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    Hamlet
    Hamlet
    Hamlet
    Ebook256 pages2 hours

    Hamlet

    By William Shakespeare

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    In this quintessential Shakespearean drama, Hamlet's halting pursuit of revenge for his father's death unfolds in a series of highly charged confrontations that climax in tragedy. Probing the depths of human feeling like few other works of art, the play is reprinted here from an authoritative British edition complete with illuminating footnotes. A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Publishing LLC
    Release dateApr 1, 2013
    ISBN9781625589514
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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    Reviews for Hamlet

    4/5

    6,932 ratings93 reviews

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    • 5/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      There: you can all stop nagging me, I've finally read it. The plot was mostly as expected, though I think whatever version I read as a child was less kind to Ophelia, as I had a rather different image of her in mind. I had a whole book of Shakespeare retellings, now I think about it: I can't really remember many of them, but I suppose they haunt me a little in my vague ideas of what the plays are like before I read them...

      Anyway, Hamlet: justly famous, and full of phrases and quotations that even people who've never read a Shakespeare play can quote. It's always interesting coming to those in situ at last.

      Still terribly glad I don't have to study Shakespeare now. If I end up somehow forced to read Shakespeare in my MA, I may scream. Much happier to come to his plays now, in my own good time.
    • 4/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      It was a very interesting story. It wasn't boring as I thought it would be.
    • 5/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      The Penguin edition remains the best edition for highschool students, undergrad students and actors. Not as dense as the Arden nor as casual as the RSC, but the perfect in-between for people in those categories.
    • 5/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      Almost 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 Psy 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.
    • 5/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      One of the best things I've ever read. Hamlet's got it all. Shakespeare at his best, filling so few pages with so much story.
    • 5/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      My favorite Shakespearean play. Though there is one that may end up taking it's place.
    • 5/5

      Nov 5, 2024

      I liked it. There's really no point in reviewing this other than to say that.
      So emo, so mysterious, and a ghost, how chic.
    • 5/5

      Oct 17, 2024

      Possibly the best play by Shakespeare. I count this among the greatest tragedies of all time because I have read it numerous times over the years.
    • 4/5

      Aug 5, 2022

      More of the action seemed to happen off-stage than on! Excellent notes, and again many familiar lines I have seen referenced another literature and in everyday speech. Most of the cast dead by the end...
    • 5/5

      Mar 31, 2019

      Imagine my surprise when browsing through Kernaghan Books in the Wayfarers Shopping Arcade in Southport for these editions when I stumbled across Hamlet somewhat working against the purpose of me utilising these Oxfords to discover literature. Edition editor G.R. Hibbard chooses the First Folio as the basis for his text on the assumption that it was produced from a clean, revised manuscript of the play by Shakespeare himself, a final revision of the material that increases the pace but also clarifies the story in other places. His argument is sound, but I do much prefer the much later Arden 3’s approach of suggesting that all the close textual analysis in the world won’t definitively confirm which of the versions is definitive, so it’s best just to present all three (unless like the RSC edition, the mission is to reproduce an edition of the folio in particular). More inevitably posted here.
    • 4/5

      Dec 9, 2019

      The only Shakespeare plays I had read before this were Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, Macbeth being my favorite. Having now read Hamlet, I can honestly say that Macbeth is still my favorite.

      Let's discuss.

      So, Hamlet himself is an emo icon, and also a misogynist, who basically goes crazy, murders someone, and essentially ruins everything.

      The ending came a little too quickly for me, tbh. There wasn't enough time to really develop any other characters. It was pretty quotable, though. Really, it gave me more Romeo and Juliet feels than Macbeth feels.
    • 4/5

      Oct 4, 2018

      It amazes me how many people like Hamlet, no exception here, when it's really hard to relate to, but yet it's just one of those plays once you get into it, you come to love it. I read it for the first time in 12th grade and everyone would talk about it even when they didn't have to. The characters in Hamlet are amazingly complex and it doesn't just state how they are, you learn it through their actions and what they say. It's just so unique, I know everytime I read it I get a different opinion of the characters and the overall play.
    • 5/5

      Jul 18, 2018

      My favorite, of all the histories and tragedies. I've seen it in performance at least 5 times--with Kevin Kline and Ralph Fiennes two of the most memorable.
    • 5/5

      Mar 15, 2018

      Forcing myself into reading Shakespeare as an adult, I started here. I'm not sorry. Excellent poetry. "What a piece of work is man" is one of my favorite bits of writing period, not just within Shakespeare's works. I believe this is also the longest of his plays? Partly my reason for tackling it first. If you only read one of his works, read Hamlet.
    • 5/5

      Aug 19, 2017

      My favorite of Shakespeare's plays. It just gets better with every reading, and this time I started with Marjorie Garber's excellent chapter on the play (in her Shakespeare After All), which helped me appreciate the themes of “playing” – of dramas within dramas, “staged” events, audiences being observed, etc. – and of borders...

