The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was composed and first performed sometime around 1602/1603.
Elizabeth I died in 1603. This play emerged at the moment of transition between the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. The Jacobean period means the period during the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, James I.
Hamlet begins as a Revenge Tragedy, and the play becomes an investigation and deconstruction of that genre. We might think of Hamlet as the Existential Revenger, one somehow finds himself in the genre but is not of it. The mismatch between the genre he inhabits and his own temperament becomes one of the themes of the play.
The best-known of the Revenge Tragedies of Shakespeare’s day was Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, which dates from between 1582 and 1592. This play features both a vengeful ghost and a play within a play. Other plays in the Revenge genre include John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, The Revengers’ Tragedy (whose authorship is uncertain, but which is usually attributed to Cyril Tourneur or Thomas Middleton), and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford.
Themes of Hamlet include:
Time and Mortality
Family
Legitimacy and Inheritance
Friendship
Fathers and Sons
Mothers and Sons
Fathers and daughters
The Theatre
Sexuality, Sexual Cruelty and Sexual Disgust
Mental Illness
Language
Notes on Act I
Scene I
Set outside the castle Elsinore in Denmark
The guards and Hamlet’s friend Horatio see the ghost of Hamlet’s father appear.
It’s a spooky beginning and one that establishes the mood of the play.
Scene 2
Claudius gives his speech establishing his credentials for the job of king and trying to explain how it is that his marriage to Gertrude came so hastily after his brother’s death.
There are shades of Creon in Claudius. He seems like an upstart, an amateur, a bit sleazy, and certainly anxious about his right to the throne. Also, like Richard III, he tends to use the plural and the “royal we” to try to establish consensus in his audience. We see him doing this in the very first line of his speech (“Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death...”).
After Claudius’s speech, Laertes requests permission to return to France and Claudius grants it.
Claudius and Gertrude beseech the mournful Hamlet to cheer up. They tell him that everyone loses their father eventually, and he should snap out of it.
Hamlet delivers his first soliloquy: “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt…”
Hamlet catches up with his friend Horatio. Horatio tells him about the sighting of the ghost of Hamlet’s father.
Scene 3
The scene of Laertes’ departure for France.
All of the men in Ophelia’s family, her brother and father, are trying to protect her from Hamlet. They assume that he is only toying with her affections because he will not marry someone of her status. Ophelia and Laertes have no mother, so she has no woman to discuss these matters with. Her father and brother are very concerned about guarding her virtue from Hamlet. Ophelia indicates that there might be a double standard operating, with her conduct more closely monitored than her brother’s. She tells him: “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” (I.iii.50-55).
Polonius gives Laertes some fatherly advice before his return to France.
Laertes exits.
Polonius returns to the subject of Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet. He tells her to cut off relations with him.
Scene 4
Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are visited by the ghost again. In a short scene, Hamlet’s companions emphasize the danger of approaching the ghost, but Hamlet shows courage and goes to meet him in private.
Scene 5
The ghost of Hamlet’s father delivers the story of his murder by his brother Claudius. He asks Hamlet to take revenge by killing his uncle.
We watched three adaptations of this scene to see the range of ways in which it has been depicted. Mel Gibson’s version (with Paul Scofield as the ghost) is highly realistic; Kenneth Branagh’s (with Brian Blessed as the ghost) follows the conventions of a horror film; and David Tennant’s version (with Patrick Stewart as the ghost) combines both approaches.
Elizabeth I died in 1603. This play emerged at the moment of transition between the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. The Jacobean period means the period during the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, James I.
Hamlet begins as a Revenge Tragedy, and the play becomes an investigation and deconstruction of that genre. We might think of Hamlet as the Existential Revenger, one somehow finds himself in the genre but is not of it. The mismatch between the genre he inhabits and his own temperament becomes one of the themes of the play.
The best-known of the Revenge Tragedies of Shakespeare’s day was Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, which dates from between 1582 and 1592. This play features both a vengeful ghost and a play within a play. Other plays in the Revenge genre include John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, The Revengers’ Tragedy (whose authorship is uncertain, but which is usually attributed to Cyril Tourneur or Thomas Middleton), and ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore by John Ford.
Themes of Hamlet include:
Time and Mortality
Family
Legitimacy and Inheritance
Friendship
Fathers and Sons
Mothers and Sons
Fathers and daughters
The Theatre
Sexuality, Sexual Cruelty and Sexual Disgust
Mental Illness
Language
Notes on Act I
Scene I
Set outside the castle Elsinore in Denmark
The guards and Hamlet’s friend Horatio see the ghost of Hamlet’s father appear.
