Historical Context
Best of the Bard.
Perhaps Shakespeare’s most beloved play, Hamlet was written between 1599 and 1602. As with every detail regarding Shakespeare’s life and work, an educated guess is the best we can do when determining when exactly this play was written. (They didn't keep a lot of records back then.)
This was Shakespeare’s longest play, and one of the most popular in his lifetime. And it continues to be one of the most performed pieces from his canon-- it tops the list of most-performed plays by the Royal Shakespeare Company and their predecessors at Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s hometown) since 1879.
How inspiring.
There are numerous stories and legends that might have inspired Hamlet. Of course, it is difficult to say with any certainty which stories Shakespeare was aware of and which he may have used as inspiration, but there are many Hamlet-like legends. Most of these involve a “hero-feigning-madness” theme, and they can be found in Spain, Italy, Scandanavia, and Arabia, to name just a few.
Brutus/Lucius.
The Roman legend of Brutus features its hero, Lucius (meaning "shining light"), who changes his name to Brutus ("dull, stupid") and feigns madness and stupidity in order to avoid the fate of his father, and eventually slays his father’s killer.
Amleth.
The 13th-century Life of Amleth, by Saxo Grammaticus, was widely available in Shakespeare’s day and features significant parallels to Will’s work: the prince feigning madness, his mother’s over-hasty marriage to the usurper, the prince who kills a hidden spy, and the prince who escapes an execution by having his two servants executed instead.
Ur-Hamlet.
Another theory holds that Shakespeare took inspiration from an earlier play, the now-lost Ur-Hamlet, which may have been written by Thomas Kyd, a contemporary of Will, or by Shakespeare himself.
The theory goes that this earlier play, perhaps written by a young Will, perhaps not, was performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (Shakespeare's actring company), and then re-worked by Shakespeare over a period of time until the Hamlet we know and love emerged. It is an attractive idea to imagine an early, rougher version of the play being edited and rewritten over the course of years, giving Hamlet a longer development period than Shakespeare's other plays. Again it bears repeating--this is pure theory, as we cannot even state with certainty whether this Ur-Hamlet even existed.
Hamnet.
You may have heard about Shakespeare's only son, notably named Hamnet. Hamnet died at age 11, and we can only imagine the personal impact that had on Will. But it bears mentioning that scholars largely agree Hamlet likely has no connection with Hamnet.
It is enticing to connect the tragic element of the play and the main character’s grief over a lost father with Will’s own grief for his lost son. But truly, there is no evidence of this. Furthermore, Hamlet has obvious roots in legend, and the name “Hamnet” was fairly popular at the time.
Painting: Pedro Américo - Hamlet’s Vision
Will's Version(s)
If you've seen these study guides before, you know we like to take some time to explore Shakespeare's adjustments to the legends and stories that inspire his scripts.
This time, we have three times as much to cover, since there are technically three different versions--or editions--of Hamlet.
Three versions of one play.
Hamlet includes some of Shakespeare's most exceptional writing. And nowadays, we can all go to the bookstore and pick any copy of Hamlet and trust that the words and order of the scenes will be the same.
But funnily enough, there is a some scholarly debate over what the "real" version of Hamlet looked like. And that uncertainty is because there are actually three versions of the play that have survived. Each version vastly differs from the others. These versions are called:
The first quarto (hereafter called Q1), the second quarto (Q2) and the first folio (F1).
The First Quarto is bad.
Q1 is not-so-lovingly called the “bad’ quarto and was published in 1603. It contains just over half the text of the later second quarto--so it's missing almost half the content of the Hamlet you know and love. Q1 gained the moniker “bad quarto” thanks to its decided deficiency in language. Take a look at Q1’s version of the opening lines of ‘To be or not to be’:
To be, or not to be, aye there’s the point/ to die, to sleep, is that all? Aye all. / No, to sleep, to dream, aye marry there it goes.
Well, that's the gist of it, we suppose. You can see that the language is condensed, even "dumbed-down" a little, and much of the poetry and exploration of critical thought is lost. Sort of a cut-to-the-chase version.
