Background of the play
Summary of the play Outline of my paper Characters index Main Works Cited Relevant Links Guiding questions

Hamlet was likely written in 1600, but the date of composition is uncertain. Most scholars feel that the play came after Julius Caesar, which is alluded to in 3.2.93 by Polonius. The first reference to the play is by a printer named James Roberts, who entered the play into the Stationer's Register on July 26, 1602. The first known edition is in a quarto dated 1603, but printed by Nicholas Ling and John Trundell. This text is only 2200 lines long, making it one of the shorter versions of the play, as well as one of the inferior copies. Many scholars believe this version to have been reconstructed from memory alone, probably by one or two of the actors in Shakespeare's company. The next edition, in 1604, seems to have used Shakespeare's handwritten draft, and is significantly larger and more comprehensive. The third main edition is that of the First Folio in 1623. This version of the play seems to have used the promptbook as its source, and thus more accurately portrays the play as Shakespeare's audience would have seen it. Due to discrepancies in the 1604 and 1623 texts, many modern editors have conflated the two versions into a unified text.

The narrative behind Hamlet derives from the legendary story of Hamlet (Amleth) recounted in the Danish History from the twelfth century, a Latin text by Saxo the Grammarian. This version was later adapted into French by Francois de Belleforest in 1570. An unscrupulous Feng kills his brother Horwendil and marries his brother's wife Gerutha. Horwendil's and Gerutha's son Amleth, although still young, decides to avenge his father's murder. He pretends to be a fool in order to avoid suspicion, a strategy which works. With his mother's active support, Amleth succeeds in killing Feng. He is then proclaimed King of Denmark. There is no uncertainty in this story, although Belleforest's version claims that Gerutha and Feng are having an affair. In fact, in this version the murder of Horwendil is quite public, and Amleth's actions are considered to be a duty rather than a moral sin.

This version of Hamlet is likely what Shakespeare knew, along with another play done in 1589 in which a ghost apparently calls out, "Hamlet, revenge!" However, this other play from 1589 is largely lost, and scholars cannot agree on what parts of it Shakespeare may have adopted or not, or if it even existed. Assuming it did exist, most scholars attribute it to Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy in 1587. The Spanish Tragedy includes many of the elements that Hamlet has, such as a ghost seeking revenge, a secret crime, a play-within-a-play, a tortured hero who feigns madness, and a heroine who goes mad and commits suicide. This play is focused on revenge, and actually precipitated the genre of revenge plays of which Hamlet is a part.

The revenge play that Hamlet falls into includes five typical assumptions. Revenge must be on an individual level against some insult or wrong. Second, the individual may not have recourse to traditional means of punishment, such as courts, because of the power of the person or person's against whom revenge will be enacted. Third, the lust for revenge is an internal desire, which can only be satisfied by personally carrying out the revenge. Fourth, the revenger must make the intended victim aware of why the revenge is being carried out. Lastly, revenge is a universal decree that supercedes any particular religious doctrine, including Christianity.

Hamlet is a play of questions. Unresolved questions are constantly being asked, about whether the ghost of Old Hamlet is friendly or a demon, or whether Ophelia commits suicide or dies accidentally. The first act sets the scene for the rest of the play, "What art thou" (1.1.45), "Is it not like the king?" (1.1.57), "What does this mean, my lord?" (1.4.8). The inability to know the truth and to act on it is encapsulated in Hamlet himself, who is constantly seeking the answers to his questions throughout the play. This sense of constant questioning is perhaps best epitomized in the opening line, "Who's there?" (1.1.1).

Hamlet as a character remains tantalizingly difficult to interpret. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described him as a poet, a sensitive man who is too weak to deal with the political pressures of Denmark. The twentieth century has had Sigmund Freud, who viewed Hamlet in terms of an Oedipus complex, a sexual desire for his mother. This complex is associated with the wish to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Freud points out that Hamlet's uncle has usurped his father's rightful place, and therefore has replaced his father as the man who must die. However, Freud is careful to note that Hamlet represents modern man precisely because he does not kill Claudius in order to sleep with his mother, but rather kills him to revenge his mother's death. Political interpretations of Hamlet also abound, in which Hamlet hides the spirit of political resistance, or represents a challenge to a corrupt regime.

Stephen Greenblatt, the editor of the Norton Edition of Shakespeare, views these interpretive attempts of Hamlet as mirrors for the interpretation in the play itself. Polonius attributes Hamlet's madness to his rejection by Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern feel Hamlet suffers from ambition, a desire to succeed his father on the elective throne of Denmark. Hamlet's madness is itself doubtful at times, Hamlet claims to be pretending, Claudius doubts his nephew's madness, but at the same time Hamlet's melancholy nature is clearly expressed in the beginning by his continued mourning for his father. In Shakespeare's time excessive melancholy was often associated with forms of madness, and so Hamlet, already exhibiting bouts of melancholy, makes himself a natural candidate for madness.

The soliloquies are dramatically rhetorical speeches of self-reflection. These have already been seen in the characters of Brutus in Julius Caesar and Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I. Hamlet is a culmination of these characters, capable of far more complexity and psychological introspection. Indeed, in order to allow Hamlet to bring his mind to full expression, Shakespeare allegedly introduced over 600 new words into the English language in this play alone.