      ”In suggesting that these three worlds – the world of Hamlet's mind and the imagination; the physical, political, and “historical” world of Denmark; and the world of dramatic fiction and play – are parallel to and superimposed upon one another, I am suggesting, also, that the play is about the whole question of boundaries, thresholds, and liminality or border crossing; boundary disputes between Norway and Denmark, boundaries between youth and age, boundaries between reality and imagination, between audience and actor. And these boundaries seem to be constantly shifting.”

      Also, of course, fathers and sons, words and meanings, just so much in this one, which, I suppose, is why I enjoy new things about it each time I read it. And I do love Hamlet. He treats Ophelia terribly, and Laertes at her grave, but his indecision, his anxiety, his sincerity, his hopefulness are all so... relatable! Really, I love it all. The relationships, the humor, the wordplay, the poetry. Happy sigh.
    • 4/5

      Jul 6, 2017

      BBC Audiobook performed by Michael Sheen (Hamlet), Kenneth Cranham (Claudius), Juliet Stevenson (Gertrude) and Ellie Beaven (Ophelia), and a full cast

      I’ll dispense with the summary for this classic tragedy by William Shakespeare, but as I’ve said before, I really dislike reading plays. I much prefer to see them performed live by talented actors, the medium for which they are written. The next best thing to a live performance, however, must be an audio such as this one, with talented actors taking on the roles and really bringing the play to life for the listener.

      There are hundreds of editions of this work, and I recommend that readers get one that is annotated. The text copy I had as an accompaniment to the audio was published by the Oxford University Press, and included several scholarly articles, appendices and footnotes to help the modern-day reader understand Shakespeare’s Elizabethan terms and use of language, as well as historical references. One appendix even includes the music to accompany the songs!
    • 5/5

      Oct 17, 2016

      My fav editions of the Bard.
    • 3/5

      Jun 10, 2016

      Really enjoyed, and could relate to the performance done on DVD in 1996, and that is what recommended the play to me. Really interesting and moving.... it's hard to review something so integral to the classics, but as with all of shakespeare, it is best read simultaneous (the dreaded, read-and-pause) with a good adaption.

      Kenneth Branagh helped me appreciate Hamlet. Despite it's leangth, it is lush and fantastical in the most bearable way. A great play.
    • 3/5

      May 26, 2016

      READ IN ENGLISH

      To be or not to be; that is the question

      That's probably one of the best known parts of Western literature.
      I never really like Shakespeare (okay, I only read Romeo and Juliet and my school forced me to do so), but things have changed a bit lately after I went to see a theatre production of The Tempest in London's Globe Theatre.
      So, why not try and read Hamlet? (The Tempest will be read as well, as soon as I have the time to do so)
      Indeed, and I liked the play. It was still a relatively easy read and great for some winter evenings.
    • 3/5

      Apr 24, 2016

      To commemorate in my own small way the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death, I decided to read Hamlet for the first time in my life. While one of his greatest plays, I don't enjoy this as much as Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, which I studied at school and have enjoyed also in adulthood. There are some amazing scenes, though, and the flow of phrases which have entered the English language from this play alone comes thick and fast.
    • 5/5

      Feb 26, 2016

      Great classic
    • 4/5

      Jan 6, 2016

      The more I learn about the English language and literature in general, the richer Shakespeare's works become. Hamlet is no exception.

      When considered as a boundary/change marker in the landscape of literature, it makes an interesting mile-marker between earlier eras of the oral heroic, the epic and the blossoming of humanism. (Forgive me if I'm using any of these terminologies incorrectly; I will elaborate what I mean.) Which is to say, the oral heroic focused (in general terms) on family units, clans, tribes, etc. and the conflicts between them. These narratives usually dealt with inscribing some sort of expected behavior(s) that sorted out the violent chaos that accompanied the birthings of civilizations. As an example of a major trope in this early literature that's relevant to Hamlet: blood-feud violence.

      The Odyssey comes from the beginning of this and in its ending tries to address the ending of such tit-for-tat retribution.

      In this way, Hamlet might be considered (and I'm happy to do so) the ending of this particular literary tradition as a major trope. Instead of focusing on the blood feud (the plot going on with Fortinbras & Norway), it turns a bit more inward. Instead of Hamlet marching off to claim what is his by rights from Norway, there's a more humanistic struggle at play.