It’s a spooky beginning and one that establishes the mood of the play.
Scene 2
Claudius gives his speech establishing his credentials for the job of king and trying to explain how it is that his marriage to Gertrude came so hastily after his brother’s death.
There are shades of Creon in Claudius. He seems like an upstart, an amateur, a bit sleazy, and certainly anxious about his right to the throne. Also, like Richard III, he tends to use the plural and the “royal we” to try to establish consensus in his audience. We see him doing this in the very first line of his speech (“Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death...”).
After Claudius’s speech, Laertes requests permission to return to France and Claudius grants it.
Claudius and Gertrude beseech the mournful Hamlet to cheer up. They tell him that everyone loses their father eventually, and he should snap out of it.
Hamlet delivers his first soliloquy: “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt…”
Hamlet catches up with his friend Horatio. Horatio tells him about the sighting of the ghost of Hamlet’s father.
Scene 3
The scene of Laertes’ departure for France.
All of the men in Ophelia’s family, her brother and father, are trying to protect her from Hamlet. They assume that he is only toying with her affections because he will not marry someone of her status. Ophelia and Laertes have no mother, so she has no woman to discuss these matters with. Her father and brother are very concerned about guarding her virtue from Hamlet. Ophelia indicates that there might be a double standard operating, with her conduct more closely monitored than her brother’s. She tells him: “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” (I.iii.50-55).
Polonius gives Laertes some fatherly advice before his return to France.
Laertes exits.
Polonius returns to the subject of Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet. He tells her to cut off relations with him.
Scene 4
Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are visited by the ghost again. In a short scene, Hamlet’s companions emphasize the danger of approaching the ghost, but Hamlet shows courage and goes to meet him in private.
Scene 5
The ghost of Hamlet’s father delivers the story of his murder by his brother Claudius. He asks Hamlet to take revenge by killing his uncle.
We watched three adaptations of this scene to see the range of ways in which it has been depicted. Mel Gibson’s version (with Paul Scofield as the ghost) is highly realistic; Kenneth Branagh’s (with Brian Blessed as the ghost) follows the conventions of a horror film; and David Tennant’s version (with Patrick Stewart as the ghost) combines both approaches.
Viewing the three adaptations shows that there is a wide spectrum of possibilities for interpreting Hamlet's relationship with his father.
In the scene, Hamlet Sr. reveals that he has high expectations of his son, and also that he is suffering terribly in some kind of purgatory.
The situation creates a lot of pressure for Hamlet, who has not been asked to participate in the heroic, avenging sphere before.
He also isn't certain that this is a "good" ghost or a demon.
As his father describes in specific detail the way he was murdered by Claudius, he seems to win Hamlet's trust, and by the end of the scene, Hamlet says quite forcefully that he will carry out the revenge.
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter (I.5.105-110).
In short, Hamlet vows to forget about all his youthful student pursuits and set himself about the act of murdering Claudius.
But when he returns to his companions and asks for their secrecy, his language reveals that he is not exactly excited about the job that lies before him or his role in the history of Denmark:
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right! (I.5.210-211)
In the scene, Hamlet Sr. reveals that he has high expectations of his son, and also that he is suffering terribly in some kind of purgatory.
The situation creates a lot of pressure for Hamlet, who has not been asked to participate in the heroic, avenging sphere before.
He also isn't certain that this is a "good" ghost or a demon.
As his father describes in specific detail the way he was murdered by Claudius, he seems to win Hamlet's trust, and by the end of the scene, Hamlet says quite forcefully that he will carry out the revenge.
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter (I.5.105-110).
In short, Hamlet vows to forget about all his youthful student pursuits and set himself about the act of murdering Claudius.
But when he returns to his companions and asks for their secrecy, his language reveals that he is not exactly excited about the job that lies before him or his role in the history of Denmark:
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right! (I.5.210-211)
Notes on Act 2
Act 2 of Hamlet is unusual in that it has only two scenes.
Scene 1
The theme of surveillance emerges as a major concern of the play.
Here, Polonius is counseling Reynaldo about how he is to spy on Laertes in Paris. He has worked out an elaborate scheme whereby Reynaldo will inquire loosely about Danes in Paris, and then, if Laertes’ name comes up, he will say that he knows Laertes’ father and has heard that Laertes is quite wild. This confession will be geared at hearing from the person Reynaldo is talking to whether there are stories of Laertes’s wildness circulating in Paris.
We see here that Polonius is as interested in spying on his son as his daughter.
