Hamlet

I've read several editions of Hamlet, seen the play once in live performance, and seen one film version. So far I've read only the prefatory material in this edition. Am glad that I bought it!

This book provides great background and context for the iconic play, and explains many nuances of the text and the play. The book includes the text of the play along with lots of commentary and explanations, side by side in an easily readable format. I bought the book because I was going to a production of the play by the Oakland Theater Project, in San Rafael, California in September 2025. I had studied this play decades ago in a college English class, but there was a lot I missed the first time through, and I learned a lot from the book which made purchasing it well worthwhile. There are several very good essays in the book about topics such as Shakespeare's language, Shakespeare's life, and a modern perspective on the play, which were well worth reading. Total cost with tax was less than $9, very reasonable.

Great movie

The play "Hamlet" is of course a classic, and Shakespeare wrote it. I teach "Hamlet", so let me just say that this is one of Shakespeare's best for a multitude of reasons. This review isn't really about the play itself though. It is more about the Kindle version of the play. There are a couple of things I really like: (1) It is easy to navigate and go exactly to the Act and Scene I want to see. (2) I love that I can click on a word and see its definition; but more than that, I can click again and see the origin of the word! That is so helpful in understanding Shakespeare, and I enjoy seeing where words came from. What I don't like is that the play actually cost money. "Hamlet" has been out of copyright for a very long time, precisely because it is a classic, yet there wasn't one free version of "Hamlet" available for Kindle. Why not? If I am going to pay for something that should be free, I expect to see extras: footnotes, essays about the play, indepth commentaries, etc. This Kindle version was just the play itself. If I had had to pay more money for it, I would have rated it with a few less stars. At least the price wasn't too bad (though it should be free).

On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn. Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages. A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once. Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death. In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes. The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his revenge. At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.

... which is best summarized in the pithy formulation that is a principal "takeaway" from this classic Shakespearean play: "To be or not to be, that is the question." Indeed, it is a gloomy play, with more than one character wondering if life is really worth it. The play commences with a ghost, who is Hamlet's father, who has returned to haunt the living, since he was murdered - by his brother, who is now the King. Furthermore, the reader learns early on, the wife of the now dead King quickly marries the new King; no "decent interval" required. And yes, she is the mother of Hamlet. That's the setup; Cliff Notes, as it has for generations of students, can walk you through the rest of the plot. I'll only add that not many of the principals are left standing at the end. And like those aforementioned generations of students, I was once one myself, though now I am "way past school." And like the vast majority of students, those Shakespearean school reading assignments rather perversely instilled a desire never to read Shakespeare again. At a very real level, one is just too young in high school to "get it." And the "stilted" language of the English of the Middle Ages only makes it harder. Perhaps the only way to instill a desire to read him in school would be to forbid it. I've been re-reading a number of works that I had to read in school, to see how the work and my perception of it have aged. "Hamlet" is a re-read. Now I've been able to observe, over several decades, the "craziness" that seems to come to people with power, as well as those who desire it. I now have known those who have died, and might call out for vengeance from beyond the grave. And I have observed the angst and indecisiveness in others, as so well depicted in the character of Hamlet. Ophelia, the young woman who Hamlet may have loved, has become a symbol for troubled young women, and she has lent her name to the title to a book or two. And there were some very famous women who followed her path, such as Virginia Woolf. I also know a few very real Danes, but they are far from angst-ridden. The most famous soliloquy, "To Be...," I mentioned earlier. It has been decades since I thought of that famous contemplation of death: "Alas, poor Yorick!- I knew him well..." Also, for decades, I've made references to getting something done "before we shake off this mortal coil" thinking it was probably somewhere in the Bible - but it turns out it was from Hamlet. And I thought Ben Franklin had said: "Neither a borrower or a lender be," so I was surprised to also find it in Hamlet. And then there were those I hadn't remembered or attributed, correctly or not, such as: "What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more..." Overall, the re-read was a great experience. And it is now so easy to download the plays, one at a time, for under a buck, unto the Kindle. I've set myself a goal of trying to read one a month, starting with the re-reads of the major tragedies, and then on to some of the comedies and histories which I had not read before. For Hamlet, 5-stars.

Delivery was quick and product was in good quality.

Are Shakespeare's plays really intended to be read...that is, by a lay-reader and purely for the purpose of a read? I suppose the reflexive answer is YES! But the read is always (to me) flat. I think the writing was intended as “lines” for his actors - to be performed on a stage, not read as a novel. I'll bet most people (no actual polling, mind you - who uses evidence anymore?) find the read of the plays...well dull. Part of that is the morphing of English over 400+ years which can make words and even thoughts obscure, but a large component, I suspect, is that the medium is not what The Bard intended. Anyway - I blush to give “The Bard of Avon”, the greatest writer of the English language, a 3-star review. However, Hamlet was on my reading list (thegreatestbooks.org) but following reads of: Faulkner's “The Sound and the Fury”; or Virginia Woolf's, “To the Lighthouse”; or Ford Madox Ford’s, “The Good Soldier”; or Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” or other masterpieces of that sort - Hamlet seems - 'three stars' by comparison! That is because I don't know how to compare apples and oranges. Or maybe it's because I prefer apples, or are they the oranges? In any event, forgive me Bill. (Hamlet, Amazon Classics Edition, Kindle)