Hamlet

By William Shakespeare

Read & Co. Classics presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's famous play, "Hamlet". Featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare, it is a must for Shakespeare enthusiasts and newcomers alike. Set in Denmark, “Hamlet” is a tale of murder, revenge and madness. Prince Hamlet is visited by the ghostly apparition of his father who instructs him to avenge his death, caused by the hands of Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. As tension mounts, Hamlet grapples with the pain of sorrow, treachery and mortality. The iconic “Hamlet” is arguably one of Shakespeare’s most powerful plays and ranks amongst the most moving and seminal tragedies in English literature. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is celebrated as the world's most famous dramatist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473370357

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

Book preview

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HAMLET

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK

A Tragedy

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

First published in 1603

This edition is published by Classic Books Library

an imprint of Read Books Ltd.

Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Contents

William Shakespeare

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

ACT I.

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

SCENE III. A room in Polonius’s house.

SCENE IV. The platform.

SCENE V. A more remote part of the Castle.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A room in Polonius’s house.

SCENE II. A room in the Castle.

ACT III.

SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

SCENE III. A room in the Castle.

SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.

SCENE III. Another room in the Castle.

SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.

SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.

ACT V.

SCENE I. A churchyard.

SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED THE AUTHOR, MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

By BEN JONSON

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, as any reader of this book will presumably know, was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language - and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Referred to as England's national poet, and the 'Bard of Avon', his extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, (some with unconfirmed authorship). Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about matters as wide ranging as his physical appearance, sexuality and religious beliefs.

William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26th April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23rd April, Saint George's Day. Although no attendance records for the period survive, biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar. Basic Latin education had been standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors.

At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married the twenty-six year old Anne Hathaway (who was pregnant at the time), with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the 'complaints bill' of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster, dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9th October 1589. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. By 1598, his name had become enough of a selling point to appear on the title pages.

Shakespeare continued to act in his own and in other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). During this time, Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford, and in 1596 bought ‘New Place’ as his family home in Stratford, whilst retaining a property in Bishopsgate, North of the river Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, Shakespeare had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at the age of forty-nine, where he died three years later.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of his earliest comedies, is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete the sequence of great comedies.

Shakespeare then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608. Many critics believe that his greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other character, especially for his famous soliloquy beginning; ‘To be or not to be; that is the question.’ Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester and the murder of Lear's youngest daughter Cordelia. According to the critic Frank Kermode, ‘the play-offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty.’ In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. His sonnets were published as a collection in 1609. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote poetry throughout his career for a private readership. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as ‘not of an age, but for all time.’ Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called ‘bardolatry’. His plays remain immensely popular and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Shakespeare died on 23rd April 1616 and was survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church (Stratford-upon-Avon) two days after his death, with a curse against moving his bones. The epitaph on his gravestone reads:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

HAMLET

By

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark.

CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle.

The GHOST of the late king, Hamlet’s father.

GERTRUDE, the Queen, Hamlet’s mother, now wife of Claudius.

POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.

LAERTES, Son to Polonius.

OPHELIA, Daughter to Polonius.

HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet.

FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.

VOLTEMAND, Courtier.

CORNELIUS, Courtier.

ROSENCRANTZ, Courtier.

GUILDENSTERN, Courtier.

MARCELLUS, Officer.

BARNARDO, Officer.

FRANCISCO, a Soldier

OSRIC, Courtier.

REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius.

Players.

A Gentleman, Courtier.

A Priest.

Two Clowns, Grave-diggers.

A Captain.

English Ambassadors.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants.

SCENE. Elsinore.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

[Enter Francisco and Barnardo, two sentinels.]

BARNARDO.

Who’s there?

FRANCISCO.

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO.

Long live the King!

FRANCISCO.

Barnardo?

BARNARDO.

He.

FRANCISCO.

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO.

’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO.

For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO.

Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO.

Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO.

Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

[Enter Horatio and Marcellus.]

FRANCISCO.

I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

HORATIO.

Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS.

And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO.

Give you good night.

MARCELLUS.

O, farewell, honest soldier, who hath reliev’d you?

FRANCISCO.

Barnardo has my place. Give you good-night.