Ophelia tells her father that she has had a very disturbing interaction with Hamlet. She describes it in II.1.88-114.
OPHELIA
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.
POLONIUS Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA My lord, I do not know;
But truly, I do fear it.
LORD POLONIUS What said he?
OPHELIA He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out o' doors he went without their helps,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.
Polonius believes that it is Hamlet's love for Ophelia-- and Ophelia's break with him, under her father's advice--
that is causing his madness. He goes off to share this theory with Claudius.
Scene 2
Claudius and Gertrude summon Hamlet's school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. Their job is to report Hamlet's moods and activities back to the King.
The Norwegian ambassadors confer with Claudius. This scene establishes both the threat to Denmark and Claudius's bumbling, inexperienced handling of political matters.
After the ambassadors depart, Polonius tells Claudius his theory about Hamlet's lovesickness for Ophelia.
The King and Polonius decide to create a spying situation that may reveal the truth of the matter: they will stage a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia, and they will listen in on it.
Hamlet enters and has words with Polonius. He speaks to Polonius of Ophelia: "Conception is a blessing, but, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to 't" (II.2.201-202). Could this be further evidence of the theory that Ophelia may be pregnant?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet with Hamlet. It doesn't take Hamlet long to see through them and to figure out what they are doing at the castle: "You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to color. I know the good king and queen have sent for you" (2.ii.300-304).
The troupe of Players arrives. Hamlet is delighted to see them. As they arrive, Hamlet has a little dialogue about acting with Polonius. Then, he beseeches on of the Players to give him a speech right away. The speech he wants to hear is a scene from Virgil's Aeneid about the slaughter of Priam, King of Troy, by Pyrrhus (who was seeking revenge for the death of his father Achilles). The part of the speech that particularly obsesses Hamlet is the description of the wild grief of Priam's widow Hecuba. Obviously this scene attracts him because it gives him a vision of the reaction his mother did not have to his own father's death.
After the speech, Hamlet asks the Player if their troupe can play The Murder of Gonzago. The Player says yes, and Hamlet arranges for it to be played the following night. He also asks the actor to add in some extra lines-- lines with which he will make the situation depicted in the play appear more like the murder his father's ghost described.
Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the Players exit, leaving Hamlet alone for his "Rogue and Peasant Slave" soliloquy.
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
(II.ii.576-635)
In class we discussed the language of this speech. We noticed Hamlet's anger and self-deprecation, his mounting paranoia,
and the frequency of words that start with "c" in this speech. We also noticed that it includes the words "coward" and "conscience" which will play a key role in Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy with the line "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
We watched Richard Burton's interpretation of this soliloquy, noting the way that Burton indicated Hamlet's paranoia, anger and mania. We also noticed that he calmed down when he spoke about theater, which we suggested was indicative of the calming effect theater has on Hamlet. We noticed the way that he raised his fist in the air for the line "O vengeance!" at the mid-point of the soliloquy, but then looked up at the hand, and gently waved it downwards, as though indicating that the plot was turning away from vengeance, that Hamlet cannot keep us his resolve to avenge his father's death.
This soliloquy ends Act 2.
Act 2 of Hamlet is unusual in that it has only two scenes.
Scene 1
The theme of surveillance emerges as a major concern of the play.
Here, Polonius is counseling Reynaldo about how he is to spy on Laertes in Paris. He has worked out an elaborate scheme whereby Reynaldo will inquire loosely about Danes in Paris, and then, if Laertes’ name comes up, he will say that he knows Laertes’ father and has heard that Laertes is quite wild. This confession will be geared at hearing from the person Reynaldo is talking to whether there are stories of Laertes’s wildness circulating in Paris.
We see here that Polonius is as interested in spying on his son as his daughter.
Ophelia tells her father that she has had a very disturbing interaction with Hamlet. She describes it in II.1.88-114.
OPHELIA
My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me.
POLONIUS Mad for thy love?
OPHELIA My lord, I do not know;
But truly, I do fear it.
LORD POLONIUS What said he?
OPHELIA He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being: that done, he lets me go:
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out o' doors he went without their helps,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.
Polonius believes that it is Hamlet's love for Ophelia-- and Ophelia's break with him, under her father's advice--
that is causing his madness. He goes off to share this theory with Claudius.
Scene 2
Claudius and Gertrude summon Hamlet's school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. Their job is to report Hamlet's moods and activities back to the King.
The Norwegian ambassadors confer with Claudius. This scene establishes both the threat to Denmark and Claudius's bumbling, inexperienced handling of political matters.
