of lines varies between those editions based on formatting the prose sections, counting methods, and how the editors have joined the texts together.[91]Hamlet is by far the longest play that Shakespeare wrote, and one of the longest plays in theWestern canon. It might require more than four hours to stage;[92] a typical Elizabethan play would need two to three hours.[93] It is speculated that because of the considerable length of Q2 and F1, there was an expectation that those texts would be abridged for performance, or that Q2 and F1 may have been aimed at a reading audience.[94]
That Q1 is so much shorter than Q2 has spurred speculation that Q1 is an early draft, or perhaps an adaptation, a bootleg copy, or a stage adaptation. On the title page of Q2, its text is described as "newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was." That is probably a comparison to Q1.[89]
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 ofHamlet's language is courtly: elaborate, witty discourse, as recommended byBaldassare 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 theroyal first person plural ("we" or "us"), andanaphora mixed withmetaphor to resonate with Greek political speeches.[95]
Of all the characters, Hamlet has the greatest rhetorical skill. He uses highly developed metaphors,stichomythia, and in nine memorable words deploys both anaphora andasyndeton: "to die: to sleep— / To sleep, perchance to dream".[96] 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".[97] At times, he relies heavily onpuns to express his true thoughts while simultaneously concealing them.[98] Pauline Kiernan argues that Shakespeare changed English drama forever inHamlet 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",[99] which, she claims, is simultaneously a reference to a place of chastity and a slang term for a brothel, reflecting Hamlet's confused feelings about female sexuality.[100] However Harold Jenkins does not agree, having studied the few examples that are used to support that idea, and finds that there is no support for the assumption that "nunnery" was used that way in slang, or that Hamlet intended such a meaning. The context of the scene suggests that a nunnery would not be a brothel, but instead a place of renunciation and a "sanctuary from marriage and from the world's contamination".[101] Thompson and Taylor consider the brothel idea incorrect considering that "Hamlet is trying to deter Ophelia frombreeding".[102]
Hamlet's 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."[103]
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"[104] and "And I, of ladies mostdeject and wretched".[105] Many scholars have found it odd that Shakespeare would, seemingly arbitrarily, use this rhetorical form throughout the play. One explanation may be thatHamlet 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.[106]
Hamlet'ssoliloquies have 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.[107]
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 theEnglish Reformation, the play is alternatelyCatholic (or piously medieval) andProtestant (or consciously modern). The ghost describes himself as being inpurgatory and as dying withoutlast rites. This and Ophelia's burial ceremony, which is characteristically Catholic, make up most of the play's Catholic connections. Some scholars have observed thatrevenge tragedies come from Catholic countries such as 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.[108]
Much of the play's Protestant tones derive from its setting in Denmark—both then and now a predominantly Protestant country,[b] 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 ofWittenberg where Hamlet, Horatio, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attend university, implying where the ProtestantreformerMartin Luther nailed theNinety-five Theses to the church door in 1517.[109]
Philosophical
Philosophical ideas inHamlet are similar to those of the French writerMichel 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 asrelativist,existentialist, andsceptical. For example, he expresses a subjectivistic idea when he says to Rosencrantz: "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".[110] The idea that nothing is real except in the mind of the individual finds its roots in the GreekSophists, 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.[111] The clearest alleged instance of existentialism is in the "to be, or not to be"[112] 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 contemporaryscepticism promoted by the FrenchRenaissance humanistMichel de Montaigne.[113] Prior to Montaigne's time, humanists such asPico 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'sEssais 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.[114][115][113]
Sigmund Freud’s thoughts regardingHamlet were first published in his bookThe Interpretation of Dreams (1899), as a footnote to a discussion ofSophocles’ 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 ofHamlet have used Freud's ideas to support their own interpretations.[116][117] InThe 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".[118]
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."[118]
These ideas, which became a cornerstone of Freud's psychological theories, he named the "Oedipus complex", and, at one point, he considered calling it the "Hamlet complex".[119] Freud considered thatHamlet "is rooted in the same soil asOedipus Rex." But the difference in the "psychic life" of the two civilizations that produced each play, and the progress made over time of "repression in the emotional life of humanity" can be seen in the way the same material is handled by the two playwrights: InOedipus Rex incest and murder are brought into the light as might occur in a dream, but inHamlet these impulses "remain repressed" and we learn of their existence through Hamlet's inhibitions to act out the revenge, while he is shown to be capable of acting decisively and boldly in other contexts. Freud asserts, "The play is based on Hamlet’s hesitation in accomplishing the task of revenge assigned to him; the text does not give the cause or the motive of this." The conflict is "deeply hidden".[120]
