I loooooved the plot of this book. Hamlet was amazing and sassy and I loved reading about him. It was just very hard to read because, obviously, it's shakespeare. Had I read this book without spark notes and my teacher, I would NOT have understood it.

Update: I've been messaging with an academic who wants to quote this review in a scholarly research article! They liked that this review was so "pithy," LOL. I'm kind of tickled.

My favorite Shakespeare play! Murdering throne-usurping uncle, Hamlet's ghost father demanding revenge, pretend insanity, death, real insanity, everyone plotting against each other, death, play within a play, more death, all wrapped up with insanely good poetry. And death. But the revenge comes first, so it's all good.

Quick reread before The Steep and Thorny Way (retelling WOOT!)

n  Questionn : Is it really as crazy I remember or am I delusional?



n  Answern : Oh okay. Never mind.

Ps. The 4th picture makes me laugh way too much for my own good. Oops.

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
Hamlet ~~~  William Shakespeare


Richard Burton

I recently discovered that my non-existent n   Hamletn review has 51 likes. With that many likes, I figured I better buckle down and write a proper review for this amazing piece of theatre.

It's no wonder  William Shakespeare’s n   Hamletn is so famous and beloved. n   Hamletn provides all the ingredients of a thrilling plot, while offering some of literature’s most breathtaking poetry and philosophical reflection. In Shakespeare’s paranoid Denmark, young love is throttled by fear, and friends are driven to become enemies, while a melancholic, young prince rages against a scheming uncle who married his mother after having killed his brother, King Hamlet.


John Gielgud

The story of Prince Hamlet, robbed of his father and of his rightful seat on the throne of Denmark, n   Hamletn has, over the years, became one of theatre’s most thrilling dramas. The love and betrayal coincide in this story to make one of the most shocking endings of Shakespeare’s work ever.

Madness, revenge, mortality, lust, and religion are words that can describe Hamlet. Not the play Hamlet, but Prince Hamlet, the boy. The only word that is needed to describe Hamlet, the play, is tragedy.

n   Hamletn is not a difficult read, being that we are so familiar with the text; if you look past the words on the paper and see the meaning of n   Hamletn you may find that the young prince Hamlet isn’t so different from you and me.

The story of a prince robbed of his father and of his rightful crown as king of Denmark, n   Hamletn has, over the years, became one of the most exciting tragedies ever written. Love and betrayal coincide in this story to make one of the most shocking endings of Shakespeare’s work ever.


John Barrymore

Prince Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet of Denmark, is dead. The king’s brother, Claudius, has attained the throne and married widowed Queen Gertrude — all done with such tasteless haste that the funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the wedding tables. On top of all the sneaky corruption, Denmark is under threat of invasion from Norway. But as everything seems to be falling out of place for the young prince of Denmark, he seems to have struck gold of the sorts.

The dead king rests uncomfortably and one night appears to Prince Hamlet on the castle walls. As young Hamlet receives the message, to set out revenge of the death of his father, the castle stirs after Hamlet’s remarks to seeing the spirit.

In order to complete the quest Prince Hamlet undertakes for his father, he must make himself seem mad, but is he truly mad? This is the one questions that actors, directors and critics have debated for centuries. The only person who truly answer that question died in 1616. Shakespeare has left this question open; Hamlet may well be mad, he may be playing on the fact that others read his actions that way to be able to better ready his revenge.

There is also a great deal of ambiguity about his mother’s views. She seems to allow that she is very naïve and doesn’t really know what’s going on, yet one gets the strong textual clues that she knows quite well what her new husband has done, and she’s trying very hard to not know.

In the end the entire mess comes crashing down in tragic deaths of nearly everyone.


Sarah Bernhardt

n   Hamletn, in addition to being gripping from the first line to the last line, is also just filled with famous lines and speeches, slices of Shakespeare’s writing that are so worthy of the fame they have achieved from the most famous “To be of not to be” speech to one-liners of great significance.

For centuries, n   Hamletn has been the theatre's cornerstone of the diversion of madness and revenge, and when these two are mixed, they create something much bigger than all of us. But what is Hamlet’s true nature? Does Hamlet know his own nature? As a director, I see a hero caught up in a villainous situation ~~ a young man of full of anger, filled mourning, who has no idea how to proceed in his corrupt world. Therefore, this is why we can all relate to Hamlet, as we are all stuck in a corrupt world with no idea how to proceed.


