Hamlet

Summary

Hamlet opens on the battlements of Elsinore, where sentries and the scholar Horatio see the ghost of the late King Hamlet of Denmark. Prince Hamlet, called home from university at Wittenberg for his father's funeral, is grieving and disgusted that his mother Gertrude has married his uncle Claudius, now king, within two months. The Ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius murdered him by pouring poison into his ear as he slept, and commands revenge, though Hamlet must leave his mother to heaven. Hamlet swears to remember, then decides to put on an antic disposition, feigning madness. The court's counselor Polonius, who has forbidden his daughter Ophelia to receive Hamlet's love, believes the prince is mad for her; Claudius sets Hamlet's school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. Hamlet, doubting whether the Ghost may be a devil, has visiting players perform a play reenacting the murder; Claudius rises in alarm, and Hamlet is certain. He then comes upon Claudius at prayer and spares him, lest he die in a state of grace; alone, Claudius admits his words fly up while his thoughts remain below. In his mother's chamber Hamlet stabs Polonius, who is hiding behind a tapestry, and rebukes Gertrude until the Ghost appears again. Claudius sends Hamlet to England with sealed orders for his death. Ophelia, her father dead and her lover gone, loses her reason, sings fragments of songs and hands out flowers, and is later drowned. Her brother Laertes returns from France demanding vengeance, and Claudius plots with him a fencing match with an unblunted, poisoned rapier and a poisoned cup in reserve. Hamlet, having discovered the orders and sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths instead, returns by way of a pirate ship. In the graveyard he contemplates the skull of the jester Yorick and grapples with Laertes in Ophelia's grave. Before the match he tells Horatio that there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow and that the readiness is all. In the duel Gertrude drinks the poisoned cup, Laertes and Hamlet are wounded with the poisoned blade, Laertes confesses, and Hamlet kills Claudius. Dying, Hamlet asks Horatio to tell his story and names Fortinbras of Norway, who arrives to claim the throne and give Hamlet a soldier's funeral.

Plot or Argument

• Act I: The Ghost

  The Ghost appears on the platform; Hamlet grieves his father and his mother's hasty marriage, learns of the murder, swears revenge and resolves to feign madness.

• Act II: Antic disposition

  Polonius blames love for Hamlet's madness; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are set to spy; the players arrive and Hamlet plans the Mousetrap to test the Ghost's word.

• Act III: The Mousetrap

  Hamlet meditates on being and not being, rejects Ophelia, watches Claudius break off the play, spares him at prayer, kills Polonius and confronts Gertrude.

• Act IV: Madness and plots

  Hamlet is sent to England; Ophelia goes mad and drowns; Laertes returns in rage and Claudius plots the poisoned duel.

• Act V: The readiness is all

  Hamlet returns, meditates on death in the graveyard, accepts providence, and dies in the duel after killing Claudius; Fortinbras inherits Denmark.

Characters

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

  A brilliant, grieving, witty and self-searching scholar charged by his father's ghost to avenge a murder.

• Claudius, King of Denmark

  Hamlet's uncle, a capable politician who has murdered his brother and married his widow, and who cannot repent.

• Gertrude, Queen of Denmark

  Hamlet's mother, whose quick remarriage wounds her son.

• The Ghost, Hamlet's father

  The late king, suffering in purgatorial fire, who demands revenge.

• Polonius, Lord Chamberlain

  A meddling, sententious counselor and loving father who dies spying behind the arras.

• Ophelia, Polonius's daughter

  A gentle, obedient young woman loved by Hamlet, who loses her mind after her father's death.

• Laertes, Polonius's son

  A hot-blooded young man whose revenge for his father mirrors and contrasts with Hamlet's.

• Horatio, Hamlet's friend

  A loyal, level-headed scholar who survives to tell Hamlet's story.

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, school friends

  Courtiers used by Claudius to spy on Hamlet and later sent to their deaths.

• Fortinbras, Prince of Norway

  A decisive young soldier whose action contrasts with Hamlet's delay and who takes the throne.

Lessons

• Conscience and the command to act

  Hamlet must avenge a murder yet fears damning himself on a ghost's word. His delay is not mere weakness: he tests the Ghost, weighs the soul's fate, and thinks about what killing means. The play makes readers think about the moral weight of action.