Hamlet is able to perform any kind of action except taking revenge on the man who murdered his father and has taken his father's place with his mother—Claudius has led Hamlet to realize the repressed desires of his own childhood. The loathing which was supposed to drive him to revenge is replaced by "self-reproach, by conscientious scruples" which tell him "he himself is no better than the murderer whom he is required to punish".[121] Freud suggests that Hamlet's sexual aversion expressed in his "nunnery" conversation with Ophelia supports the idea that Hamlet is "an hysterical subject".[121][122]
Freud suggests that the character Hamlet goes through an experience that has three characteristics, which he numbered: 1) "the hero is not psychopathic, but becomes so" during the course of the play. 2) "the repressed desire is one of those that are similarly repressed in all of us." It is a repression that "belongs to an early stage of our individual development". The audience identifies with the character of Hamlet, because "we are victims of the same conflict." 3) It is the nature of theatre that "the struggle of the repressed impulse to become conscious" occurs in both the hero onstage and the spectator, when they are in the grip of their emotions, "in the manner seen in psychoanalytic treatment".[123]
Freud points out thatHamlet is an exception in that psychopathic characters are usually ineffective in stage plays; they "become as useless for the stage as they are for life itself", because they do not inspire insight or empathy, unless the audience is familiar with the character's inner conflict. Freud says, "It is thus the task of the dramatist to transport us into the same illness."[124]
John Barrymore's long-running 1922 performance inNew York, directed by Thomas Hopkins, "broke new ground in its Freudian approach to character", in keeping with the post-World War I rebellion against everything Victorian.[125] He had a "blunter intention" than presenting the genteel, sweet prince of 19th-century tradition, imbuing his character with virility and lust.[126]
Beginning in 1910, with the publication of "The Œdipus-Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery: A Study in Motive"[127]Ernest Jones—a psychoanalyst and Freud's biographer—developed Freud's ideas into a series of essays that culminated in his bookHamlet and Oedipus (1949). Influenced by Jones's psychoanalytic approach, several productions have portrayed the "closet scene", where Hamlet confronts his mother in her private quarters, in a sexual light.[128] In this reading, Hamlet is disgusted by his mother's "incestuous" relationship with Claudius while simultaneously fearful of killing him, as this would clear Hamlet's path to his mother's bed. Ophelia's madness after her father's death may also be read through the Freudian lens: as a reaction to the death of her hoped-for lover, her father. Ophelia is overwhelmed by having her unfulfilled love for him so abruptly terminated and drifts into the oblivion of insanity.[129][130] In 1937,Tyrone Guthrie directedLaurence Olivier in a Jones-inspiredHamlet atThe Old Vic.[131] Olivier later used some of these same ideas in his 1948 film version of the play.
In theBloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages volume on Hamlet, editors Bloom and Foster express a conviction that the intentions of Shakespeare in portraying the character of Hamlet in the play exceeded the capacity of the Freudian Oedipus complex to completely encompass the extent of characteristics depicted in Hamlet throughout the tragedy: "For once, Freud regressed in attempting to fasten the Oedipus Complex upon Hamlet: it will not stick, and merely showed that Freud did better than T.S. Eliot, who preferredCoriolanus toHamlet, or so he said. Who can believe Eliot, when he exposes his own Hamlet Complex by declaring the play to be an aesthetic failure?"[132] The book also notes James Joyce's interpretation, stating that he "did far better in the Library Scene ofUlysses, where Stephen marvellously credits Shakespeare, in this play, with universal fatherhood while accurately implying that Hamlet is fatherless, thus opening a pragmatic gap between Shakespeare and Hamlet."[132]
Joshua Rothman has written inThe New Yorker that "we tell the story wrong when we say that Freud used the idea of the Oedipus complex to understandHamlet". Rothman suggests that "it was the other way around:Hamlet helped Freud understand, and perhaps even invent, psychoanalysis". He concludes, "The Oedipus complex is a misnomer. It should be called the 'Hamlet complex'."[133]
Jacques Lacan
In the 1950s, the French psychoanalystJacques Lacan analyzedHamlet to illustrate some of his concepts. Hisstructuralist theories aboutHamlet were first presented in a series ofseminars given in Paris and later published in "Desire and the Interpretation of Desire inHamlet". Lacan postulated that the humanpsyche is determined by structures of language and that the linguistic structures ofHamlet shed light on human desire.[134] His point of departure is Freud's Oedipal theories, and the central theme of mourning that runs throughHamlet.[135] In Lacan's analysis, Hamlet unconsciously assumes the role ofphallus—the cause of his inaction—and is increasingly distanced from reality "by mourning,fantasy,narcissism andpsychosis", which create holes (orlack) in the real, imaginary, and symbolic aspects of his psyche.[134] Lacan's theories influenced some subsequent literary criticism ofHamlet because of his alternative vision of the play and his use ofsemantics to explore the play's psychological landscape.[134]
Feminist
Ophelia is distracted by grief.[136] Feminist critics have explored her descent into madness (artist: Henrietta Rae 1890).
