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Hamlet
Hamlet
Hamlet
Ebook534 pages5 hours

Hamlet

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a “revenge tragedy,” in which the hero, Hamlet, seeks vengeance against his father’s murderer, his uncle Claudius, now the king of Denmark. Much of its fascination, however, lies in its uncertainties.

Among them: What is the Ghost—Hamlet’s father demanding justice, a tempting demon, an angelic messenger? Does Hamlet go mad, or merely pretend to? Once he is sure that Claudius is a murderer, why does he not act? Was his mother, Gertrude, unfaithful to her husband or complicit in his murder?

The authoritative edition of Hamlet from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:

-The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference
-Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently linked to the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Michael Neill

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 15, 2014
ISBN9781476788432
Author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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Reviews for Hamlet

Rating: 4.320754716981132 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is one of the best Shakespeare plays. The soliloquies of Hamlet give us a real insight into his mind as he tortures himself with the way he is treating Ophelia, yet slowly descends himself into the madness he has forced upon her. I always say that Shakespeare cannot be understood by simply reading the text, you have to see it performed the way it was intended to be enjoyed, and Samuel West's portrayal of Hamlet at the theatre was superb.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Classic. I did enjoy reading this and I still have all my original underlines and footnotes on the page. The perfect definition of tragedy!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My favorite of Shakespeare's plays. It just gets better with every reading, and this time I started with Marjorie Garber's excellent chapter on the play (in her Shakespeare After All), which helped me appreciate the themes of “playing” – of dramas within dramas, “staged” events, audiences being observed, etc. – and of borders...”In suggesting that these three worlds – the world of Hamlet's mind and the imagination; the physical, political, and “historical” world of Denmark; and the world of dramatic fiction and play – are parallel to and superimposed upon one another, I am suggesting, also, that the play is about the whole question of boundaries, thresholds, and liminality or border crossing; boundary disputes between Norway and Denmark, boundaries between youth and age, boundaries between reality and imagination, between audience and actor. And these boundaries seem to be constantly shifting.”Also, of course, fathers and sons, words and meanings, just so much in this one, which, I suppose, is why I enjoy new things about it each time I read it. And I do love Hamlet. He treats Ophelia terribly, and Laertes at her grave, but his indecision, his anxiety, his sincerity, his hopefulness are all so... relatable! Really, I love it all. The relationships, the humor, the wordplay, the poetry. Happy sigh.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It amazes me how many people like Hamlet, no exception here, when it's really hard to relate to, but yet it's just one of those plays once you get into it, you come to love it. I read it for the first time in 12th grade and everyone would talk about it even when they didn't have to. The characters in Hamlet are amazingly complex and it doesn't just state how they are, you learn it through their actions and what they say. It's just so unique, I know everytime I read it I get a different opinion of the characters and the overall play.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There: you can all stop nagging me, I've finally read it. The plot was mostly as expected, though I think whatever version I read as a child was less kind to Ophelia, as I had a rather different image of her in mind. I had a whole book of Shakespeare retellings, now I think about it: I can't really remember many of them, but I suppose they haunt me a little in my vague ideas of what the plays are like before I read them...

    Anyway, Hamlet: justly famous, and full of phrases and quotations that even people who've never read a Shakespeare play can quote. It's always interesting coming to those in situ at last.

    Still terribly glad I don't have to study Shakespeare now. If I end up somehow forced to read Shakespeare in my MA, I may scream. Much happier to come to his plays now, in my own good time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have loved this play since I first read it in high school. I find it both very tragic (but in a heroic kind of way) and very funny. I remember laughing at the fishwife dialogue in the library and my class mate thinking I was terribly odd. It doesn't matter, I still think this book is beautiful to read and very funny.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best things I've ever read. Hamlet's got it all. Shakespeare at his best, filling so few pages with so much story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hamlet's an amazingly dynamic and complex play about the lure of death and the struggle against inaction. Wonderful and dark and always a pleasure to read
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I like other Shakespeare plays better, but I admit that this is Shakespeare's zenith.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Who wants to read Hamlet? Ew. Ew Hamlet.But I enjoyed it. Despite being long long long and so thick, the pase was acutally quite brisk, and the language gorgeous, and I have fond memories of Hamlet. Compare Hamlet to Phaedra - Phaedra is a much shorter play, but the titular heroine spends the entirety of the play basically in the throes of the same emotion. Hamlet's issues, although they drag out through the whole play, keep changing and morphing, and corresponding to the action in the play.All in all, I am happy I read it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My favorite Shakespearean play. Though there is one that may end up taking it's place.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Story:
    Everyone knows Hamlet. Okay, maybe not everyone, but most people do. Now, if you were to ask me if I liked Hamlet, my short answer would probably be 'no.' Really, though, it's not fair for me to encapsulate my feelings on Hamlet into such a simple answer. If Hamlet and I were in a relationship on facebook (assuming he it could ever decide whether to be in one...punned!), it would most definitely be complicated.