Benedict Cumberbatch

A powerful meditation on the futility of life wrapped into a highly bloody revenge tale
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Well this was a whole lot more meaty, and leading to thought about the message that William Shakespeare tries to convene than Romeo and Juliet that I read earlier this month. Hamlet tries to get revenge for the killing of his father, in a tale that initially feels a lot like a Greek tragedy (Orestes by Euripides comes to mind, in the sense that the dead father is all important in the hierarchy of revenge).

There is also a tragical love story, with Ophelia's whole family essentially being collateral damage to the ploy to get at uncle Claudius, who now sits on the Danish throne. Some things did strike me a bit whimsical, like the hiding behind rugs and the boat voyage with pirates and all, but overall there is a lot of pure tragedy in the play, with only a rather minor character surviving in the end.

However the piece really shines, in my opinion, in two aspects. Firstly the scene with the gravedigger, where Hamlet reflects on what the skull's owner might have aspired for during life, and secondly in the ambiguity of the insanity of Hamlet himself. Our protagonist is far from effective or very clearly just “acting” insane. His revenge plot ends up consuming everyone around him, and manages to bring about a victory for the son of the king that the father of Hamlet managed to defeat. It all feels perfectly pointless in a way, but in that manner gives depth to the play, and doubt on who, if anyone, is the hero in this tale.

Oh, how much ink has spilled on this excellent Shakespeare work and how many tears will have shedding for it, I dare not imagine.
Also, I will not pretend to do a review that you would not have read probably dozens of times or even bring new elements you would not already know but only know this piece. Admittedly, this is a tragedy (therefore, as the name suggests, nothing very encouraging), but what poetry in these verses, what beauty in this bittersweet madness the Prince of Denmark believes he has reached, the young Hamlet.
Is he mad? I don't think so. He saw a specter, that of his father murdered by his uncle but who never felt the presence by his side of a loved one who had recently disappeared, and what is more, in more than questionable conditions. I cannot say that I have never experienced this feeling or at least wanted to believe it. The specter, therefore, reveals to his son how his brother did it to assassinate him and demand revenge!
So Hamlet's mind is tortured, it is true, but who wouldn't be after such a revelation? So what does he have to do? Take the sword and spill the blood again? For his part, the King, Claudius, sensing the danger, does everything to remove Hamlet from the kingdom of Denmark to preserve his place on the throne.
Hamlet, therefore, finds himself alone in the face of his fate because, although the presence of this specter at the castle has been revealed to him by three guards and by his friend Horatio, on whom else can he count? Who will believe it? He will take for granted, which will well arrange the affairs of his uncle or others who would be just as greedy for power as he and who have dedicated their cause to Claudius. Because, as everyone knows, the Prime Minister (to name nothing but him) must be faithful to the one he serves and devote his most remarkable devotion to him.
I will not say more about the plot because I think once again that I will only repeat what has already been said many and many times, but I insist on the point that this work, although 'this is a drama in which a lot of blood will flow, is a thing of beauty. To read and reread without fail!

هاملت... الانسان الحائر بين التفكير والفعل
بعد مقتل والده يتردد بين طبيعته المزاجية وفكره الفلسفي
في محاولة بائسة لتمديد فترة اللافعل وتأجيل الانتقام
الهذيان وتظاهره بالجنون جزء من المعاناة والضغوط النفسية والأخلاقية
وفي النهاية يختار شكسبير الفعل كقوة عادلة مرئية لحسم الأمور في الواقع
والانتقام هنا جزء من العدالة

Hamlet was a Prince of Denmark, and Hamlet is a touchstone of our culture. His unhappy story has been so influential that it is difficult to overstate the extent to which our sense of how to try to choose between right and wrong has been shaped by this play. Harold Bloom famously credited William Shakespeare with “the invention of the human” – or, to put it another way, with contributing to the formation of modern human consciousness. I’m not sure that I’m ready to go that far; but I will say that Hamlet, with his protracted deliberations regarding what to do in response to the murder of his father, haunts our entire way of thinking, just as the ghost of King Hamlet haunts Prince Hamlet throughout the play.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark starts on a grim and uncertain note. The play’s first words, spoken on the battlements of Elsinore Castle, are “Who’s there?”, and a Danish soldier whose watch is ending says "For this relief much thanks" because he is so glad to be able to step away from this cold and daunting duty station– you might say he is relieved to be relieved.