[Exit.]

MARCELLUS.

Holla, Barnardo!

BARNARDO.

Say, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO.

A piece of him.

Reviews for Hamlet

[jfoster_sf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic Shakespeare tragedy.

[allisonmarie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Who am I to review Shakespeare?!

[faith_murri · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The only Shakespeare plays I had read before this were Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, Macbeth being my favorite. Having now read Hamlet, I can honestly say that Macbeth is still my favorite.

Let's discuss.

So, Hamlet himself is an emo icon, and also a misogynist, who basically goes crazy, murders someone, and essentially ruins everything.

The ending came a little too quickly for me, tbh. There wasn't enough time to really develop any other characters. It was pretty quotable, though. Really, it gave me more Romeo and Juliet feels than Macbeth feels.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vertaling van Komrij. Uiteraard een tijdloos stuk met een ongelofelijke diepgang, maar geen gemakkelijke lectuur. Ligt me minder dan de iets eenduidiger stukken King Lear of Macbeth.

[391_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet is a phenomenal play. Just spectacular.

[katieloucks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great classic

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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!

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This continues to remain my second-least-favorite of the seven Tragedies I've read so far. This preference isn't based upon the quality of the play qua play; it boils down to the fact that I simply don't enjoy Mr. Prince Hamlet, Jr. Despite some arguments to the contrary, he still comes across to me as a bipolar obsessive with impulse control problems, a distinct lack of responsibility, a poor attitude toward girlfriends and who, if we read only what is written, appears to make monumental judgments about his mother on little or no evidence. In other words, I don't like him. Of course, I don't particularly like fellows such as Mr. Macbeth either, but it's a different lack of esteem: a dislike for the bad guy (which is a sneaking regard) rather than a disdain for the self-absorbed.I find the characters of Polonius, Ophelia and Gertrude much more intriguing in this play and I do enjoy it for them. So, while I love the language of this play, and the supporting cast, and acknowledge the structure and plot, I still don't enjoy it as much as a romp through Birnham Wood or, better yet, Lear's Britain.

[devil_llama · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While it can be quite long and tedious in parts, it's still Hamlet.I mean, it's hard to beat Hamlet.

[ncgraham_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is it. The big kahuna. The Shakespeare play to end all Shakespeare plays. And I confess, I have fallen in love with it completely.When I was a child reading about Shakespeare plays in my Tales from Shakespeare (and seeing occasional live performances of the comedies), and later when I was a teenager watching them on videotape, I couldn’t quite see what the big deal was with Hamlet. It sounded to me like it lacked the romance of Romeo and Juliet, the fun of the comedies, the magic of the romances, and the bloodiness of some of the other tragedies like Macbeth.How wrong I was.While I wouldn’t necessarily advocate using a complete performance text—that would make for a long evening—and there are actually a large number of contradictions in the play as it has come down to us, what a joy it is to read all of Shakespeare’s words! Hamlet is a long play, but in general it flows beautifully, with long, elaborate scenes that fold into each other. I haven’t made a count, but I’d wager that in addition to being Shakespeare’s lengthiest play, Hamlet has, on average, the longest scenes. To me, this makes it read easier, but I might be in the minority in that respect.Hamlet as a character is a vehicle for some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful poetry and most searching philosophy. The play has gained its worldwide renown almost solely because of his soliloquies, which are many and lengthy. With all due respect to the famous “To be or not to be,” my favorite of the lot is “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” I’m not an actor by profession, and haven’t been on the stage since junior high, but this speech stirred the actor in me. It’s a virtuosic piece, which opens with Hamlet’s typical melancholy and self-deprecation and ends with a moment of true resolve and excitement. Of course, the next time we see him, he’s depressed again and contemplating suicide.Going in, of course, I already knew about the wonderful poetry and philosophy in Hamlet. What I didn’t expect was how powerfully I would relate to the main character. Perhaps this is because I was approaching the play for the first time with the understanding that Hamlet is a very young man. He has traditionally been thought to be about 30 due to a remark of the gravedigger’s, but all other internal evidence points to him being in his late teens or so, and it’s very much possible that the gravedigger’s remark was a later addition to accommodate an older actor. When I instead read him as a teenager or young adult, all the pieces came together and the play made sense to me for the first time.Not that one has to be young in order to relate to Hamlet—he is a universal character, and it’s really remarkable how many different ways he can be interpreted. A friend and I were discussing how we might each play the role were we ever given the chance: he would probably emphasize his intellectualism, his shrewdness, his struggle with madness, and his quest for revenge, whereas I would stress his youth, depression, and emotional variance.There’s so much in this play that it is utterly impossible to touch on everything in a single review, so I suppose I’ll stop while I’m ahead. I’m sure that when I reread, I will notice new things that I never saw before. And I do plan on rereading Hamlet. Like all truly great works of literature, it’s an inexhaustible gold mine, a fountain of insight one can’t help returning to.

