Hamlet is a five-act tragedy by the English dramatist William Shakespeare. Its full title is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. It is included among Shakespeare’s mature tragedies, written during the third period of his artistic development. Experts believe that Shakespeare wrote the first version of Hamlet between 1599 and 1601. The full version did not appear until 1623. With the other tragedies King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello, Hamlet stands out among Shakespeare’s finest work and is regarded by many as his greatest play and one of the world’s great dramas.
Shakespeare based his Hamlet on another drama called Hamlet, by an unknown English author, and on a story in Histoires Tragiques by the French author Francois de Belleforest. The source of Belleforest’s tale was a history of Denmark by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish writer of the 1200’s.
Hamlet is one of the most psychologically powerful dramas ever written. It is set in the castle of Elsinore (modern Helsingør, Denmark). Prince Hamlet of Denmark deeply mourns the recent death of his father and resents his mother’s remarriage to his uncle Claudius, who has become king. The ghost of Hamlet’s father appears and tells the prince that Claudius murdered him. Hamlet broods about whether he should believe the ghost. He decides to have a band of traveling actors perform “something like the murder of my father” before Claudius. The king’s violent reaction to the play shows his guilt.
While the prince is visiting his mother, the king’s adviser, Polonius, eavesdrops. He hides behind a curtain, but Hamlet becomes aware that someone is there and stabs Polonius through the curtain, believing he is Claudius, and kills him.
Claudius exiles Hamlet to England and sends secret orders that the prince be executed after he arrives there. But Hamlet intercepts the orders and returns to Denmark. He arrives in time to see the burial of Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, whom he had loved. She had gone insane following her father’s death and drowned herself.
Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, agrees to a plot suggested by Claudius to kill Hamlet with a poisoned sword in a fencing match. Laertes wounds Hamlet during the duel but is also wounded himself by the poisoned weapon. While watching the duel, Hamlet’s mother accidentally drinks from a cup of poisoned wine Claudius had prepared for Hamlet. Although dying from his wound, Hamlet kills Claudius. At the conclusion of the play, Hamlet, his mother, Claudius, and Laertes all lie dead.
Shakespeare handled the complicated plot of Hamlet brilliantly. In this play, he also created perhaps his greatest gallery of characters. The role of Hamlet, in particular, is considered one of the theater’s greatest acting challenges. The deep conflict within Hamlet as he is torn between the demands of his emotions and the hesitant skepticism of his mind is revealed in several famous and eloquent soliloquies (speeches made by the actor to himself). The best known is his soliloquy on suicide, which begins “To be, or not to be.”