      I feel that most Shakespeare could benefit from a little extra knowledge and context than most of us get upon our first exposure. Hamlet's definitely gotten 'better' for me over time.
    • 5/5

      May 30, 2015

      Oh, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet. Get thee to a nunnery.
    • 5/5

      Apr 7, 2015

      Hamlet was the original diva, mmhhmm.
    • 5/5

      Mar 24, 2015

      It read it on my Great Books class in college, at first I thought it was going to be boring but it is very interesting. I have read it a few times and this edition was for sure the best one.
    • 5/5

      Mar 10, 2015

      Magnificent.
      Like nearly all plays, it has to be acted. Just reading won't bring out the emotions. I played Rosencrantz (or was it Guildenstern, better toss a coin!!)
      I also saw Hamlet at the Exchange Theatre in Manchester. This modern theatre built as a square inside the old Victorian building gave me a tremendous insight. It is theatre in the round. Sitting on the top tier looking almost vertically down I noticed that when Hamlet spoke his soliloquoys he was not actually speaking to anyone in the audience. He was speaking as if to an empty space in front of him and his speech turned inwards to himself. Then I noticed the dialogues. The two actors were not speaking one to the other: each was speaking as if to an empty space between them.
      This is the magic power of Theatre altogether. The Empty Space between the actors and the audience. Wonderful.
    • 4/5

      Feb 5, 2015

      It feels odd to be giving Shakespeare a rating in stars - who am I to judge?
      After many many years, I re-read Hamlet in a fine edition by Signature Shakespeare. This is a beautifully produced book and has a helpful layout with the original text supplemented with meanings of obscure words and suggested explanations for passages. It was a treat to read, and improved my appreciation of the text.
      I can't see it making it big in prime time - all the lead characters end up dead, but it is a tragedy!
      Read February 2015.
    • 5/5

      Nov 24, 2014

      I like other Shakespeare plays better, but I admit that this is Shakespeare's zenith.
    • 5/5

      Oct 30, 2014

      This is, I believe, my absolute favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies. Primarily because Hamlet is a thinker throughout most of the play. When we first meet him, he is thinking of the inevitability of death and the loss of his father. Then he is tasked to dispatch his uncle when he learns from his father's ghost that Claudius poisoned him for his crown, and he spends the rest of the story considering the logistics of actually doing the deed.

      Many of my favorite Shakespeare lines also come from Hamlet, not only the brilliant soliloquies, but also little bits like "neither a borrower nor a lender be," "sweets for the sweet," and "goodnight, sweet prince." Also, Hamlet provided the inspiration for one of my favorite modern plays, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead."

      This particular edition also includes a series of essays on the play and Shakespeare's writing, my favorite of which is an in-depth look at Gertrude by Carolyn Heilbrun in a piece titled "The Character of Hamlet's Mother." It also ends with a look at Hamlet on stage and screen, breaking down the various and varied performances of Hamlet through the years, ending with the Laurence Olivier film version (fitting since that is what inspired me to reread the play this time around).

      I'm pretty sure this exact copy was my sister's in high school, it is also filled with several notes written by her hand, in pencil, in the margins.
    • 5/5

      Oct 21, 2014

      Perfection. Not one false word. Not one false moment. A play in which every part makes the whole stronger. A more perfect play I've never read. Genius.

    Book preview

    Hamlet - William Shakespeare

    ACT I

    ACT I. SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

    Enter two Sentinels—[first,] Francisco, [who paces up and down at his post; then] Bernardo, [who approaches him].

    BERNARDO: Who’s there.?

    FRANCISCO: Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

    BERNARDO: Long live the King!

    FRANCISCO: Bernardo?

    BERNARDO: He.

    FRANCISCO: You come most carefully upon your hour.

    BERNARDO: ‘Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

    FRANCISCO: For this relief much thanks. ‘Tis bitter cold,

    And I am sick at heart.

    BERNARDO: Have you had quiet guard?

    FRANCISCO: Not a mouse stirring.

    BERNARDO: Well, good night.

    If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

    The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

    Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

    FRANCISCO: I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

    HORATIO: Friends to this ground.

    MARCELLUS: And liegemen to the Dane.

    FRANCISCO: Give you good night.

    MARCELLUS: O, farewell, honest soldier.

    Who hath reliev’d you?

    FRANCISCO: Bernardo hath my place.

    Give you good night. Exit.

    MARCELLUS: Holla, Bernardo!

    BERNARDO: Say—

    What, is Horatio there ?

    HORATIO: A piece of him.

    BERNARDO: Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

    MARCELLUS: What, has this thing appear’d again to—night?

    BERNARDO: I have seen nothing.

    MARCELLUS: Horatio says ‘tis but our fantasy,

    And will not let belief take hold of him

    Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.

    Therefore I have entreated him along,

    With us to watch the minutes of this night,

    That, if again this apparition come,

    He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

    HORATIO: Tush, tush, ‘twill not appear.

    BERNARDO: Sit down awhile,

    And let us once again assail your ears,

    That are so fortified against our story,

    What we two nights have seen.