In the 20th century,feminist critics opened up new approaches to Gertrude and Ophelia.New historicist andcultural materialist critics examined the play in its historical context, attempting to piece together its original cultural environment.[137] They focused on thegender system ofearly modern England, pointing to the common trinity ofmaid, wife, or widow, withwhores outside of that stereotype. In this analysis, the essence ofHamlet is the central character's changed perception of his mother as a whore because of her failure to remain faithful to Old Hamlet. In consequence, Hamlet loses his faith in all women, treating Ophelia as if she too were a whore and dishonest with Hamlet.[138]
Carolyn Heilbrun's 1957 essay "The Character of Hamlet's Mother" defends Gertrude, arguing that the text never hints that Gertrude knew of Claudius poisoning King Hamlet. This analysis has been praised by many feminist critics, combating what is, by Heilbrun's argument, centuries' worth of misinterpretation. By this account, Gertrude's worst crime is of pragmatically marrying her brother-in-law in order to avoid a power vacuum. This is borne out by the fact that King Hamlet's ghost tells Hamlet to leave Gertrude out of Hamlet's revenge, to leave her to heaven, an arbitrary mercy to grant to a conspirator to murder.[139][140][141]
Ophelia has also been defended by feminist critics, most notablyElaine Showalter.[142] Ophelia is surrounded by powerful men: her father, brother, and Hamlet. All three disappear: Laertes leaves, Hamlet abandons her, and Polonius dies. Conventional theories had argued that without these three powerful men making decisions for her, Ophelia is driven into madness.[143] Feminist theorists argue that she goes mad with guilt because, when Hamlet kills her father, he has fulfilled her sexual desire to have Hamlet kill her father so they can be together. Showalter points out that Ophelia has become the symbol of the distraught and hysterical woman in modern culture.[144]
Hamlet is one of themost quoted works in the English language, and is often included on lists of the world's greatest literature.[c] As such, it reverberates through the writing of later centuries. Academic Laurie Osborne identifies the direct influence ofHamlet in numerous modern narratives, and divides them into four main categories: fictional accounts of the play's composition, simplifications of the story for young readers, stories expanding the role of one or more characters, and narratives featuring performances of the play.[146]
English poetJohn Milton was an early admirer of Shakespeare and took evident inspiration from his work. As John Kerrigan discusses, Milton originally considered writing his epic poemParadise Lost (1667) as a tragedy.[147] While Milton did not ultimately go that route, the poem still shows distinct echoes of Shakespearean revenge tragedy, and ofHamlet in particular. As scholar Christopher N. Warren argues,Paradise Lost's Satan "undergoes a transformation in the poem from a Hamlet-like avenger into a Claudius-like usurper," a plot device that supports Milton's largerRepublican internationalist project.[148] The poem also reworks theatrical language fromHamlet, especially around the idea of "putting on" certain dispositions, as when Hamlet puts on "an antic disposition," similarly to the Son inParadise Lost who "can put on / [God's] terrors."[149]
Henry Fielding'sTom Jones, published about 1749, describes a visit toHamlet by Tom Jones and Mr Partridge, with similarities to the "play within a play".[150] In contrast,Goethe'sBildungsromanWilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, written between 1776 and 1796, not only has a production ofHamlet at its core but also creates parallels between the ghost and Wilhelm Meister's dead father.[150] In the early 1850s, inPierre,Herman Melville focuses on a Hamlet-like character's long development as a writer.[150] Ten years later,Dickens'sGreat Expectations contains manyHamlet-like plot elements: it is driven by revenge-motivated actions, contains ghost-like characters (Abel Magwitch andMiss Havisham), and focuses on the hero's guilt.[150] Academic Alexander Welsh notes thatGreat Expectations is an "autobiographical novel" and "anticipates psychoanalytic readings ofHamlet itself".[151] About the same time,George Eliot'sThe Mill on the Floss was published, introducing Maggie Tulliver "who is explicitly compared with Hamlet"[152] though "with a reputation for sanity".[153]
In the 1920s,James Joyce managed "a more upbeat version" ofHamlet—stripped of obsession and revenge—inUlysses, though its main parallels are withHomer'sOdyssey.[150] In the 1990s, two novelists were explicitly influenced byHamlet. InAngela Carter'sWise Children,To be or not to be is reworked as a song and dance routine, andIris Murdoch'sThe Black Prince has Oedipal themes and murder intertwined with a love affair between aHamlet-obsessed writer, Bradley Pearson, and the daughter of his rival.[152] In the late 20th century,David Foster Wallace's novelInfinite Jest draws heavily fromHamlet and takes its title from the play's text.
