drama

The Folger Library series are your best Shakespeare source. They specialize in Shakespeares' greatest plays and are quality books that are perfect companion and translator to Shakespeare. It is loaded with page after page of translation from the Old English expressions that are no longer in use to our modern talk, and pictures as well as historic background information on th Elizabethan era and Shakespeares' life. Hamlet is without question Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, remaining in our theatrical culture to this very day. It has become a conversation piece for English professors, dramatists and screen actors (Mel Gibson tackled the role in 1991) and even psychologists, who claim that Hamlet had the Oedipal complex, especially when they read the scene in which Hamlet is in his mother's bedroom. What makes Hamlet so great ? Why does this old play still come alive when performed on the stage in the hands of the right actors ?

Shakespeare, believe it or not, was a people's person and knew about the human condition perhaps more than anyone in his day. Hamlet deals principally with obscession for revenge. Hamlet is a prince whose father has been murdered under the evil conspiracy from his uncle Claudius and even the support of his mother, Queen Gertrude. Depressed, wearing black all the time, and very much as solitary as any "Goth" would be in our day, Hamlet laments his situation, until his father's ghost appears and urges him to avenge his death. The mystery still remains, is this ghost real ? Is it, as many in Elizabetheans thought, a demon in disguise ? Or is it simply a figment of Hamlet's own emotions and desire for revenge. At any rate, Hamlet's father appears twice and Hamlet spends most of the play planning his revenge. His most striking line that reveals this consuming need is "The play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!".

Pretending to be mad, he scorns even the love of the woman he genuinely loves, Ophelia, whose mind is shattered and heart is broken and who has an impressive mad scene. The deaths of Hamlet's friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are also in Hamle'ts hands and a consequence of his revenge. The famous soliloquy in the play, is of course, "To be or not to be", taken on by such great actors as Lawrence Olivier and Orson Welles. Hamlet muses on the brevity of life and the suffering which can only cease through death, as he holds a skull and is evidently suicidal. Finally, the last scenes are the most dramatic. Hamlet duels with Laertes, Ophelia's brother, and with Claudius himself. The deaths of the main cast, including the Queen, goes to show how tragic the human desire for greed and revenge is.

This is Shakespeare's finest tragedy, and quality drama, best seen in a live stage performance, but that also works as a film. As for this book, as I said before, this is the Hamlet to have. You will become more acquianted with Hamlet and Shakespeare even more than taking a year's course with a teacher. This book itself is the teacher.

Hamlet is considered, by many scholars, the pinnacle of Shakespeare's dramas. If you haven't read it yet this this Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism edition would be a great place to begin.

The text notes that are included with the play are very helpful to understand some of the more difficult language nuances that are inevitable with any Shakespeare. The structure is well laid out and conclusive. It complements the complexity of Hamlet very well.

Of course Hamlet is one of the great paradoxes and mysteries every written. The search of finding yourself and what it is that fuels the human spirit. Hamlet can be a very confusing play because of the depth of substance. However, the critical essays that suppliment the reading make it very accessable.

Each of the critical essays are of different schools of literary criticism: Feminist Criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, post-structuralist (deconstuctionist) criticism, Marxist critism, and finally a New Historicist criticism. Before each critism there is clearly written introduction to explain the motives and histories of that type of criticism.

This edition of Hamlet will not only introduce the reader to more Shakespeare, but also explain the play and help to familiarize the reader with literary criticism too. It is a beautiful volume that cannot be more recommended if you are wanting to buy a copy Hamlet.

The sheer magnitude and dramatic measure of Shakespeare is never to be missed -- but it can be a challenge tackling the linguistics of sixteenth century English, especially text from the original Folio published by Applause.

For those (like me) who need a leg up, the Durband (Editor) additions of Shakespeare's work are an invaluable help. For the ambitious reader, an additional resource in cracking the code of 16th century grammar comes in the form of Adamson, Hunter, Magnusson, Thomposon, & Wales's "Reading Shakespeare's Dramatic Language, A guide." Finally, an invaluable guild to understanding not only Shakespeare but also any dramatic structure comes from David Ball's "Backwards and Forwards, A Technical Manual for Reading Plays." With all these resources firmly in hand, I chased Shakespeare, and managed, in some sense, to tackle "Hamlet," the first Shakespeare play I had ever read . . .

So what's the play about -- other than ~3-4 hours of live performance? This question actually decomposes (like Polonius: "if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby", 4.3 (Act 4, Scene 3) into 3 questions: what's does the play "mean," what's its "theme," and what's the play "about?"

I've actually no idea what it means, and I'm not sure I understand what is meant by 'what does it mean?' so I'll let that go . . .
What are it's themes? That's easy: revenge, parental fealty, trust. Most helpful is the last question: what's the play about? I've read that constraints on the answer to this question are: it should be short, 1-2 sentences, and if you were telling it to someone who knows little about the play, it should 'draw the person in: make them want to know more,' so here goes:

Hamlet is a play about a son who pretends to lose his mind while attempting to avenge the perfect murder of his father, and he loses his own life in the process.

This isn't particularly poetic, but it does capture the basic main plot line, and it's underscores the tragic nature of Hamlet. The murder of Hamlet's father is perfect: it's takes a supernatural event to uncover the murder, i.e., the ghost of his father has to come back and tell Hamlet what happened. These are the two main events that drive the plot: the murder is perfect, and Hamlet chooses to take up the task of avenging his father with absolutely not one shred, not one bit, of evidence that Claudius killed King Hamlet.

And this is just how the play reads, how it looks to the audience: If you didn't know the story, the earliest point you might believe that the ghost really was telling the truth is Claudius' line #59, 3.1: "How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!" And what exactly is he feeling so guilty about anyway? It is unclear, not explicitly stated (e.g., it could be guilt for marrying Hamlet's mother so quickly, which is what Hamlet is initially bummed out and angry about, and justifying the quick marriage is in part what Claudius' initial speech is all about in 1.2.) And up until 3.2, Hamlet's not even sure about the veracity of the ghost -- so he sets a 'mouse trap' ("the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"). Up until 3.2 (at the earliest), the audience doesn't really know if Claudius murdered the king, and they only know this with certainty during Claudius's confession of the murder in 3.3.

And if the audience (and Hamlet) are not absolutely sure about Claudius until Act 3, Scene 3, what about the other characters in the play? They never know. All the way through the play, to them, Hamlet looks just like the guy he's pretending to be: someone who's coming unglued. Take out Claudius's confession in 3.3, and I don't think the audience would believe Hamlet or the ghost. To them, Hamlet would be seen as he is seen through the eyes of all the characters (except Horatio): they'd think Hamlet is crazy, and to his mother (3.4), he's ranting and raving about a murder, and yes, there is a murder, but not of King Hamlet -- it's of Polonius, and yes, there is a murderer, but not Claudius -- it's Hamlet! Killing Polonius was a BIG mistake: Claudius sends Hamlet away to England, to be killed. Hamlet, far from being a man incapable of action, is "acting" every moment, struggling with one (huge) obstacle after another . . .

Hamlet's a brilliant play, a masterpiece, though I'm not convinced it's Shakespeare's best, plot-wise -- but certainty character-wise: as Bloom so aptly puts it: it is "The Invention of the Human." Shakespeare dramatizes a man that's *almost* (not totally) paralyzed with fear and uncertainty until most of the way through Act 4 (these are his first obstacles), and one main action he takes up to the end of act 4 is trying to satisfy for himself that Claudius really did kill his father, and avoid detection that that's what he's trying to do -- by acting crazy. A great play, and a full measure of the genius of Shakespeare.