[feelinglistless · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Imagine my surprise when browsing through Kernaghan Books in the Wayfarers Shopping Arcade in Southport for these editions when I stumbled across Hamlet somewhat working against the purpose of me utilising these Oxfords to discover literature. Edition editor G.R. Hibbard chooses the First Folio as the basis for his text on the assumption that it was produced from a clean, revised manuscript of the play by Shakespeare himself, a final revision of the material that increases the pace but also clarifies the story in other places. His argument is sound, but I do much prefer the much later Arden 3’s approach of suggesting that all the close textual analysis in the world won’t definitively confirm which of the versions is definitive, so it’s best just to present all three (unless like the RSC edition, the mission is to reproduce an edition of the folio in particular). More inevitably posted here.

[aoibhealfae · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Shakespearean work more than this play. Its riddled with ghost, revenge, crazy people, deaths, politics and psychological drama. Reading it along with the BBC's 2009's Hamlet does help in understanding the text, but its quite obvious how Hamlet's popularity survived half a millenia.

Full review to come.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorites. Best film adaptation: surprisingly, Mel Gibson's. Branagh's was way too long (yeah, I know, but still) and had Robin Williams in it; we won't talk about Ethan Hawke's.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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).

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[lhlogan1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good solid Shakespeare read. A bit too much of a "he did, she did" plot at times.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[26kathryn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was the first time that I've read Hamlet, I've heard it quoted so many times and I thought it was about time I read it.Hamlet's mother is married to her dead husband's brother. And after seeing his father's ghost Hamlet decides to take revenge on his uncle/step-dad who apparently murdered his father. It's a kind of crazy story with lots of death, and there were some places where I didn't really understand what was going on, but I still got the overall jist of the story.I enjoyed reading this but when reading a play as a book I find it a bit hard to keep track of the characters and the settings, I think I would like to see it performed so that I can really get a feel for the story.

[birdie.newborn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a mature play of Shakespeare's, blending all the elements of drama, psychology, gutter humor, passion, ambition, doubt. The Playbook version is unique, but valuable. I haven't seen anything approaching it.

[loufreshwater · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What didn't I learn from this book? ;-)

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[ron_peters-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Critics have varied in their enthusiasm for this play over the centuries. In many ways Hamlet is a typical "modern" - a relativist, caught in perpetual indecision, uncertain of his place in the world, frozen by his anxieties. It also contains some of the best-known lines and soliloquies in all of Shakespeare. It can be, and has been, read and performed from a religious perspective, an existential perspective, a Freudian perspective, or a feminist perspective.

[the_awesome_opossum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I refuse to offer up a literary review on Shakespeare. I wouldn't presume. However, I will say that I enjoyed this dark story. Watching a man descend into madness, yet still retain enough sanity to accomplish his purpose is drama at its best. Half the fun for me is finding out where all the quotes one hears all the time come from.

[stefany_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[boltgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet is the most annoying lead in Shakespeare. And the play is the most apt metaphor for the last couple of months of my high school career. Anenergy, baby! It took me forEVER to finish the term paper on the play; Brother Phil graciously gave me a C+ despite me turning it in, oh, probably a month past the due date. And that dinged my GPA just enough for someone else to win the Senior English prize. Ah well. At least it was one of my friends.

[hvymetalmg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Classic. I did enjoy reading this and I still have all my original underlines and footnotes on the page. The perfect definition of tragedy!

[msnikki · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.