    Here's the thing: Hamlet is a great play. There's no denying it. When I think about the play objectively, there's a lot of amazing stuff in there. Shakespeare's wit is fantastic; gotta love all of those dirty jokes he makes in here. And, of course, the language is completely gorgeous.

    The characters I have never been particularly tied to, which is one reason Hamlet does not rank among my favorite plays; the tragedies often lack the sassy heroines you can find in the comedies. Hamlet's indecisiveness frustrates me endlessly. Whine, whine, whine, think about doing something, wimp out, wine more. Cry moar, anon. Yoda judges you. Hamlet's uncle father and his aunt mother are not especially likable, even if you don't think they're guilty of what Hamlet's ghosty father accused them of (namely, turning him into a ghost). Ophelia isn't the brightest; plus, her end does not for admiration make. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are probably my favorites, and that's only because of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.

    Truly though, the reason that I don't really like Hamlet is how prevalent it is. I just get so tired of always hearing this same play over and over. I mean, who didn't have to read this in high school, and again in college?

    Performance:
    This audiobook is the recording of a stage version of the play, performed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival cast. They do a good job, and I imagine it was quite a fun performance that they did. It sounds like they did some interesting things with the characters, such as changing gender in some cases and some modernizing (thus the leather jacket Hamlet's wearing).

    Unfortunately, listening to a play and watching it just aren't the same. Had I not already been very familiar with Hamlet, I have little doubt that I would at time have been confused by some of the quick scene changes or by which voice belonged to which character. Some of the actors did have rather similar sounding voices.

