Hamlet

This article is about the play by William Shakespeare. For its protagonist, see Prince Hamlet. For the type of settlement, see Hamlet (place). For other uses, see Hamlet (disambiguation).

Hamlet
Hamlet portrayed by Edwin Booth (c. 1870)
Written byWilliam Shakespeare
Characters
Original languageEarly Modern English
GenreShakespearean tragedy
SettingDenmark

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet (/ˈhæmlɪt/), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. Hamlet is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others".[1] It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time.[2] Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto (Q1, 1603); the Second Quarto (Q2, 1604); and the First Folio (F1, 1623). Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others.[3]

Many works have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play, from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan dramas. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When Shakespeare wrote, there were many stories about sons avenging the murder of their fathers, and many about clever avenging sons pretending to be foolish in order to outsmart their foes. This would include the story of the ancient Roman, Lucius Junius Brutus, which Shakespeare apparently knew, as well as the story of Amleth, which was preserved in Latin by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum, and printed in Paris in 1514. The Amleth story was subsequently adapted and then published in French in 1570 by the 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. It has a number of plot elements and major characters in common with Shakespeare's Hamlet, and lacks others that are found in Shakespeare. Belleforest's story was first published in English in 1608, after Hamlet had been written, though it is possible that Shakespeare had encountered it in the French-language version.[4]

  1. ^ Thompson & Taylor 2006a, p. 74.
  2. ^ Propst, Andy (28 November 2022). "50 Best Plays of All Time: Comedies, Tragedies and Dramas Ranked". Time Out New York. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  3. ^ Weiner 1962, pp. 1–3.
  4. ^ Thompson & Taylor 2006a, p. 59-69.