There is the story of the woman who readHamlet for the first time and said, "I don't see why people admire that play so. It is nothing but a bunch of quotations strung together."
The day we seeHamlet die in the theatre, something of him dies for us. He is dethroned by the spectre of an actor, and we shall never be able to keep the usurper out of our dreams.
Shakespeare almost certainly wrote the role of Hamlet forRichard Burbage. He was the chief tragedian of theLord Chamberlain's Men, with a capacious memory for lines and a wide emotional range.[155][156][d] Judging by the number of reprints,Hamlet appears to have been Shakespeare's fourth most popular play during his lifetime—onlyHenry IV Part 1,Richard III andPericles eclipsed it.[160] Shakespeare provides no clear indication of when his play is set; however, as Elizabethan actors performed at theGlobe in contemporary dress on minimal sets, this would not have affected the staging.[161]
Firm evidence for specific early performances of the play is scant. It is sometimes argued that the crew of the shipRed Dragon, anchored offSierra Leone, performedHamlet in September 1607;[162][163][164] however, this claim is based on a 19th-century insert of a 'lost' passage into a period document, and is today widely regarded as a hoax, likely to have been perpetrated byJohn Payne Collier.[165] More credible is that the play toured in Germany within five years of Shakespeare's death,[164] and that it was performed beforeJames I in 1619 andCharles I in 1637.[166] Oxford editor George Hibbard argues that, since the contemporary literature contains many allusions and references toHamlet (onlyFalstaff is mentioned more, from Shakespeare), the play was surely performed with a frequency that the historical record misses.[167]
All theatres were closed down by thePuritan government during theInterregnum.[168] Even during this time, however, playlets known asdrolls were often performed illegally, including one calledThe Grave-Makers based on act 5, scene 1 ofHamlet.[169]
Restoration and 18th century
Title page and frontispiece forHamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Tragedy. As it is now acted at the Theatres-Royal in Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden. London, 1776
The play was revived early in theRestoration. When the existing stock of pre-civil war plays was divided between the two newly createdpatent theatre companies,Hamlet was the only Shakespearean favourite thatSir William Davenant'sDuke's Company secured.[170] It became the first of Shakespeare's plays to be presented with movableflats painted with generic scenery behind theproscenium arch ofLincoln's Inn Fields Theatre.[e] This new stage convention highlighted the frequency with which Shakespeare shifts dramatic location, encouraging the recurrent criticism of his failure to maintainunity of place.[172] In the title role, Davenant castThomas Betterton, who continued to play the Dane until he was 74.[173]David Garrick atDrury Lane produced a version that adapted Shakespeare heavily; he declared: "I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick, Osrick, & the fencing match".[f] The first actor known to have played Hamlet in North America is Lewis Hallam Jr., in theAmerican Company's production in Philadelphia in 1759.[175]
David Garrick expresses Hamlet's shock at his first sighting of the ghost (artist: unknown).