And the play only gets grimmer and more uncertain from there. There have been sightings of a ghostly apparition along the battlements of the royal Danish castle at Helsingør – alright, “Elsinore.” Reports that the ghost resembles the kingdom’s recently deceased ruler, King Hamlet, have brought Hamlet's friend and confidant Horatio to the battlements of the castle; and amid a kingdom-wide atmosphere of fear and foreboding, Horatio expresses anxiety that the ghostly sightings may be "prologue to the omen coming on". The ghost appears, but will not speak to Horatio; and when "the morn, in russet mantle clad", drives away the night-bound ghost, Horatio decides that he and the guards must tell young Prince Hamlet what they have seen.

Prince Hamlet meanwhile has troubles of his own, even before he hears any reports about a ghost who looks like his father. His uncle, Claudius, has taken over the kingship of Denmark, and has married Hamlet's mother Gertrude, all within a very short time after King Hamlet's death. It is for this reason that Hamlet bitterly describes his uncle-turned-stepfather Claudius as "A little more than kin and less than kind", and just as bitterly denounces Gertrude's hasty marriage to her dead husband's brother: "Frailty, thy name is woman!"

Hamlet, who hitherto has seen his dead father only "In my mind's eye", goes with Horatio to witness the ghost's night-time perambulations, and indeed sees the ghost that Horatio has described as bearing "A countenance more in sorrow than in anger." Only to Prince Hamlet will the ghost of King Hamlet tell the truth: he was killed by his own brother, Claudius. By this Cain-and-Abel-style act of murder - "Murder most foul, as in the best it is" - Claudius inherited not only the throne of Denmark but also the marriage-bed of King Hamlet’s widow Gertrude. Claudius committed murder out of lust for power and lust for his brother's wife: it is a plot straight out of Game of Thrones, and one that would have appealed strongly to a politically savvy audience like Shakespeare’s. The ghost tells Prince Hamlet to seek revenge against Claudius, but not to act against Gertrude: "Leave her to heaven".

Hamlet is, understandably, angered by what the ghost has told him, saying of Claudius that "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." Yet he keeps the ghost's secret, telling Horatio only that "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy", and adding what Horatio already knows -- that "The time is out of joint." By this point, viewers or readers of the play are quite likely to agree with the Danish soldier Marcellus that "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

But in terms of plot, there’s more – much more – for this is a singularly plot-heavy play. Hamlet, a young man (the play makes clear at one point that he’s 30 years old), is in love with Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, counselor to King Claudius. Ophelia seems aware that she is being subjected by her father Polonius and brother Laertes to a sexual double standard; only she faces constant family scrutiny over whether she might be walking "the primrose path of dalliance". Polonius, when he's not busy giving his departing son Laertes old saws of advice like "This above all: to thine own self be true", worries that Hamlet intends to seduce and abandon and “ruin” Ophelia. Polonius orders Ophelia not to see Hamlet anymore, and Ophelia, with some protest, obeys.

With his world crumbling around him, Hamlet declared that he “shall think it meet/To put an antic disposition on”; in other words, he will pretend to be insane so that he can conduct an investigation of the ghost’s accusation against Claudius. His pretense of insanity has given rise to what literary scholars call the “Hamlet problem”: when is Hamlet truly insane, and when is he simply pretending? Much critical ink has been spilled over that question for almost 400 years, and I don’t think we’ll get any closer to an answer in the next 400.

Therefore, let us return to the elements of Hamlet’s unhappy situation that we can all agree on. He is surrounded by self-interested courtiers who care only about the prospects for their own advancement; his old school-fellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are only too happy to spy on him for Claudius, and Polonius is ready to push Ophelia at Hamlet if the result might be a royal match and a prince for a son-in-law. The only person Hamlet can trust is his best friend Horatio, a fellow University of Wittenberg student and devotee of Stoic philosophy whom Hamlet praises for his even-tempered qualities, calling Horatio “One in suffering all who suffers nothing;/A man who fortune’s buffets and rewards/Has ta’en with equal thanks.” Horatio will serve as the choral figure and moral center of the play.