  • Why does Hamlet stage the Mousetrap before acting?
  • Why does he spare Claudius at prayer?
  • What does he mean by conscience making cowards of us all?

• Repentance that will not let go

  Claudius wants forgiveness but will not give up his crown, his queen or his ambition. Shakespeare shows that true repentance requires surrender of the fruits of sin.

  • What does Claudius ask himself in his prayer?
  • Why do his words fly up while his thoughts remain below?

• Providence and readiness

  After his sea voyage Hamlet speaks of a divinity that shapes our ends and of special providence in the fall of a sparrow. His final calm comes from trust rather than from a finished plan.

  • How has Hamlet changed between Act III and Act V?
  • What does 'the readiness is all' mean?

• Fathers and children

  Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras are all sons of slain fathers, each answering differently. Polonius's counsel to Laertes and his use of Ophelia show the good and the harm a parent can do.

  • How do Hamlet and Laertes differ in revenge?
  • Is Polonius a good father?

Context

Hamlet draws on the Danish legend of Amleth told by Saxo Grammaticus and retold by Belleforest, and probably on a lost earlier English Hamlet play. It belongs to the Elizabethan tradition of revenge tragedy, popularized by Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, and reflects contemporary interest in melancholy, the nature of ghosts and debates between Catholic and Protestant ideas of purgatory. Hamlet's university, Wittenberg, was Luther's.

Composition

Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1599-1601. It survives in three early texts: a short First Quarto (1603), a fuller Second Quarto (1604-05) and the First Folio (1623). Modern editions, like the text attached here, combine readings from these.

Reception

Hamlet was popular from its first performances and has been the most performed and discussed of Shakespeare's plays. Its soliloquies, especially 'To be, or not to be', are among the best-known passages in English, and the prince has been interpreted by Romantic, psychological and religious critics in many ways.

Comparisons

• macbeth

  Macbeth acts on a supernatural prompting too quickly and is destroyed by guilt; Hamlet hesitates and tests the Ghost.

• the-oresteia

  Orestes must avenge a murdered father on a parent; Aeschylus ends with a court of justice, Shakespeare with providence and death.

• king-lear

  Both tragedies probe madness, real and feigned, and the bonds between parents and children.

• the-anatomy-of-melancholy

  Burton's encyclopedia of melancholy, published two decades later, describes the scholarly sadness Hamlet displays.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Hamlet's first soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 2, before he has seen the Ghost: what already troubles him?
• The Ghost's command in Act 1, Scene 5, including what he tells Hamlet not to do to his mother.
• Every time Hamlet seems mad: is he pretending, and to whom?
• Claudius at prayer in Act 3, Scene 3, and why Hamlet does not kill him.
• Hamlet's words to Horatio in Act 5, Scene 2 about providence and readiness, compared with his soliloquies earlier.

Key terms and names

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character alone on stage speaks his thoughts aloud; Hamlet has seven.

Antic disposition

Hamlet's phrase for the madness he plans to feign.

Revenge tragedy

An Elizabethan genre in which a wronged person, often urged by a ghost, seeks vengeance and dies with his enemies.

Mousetrap

Hamlet's name for the play-within-the-play meant to expose Claudius's guilt.

Melancholy

In Renaissance medicine, a condition of the black bile bringing sadness, fear and brooding; Hamlet is the classic stage melancholic.

Purgatory

In Catholic teaching, a state of purification after death; the Ghost says he is confined to fires for a time.

Arras

A wall tapestry; Polonius hides behind one and is killed through it.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does the Ghost tell Hamlet about his death, and what does he command?
2. Comprehension Why does Hamlet arrange for the players to perform The Murder of Gonzago?
3. Comprehension How do Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius and Hamlet each die?
4. Interpretation Is Hamlet ever truly mad, or only pretending? Use at least two scenes as evidence.
5. Interpretation Hamlet spares Claudius at prayer so that he will not go to heaven. Is this a reason, an excuse, or a sign of something worse?
6. Interpretation How does Hamlet's attitude toward death change between 'To be, or not to be' and 'the readiness is all'?
7. Big Question Can a person ever be commanded to take revenge, and what does the play suggest about leaving vengeance to God?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 10:29 (Scripture)

  Not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father. Hamlet's 'special providence in the fall of a sparrow' directly echoes Christ's words.