    HORATIO: Well, sit we down,

    And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

    BERNARDO: Last night of all,

    When yond same star that’s westward from the pole

    Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven

    Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

    The bell then beating one—

    Enter Ghost.

    MARCELLUS: Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!

    BERNARDO: In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.

    MARCELLUS: Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

    BERNARDO: Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

    HORATIO: Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

    BERNARDO: It would be spoke to.

    MARCELLUS: Question it, Horatio.

    HORATIO: What art thou that usurp’st this time of night

    Together with that fair and warlike form

    In which the majesty of buried Denmark

    Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!

    MARCELLUS: It is offended.

    BERNARDO: See, it stalks away!

    HORATIO: Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!

    Exit Ghost.

    MARCELLUS: ‘Tis gone and will not answer.

    BERNARDO: How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.

    Is not this something more than fantasy?

    What think you on’t?

    HORATIO: Before my God, I might not this believe

    Without the sensible and true avouch

    Of mine own eyes.

    MARCELLUS: Is it not like the King?

    HORATIO: As thou art to thyself.

    Such was the very armour he had on

    When he th’ ambitious Norway combated.

    So frown’d he once when, in an angry parle,

    He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

    ‘Tis strange.

    MARCELLUS: Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

    With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

    HORATIO: In what particular thought to work I know not;

    But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,

    This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

    MARCELLUS: Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,

    Why this same strict and most observant watch

    So nightly toils the subject of the land,

    And why such daily cast of brazen cannon

    And foreign mart for implements of war;

    Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

    Does not divide the Sunday from the week.

    What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

    Doth make the night joint—labourer with the day?

    Who is’t that can inform me?

    HORATIO: That can I.

    At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,

    Whose image even but now appear’d to us,

    Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

    Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,

    Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet

    (For so this side of our known world esteem’d him)

    Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal’d compact,

    Well ratified by law and heraldry,

    Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

    Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror;

    Against the which a moiety competent

    Was gaged by our king; which had return’d

    To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

    Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart

    And carriage of the article design’d,

    His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

    Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

    Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,

    Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,

    For food and diet, to some enterprise

    That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other,

    As it doth well appear unto our state,

    But to recover of us, by strong hand

    And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

    So by his father lost; and this, I take it,

    Is the main motive of our preparations,

    The source of this our watch, and the chief head

    Of this post—haste and romage in the land.

    BERNARDO: I think it be no other but e’en so.

    Well may it sort that this portentous figure

    Comes armed through our watch, so like the King

    That was and is the question of these wars.

    HORATIO: A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

    In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

    A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

    The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

    Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;

    As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,

    Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

    Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

    Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

    And even the like precurse of fierce events,

    As harbingers preceding still the fates

    And prologue to the omen coming on,

    Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

    Unto our climature and countrymen.

    Enter Ghost again.

    But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!

    I’ll cross it, though it blast me.— Stay illusion!

    Spreads his arms.

    If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

    Speak to me.

    If there be any good thing to be done,

    That may to thee do ease, and, race to me,

    Speak to me.

    If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,

    Which happily foreknowing may avoid,

    O, speak!

    Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

    Extorted treasure in the womb of earth

    (For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),

    The cock crows.

    Speak of it! Stay, and speak!— Stop it, Marcellus!

    MARCELLUS: Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

    HORATIO: Do, if it will not stand.

    BERNARDO: ‘Tis here!

    HORATIO: ‘Tis here!

    MARCELLUS: ‘Tis gone!

    Exit Ghost.

    We do it wrong, being so majestical,

    To offer it the show of violence;

    For it is as the air, invulnerable,

    And our vain blows malicious mockery.

    BERNARDO: It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

    HORATIO: And then it started, like a guilty thing

    Upon a fearful summons. I have heard

    The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

    Doth with his lofty and shrill—sounding throat

    Awake the god of day; and at his warning,

    Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

    Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies

    To his confine; and of the truth herein

    This present object made probation.

    MARCELLUS: It faded on the crowing of the cock.

    Some say that ever, ‘gainst that season comes

    Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

    The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

    And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

    The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

    So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

    HORATIO: So have I heard and do in part believe it.

    But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

    Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

    Break we our watch up; and by my advice

    Let us impart what we have seen to—night

    Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,

    This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

    Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

    As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

    Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know

    Where we shall find him most conveniently. Exeunt.

    ACT I. SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

    Flourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet,

    Polonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, [Voltemand, Cornelius,]

    Lords Attendant.

    KING CLAUDIUS: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death

    The memory be green, and that it us befitted

    To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom

    To be contracted in one brow of woe,

    Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

    That we with wisest sorrow think on him

    Together with remembrance of ourselves.

    Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

    Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,

    Have we, as ‘twere with a defeated joy,

    With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,

    With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,

    In equal scale weighing delight and dole,

    Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d

    Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

    With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

    Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,

    Holding a weak supposal of our worth,

    Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death

    Our state to be disjoint

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