Hamlet William Shakespeare

The most famous and haunting Shakespearean play, explores melancholy, despair, grief, and revenge that push the limits of the human spirit. Grieving the death of his father, the king, and his mother’s too-soon marriage to the king’s younger brother, “Claudius”, “Hamlet” encounters his father’s ghost while wandering the moors of Denmark. When the ghost tells his son that “Claudius”murdered him, “Hamlet” swears revenge and crafts an elaborate and psychologically perplexing plot to avenge his father’s death.

There are passages of pure poetry in the work which, taken from their context, gain even more power to move and enlighten. It was very popular during the lifetime of “Shakespeare” and continues to be performed and adapted over four hundred years later. Any synopsis of “Hamlet”may fail; the complexity of its title character can never be completely explored. He is perhaps the most analyzed and discussed character in all of the Shakespearean works.

“Hamlet”unfolds over a series of monologues by the main character. Rather than simply revealing the character’s internal state to the audience, these monologues engage in an almost philosophical examination of mortality, repressed desires, and existential anguish centuries before philosophers put names to these conditions. “Hamlet”appears to be working out his own mind in order to understand all minds. For this reason, this play has been widely read as the key to understanding our deepest and most elusive psychological and emotional interiors. “Hamlet”has become a gripping illustration of the Shakespearean ability to enter the human mind and unveil the yearning at the core of human nature.

Most of the characters in “Hamlet” are citizens of Denmark and members of the royal court, reeling after the death of their king. The characters are deeply suspicious of one another, as it becomes clear that the king may have been murdered by his brother. As “Hamlet” is a tragedy, each character carries within themselves a tragic characteristic that contributes to their own downfall. But it is in particular the unstable atmosphere of the new couct of “Claudius” that brings about much of the action of the play.