    Between scenes, there is creepy dramatic music, which definitely set a mood, but I don't think I liked. Nor did I care for the fact that the players rapped everything. That was kind of weird. At least Ophelia didn't rap her crazyface songs. Speaking of Ophelia, she was my favorite part of the performance. Her voice and manner definitely reminded me of River Tam (Summer Glau's character in Firefly, who has a couple of screws loose). What an awesome way to portray Ophelia. Now I kind of want to try to write some fan fiction with the characters from Firefly performing Hamlet. Maybe not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the bard's all time classics, so frequently performed that it occasionally needs to be re-read to experience it the way he wrote it, without all the directorial impulses to pretty it up or modernize it. It had been a long time since my last read, and I was somewhat surprised to realize that this play comes with very few stage directions outside of entrances and exits; there are so many things that directors do exactly the same, you forget they weren't mentioned in the stage directions, and have simply become habit. Anyway, this play, about ambition and revenge, still holds up well through the centuries, though many of the actions seem outdated to us now. The poetry of the language and the rich texturing of the characters, even the most minor of characters, creates a complex story that successfully holds many balls in the air at once. Shakespeare's frequent use of ghosts is noteworthy, since that is something that modern day playwrights are told to be very careful about, and avoid if at all possible. A satisfying story, and a satisfying re-read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Last time I read Hamlet, I was in school and I remember having some difficulty with the language... This time I found the language easier (although still hard to follow in places -- "The canker galls the infants of the spring
    Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,
    And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
    Contagious blastments are most imminent." Laertes to Ophelia; I have read this over & over and still don't understand it).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good solid Shakespeare read. A bit too much of a "he did, she did" plot at times.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I’ve seen quite a few Shakespeare productions and have read several other works. Surprisingly, in all my years, Hamlet has escaped me. Don’t ask me how—despite never missing a day of high school, and attaining a degree in English and a Master’s in writing, and being alive—I have never read or seen a production of Hamlet. I decided to remedy that.No surprises here. It’s typical Shakespeare. Betrayal, mistaken identities, honor, incest, duels, poison, death, death, and death. The story itself didn’t make much of an impact on me, but what did was the language. Of all of Shakespeare I am familiar with, this one stood out as having the most memorable lines. Sure, I knew the whole “To be or not to be” monologue was present, but there are so many others that were not only familiar, but memorable with reason. An obvious classic despite being very run-of-the-mill in terms of Shakespeare’s work.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ghosts, murder, madness, revenge, suicide, incest, spiced with a little bit of black humor – Hamlet has it all. Once again I was struck by the number of “cliches” that originated with Hamlet: “too solid flesh”, “reserve thy judgment”, “the apparel oft proclaims the man”, “to thine own self be true”, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, “the time is out of joint”, and “not a mouse was stirring” (which, sad to say, does not apply to my house since I've been trying unsuccessfully to catch one for the last week). I'm in that generation that can't hear Polonius's monologue without thinking of the song from the Gilligan's Island episode where the castaways staged a musical version of Hamlet. (Sorry if I've given anyone an earworm by mentioning it!)I was a little disappointed with the LA. Theatre Works audio version. Most of the performers were OK, but the audio effects were a bit odd and seemed too modern to suit the setting. I had trouble buying Stephen Collins as Claudius after his decade spent playing a minister on Seventh Heaven. Josh Stamberg played Hamlet, and his voice quality is similar enough to Stephen Collins that I sometimes had trouble telling which one of them was speaking. On the other hand, I thought Alan Mandell's Polonius was outstanding.This is one of Shakespeare's works that should be on everyone's reading list. Listening to an audio version can enhance modern readers' understanding of archaic language without interrupting the narrative flow like an annotated reading copy would do. There are probably better audio versions than this one to be found, though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read it in Sixth Form and it spoiled me for Julius Ceaser.It is a wonderful complex read. And trying to discover all the layers is part of the fun.At its base, Hamlet is a prince called to avenge his late father the murdered King of Denmark. Yet it's not as simple as that. Hamlet's birthright has him in turmoil with himself, and then there is the issue of his mother and her new husband, the King's brother.A modern version would be tacky and full of soap opera bachannal...but Shakesphere's play is a serious psychological study of a young man who should be King.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    BBC Audiobook performed by Michael Sheen (Hamlet), Kenneth Cranham (Claudius), Juliet Stevenson (Gertrude) and Ellie Beaven (Ophelia), and a full castI’ll dispense with the summary for this classic tragedy by William Shakespeare, but as I’ve said before, I really dislike reading plays. I much prefer to see them performed live by talented actors, the medium for which they are written. The next best thing to a live performance, however, must be an audio such as this one, with talented actors taking on the roles and really bringing the play to life for the listener. There are hundreds of editions of this work, and I recommend that readers get one that is annotated. The text copy I had as an accompaniment to the audio was published by the Oxford University Press, and included several scholarly articles, appendices and footnotes to help the modern-day reader understand Shakespeare’s Elizabethan terms and use of language, as well as historical references. One appendix even includes the music to accompany the songs!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Me gusto mucho lo tragico que es el drama. Hamlet que engañaba con padecer de locura para poder vengar la muerte de su padre termino por generar esa enfermedad en la mujer que amaba. La codicia y traición del Rey Claudio a su hermano, refleja algunos de los 10 mandamientos.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the tragedy of Shakespeare.But this story don't contain love.This story is a man whose father was killed.So he tried to revenge.Can he accomplish it?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet. Get thee to a nunnery.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's difficult to critique a work that is widely considered to be the best piece produced by the greatest author who ever lived. To put it in simple terms, I did enjoy Hamlet for the most part. Once I got used to the language and re-familiarized myself with reading a script, the story flowed very well. My only real complaint was that the format took a bit out of the climactic finale for me. I feel that it would have read much better in a novel format.Shakespeare has written one of the most compelling tragedies ever in Hamlet, and his plot and character development are topnotch. Hamlet's downward spiral into madness is classically done. All said, a must read.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Forced reading from high school - I hated every moment of this.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hamlet is a phenomenal play. Just spectacular.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, so I won't rate any of his works very high
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great classic
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After King Lear, this is one of my favorites. Hamlet, in short, is the Lion King. Rather, I should say The Lion King is Hamlet. My reassurance of Shakespeare's credibility and talent is purely unnecessary so a review is kind of pointless. But if you liked the Lion King, attempt Shakespeare's version. It has more blood and wit.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hey its Hamlet. What else can I say. You either love it or hate it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of my favorite Shakespeare works.

Book preview

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

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