I am always saddened by those readings of Hamlet in which the Prince of Denmark’s only problem is that he is afflicted with the tragic flaw of indecisiveness. Sir Laurence Olivier’s otherwise excellent 1948 film version of Hamlet, filmed on location at Helsingør/Elsinore Castle, almost loses me at the beginning when Olivier, in a breathy voice-over, says, “This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.” A viewer at the film’s London premiere, hearing those words, is said to have remarked, “Oh, so that’s what it’s all about.”

The truth, unsurprisingly, is more complex. If anything, Hamlet isn’t indecisive enough. As long as he is hesitating, mulling over his problem, using logic and reason rather than physical force, things go rather well for Hamlet – as when he stages for Claudius a play that re-enacts the circumstances of King Hamlet’s murder, causing the murderous Claudius to feel grief and fear, and even to consider confessing his foul crime. It is when Hamlet decides to use violence, lashing out with his sword from behind a wall tapestry to stab the man he thinks is Claudius, that a terrible chain of events is set in motion.

Through his unintentional killing of Polonius, Hamlet drives Ophelia, the love of his life, to madness and death under circumstances that suggest suicide. Hamlet makes an enemy of Laertes, the son of Polonius – an honourable man who under ordinary circumstances would have had no hostility toward Hamlet, but who, under the present circumstances, falls all too easily under Claudius’ influence. And with Claudius fully aware of Hamlet’s enmity, the play, hitherto gradual in its pace, moves swiftly toward a bloody conclusion.

So - we have here a complex and messy plot, with lots of blood and violence and revenge and death. The same could be said of many plays of that time, by other writers as well as by Shakespeare. Why, then, does Hamlet stand forth as such a central text in Western literature and culture? In part, I think it may be because of the sheer beauty of the language. We are all familiar with Hamlet’s Third Soliloquy (“To be or not to be, that is the question…”); but its status as the Third Soliloquy speaks to the fact that, earlier in the play, Hamlet has two more soliloquies that are just as memorable.

The other distinguishing characteristic of Hamlet among Shakespeare’s great tragedies, for me, is that it is the most modern in terms of an understandable character making understandable moral choices, whether good or bad. Macbeth is a thoroughly dislikable traitor, regicide, and general murderer through most of his play; we read Macbeth to see fate get its way, with the prophecy of the witches fulfilled. King Lear – giving away his kingdom to two daughters and disinheriting a third, all over who’s willing to flatter him the most – acts more like a character from a fairy tale than like a person of the modern world. Othello commands sympathy in many respects, but his cruelty toward an innocent and helpless woman distances us from him.

Hamlet, by contrast, could live among us. He is a thoughtful individual who does not particularly want to be involved in games of thrones; had King Hamlet lived, Prince Hamlet would have inherited the throne of Denmark in time, but the prince seems to be in no hurry about it. I think he’d rather be back at the University of Wittenberg, discussing philosophy with Horatio and writing love letters to Ophelia. Of all the heroes of Shakespeare’s tragedies, he is the most relatable and understandable.

The real tragedy of Hamlet, to my mind, is that in fighting Claudius, he, after a fashion, becomes Claudius. There is no question that Claudius deserves to be held accountable for his treasonous and murderous crimes. But in seeking revenge against the guilty Claudius, Hamlet causes, in one way or another, the deaths of six other characters -- none of whom had anything to do with Claudius’ murder of King Hamlet, four of whom Prince Hamlet would have wanted to live. Revenge in Shakespeare’s plays tends to be like those drive-by shootings that people liked to talk about back in the 1980’s: you might get your enemy, yes, but the chances are good that you’ll end up killing innocent people in the process.

This brief review does not begin to do justice to the magnificent complexity that is Hamlet. It may be the most important play in the history of the literature of the Western world. I have read Hamlet dozens of times – including once on a trip to Denmark, when I was able to stand on the battlements of Elsinore Castle and enjoy Hamlet’s view of the cold northern seas. Hamlet has much to do with who we are today, and you should want to spend some time hearing what he has to say.