Okay--if we all agree it's bad, why pay attention to this version at all?
Q1 does contain some useful stage directions that reveal early modern stage practices in ways Q2 and F1 do not. So we can get more of an idea of how the show was originally staged, which is particularly cool because we have relatively little proof of how Shakespeare staged his plays.
Q1 also has a different--and, we would argue, more coherent--arrangement of scenes.
Here's a great (and famous) example; Q1 moves the "To be or not to be" speech to much earlier in the play.
In the version you have at home, Hamlet delivers this famous speech in Act 3, Scene 1, right before his "nunnery" blow-up with Ophelia. And honestly, it's a bit awkward for the actor to have to deliver the speech in this moment.
The actor has to wonder: who is Hamlet talking to? Traditionally, we believe that characters soliloquizing on stage alone were speaking to the audience. But in this moment, Ophelia is over on the other side of the stage, pretending to read--so Hamlet is not truly alone and able to speak in confidence to the audience. Does Hamlet know she's listening? And if he does, is he partly speaking so she will hear him? And then does that mean he's partially playing "mad" for her sake? And THEN does that mean we can't fully trust this speech?? You can see it's a lot of clutter for the actor to consider. Or if Hamlet doesn't know she's there, does he simply not see her for an entire page of dialogue (which is awkward in performance)?
Also, Hamlet just left the last scene full of decisive action--he's made a plot to provoke Claudius's guilt using the players. "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!" And now, Hamlet almost immediately renters, passively contemplating whether to act or not, whether to live or die? Shakespeare usually takes better care of his actors than that--he doesn't often make things so hard to justify in performance.
But if we look where Q1 places this text, we find the speech much more playable and effective. In Q1, "To be..." happens in Act 2, Scene 2, just after Hamlet has feigned madness while chatting with Polonius. (The "fishmonger" scene, if you will.)
Polonius, convinced by Hamlet's bizarre behavior that the Prince is mad, says, "My honorable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you."
Hamlet replies, "You cannot take from me anything I would more willingly part withal--except my life, except my life, except my life."
Polonius leaves. Hamlet, now alone on stage, turns to the audience for "To be or not to be..."
You can imagine how much easier this is for the actor. Now, he's alone--he can speak his truth directly to the audience. There's no wondering whether he means what he says; the words now come honestly and directly and their meaning is more transparent. And even better, the lines "except my life" directly beforehand help justify the impetus for the speech--the lightbulb moment, if you will. In that moment, Hamlet has has an epiphany of sorts about his life and death--and now he explores that epiphany in real time with the audience. Now THAT is more like Shakespeare--taking care of his actor and letting the words justify themselves.
So where did the "bad" version of Hamlet come from? Why is most of it so bad but some of it is kind of great--maybe better--than the Folio version?
It is possible Q1 may have been reconstruction from memory by one of the actors in Shakespeare’s company. An actor--or maybe even just someone who had seen the play a lot--sat down after the fact and tried to write it down from memory. That would help explain why it's so short, why it has some of the original language but not much, and why the order of scenes is different. Maybe in the rehearsal process, Shakespeare made the decision to move the speech. He wouldn't have re-handwritten the whole script to archive the change--he would have just told the actors the new placement, and that's what would have appeared on stage in performance. So Q1 could have successfully captured the final performance order, even if it couldn't capture the words and poetry.
(It's also possible to conjecture Q1 is more of a performance text, while Q2 and F1 are a reading text, thus offering more content than would be obtained watching the play itself. Kind of like a director's cut on a BluRay today.)
Interestingly, there have been at least 28 staged productions of the “bad” quarto since 1881.
The Second Quarto & First Folio
Q2- Published 1604/1605 is the longest of the early editions of Hamlet and contains some 77 lines that are not found in the Folio.
F1- The first folio, published in 1623, is the first publication of the Complete Works.
