Hamlet

By William Shakespeare and Lisa Peterson

To thine own text be true—Lisa Peterson’s translation of Hamlet into contemporary American English makes the play accessible to new audiences while keeping the soul of Shakespeare’s writing intact. 
 
Lovers of Shakespeare’s language take heart: Lisa Peterson’s translation of Hamlet into contemporary American English was guided by the principle of “First, do no harm.” Leaving the most famous parts of Hamlet untouched, Peterson untied the language knots that can make the rest of the play difficult to understand in a single theatrical viewing. Peterson’s translation makes Hamlet accessible to new audiences, drawing out its timeless themes while helping to contextualize "To be, or not to be: that is the question," and “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” so that contemporary audiences can feel their full weight.

This translation of Hamlet was written as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! project, which commissioned new translations of thirty-nine Shakespeare plays. These translations present work from "The Bard" in language accessible to modern audiences while never losing the beauty of Shakespeare’s verse. Enlisting the talents of a diverse group of contemporary playwrights, screenwriters, and dramaturges from diverse backgrounds, this project reenvisions Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. These volumes make these works available for the first time in print—a new First Folio for a new era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
• Release date: Oct 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9780866986670

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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Play On Shakespeare

Hamlet

Hamlet

by

William Shakespeare

Modern verse translation by

Lisa Peterson

Dramaturgy by

Luan Schooler

Arizona State University

Tempe, Arizona

2021

Copyright ©2021 Lisa Peterson.

All rights reserved. No part of this script may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage or retrieval systems without the written permission of the author. All performance rights reside with the author. For performance permission, contact: Play On Shakespeare, PO Box 955, Ashland, OR 97520,

[e-mail]

◆

Publication of Play On Shakespeare is assisted by

generous support from the Hitz Foundation.

For more information, please visit www.playonshakespeare.org

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Published by ACMRS Press

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,

Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona

www.acmrspress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Peterson, Lisa (Lisa J.), author. | Schooler, Luan, contributor. | Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Hamlet.

Title: Hamlet / by William Shakespeare ; modern verse translation by Lisa Peterson ; dramaturgy by Luan Schooler.

Description: Tempe, Arizona : ACMRS Press, 2021. | Series: Play on Shakespeare | Summary: This translation unties the language knots that can make some of the play difficult to understand in a single theatrical viewing and makes it accessible to new audiences, drawing out its timeless themes while helping to contextualize the familiar lines so that contemporary audiences can feel their full weight-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021017571 (print) | LCCN 2021017572 (ebook) | ISBN 9780866986663 (paperback) | ISBN 9780866986670 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Hamlet (Legendary character)--Drama. | Kings and rulers--Succession--Drama. | Murder victims’ families--Drama. | Fathers--Death--Drama. | Princes--Drama. | Revenge--Drama. | Denmark--Drama. | GSAFD: Tragedies.

Classification: LCC PR2878.H3 P48 2021 (print) | LCC PR2878.H3 (ebook) | DDC 812/.6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017571

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021017572

Printed in the United States of America

We wish to acknowledge our gratitude

for the extraordinary generosity of the

Hitz Foundation

•

Special thanks to the Play on Shakespeare staff

Lue Douthit, CEO/Creative Director

Kamilah Long, Executive Director

Taylor Bailey, Senior Producer

Summer Martin, Director of Learning Engagement

Katie Kennedy, Publications Project Manager

Amrita Ramanan, Senior Cultural Strategist and Dramaturg

•

Originally commissioned by the

Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Bill Rauch, Artistic Director

Cynthia Rider, Executive Director

SERIES PREFACE

PLAY ON SHAKESPEARE

In 2015, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced a new commissioning program. It was called Play on!: 36 playwrights translate Shakespeare. It elicited a flurry of reactions. For some people this went too far: You can’t touch the language! For others, it didn’t go far enough: Why not new adaptations? I figured we would be on the right path if we hit the sweet spot in the middle.

Some of the reaction was due not only to the scale of the project, but its suddenness: 36 playwrights, along with 38 dramaturgs, had been commissioned and assigned to translate 39 plays, and they were already hard at work on the assignment. It also came fully funded by the Hitz Foundation with the shocking sticker price of $3.7 million.

I think most of the negative reaction, however, had to do with the use of the word translate. It’s been difficult to define precisely. It turns out that there is no word for the kind of subtle and rigorous examination of language that we are asking for. We don’t mean word for word, which is what most people think of when they hear the word translate. We don’t mean paraphrase, either.

The project didn’t begin with 39 commissions. Linguist John McWhorter’s musings about translating Shakespeare is what sparked this project. First published in his 1998 book Word on the Street and reprinted in 2010 in American Theatre magazine, he notes that the irony today is that the Russians, the French, and other people in foreign countries possess Shakespeare to a much greater extent than we do, for the simple reason that they get to enjoy Shakespeare in the language they speak.

This intrigued Dave Hitz, a long-time patron of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and he offered to support a project that looked at Shakespeare’s plays through the lens of the English we speak today. How much has the English language changed since Shakespeare? Is it possible that there are conventions in the early modern English of Shakespeare that don’t translate to us today, especially in the moment of hearing it spoken out loud as one does in the theater?