I don't have any earth-shattering insights to share from this most recent of god-knows-how-many readings, but this time through I was struck by:

1) what a damn fine piece of stagecraft this is, from the suspenseful, moody opening on the castle battlements to the solemn dead march carrying the prince offstage, and

2) how Shakespeare seems to want Hamlet's personality--particularly the wellspring of his actions (and lack of action)--to remain an enigma, and that he achieves this by infusing the character with so much of himself--so much wit and poetry, so much despondency and savagery--that the result is that the audience simply bows before the great mystery of human personality, and that this reverence for the unknown lurking in the heart of an extraordinary man intensifies the sense of pity, horror and waste that fills us at the end of the play.

The Skinhead Hamlet - Shakespeare's play translated into modern English. By Richard Curtis. Yes, that Richard Curtis!

Note : those offended by the F word - LOOK AWAY NOW! And Georgia, if you've stumbled on this review by your funny old dad - this is ANOTHER Paul Bryant. Not me!

*********

ACT I
SCENE I
The Battlements of Elsinore Castle.

[Enter HAMLET, followed by GHOST:]

GHOST: Oi! Mush!

HAMLET: Yer?

GHOST: I was fucked!

[Exit GHOST:]

HAMLET: O Fuck.

[Exit HAMLET:]

SCENE II
The Throneroom.

[Enter KING CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, HAMLET and COURT:]

CLAUDIUS: Oi! You, Hamlet, give over!

HAMLET: Fuck off, won't you?

[Exit CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, COURT:]

HAMLET: (Alone) They could have fucking waited.

[Enter HORATIO:]

HORATIO: Oi! Watcha cock!

HAMLET: Weeeeey!

[Exeunt:]

SCENE III
Ophelia's Bedroom.

[Enter OPHELIA and LAERTES:]

LAERTES: I'm fucking off now. Watch Hamlet doesn't slip you one while I'm gone.

OPHELIA: I'll be fucked if he does.

[Exeunt:]

SCENE IV
The Battlements.

[Enter HORATIO, HAMLET and GHOST.:]

GHOST: Oi! Mush, get on with it!

HAMLET: Who did it then?

GHOST: That wanker Claudius. He poured fucking poison in my fucking ear!

HAMLET: Fuck me!

[Exeunt.:]

ACT II
SCENE I
A corridor in the castle.

[Enter HAMLET reading. Enter POLONIUS.:]

POLONIUS: Oi! You!

HAMLET: Fuck off, grandad!

[Exit POLONIUS. Enter ROSENCRANZ and GUILDENSTERN.:]

ROS & GUILD: Oi! Oi! Mucca!

HAMLET: Fuck off, the pair of you!

[Exit ROS & GUILD.:]

HAMLET: (Alone) To fuck or be fucked.

[Enter OPHELIA.:]

OPHELIA: My Lord!

HAMLET: Fuck off to a nunnery!

[They exit in different directions.:]

ACT III
SCENE I
The Throne Room.

[Enter PLAYERS and all COURT.:]

FIRST PLAYER: Full thirty times hath Phoebus cart...

CLAUDIUS: I'll be fucked if I watch any more of this crap.

[Exeunt.:]

SCENE II
Gertrude's Bedchamber.

[Enter GERTRUDE and POLONIUS, who hides behind an arras.:]

[Enter HAMLET.:]

HAMLET: Oi! Slag!

GERTRUDE: Watch your fucking mouth, kid!

POLONIUS: (From behind the curtain) Too right.

HAMLET: Who the fuck was that?

[He stabs POLONIUS through the arras.:]

POLONIUS: Fuck!

[POLONIUS dies.:]

HAMLET: Fuck! I thought it was that other wanker.

[Exeunt.:]

ACT IV
SCENE I
A Court Room.

[Enter HAMLET, CLAUDIUS.:]

CLAUDIUS: Fuck off to England then!

HAMLET: Delighted, mush.

SCENE II
The Throne Room.

[Enter OPHELIA, GERTRUDE and CLAUDIUS.:]

OPHELIA: Here, cop a whack of this.