John Philip Kemble made his Drury Lane debut as Hamlet in 1783.[176] His performance was said to be 20 minutes longer than anyone else's, and his lengthy pauses provoked the suggestion byRichard Brinsley Sheridan that "music should be played between the words".[177]Sarah Siddons was the first actress known to play Hamlet; many women have since played him as abreeches role, to great acclaim.[178] In 1748,Alexander Sumarokov wrote a Russian adaptation that focused on Prince Hamlet as the embodiment of an opposition to Claudius's tyranny—a treatment that would recur in Eastern European versions into the 20th century.[179] In the years following America's independence,Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, the young nation's leading tragedian, performedHamlet among other plays at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and at thePark Theatre in New York. Although chided for "acknowledging acquaintances in the audience" and "inadequate memorisation of his lines", he became a national celebrity.[180]
From around 1810 to 1840, the best-known Shakespearean performances in the United States were tours by leading London actors—includingGeorge Frederick Cooke,Junius Brutus Booth,Edmund Kean,William Charles Macready, andCharles Kemble. Of these, Booth remained to make his career in the States, fathering the nation's most notorious actor,John Wilkes Booth (who later assassinatedAbraham Lincoln), and its most famous Hamlet,Edwin Booth.[181] Edwin Booth'sHamlet at theFifth Avenue Theatre in 1875 was described as "... the dark, sad, dreamy, mysterious hero of a poem. [... acted] in an ideal manner, as far removed as possible from the plane of actual life".[182][183] Booth played Hamlet for 100 nights in the 1864/5 season at theWinter Garden Theatre, inaugurating the era of long-run Shakespeare in America.[183]
In the United Kingdom, the actor-managers of theVictorian era (including Kean,Samuel Phelps, Macready, andHenry Irving) staged Shakespeare in a grand manner, with elaborate scenery and costumes.[184] The tendency of actor-managers to emphasise the importance of their own central character did not always meet with the critics' approval.George Bernard Shaw's praise forJohnston Forbes-Robertson's performance contains a sideswipe at Irving: "The story of the play was perfectly intelligible, and quite took the attention of the audience off the principal actor at moments. What is theLyceum coming to?"[g]
In London, Edmund Kean was the first Hamlet to abandon the regal finery usually associated with the role in favour of a plain costume, and he is said to have surprised his audience by playing Hamlet as serious and introspective.[186] In stark contrast to earlier opulence,William Poel's 1881 production of the Q1 text was an early attempt at reconstructing the Elizabethan theatre's austerity; his only backdrop was a set of red curtains.[48][187]Sarah Bernhardt played the prince in her popular 1899 London production. In contrast to the "effeminate" view of the central character that usually accompanied a female casting, she described her character as "manly and resolute, but nonetheless thoughtful ... [he] thinks before he acts, a trait indicative of great strength and great spiritual power".[h]
In France, Charles Kemble initiated an enthusiasm for Shakespeare; and leading members of the Romantic movement such asVictor Hugo andAlexandre Dumas saw his 1827 Paris performance ofHamlet, particularly admiring the madness ofHarriet Smithson's Ophelia.[189] In Germany,Hamlet had become so assimilated by the mid-19th century thatFerdinand Freiligrath declared that "Germany is Hamlet".[190] From the 1850s, theParsi theatre tradition in India transformedHamlet into folk performances, with dozens of songs added.[191]
20th century
Apart from some western troupes' 19th-century visits, the first professional performance of Hamlet in Japan wasOtojirō Kawakami's 1903Shinpa ("new school theatre") adaptation.[192]Tsubouchi Shōyō translatedHamlet and produced a performance in 1911 that blendedShingeki ("new drama") andKabuki styles.[192] This hybrid-genre reached its peak inTsuneari Fukuda's 1955Hamlet.[192] In 1998,Yukio Ninagawa produced an acclaimed version ofHamlet in the style ofNō theatre, which he took to London.[193]
Konstantin Stanislavski andEdward Gordon Craig—two of the 20th century's most influentialtheatre practitioners—collaborated on theMoscow Art Theatre's seminalproduction of 1911–12.[i] While Craig favoured stylised abstraction, Stanislavski, armed with his'system,' explored psychological motivation.[195] Craig conceived of the play as asymbolistmonodrama, offering a dream-like vision as seen through Hamlet's eyes alone.[j] This was most evident in the staging of the first court scene.[199][k] The most famous aspect of the production is Craig's use of large, abstract screens that altered the size and shape of the acting area for each scene, representing the character's state of mind spatially or visualising adramaturgical progression.[201] The production attracted enthusiastic and unprecedented worldwide attention for the theatre and placed it "on the cultural map for Western Europe".[202][203]
The first modern dress stagings ofHamlet happened in 1925 in London and then New York. Barry Jackson'sBirmingham Repertory Theatre opened their production, directed by H.K. Ayliff at the Kingsway Theatre on August 25, 1925.[204] Ivor Brown reported, "Many of the first night audience came to scoff and remained to hold its breath, to marvel and enjoy. . . .Shakespeare's victory over time and tailoring was swift and sweeping."[205] Horace Brisbin Liveright's modern dress production opened at the Booth Theater in New York on November 9, 1925, the same night that the London production moved to Birmingham. It was known "more dryly, and perhaps with a touch of something more sinister, as 'the plain-clothesHamlet'" and did not reach the same level of success.[204]