There are scarcely 200 lines that are identical between these three versions, making the compiling of an “authentic” version impossible. No one knows which version was actually played before an audience, if any. It’s possible the “real” version was some combination of elements from all three. Indeed, this is how some theatres choose to stage their productions today: by taking bits from one and pieces of another and forming their own version.
For example, one might take the text of “To be or not to be” from Q2 (the longest version of the speech) but place it where Q1 places the speech (earlier in the play, as we discussed before). With no definitive answer, we are allowed to puzzle together which version we prefer.
Psychology Yesterday
Will makes his own rules.
Hamlet goes against Elizabethan theatrical convention in a number of ways. Like most of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet does not abide by the unities of action, time, and place proposed by Sophocles as essential to theatre. (This was the popular-at-the-time belief that the action of the play needed to fit logically with real-life time and place. Live theatre should be a single action represented as occurring in a single place and within the course of a day. So no time jumps, big setting shifts, etc. Side note: The Tempest is one of the few Shakespeare plays that follows the classical unities.)
Getting to know Hamlet.
Early Modern drama really liked to focus on plot. In Hamlet, however, Will primarily focuses on the characters and their development, not as much on the action of the story. This means that the character of Hamlet gets to be more fleshed out than most other Elizabethan protagonists.
Through his soliloquies, we get a deep exploration of Hamlet’s motives, emotions, and thoughts. Some have posited that the inconsistencies and seeming discontinuities in the play are not mistakes; they are there to highlight the themes of confusion and duality and reflect Hamlet’s often-shifting mind.
It's not surprising, then, that Hamlet is often considered Shakespeare’s most philosophical character. Throughout the play, we hear him speak in many different "brands" of philosophy. He expounds existentialist, skeptical, and relativist philosophy, among others.
Existentialist Hamlet.
Existentialism: a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.
The clearest instance of Hamlet's existentialism comes to us during his most famous speech:
“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.
He is literally asking the audience, “should I continue to exist and act, or should I just stop? Why do we choose to continue living?”
Realitivist Hamlet.
Relativism: the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
Hamlet’s relativism can be seen when he says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
There is nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so.”
This line of reasoning dates back to Greek Sophists, who believed that our individual senses determine how we perceive the world, and that our perception determines what we believe to be real. Since every human has their own individual senses, there is no absolute truth, only relative truth.
Skeptical Hamlet.
Skepticism: radical skepticism ends in the claim that one most likely cannot know anything—including that one cannot know about knowing anything.
Skepticism grew as a response and challenge to the humanist idea that man was God’s greatest creation, made in God’ image, and able to choose their own nature. Hamlet expresses the skeptic’s rebuttal of these ideas in this speech:
What a piece of work is man...what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me."
A Freudian prince.
Freud had a field-day with Hamlet.
The psychoanalyst used this play, and famously, Oedipus Rex to illustrate one of his major psychological theories: that neurosis can be traced back to a child falling in love with one parent and subsequently hating the other. Freud points to Hamlet’s inability to go through with killing Claudius as an expression of the sexual repression Hamlet is feeling towards his mother. According to Freud, Hamlet fears that, with Claudius out of the way, he will not be able to resist Gertrude. He turns his psychoanalytical microscope onto Ophelia as well, theorizing that her madness comes from the abrupt death of her hoped-for lover: her father.
Freud’s theories have been largely debunked, but his view of the character proved powerful enough to influence productions of the play. The famous 1922 John Barrymore production presented a decidedly Freudian Hamlet: less genteel, more blunt, virile, and lustful.
Also notable is the 1937 production at the Old Vic, starring Laurence Olivier, which featured ideas inspired by Freud and his followers, some of which Olivier would use in his 1948 film version.
Man delights not me."
Women Playing Hamlet
What's in a gender?
It may come as something of a surprise, but there is a rich historical tradition of women assaying the role of Hamlet.