[She hands GERTRUDE some rosemary and exits.:]

CLAUDIUS: She's fucking round the twist, isn't she?

GERTRUDE: (Looking out the window.) There is a willow grows aslant the brook.

CLAUDIUS: Get on with it, slag.

GERTRUDE: Ophelia's gone and fucking drowned!

CLAUDIUS: Fuck! Laertes isn't half going to be browned off.

[Exeunt.:]

SCENE III
A Corridor.

[Enter LAERTES.:]

LAERTES: (Alone) I'm going to fucking do this lot.

[Enter CLAUDIUS.:]

CLAUDIUS: I didn't fucking do it, mate. It was that wanker Hamlet.

LAERTES: Well, fuck him.

[Exeunt.:]

ACT V
SCENE I
Hamlet's Bedchamber.

[Enter HAMLET and HORATIO.:]

HAMLET: I got this feeling I'm going to cop it, Horatio, and you know, I couldn't give a flying fuck.

[Exeunt.:]

SCENE II
Large Hall.

[Enter HAMLET, LAERTES, COURT, GERTRUDE, CLAUDIUS.:]

LAERTES: Oi, wanker: let's get on with it.

HAMLET: Delighted, fuckface.

[They fight and both are poisoned by the poisoned sword.:]

LAERTES: Fuck!

HAMLET: Fuck!

[The QUEEN drinks.:]

GERTRUDE: Fucking odd wine!

CLAUDIUS: You drunk the wrong fucking cup, you stupid cow!

[GERTRUDE dies.:]

HAMLET: (Pouring the poison down CLAUDIUS'S throat) Well, fuck you!

CLAUDIUS: I'm fair and squarely fucked.

[CLAUDIUS dies.:]

LAERTES: Oi, mush: no hard feelings, eh?

HAMLET: Yer.

[LAERTES dies.:]

HAMLET: Oi! Horatio!

HORATIO: Yer?

HAMLET: I'm fucked. The rest is fucking silence.

[HAMLET dies.:]

HORATIO: Fuck: that was no ordinary wanker, you know.

[Enter FORTINBRAS.:]

FORTINBRAS: What the fuck's going on here?

HORATIO: A fucking mess, that's for sure.

FORTINBRAS: No kidding. I see Hamlet's fucked.

HORATIO: Yer.

FORTINBRAS: Fucking shame: fucking good bloke.

HORATIO: Too fucking right.

FORTINBRAS: Fuck this for a lark then. Let's piss off.

[Exeunt with alarums.:]

Are you hesitant to read Hamlet. .you will regret it then !!
We all hate choices. .and try hard to leave it for others ..choose this colour or that?..sleep or work?Read Hamlet or postpone it ?

Revenge or forgive?
The most important thing is to follow this bright path ... or that dark path?
to be or not to be?

*That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell*
Well, and those of us did not buzz these words in his ear. . over and over and we blame ourselves for our letdown.
About taking our rights..or the rights of those we love
Unfortunately, Hamlet will remain YOU and I, and everyone who possesses the seed of goodness and justice in oneself

By the age of thirty, each of us will choose ...
Will it be? And those are lucky
Or not HE be?
And those are lucky
Or not to BE?
And in the case of Not Being will place himself on the status of the famous automatic pilot "Ayesh and not Ayesh" zombi mode ... until God decides on his matter..and then Hamlet question will not Nag him again ... nor will he be required to take any decision


My art will remain immortal .. As long as there are eyes to see and ears to hear, "Shakespeare really believed ..
Heavy language may frighten us ... We may have fear old principles ... but it will attract us
A young man, noble; Question the virtue ... despair of the people
But he remained demanding the rebellion of those who killed his father .. in order to achieve the justice that he believed in .. and the virtue to which he aspires, even against his will


But he is hesitating
Hesitation .. Hamlet's curse that "thinking a lot about the possibilities of the situation.. leads to a paralysis in the behavior" and so he summarized for us Hamlet his tragedy in one line
Isn't it our modern tragedy?
And who among us today does not feel Hamlet confusion and his pessimism?
... his anxiety and suppression
WHo?
So you will definitely find yourself reading it or watching it someday