The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W.S.

EM 18 (Literary Criticism) Additional Reading ONLY!

BSED - Major in English Block 3A | Teacher Carmel Vip Derasin | SEM 1 2024

OVERVIEW

Hamlet, a tragedy in five acts by William Shakespeare, written about 1599–1601 and
published in a quarto edition in 1603 from an unauthorized text, with reference to an earlier play. The
First Folio version was taken from a second quarto of 1604 that was based on Shakespeare’s own
papers with some annotations by the bookkeeper.

Shakespeare’s telling of the story of Prince Hamlet was derived from several sources, notably
from Books III and IV of Saxo Grammaticus’s 12th-century Gesta Danorum and from volume 5 (1570)
of Histoires tragiques, a free translation of Saxo by François de Belleforest. The play was evidently
preceded by another play of Hamlet (now lost), usually referred to as the Ur-Hamlet, of which
Thomas Kyd is a conjectured author.

● https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hamlet-by-Shakespeare

Full Title: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Author: William Shakespeare
Type of work: Play
Genre: Tragedy, revenge tragedy
Language: English
Time and place written: London, England, early seventeenth century (probably 1600–1602)
Date of first publication: 1603, in a pirated quarto edition titled The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet; 1604
in a superior quarto edition

Protagonist: Prince Hamlet

● Major Conflict
Hamlet feels a responsibility to avenge his father’s murder by his uncle Claudius,
but Claudius is now the king and thus well protected. Moreover, Hamlet struggles with
his doubts about whether he can trust the ghost and whether killing Claudius is the
appropriate thing to do.
● Rising Action
The ghost appears to Hamlet and tells Hamlet to revenge his murder; Hamlet
feigns madness to his intentions; Hamlet stages the mousetrap play; Hamlet passes up
the opportunity to kill Claudius while he is praying.
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W.S.
EM 18 (Literary Criticism) Additional Reading ONLY!
BSED - Major in English Block 3A | Teacher Carmel Vip Derasin | SEM 1 2024

● Climax
When Hamlet stabs Polonius through the arras in Act III, scene iv, he commits
himself to overtly violent action and brings himself into unavoidable conflict with the
king. Another possible climax comes at the end of Act IV, scene iv, when Hamlet
resolves to commit himself fully to violent revenge.

● Falling Action
Hamlet is sent to England to be killed; Hamlet returns to Denmark and confronts
Laertes at Ophelia’s funeral; the fencing match; the deaths of the royal family

Setting (Time): The late medieval period, though the play’s chronological setting is notoriously
imprecise
Settings (Place): Denmark
Foreshadowing: The ghost, which is taken to foreshadow an ominous future for Denmark
Tone: Dark, ironic, melancholy, passionate, contemplative, desperate, violent
Themes: The impossibility of certainty; the complexity of action; the mystery of death; the nation
as a diseased body
Motifs: Incest and incestuous desire; ears and hearing; death and suicide; darkness and the
supernatural; misogyny
Symbols: The ghost (the spiritual consequences of death); Yorick’s skull (the physical
consequences of death)

● https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/hamlet/themes/

SUMMARY

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
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W.S.
EM 18 (Literary Criticism) Additional Reading ONLY!
BSED - Major in English Block 3A | Teacher Carmel Vip Derasin | SEM 1 2024

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’
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W.S.
EM 18 (Literary Criticism) Additional Reading ONLY!
BSED - Major in English Block 3A | Teacher Carmel Vip Derasin | SEM 1 2024

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.

Character List

Hamlet
The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist. About thirty years old at the
start of the play, Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of
the present king, Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s
scheming and disgust for his mother’s sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has
studied at the University of Wittenberg, Hamlet is often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times
prone to rash and impulsive acts.

Claudius
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W.S.
EM 18 (Literary Criticism) Additional Reading ONLY!
BSED - Major in English Block 3A | Teacher Carmel Vip Derasin | SEM 1 2024

The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The villain of the play,
Claudius is a calculating, ambitious politician, driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power,
but he occasionally shows signs of guilt and human feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance,
seems sincere.

Gertrude
The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, recently married to Claudius. Gertrude loves Hamlet
deeply, but she is a shallow, weak woman who seeks affection and status more urgently than moral
rectitude or truth.

Polonius
The Lord Chamberlain of Claudius’s court, a pompous, conniving old man. Polonius is the
father of Laertes and Ophelia.

Ophelia
Polonius’s daughter, a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in love. Ophelia is
a sweet and innocent young girl, who obeys her father and her brother, Laertes. Dependent on men
to tell her how to behave, she gives in to Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into
madness and death, she remains maidenly, singing songs about flowers and finally drowning in the
river amid the flower garlands she had gathered.

Laertes
Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother, a young man who spends much of the play in France.
Passionate and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the reflective Hamlet.

The Ghost
The specter of Hamlet’s recently deceased father. The Ghost, who claims to have been
murdered by Claudius, calls upon Hamlet to avenge him. However, it is not entirely certain whether
the Ghost is what it appears to be, or whether it is something else. Hamlet speculates that the Ghost
might be a devil sent to deceive him and tempt him into murder, and the question of what the Ghost
is or where it comes from is never definitively resolved.

Horatio
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by W.S.
EM 18 (Literary Criticism) Additional Reading ONLY!
BSED - Major in English Block 3A | Teacher Carmel Vip Derasin | SEM 1 2024

Hamlet’s close friend, who studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg. Horatio is
loyal and helpful to Hamlet throughout the play. After Hamlet’s death, Horatio remains alive to tell
Hamlet’s story.

Fortinbras
The young Prince of Norway, whose father the king (also named Fortinbras) was killed by
Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet). Now Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his
father’s honor, making him another foil for Prince Hamlet.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Two slightly bumbling courtiers, former friends of Hamlet from Wittenberg, who are
summoned by Claudius and Gertrude to discover the cause of Hamlet’s strange behavior.

Osric
The foolish courtier who summons Hamlet to his duel with Laertes.

Voltimand and Cornelius

Courtiers whom Claudius sends to Norway to persuade the king to prevent Fortinbras from
attacking.

Marcellus and Bernardo

The officers who first see the ghost walking the ramparts of Elsinore and who summon Horatio
to witness it. Marcellus is present when Hamlet first encounters the ghost.

Francisco
A soldier and guardsman at Elsinore.

Reynaldo
Polonius’s servant, who is sent to France by Polonius to check up on and spy on Laertes.