In the United States, women have been playing the role since at least 1819. The idea of a woman Hamlet gained popularity during the Romantic period, thanks in part to evolving ideas about the character himself. This artistic movement conceived of a new Hamlet, more sensitive, delicate, and thoughtful, and it has been theorized that this so-called “feminizing” of Hamlet opened the door for women to play him.
Sarah Bernhardt
One of the most notable early female Hamlets was Sarah Bernhardt, who performed the role in 1899 at the age of 54. She played the role in the tradition of the “travesti” that was popular on the French stage at the time. This method called for the female actor to create a stylized masculinity that, it was thought, male actors were unable to achieve when playing young men or boys.
The aim was not androgyny, or to unite the sexes, but rather to highlight the differences by juxtaposing a female body with male clothing and attitude. French critics largely applauded her depiction of masculinity, while English critics objected to it, saying they could not see her as anything other than a woman--and a famous one at that.
Esme Beringer
In 1935, actress Esme Beringer played the Prince in London at age 63. She published an article later on defending the choice to have a woman play Hamlet. She described the emotional journey of the character from happy, high-spirited, and in love before his father’s death (and thus before the play begins), to the grief stricken Prince we see in the play, running the gamut between grief, scorn, and despair. She felt as though female actors were particularly suited to convey those emotions.
Judith Anderson
Further pushing the bounds of gender and age, in 1970 American actor Judith Anderson played the role at the age of 73. Her portrayal was widely criticized at the time, as most viewers had a hard time seeing past her age and her gender. Yet this represented a notable moment in theatrical history. With a minimalist set and the focus on actors and language to tell the story, this production pushed the boundaries not only of age and gender representation, but also of the conventions of Shakespearean performance at the time.
And now.
Interestingly (sadly), female Hamlets were much more common in the 1800s than they are in more modern theatrical traditions. There were upwards of 50 known women Hamlets from 1800 to 1899 when Sarah Bernhardt played the role. The part was played by American, English, Australian, and Irish female actors around the world.
Playing this coveted role allowed women to engage in their craft not only as more than emotional and pretty-to-look-at-characters, as was the norm, but as intellectuals and swordsmen. Many who played the role noted a new recognition of their gravity and seriousness as performers.
This is not to suggest that the 1800s was a progressive haven for women. Far from it. Hamlet was the exception to the rule. Victorian female actors were expected to exemplify femininity and appear sexually attractive. (Have things changed that much since then? Perhaps a bit, but we have a long way to go.)
We have seen a recent push in popular modern Shakespeare companies to open up the canon to women actors, and actors of all genders, so that Hamlet does not exist as an exception to the rule but rather an illustration of it. Among the many roles that have recently and famously been played by women, notable examples are: King Lear (both as gender blind and as the cross gendered “Queen Lear”), Richard III, Malvolio, Petruchio, and Henry V.
Background picture: Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, 1900
Quotes Quiz
Test your understanding of the characters and their motivations by identifying who said what.
- “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
- “To cut his throat in a church.”
- “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
- “The lady doth protests too much, methinks.”
- “Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to feed us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.”
- “But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede.”
- “Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.”
- “Thou knowst ’tis common: all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity...why seems to so particular to thee?”
- “My words fly up; my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
Painting: Benjamin West, Hamlet: Act IV, Scene V (Ophelia Before the King and Queen)
Thanks, Hamlet
We talked about Will's influences--now let's see who Will has influenced.
Coming soon.
Background photo from Ohio Shakespeare Festival, by Scott Custer.
I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw."
Crazy Like a Fox
Or just plain crazy?
Coming soon.
Painting: John William Waterhouse, Ophelia
List of Characters
Hamlet - Prince of Denmark, son of Gertrude and Hamlet Senior, and nephew to Claudius. Has been romantically involved with Ophelia, best friend to Horatio.
Hamlet Senior: The King that has died before the play begins; Hamlet's father.
Claudius - Hamlet's uncle, brother to the dead king, and now King of Denmark.
Gertrude - Queen of Denmark, married to Claudius, Hamlet's mother, was just a hot second ago married to Hamlet's father.