Hamlet is often played with contemporary political overtones.Leopold Jessner's 1926 production at the Berlin Staatstheater portrayed Claudius's court as a parody of the corrupt and fawning court ofKaiser Wilhelm.[206] InPoland, the number of productions ofHamlet has tended to increase at times of political unrest, since its political themes (suspected crimes, coups, surveillance) can be used to comment on a contemporary situation.[207] Similarly,Czech directors have used the play at times of occupation: a 1941Vinohrady Theatre production "emphasised, with due caution, the helpless situation of an intellectual attempting to endure in a ruthless environment".[208][209] In China, performances of Hamlet often have political significance: Gu Wuwei's 1916The Usurper of State Power, an amalgam ofHamlet andMacbeth, was an attack onYuan Shikai's attempt to overthrow the republic.[210] In 1942,Jiao Juyin directed the play in aConfucian temple inSichuan Province, to which the government had retreated from the advancing Japanese.[210] In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of theprotests atTiananmen Square, Lin Zhaohua staged a 1990Hamlet in which the prince was an ordinary individual tortured by a loss of meaning. In this production, the actors playing Hamlet, Claudius and Polonius exchanged roles at crucial moments in the performance, including the moment of Claudius's death, at which point the actor mainly associated with Hamlet fell to the ground.[211]
Notable stagings in London and New York include Barrymore's 1925 production at theHaymarket; it influenced subsequent performances byJohn Gielgud andLaurence Olivier.[212][213] Gielgud played the central role many times: his 1936 New York production ran for 132 performances, leading to the accolade that he was "the finest interpreter of the role since Barrymore".[214] Although "posterity has treatedMaurice Evans less kindly", throughout the 1930s and 1940s he was regarded by many as the leading interpreter of Shakespeare in the United States and in the 1938/39 season he presentedBroadway's first uncutHamlet, running four and a half hours.[215] Evans later performed a highly truncated version of the play that he played for South Pacific war zones during World War II which made the prince a more decisive character. The staging, known as the "G.I. Hamlet", was produced on Broadway for 131 performances in 1945/46.[216] Olivier's 1937 performance at The Old Vic was popular with audiences but not with critics, withJames Agate writing in a famous review inThe Sunday Times, "Mr. Olivier does not speak poetry badly. He does not speak it at all."[217] In 1937Tyrone Guthrie directed the play at Elsinore, Denmark, with Laurence Olivier as Hamlet and Vivien Leigh as Ophelia.
Richard Burton received his third Tony Award nomination when he played his second Hamlet, his first under John Gielgud's direction, in 1964 in a production that holds the record for the longest run of the play in Broadway history (137 performances).In 1968,Joseph Papp staged atThe Public Theater what became known as"Naked" Hamlet because the text was stripped down. It starredMartin Sheen as Hamlet, and Sheen delivered the monologues either in Spanish or with a Spanish accent, as Hamlet's alter-ego, a Puerto Rican janitor named Ramon.[220]
Ian Charleson performed Hamlet from 9 October to 13 November 1989, inRichard Eyre's production at theOlivier Theatre, replacingDaniel Day-Lewis, who had abandoned the production. Seriously ill fromAIDS at the time, Charleson died eight weeks after his last performance. Fellow actor and friend,Sir Ian McKellen, said that Charleson played Hamlet so well it was as if he had rehearsed the role all his life; McKellen called it "the perfect Hamlet".[225][226] The performance garnered other major accolades as well, some critics echoing McKellen in calling it the definitive Hamlet performance.[227]
In May 2009,Hamlet opened withJude Law in the title role at theDonmar Warehouse West End season atWyndham's Theatre. The production officially opened on 3 June and ran through 22 August 2009.[233][234] A further production with Jude Law ran atElsinore Castle in Denmark from 25 to 30 August 2009,[235] and then moved to Broadway, and ran for 12 weeks at theBroadhurst Theatre in New York.[236][237]
In October 2011, a production starringMichael Sheen opened at theYoung Vic, in which the play was set inside a psychiatric hospital.[238]
TheGlobe Theatre of London initiated a project in 2014 to performHamlet in every country in the world in the space of two years. TitledGlobe to Globe Hamlet, it began its tour on 23 April 2014, the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, and performed in 197 countries.[241]
Benedict Cumberbatch played the role for a 12-week run in a production at theBarbican Theatre, opening on 25 August 2015. It was called the "most in-demand theatre production of all time" and sold out in seven hours after tickets went on sale 11 August 2014, more than a year before the play opened.[242][243]
An early film version ofHamlet isSarah Bernhardt's five-minute film of the fencing scene,[249] which was produced in 1900. The film was an early attempt at combiningsound and film; music and words were recorded on phonograph records, to be played along with the film.[250] Silent versions were released in 1907, 1908, 1910, 1913, 1917, and 1920.[251] In the 1921 filmHamlet, Danish actressAsta Nielsen played the role of Hamlet as a woman who spends her life disguised as a man.[250]
In 1953, actorJack Manning performed the play in 15-minute segments over two weeks in the short-lived late nightDuMont seriesMonodrama Theater.New York Times TV critic Jack Gould praised Manning's performance as Hamlet.[253]
John Gielgud directedRichard Burton in aBroadway production at theLunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1964–65, the longest-runningHamlet in the U.S. to date. A live film of the production was produced using "Electronovision", a method of recording a live performance with multiple video cameras and converting the image to film.[255] Eileen Herlie repeated her role from Olivier's film version as the Queen, and the voice of Gielgud was heard as the ghost. The Gielgud/Burton production was also recorded complete and released on LP byColumbia Masterworks.
