Hamlet

“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Mercutio.” So begins Hamlet, the last play Shakespeare wrote before his untimely death saving a bus full of orphans in the Great Fire of London. Actually that's a lie, but writing anything original and true about Hamlet seems almost futile, it's like whispering at a The Who concert. Here we are, four hundred years (ish) since the play was written and there are currently some four thousand articles published each year about it. If you sat down and watched Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film version (with a toilet break in the middle) then by the time the end credits rolled there would be two new articles waiting for you.

It's presumably getting to the point where the articles can be quite meta. Indeed, quite a show more lot of this Arden edition's introduction is given over to exploring why people still feel the need to probe the play quite so deeply. (There are about 130,000 letters in the text of Hamlet According to this Wikipedia page.. That means that if you went through the play and for every letter in the text you read an essay on some aspect of Hamlet then you'd run out of letters before you ran out of essays. That's rather deep scrutiny right there.)

With that in mind, perhaps I'll keep this short. Hamlet is a ripping little yarn about revenge, madness, and – depending on who you ask – hesitation. Because so much of the play is in the cultural consciousness by now, at times reading it feels like watching a film that you've seen too many trailers for. But despite knowing generally what was going to happen and even vast swathes of dialogue, it still manages to do all those things that a good play should: move, amuse, and improve. show less

★★★★★ (or as close as a tragedy can get 😅)
I’ve read Hamlet before, but listening to this full, uncut production felt like discovering it again. 🎭 The language is still razor-sharp funny, cruel, philosophical, and heartbreakingly human yet the performance makes it move in a way that reading on the page sometimes can’t.
Kenneth Branagh brings a restless, wired energy to Hamlet that keeps the tension humming ⚡️, and the ensemble is stacked with absolute legends. Hearing voices like John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, and Emma Thompson in the mix adds a kind of theatrical gravity that’s hard to describe without sounding dramatic myself 😄.
The music and sound effects are used with real restraint enough to pull you into the show more world without drowning out Shakespeare’s words 🎧. And because it’s the complete version, you get those “ohhh THAT’S where that line comes from” moments constantly.
It’s intense, it’s haunting, it’s oddly relatable… and yes, I still stared into the middle distance afterward 🖤👑. show less

O que distingue Hamlet de outras revenge tragedies (e talvez de todas as peças escritas antes dele) é a ação protelada até que Hamlet tenha mais conhecimento do que está fazendo ou prestes a fazer. O texto coloca perguntas cujas respostas as outras peças simplesmente presumem pressupostas. Podemos conhecer ou encontrar fantasmas? É o fantasma o que parece ser? Ou é, na realidade, um demônio enganador? O fantasma tem consciência de sua própria morte, ou é ele próprio um iludido? Passando às coisas mais terrenas: como podemos saber com certeza os fatos sobre um crime que não teve testemunhas? Pode Hamlet conhecer o estado d'alma de Claudius observando-lhe o comportamento? Se assim for, pode ele conhecer os fatos referentes show more ao que Claudius fez, observando-lhe o estado d'alma? Pode Claudius (ou o público) saber o estado de espírito de Hamlet, observando-lhe o comportamento e ouvindo-lhe o discurso? Podemos saber se nossas ações terarão as consequências que queremos que elas tenham? Podemos descobrir alguma coisa sobre a vida após a morte? show less

A most intriguing play, and not the easiest work to read. The tale of a young prince trying to come to terms with his father’s death is probably the best known of Shakespeare’s tragedies. There’s something for everyone here: high drama, low comedy, intriguing characters.
I’d advise watching a video or move, or perhaps listening to an audio presentation either before or while reading this one. No matter how good your reading skills are, the enjoyment and understanding of any play is enhanced by seeing it performed. This time out I watched an old stage production starring Richard Burton. The highlight of that one is Hume Cronyn’s marvelously humorous take on Polonius.
Highest recommendation possible.

It is notable how often reviews of Hamlet become apologia. It is one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays, with many of his most quotable lines and, in the young Prince of Denmark, one of his most compelling and modern characters. As with most of the Bard's work, there is astonishing wealth in and in-between the lines. It is incredible to think that he managed to fuse so much into so small a space: at about 150 pages it is the longest of Shakespeare's plays, whereas most contemporary writers seek immortality by penning 900-page tomes. There is perhaps a lesson there.

Nevertheless, it quickly becomes obvious why so many people feel the need to defend something which is unquestionably seen as a masterpiece, for Hamlet is often show more unpolished, unfocused and contradictory. Even allowing for the well-known labour of trying to find a 'definitive' version of any of Shakespeare's plays – folios, drafts, and whatever else survived the Elizabethan age – Hamlet still seems unfocused compared to other Shakespeare pieces. The central revenge plot lacks the single-mindedness and the intensity which bleeds through, say, Macbeth, and the divergences away from Hamlet's story – I'm thinking of the long Pyrrhus speech and the silly 'hey nonny nonny' stuff at the end – very often misfire.

That said, Hamlet is the one work of Shakespeare that emphasises his skill as a playwright as opposed to a storyteller or poet. A lot of Shakespeare's reputation in modern times is based on his literary genius and his plays are often read as much as performed (guilty as charged). But the inconsistencies and the divergences in Hamlet make it ripe for editing and interpretation: ideal for a stage director or acting troupe. It is, as the cliché has it, a 'living play'. Even as literature, which is how I personally approached it, an unfocused Shakespeare still shoots straighter than just about any other writer. There are riches in here that you couldn't find anywhere else. And, of course, Shakespeare himself says it best in Act 3: "You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work, but what of that?" show less

This play along with King Lear are considered the epitome of Shakespeare's work as a dramatist (though I'd put The Merchant of Venice easily amongst their ranks).

I read Hamlet once before in high school...and hated it. But as was the case with Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, I think it was a combination of being half asleep and perpetually angry in class with a teacher who considered her college degree a license to gloat, bitch, piss and moan over her righteous classroom-kingdom. She was the queen and I was the ass jester.

But anywho, digressions aside, I re-read Hamlet and found (much like being exposed to most of Shakespeare's other works and being in a great class with an incredible teacher) that it was and is a literary force to be read show more thought over, experienced and held in the mind for as long as you can.

Comparisons to Lear are inevitable I guess as both deal with tragic familial dysfunctions in a royal setting. But whereas Lear posited that the universe was ambivalent, if not out and out wholly against the machinations of man, Hamlet takes a more inter-humanistic approach in that it is man, not the universe, that brings about the greatest of downfalls. More like, it's the cousin next to you who will stab you then the tree in the forest fall on you, all things considered.

Honestly though, in my own mind I'm swinging as to which is the superior play...until I realize that to compare the two seems (to me) folly in that the two masterworks attack, diagnose, and interpret such grand (but altogether very different) problems concerning the individual mired in family, in mental anguish, and, finally, the universe of nature and of fellow men/women/all things below, beyond, and so on. Pulling back one can see them also as tempestuous (not trying to be clever I just lacked a better term) observations of a great literary mind torn between love for, and neurotic obsession with, his chosen medium. Shakespeare loved the theater but one can say he agonized over how to express that love approriately? Or...how to make it more without changing it? Or...so on so on so on.

If pressed then, I'd have to say that Hamlet and King Lear stand as towering halves to a great supposition grand suffering, pain, and ultimate catharsis and at least attempted redemption.

But, I rate The Merchant of Venice as the pinnacle of Shakespeare's creations. I think I've winded on and on so in brief I'll just say its his most intelligent, horrifying, and at the same time, shattering work that works on the personal, the grand, and on levels I can't even properly verbalize (well, type, cliche i know). show less

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) show more 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. show less