Polonius - Lord Chamberlain to the King--an advisor of sorts. Ophelia and Laertes's father.
Horatio - Hamlet's best friend from college; a very learned man.
Ophelia - Hamlet's girlfriend, Laertes's sister, Polonius's daughter, and a lady of the court.
Laertes - Ophelia's brother, son of Polonius; there is reason to believe he and Hamlet have be frenemies since childhood.
Fortinbras - Prince of Norway who plans to invade Denmark. This threat looms throughout the play and eventually Fortinbras does arrive to clean up the bodies and take power.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - Two of Hamlet's school buddies. They are summoned by the King and Queen to try to find out what is wrong with Hamlet; their intentions are not hostile, but because they are straightforward with Hamlet about why they have come to visit, Hamlet distrusts them.
Photo by Scott Custer for Ohio Shakespeare Festival
Discussion Starters
Use these as prompts for classroom discussion, essay questions, or simply as inspiration for your critical mind.
- Discuss whether or not you believe Hamlet's madness is feigned or real. Use specific moments from the text to prove your belief. How does it change the story if he is truly (clinically) mad? How does is change the story if he is completely sane?
- Consider the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. What is the nature of their love?
- Arguably, Hamlet has two allies in the play: Horatio and Ophelia. Discuss on Horatio and Ophelia are similar and different as people. How do they try each to help Hamlet?
- What would be inherently different about a production with a male actor playing Hamlet versus a female actor playing Hamlet? Would there necessarily be a difference?
- Look at the play through Claudius's perspective. Why does he murder his brother? How does it affect him? How do things begin to spiral out of control for him?
- Discuss Gertrude's decision to marry Claudius. What are the many reasons she might have done that?
- Is the Ghost of Hamlet's father real? Prove it.
- Why doesn’t Hamlet share the truth with other people if he is seeking honesty?*
*This question is borrowed directly from the Utah Shakespeare Festival study guide.
Glossary of Terms
- usurp - seize and take control without authority
- partisan - a pike with a long tapering blade
- auspicious - indicating favorable circumstances and good luck
- filial - relating to befitting an son/daughter
- retrograde - moving in a backward direction
- discourse - extended speaking or writing
- truant - absent without permission (in context of the play, a reference to someone who plays hooky)
- countenance - facial expression
- tenable - based on sound reasoning or evidence
- prodigal - recklessly wasteful
- parley - a negotiation between enemies
- beguile - to attract; cause to be enamored
- canonize - to treat as a sacred person
- adulterate - mixed with impurities
- pernicious - exceedingly harmful
- antic - ludicrously odd
These vocab selections came from the below website, where you can find more Hamlet specific vocab in order of appearance in the text.
Resources and Suggested Reading
- Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare : The Biography / Peter Ackroyd Chatto & Windus London 2005
- https://sfshakes.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/hamlet-origins-the-legend-of-amleth/
- The Position of the Soliloquy "To be or not to be" in Hamlet, Lewis F. Mott. PMLA. Vol. 19.
- Crystal, David; Crystal, Ben (2005). The Shakespeare Miscellany. New York, Penguin
- Taylor, Gary (2002). "Shakespeare Plays on Renaissance Stages". In Wells, Stanley; Stanton, Sarah. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage.
- Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hattaway, Michael (1987). Hamlet. The Critics Debate. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan.
- Chambers, E. K. (2009) [First published 1923]. The Elizabethan Stage. 3. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Halliday, F. E. (1969) [first ed. 1964]. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Shakespeare Library. Baltimore: Penguin.
- Crawford, Alexander W. Hamlet, an ideal prince, and other essays in Shakesperean interpretation: Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Othello; King Lear. Boston R.G. Badger, 1916. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2009. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/antichamlet.html >.
- http://theconversation.com/tackling-gender-inequality-on-stage-needs-to-go-further-than-female-hamlets-31268
- https://jadtjournal.org/2014/05/29/crossing-genre-age-and-gender-judith-anderson-as-hamlet/2/
Credits:
As credited throughout the story.