• Romans 12:19 (Scripture)

  Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. The Ghost's command to revenge stands in tension with this teaching, and the play leaves the outcome to providence.

• Psalm 51:16-17 (Scripture)

  God desires a broken and contrite heart rather than sacrifice. Claudius's prayer fails because his words are not joined to a contrite heart willing to give up his crime's rewards.

• Augustine, City of God I.17-22 (Church Fathers)

  Augustine argues that self-killing is forbidden by the commandment against murder; Hamlet recalls that the Everlasting has fixed his canon against self-slaughter.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Hamlet is commanded to avenge a murder but fears acting wrongly on uncertain evidence. He tests the Ghost and confirms Claudius's guilt, yet his delay and rashness cause other deaths. At sea he learns that providence shapes events beyond his plans. Therefore the play suggests that human schemes of justice are uncertain and costly, and that peace comes from readiness to accept God's governance.

Rhetorical device: soliloquy as argument. In 'To be, or not to be' Hamlet sets out alternatives, weighs them, considers the unknown after death and concludes that conscience makes cowards of us all, as if reasoning a disputation aloud.

Debate: Resolved: that Hamlet was right to delay killing Claudius until he had tested the Ghost.

Memory Work

To be, or not to be, that is the question

There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace Hamlet's thinking about death through three passages: the first soliloquy, 'To be, or not to be,' and the graveyard and sparrow speeches in Act 5. Argue what changes in him and why.

Comparison with Macbeth: Hamlet and Macbeth both receive messages from the supernatural that urge them to kill a king. Compare how each responds and argue what the contrast teaches about conscience.

Medical Lens

Hamlet is a central text for the history of melancholy: the black-clad scholar who has lost all his mirth, which Elizabethan readers would connect with treatises such as Timothy Bright's Treatise of Melancholie (1586). The play sets Hamlet's assumed madness, which he controls, beside Ophelia's real derangement after bereavement, and raises the moral and legal questions of suicide in the soliloquies and the gravediggers' debate over her burial. Poisons drive the plot from the hebenon poured in the king's ear to the envenomed rapier and the poisoned cup. Readings of Hamlet as a case of clinical depression are interpretive; the play itself frames his state in terms of grief, conscience and melancholy.

• Act 1, Scene 2

  Hamlet's first soliloquy wishes his flesh would melt and regrets the divine law against self-slaughter.

  Melancholia Depression Suicide Grief
• Act 1, Scene 5

  The Ghost describes the juice of hebenon poured in his ear, curdling his blood and covering his body with a leprous crust.

  Pharmacology Poisons Death Dying
• Act 2, Scene 2

  Hamlet describes the loss of mirth and pleasure in exercise, and Polonius diagnoses love-madness.

  Melancholia Depression Madness Psychosis
• Act 3, Scene 1

  The 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy weighs death, sleep and the dreams that may come after.

  Suicide Dreams Nightmares
• Act 4, Scene 5

  Ophelia's madness after her father's death: songs, flowers and broken speech.

  Madness Psychosis Grief
• Act 4, Scene 7 and Act 5, Scene 1

  Gertrude reports Ophelia's drowning; the gravediggers and the priest dispute whether she died by her own act and deserves Christian burial.

  Suicide Death Dying
• Act 5, Scene 2

  The poisoned rapier and cup kill Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius and Hamlet.

  Pharmacology Poisons Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Stage the Mousetrap scene in Act 3, Scene 2 with half the class watching Claudius and half watching Hamlet, then compare what each group saw.

• Essay

  Compare Hamlet's response to his father's death with those of Laertes and Fortinbras, and argue which the play holds up as the right response.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation Horatio has with Fortinbras when he tells Hamlet's story.

Further Reading

• Shakespearean Tragedy, A. C. Bradley

• What Happens in Hamlet, John Dover Wilson

• The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Kyd

• Hamlet in Purgatory, Stephen Greenblatt