Hamlet

Horatio, Hamlet, and the ghost (Artist: Henry Fuseli, 1789)

## Production Details

### Sourcematerial

The legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum

### Episode(s)

The Play's the Thing (Title Reference)
The Apparel Proclaims the Man (Title Reference)
Wild Laughter in the Throat of Death (Plot Element)

Source

**The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark**, often shortened to **Hamlet**, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play with 30,557 words. The title and main character is based off Hamnet Shakespeare (1585-1596), William and Anne Shakespeare’s only son.

## Summary

Prince Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost and ordered to avenge his father's murder by killing King Claudius, his uncle. After struggling with several questions, including whether what the ghost said is true and whether it is right for him to take revenge, Hamlet, along with almost all the other major characters, is killed.

## History

Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature, with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". It was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime and still ranks among his most performed, topping the performance list of the Royal Shakespeare Company and its predecessors in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1879. It has inspired many other writers—from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Charles Dickens to James Joyce and Iris Murdoch—and has been described as "the world's most filmed story after Cinderella".

## Background

The story of Shakespeare's Hamlet was derived from the legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum, as subsequently retold by the 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. Shakespeare may also have drawn on an earlier Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet, though some scholars believe Shakespeare wrote the Ur-Hamlet, later revising it to create the version of Hamlet we now have. He almost certainly wrote his version of the title role for his fellow actor, Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian of Shakespeare's time. In the 400 years since its inception, the role has been performed by numerous highly acclaimed actors in each successive century.

Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto (Q1, 1603); the Second Quarto (Q2, 1604); and the First Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines and entire scenes missing from the others. The play's structure and depth of characterisation have inspired much critical scrutiny. One such example is the centuries-old debate about Hamlet's hesitation to kill his uncle, which some see as merely a plot device to prolong the action but which others argue is a dramatisation of the complex philosophical and ethical issues that surround cold-blooded murder, calculated revenge, and thwarted desire. More recently, psychoanalytic critics have examined Hamlet's unconscious desires, while feminist critics have re-evaluated and attempted to rehabilitate the often-maligned characters of Ophelia and Gertrude.

## Sources

1. ↑ Thompson, Ann; Taylor, Neil, eds. (2006). Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare, third series. 1. London: Cengage Learning. ISBN 1-904271-33-2.
2. ↑ Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. (2006). Page 74
3. ↑ Gary Taylor (2002). "Shakespeare Plays on Renaissance Stages". In Wells, Stanley; Stanton, Sarah (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79711-X. Page 18
4. ↑ David and Ben Crystal (2005). The Shakespeare Miscellany. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-051555-0. Page66
5. ↑ Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. (2006). Page 17
6. ↑ Wikipedia entry