How might we carry forward the successful communication between actor and audience that took place 400 years ago? Carry forward, by the way, is what we mean by translate. It is the fourth definition of translate in the Oxford English Dictionary.

As director of literary development and dramaturgy at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I was given the daunting task of figuring out how to administer the project. I began with Kenneth Cavander, who translates ancient Greek tragedies into English. I figured that someone who does that kind of work would lend an air of seriousness to the project. I asked him how might he go about translating from the source language of early modern English into the target language of contemporary modern English?

He looked at different kinds of speech: rhetorical and poetical, soliloquies and crowd scenes, and the puns in comedies. What emerged from his tinkering became a template for the translation commission. These weren’t rules exactly, but instructions that every writer was given.

First, do no harm. There is plenty of the language that doesn’t need translating. And there is some that does. Every playwright had different criteria for assessing what to change.

Second, go line-by-line. No editing, no cutting, no fixing. I want the whole play translated. We often cut the gnarly bits in Shakespeare for performance. What might we make of those bits if we understood them in the moment of hearing them? Might we be less compelled to cut?

Third, all other variables stay the same: the time period, the story, the characters, their motivations, and their thoughts. We designed the experiment to examine the language.

Fourth, and most important, the

Reviews for Hamlet

[pgchuis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More of the action seemed to happen off-stage than on! Excellent notes, and again many familiar lines I have seen referenced another literature and in everyday speech. Most of the cast dead by the end...

[stormydawnc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My favorite of Shakespeare's plays(that I've read). Is there a more interesting character than Hamlet? The amazing this about this play is that I know the end from the very beginning, but I'm always compelled to read on.

[xleptodactylous · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet was the original diva, mmhhmm.

[cebellol · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Possibly one of the only tragedies Shakespeare wrote that I can really, truly say I enjoyed. I really can't say much about it without ruining it though, so I'll just say READ IT (avoid the movie until you've done so though. I really like Kenneth Branagh, but it's just a little overkill.)

[nikkles_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[trilliams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Oh, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet. Get thee to a nunnery.

[ashdwyer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While this book is incredibly depressing, the story is one that holds your attention the entire time. Shakespeare seems to be good at doing that...

[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.

[john257hopper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

To commemorate in my own small way the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death, I decided to read Hamlet for the first time in my life. While one of his greatest plays, I don't enjoy this as much as Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, which I studied at school and have enjoyed also in adulthood. There are some amazing scenes, though, and the flow of phrases which have entered the English language from this play alone comes thick and fast.

[mzzkitee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the greatest works ever written.

[nules_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was a reasonably enjoyable Shakespearean play. It's kind of wild. It's not long, but not the shortest of his plays, either.

[kmass_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

By far the best Shakespeare play ever, and that's saying a lot. It's just so incredibly complex. Hamlet's soliloquies give insight into the human psyche that even most novels, let alone dramas, can't match. And Horatio just might be my favorite Shakespeare character of all time,

[alejandrademena · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It read it on my Great Books class in college, at first I thought it was going to be boring but it is very interesting. I have read it a few times and this edition was for sure the best one.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My fav editions of the Bard.

[misslizzy_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this play once during my senior year of high school, and have yet to read it since, but something about it makes me like it. Scandal amongst royal families will ALWAYS be interesting, I suppose.

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

One of my favorite Shakespeare works.

[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

[kswanteck · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare is good to teach in any classroom, because it is so timeless. The struggles Hamlet faces throughout this play, wondering who he is and what he should do, are things that everyone goes through at some point in their life. Students could really see character development and inner struggles within a character while reading Hamlet. It could also be a good way to get students to interact with a text, because it is a play and they could act it out.

[rosenstern · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[jfoster_sf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic Shakespeare tragedy.

[knotbox · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed, and could relate to the performance done on DVD in 1996, and that is what recommended the play to me. Really interesting and moving.... it's hard to review something so integral to the classics, but as with all of shakespeare, it is best read simultaneous (the dreaded, read-and-pause) with a good adaption.

Kenneth Branagh helped me appreciate Hamlet. Despite it's leangth, it is lush and fantastical in the most bearable way. A great play.

[lieslmayerson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Life changing. Truly a must read for anyone and everyone. While I know plays are meant to be seen, I honestly think you must create your own interpretation.

[cyndavaz · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Forced reading from high school - I hated every moment of this.

[katy89williams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first work by Shakespeare that I had every read, and it was definitely not the last. Hamlet was so captivating and thought provoking that I had to read more of Shakespeare. This was an author that I had not been looking forward to reading, but after reading this I was hooked. I highly recommend it to everyone out there.

[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.

[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.

[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).

[rizeandshine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet is my favorite and most quotable of all Shakespeare's plays. It is much more than a straightforward tale of revenge and focuses a great deal on the philosophical, moral and psychological, and even the reader/audience is left with many unanswered questions at the play's end. However, I prefer to be immersed in a play, listening to the beautiful language, rather than reading the text, so it's difficult for me to rate as simply a book.

[pluckybamboo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The crazy, classic story about the prince of Denmark, in which everyone dies but Horatio... really delves into the idea of death, insanity, and the line between fantasy and reality. A must read (or see!).

[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.