Hamlet

I finally did it, I read Shakespeare. Do I get extra bookish points for that? Haha

Might seem like a low rating, but the thing is as much as a saw it was a great story I didn't feel like I got the whole experience, as I just read the play. I think in order to fully get the masterpiece I have to see the play or at least a movie based on it.

Read this to get my self ready to read another book.

Hamlet should never be played by anyone older than 16. The play was great, but I hate that guy. Find out where you stored your brain, Hamlet, because it's not in your head.

My favorite Shakespeare by far, but also the one that I had to read the most for school. I wrote a paper on Hamlet's depression or "melancholia" as it was called then

Shakespeare me sigue sorprendiendo porque por alguna razon pensaba que su fama era mas hype que otra cosa. Pero cada obra que leo me demuestra que Shakespeare es simplemente fantastico.

To die, to sleep —

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

First things first: I didn’t actually read the Macmillan edition, I read

this Folger Library edition, but the cover is just too comically ugly to look at any more than I have to. The introduction taught me that a good editor is crucial for Shakespeare given the (somewhat shockingly) piecemeal many of his plays have been reconstructed, and aesthetics aside the Folger Library both seems reliable and was incredibly helpful: it’s laid out with a page for notes and illustrations opposite a page of text, with a summary preceding each scene (I read these afterwards to make sure I didn’t miss anything) and a wonderful essay at the end by Michael Neill which really drew out a lot of the themes that I don’t know if I would have put together on my own. Also, thank goodness for the list of characters at the beginning, without which I would have been lost on more than one occasion.

On to the play itself. Never having read Shakespeare before—and probably because I DNF’d his sonnets earlier this year—I expected to suffer through

Hamlet. Not the case! Plays are a new medium for me so an attempt at rating feels a bit like throwing darts at a board, but I definitely enjoyed this, and find that almost all my criticisms are inherent in the form itself (which is unfair but honest). For one, I just miss prose: I miss descriptions of setting and subtext about body language and all the things that narration alone can give. And for two, I’m not sure I’m

imaginative enough to give pure dialogue, no matter how good, the proper emotions and depth of feeling. I read the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, and in my mind it’s beautiful but somewhat bland; I look up YouTube clips of that same passage performed by trained actors, and am absolutely blown away by the passion and power of the words. It’s not until I

see it that I truly understand it.

That said,

Hamlet is still oddly compelling, and I find myself thinking back on it quite often. Beyond the plot itself, it’s a play about death, and vengeance, and mortality. And,

like Homer, Shakespeare is nothing like I anticipated: he doesn’t use rhyme that often, his jokes are often a bit crass, and the body count by the end is substantial. There are ghosts, and plots, and a romance that I’m not sure was supposed to be serious or not. There’s a play-within-a-play that is kind of painful to read and really puts Shakespeare’s mastery of language into perspective. And, sometimes, it’s unintentionally funny, such as stage direction like

GHOST cries under the stage or when the characters narrate what’s happening a la

Polonius

behind the arras yells

O, I am slain! or

the Queen

announcing

No, no, the drink, the drink! O, my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poisoned. Reading it was a bit of a puzzle, but not as difficult as I had imagined (definitely much easier than the sonnets).

And, lastly, there is also an element of finding that I’m suddenly getting the “in-jokes” of the English language. Not only are many of the passages famously identified with Shakespeare (“To be or not to be,” “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” etc.) but there are still more that have transcended Shakespeare to become common idioms (“brevity is the soul of wit,” “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” etc.) and, perhaps most delightfully, still more that I recognize from other novels or songs that I didn’t realize were quoting Shakespeare to begin with.

I went in to

Hamlet to check Shakespeare off the list, but I’ve come out wanting to to read more…and also to find a theatrical production. 4 stars because it feels dishonest to give it 5 right now given that I just don’t think I love plays, but maybe that will change in the future.

Some favorite lines:

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Do not forever with thy vailèd lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father.

But you must know your father lost a father,

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief.

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,

An understanding simple and unschooled.

But look, the morn in russet mantle clad

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill

Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.

I say we will have no more marriage. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

To be or not to be that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep —

No more and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep —

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

Mad let us grant him then, and now remains

That we find out the cause of this effect,

Or rather say, the cause of this defect,

For this effect defective comes by cause.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend.

There is a willow grows askant the brook

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do "dead men's fingers" call them.

There on the pendant boughs her caronet weeds

Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up.

Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,

As one incapable of her own distress

Or like a creature native and endued

Unto that element. But long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Palled the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears.

I must be cruel only to be kind.

O shame, where is thy blush?

Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?

i don't even know how many times i've read this play. at least six. i still love ophelia and what her character could've stood for - madness, lost virtue, powerlessness, all of the above? nice

Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is as much a staple in the literary canon as it is a subject of continued reinterpretation. Prince Hamlet is not a classic hero of a tragedy. Among other things, he is the harbinger of the self-absorbed modern antihero, going through an existential crisis, paralyzed by overthinking and bound to calamity, a pre-Raskilonikov and a pre-Stephen Dedalus. The treatment of Ophelia in the play is another fascinating point. Her untimely demise and the circumstances surrounding it remain an enigma. Was she a victim of ruthless societal norms, or could she be viewed as an anti-heroine herself, crumbling under feelings of guilt and resentment?

Indeed, Shakespeare's language, a feast of literary dexterity, complex metaphors and intricate wordplay, opens the text to myriad interpretations. Among them is the scrutiny of political corruption, familial ties, and moral dilemmas, as embodied in characters like Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, and Fortinbras. And the exploration of the question of truth and deception, of duty and illusion, as embodied by the ambiguous ghost of Hamlet's father.

Overall, "Hamlet" is a play that calls for open-minded examination and an endless source of fascination and debate.