Kenneth Branagh adapted, directed, and starred in a 1996 film version ofHamlet that contained material from the First Folio and the Second Quarto. Branagh'sHamlet was the first unabridged theatrical film adaptation of the play and has a runtime of 242 minutes (just over four hours).[258][259] Branagh set the film with late 19th-century costuming and furnishings, a production in many ways reminiscent of a Russian novel of the time,[260] andBlenheim Palace, built in the early 18th century, became Elsinore Castle in the external scenes. The film is structured as anepic and makes frequent use offlashbacks to highlight elements not made explicit in the play: Hamlet's sexual relationship withKate Winslet's Ophelia, for example, or his childhood affection for Yorick (played byKen Dodd).[261]
In 2000,Michael Almereyda'sHamlet set the story in contemporaryManhattan, withEthan Hawke playing Hamlet as a film student. Claudius (played byKyle MacLachlan) became the CEO of "Denmark Corporation", having taken over the company by killing his brother.[262]
In 2025, the Tribeca Film festival hosted at the Public Theatre the world premiere of a completely audio production of the play by Make-Believe Association with Daniel Kyri in the title role.[264] Using Shakespeare's text, it brought listeners into Hamlet's mind to hear only what he heard; it continues as a six-part podcast.[265][266]
This section is limited to derivative works written for the stage.
Tom Stoppard's 1966 playRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead retells many of the events of the story from the point of view of the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and gives them a backstory of their own. Several times since 1995, theAmerican Shakespeare Center has mounted repertories that included bothHamlet andRosencrantz and Guildenstern, with the same actors performing the same roles in each.[267]
W. S. Gilbert wrote a short comic play titledRosencrantz and Guildenstern, in which Hamlet's play is presented as a tragedy written by Claudius in his youth of which he is greatly embarrassed. Through the chaos triggered by Hamlet's staging of it, Guildenstern helps Rosencrantz vie with Hamlet to make Ophelia his bride.[268]
Lee Blessing'sFortinbras is a comical sequel toHamlet in which all the deceased characters come back as ghosts.The New York Times said it is "scarcely more than an extended comedy sketch, lacking the portent and linguistic complexity of Tom Stoppard'sRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.Fortinbras operates on a far less ambitious plane, but it is a ripping yarn and offers Keith Reddin a role in which he can commit comic mayhem".[269]
Caridad Svich's12 Ophelias (a play with broken songs) includes elements of the story ofHamlet but focuses on Ophelia. In Svich's play, Ophelia is resurrected and rises from a pool of water, after her death inHamlet. The play is a series of scenes and songs, and was first staged at a public swimming pool in Brooklyn.[270]
David Davalos'sWittenberg is a "tragical-comical-historical" prequel toHamlet that depicts the Danish prince as a student at Wittenberg University (now known as theUniversity of Halle-Wittenberg), where he is torn between the conflicting teachings of his mentorsJohn Faustus andMartin Luther.The New York Times reviewed the play, saying, "Mr. Davalos has molded a daft campus comedy out of this unlikely convergence",[271] andNytheatre.com's review said the playwright "has imagined a fascinating alternate reality, and quite possibly, given the fictional Hamlet a back story that will inform the role for the future."[272]
Mad Boy Chronicle by Canadian playwright Michael O'Brien is a dark comedy loosely based onHamlet, set inViking Denmark in 999 AD.[273]
^TheArden Shakespeare third series published Q2, with appendices, in their first volume,[52] and the F1 and Q1 texts in their second volume.[53] TheRSC Shakespeare is the F1 text with additional Q2 passages in an appendix.[54] TheNew Cambridge Shakespeare series has begun to publish separate volumes for the separate quarto versions that exist of Shakespeare's plays.[55]
^Hattaway asserts that "Richard Burbage ... played Hieronimo and also Richard III but then was the first Hamlet, Lear, and Othello"[157] and Thomson argues that the identity of Hamlet as Burbage is built into thedramaturgy of several moments of the play: "we will profoundly misjudge the position if we do not recognise that, whilst this is Hamlet talkingabout the groundlings, it is also Burbage talkingto the groundlings".[158] See also Thomson on the first player's beard.[159]
^Samuel Pepys records his delight at the novelty ofHamlet "done with scenes".[171]
^Letter to Sir William Young, 10 January 1773, quoted by Uglow.[174]
^For more on this production, see theMAT production ofHamlet article. Craig andStanislavski began planning the production in 1908 but, due to a serious illness of Stanislavski's, it was delayed until December 1911.[194]
^On Craig's relationship toSymbolism,Russian symbolism, and its principles ofmonodrama in particular, see Taxidou;[196] on Craig's staging proposals, see Innes;[197] on the centrality of the protagonist and his mirroring of the 'authorial self', see Taxidou[198] and Innes.[197]
^A brightly lit, golden pyramid descended from Claudius's throne, representing thefeudal hierarchy, giving the illusion of a single, unified mass of bodies. In the dark, shadowy foreground, separated by agauze, Hamlet lay, as if dreaming. On Claudius's exit-line the figures remained but the gauze was loosened, so that they appeared to melt away as if Hamlet's thoughts had turned elsewhere. For this effect, the scene received anovation, which was unheard of at theMAT.[200]
References
All references toHamlet, unless otherwise specified, are taken from theArden Shakespeare Q2.[52] Under their referencing system, 3.1.55 means act 3, scene 1, line 55. References to the First Quarto andFirst Folio are markedHamlet Q1 andHamlet F1, respectively, and are taken from the Arden ShakespeareHamlet: the texts of 1603 and 1623.[53] Their referencing system for Q1 has no act breaks, so 7.115 means scene 7, line 115.
Britton, Celia (1995). "Structuralist and poststructuralist psychoanalytic and Marxist theories". In Seldon, Raman (ed.).From Formalism to Poststructuralism. Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. 8. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-30013-1.
Brode, Douglas (2001).Shakespeare in the Movies: From the Silent Era to Today. New York: Berkley Boulevard Books.ISBN0-425-18176-6.
Cotsell, Michael (2005).The Theater of Trauma: American modernist drama and the psychological struggle for the American Mind. New York:Peter Lang.ISBN978-0-8204-7466-3.
Crowl, Samuel. "Flamboyant Realist: Kenneth Branagh". InJackson (2000), pp. 222–240.
Davies, Anthony. "The Shakespeare films of Laurence Olivier". InJackson (2000), pp. 163–182.
Davison, Richard Allan (1999). "The Readiness Was All: Ian Charleson and Richard Eyre'sHamlet". In Potter, Lois; Kinney, Arthur F. (eds.).Shakespeare, Text and Theater: Essays in Honor of Jay L. Halio. Newark:University of Delaware Press.ISBN978-0-87413-699-9.
Holland, Peter (2007). "Shakespeare Abbreviated". In Shaughnessy, Robert (ed.).The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-60580-9.
Hortmann, Wilhelm. "Shakespeare on the Political Stage in the Twentieth Century". InWells & Stanton (2002), pp. 212–229.
Winstanley, Lilian (1977) [1921].Hamlet and the Scottish succession, Being an Examination of the Relations of the Play ofHamlet to the Scottish Succession and the Essex Conspiracy. Philadelphia: R. West.ISBN0-8492-2912-X.
Wofford, Susanne L. (1994). "A Critical History of Hamlet".Hamlet: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Boston:Bedford Books. pp. 181–207.ISBN0-312-08986-4.
The full text ofHamlet at Wikisource, in multiple editions
HamletArchived 7 April 2018 at theWayback Machine Complete text on one page with definitions of difficult words and explanations of difficult passages.