After the ambassadors depart, Polonius tells Claudius his theory about Hamlet's lovesickness for Ophelia.
The King and Polonius decide to create a spying situation that may reveal the truth of the matter: they will stage a meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia, and they will listen in on it.
Hamlet enters and has words with Polonius. He speaks to Polonius of Ophelia: "Conception is a blessing, but, as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to 't" (II.2.201-202). Could this be further evidence of the theory that Ophelia may be pregnant?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet with Hamlet. It doesn't take Hamlet long to see through them and to figure out what they are doing at the castle: "You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to color. I know the good king and queen have sent for you" (2.ii.300-304).
The troupe of Players arrives. Hamlet is delighted to see them. As they arrive, Hamlet has a little dialogue about acting with Polonius. Then, he beseeches on of the Players to give him a speech right away. The speech he wants to hear is a scene from Virgil's Aeneid about the slaughter of Priam, King of Troy, by Pyrrhus (who was seeking revenge for the death of his father Achilles). The part of the speech that particularly obsesses Hamlet is the description of the wild grief of Priam's widow Hecuba. Obviously this scene attracts him because it gives him a vision of the reaction his mother did not have to his own father's death.
After the speech, Hamlet asks the Player if their troupe can play The Murder of Gonzago. The Player says yes, and Hamlet arranges for it to be played the following night. He also asks the actor to add in some extra lines-- lines with which he will make the situation depicted in the play appear more like the murder his father's ghost described.
Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the Players exit, leaving Hamlet alone for his "Rogue and Peasant Slave" soliloquy.
Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
(II.ii.576-635)
In class we discussed the language of this speech. We noticed Hamlet's anger and self-deprecation, his mounting paranoia,
and the frequency of words that start with "c" in this speech. We also noticed that it includes the words "coward" and "conscience" which will play a key role in Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy with the line "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
We watched Richard Burton's interpretation of this soliloquy, noting the way that Burton indicated Hamlet's paranoia, anger and mania. We also noticed that he calmed down when he spoke about theater, which we suggested was indicative of the calming effect theater has on Hamlet. We noticed the way that he raised his fist in the air for the line "O vengeance!" at the mid-point of the soliloquy, but then looked up at the hand, and gently waved it downwards, as though indicating that the plot was turning away from vengeance, that Hamlet cannot keep us his resolve to avenge his father's death.
This soliloquy ends Act 2.
Notes on Act 3
Act 3 is jam-packed. It's hard to think of another scene in the history of theater that has so much action, and so many memorable scenes and lines. These include: the "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy, the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, the "Play within a Play" wherein Claudius incriminates himself; Claudius' confession of guilt while praying in his "O, my offense is rank" monologue and Hamlet's "Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying" response, and Hamlet's intense confrontation with his mother Gertrude and his murder of Polonius in what is sometimes known as "the closet scene."
Scene 1
The scene opens with Claudius interrogating Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who don't have good answers to his questions about Hamlet's mood and behavior.
Polonius sets up Ophelia's confrontation with Hamlet: the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene.
We discussed various possibilities for playing this scene: Ophelia is the passive pawn of her father; Ophelia betrays
Hamlet and feels terrible about it; Ophelia betrays Hamlet because she is loyal to her father and doesn't feel terrible
about it (is more concerned for the damage of her own prospects of marriage) or Hamlet and Ophelia are in a kind of
conspiracy with each other, "playing" this scene for Claudius and Polonius but actually one each others' side.
Whatever the case may be, after hearing this scene, Claudius decides that Hamlet is not mad for love and makes plans to send him to England.
Polonius convinces Claudius not to finalize these plans until allowing Hamlet to talk to his mother that night after the play.
Scene 2
The actors enter for the performance of The Murder of Gonzago. Hamlet banters with them about the craft of acting, giving them advice as to his preferences in acting styles. The play's audience enters. Hamlet and Ophelia bicker. Hamlet sexually harrasses and she pretends not to understand his double entendres. She makes a few digs at him ("You are as good as a chorus, my lord).
The play begins.
TO BE CON'T...
Act 3 is jam-packed. It's hard to think of another scene in the history of theater that has so much action, and so many memorable scenes and lines. These include: the "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy, the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, the "Play within a Play" wherein Claudius incriminates himself; Claudius' confession of guilt while praying in his "O, my offense is rank" monologue and Hamlet's "Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying" response, and Hamlet's intense confrontation with his mother Gertrude and his murder of Polonius in what is sometimes known as "the closet scene."
Scene 1
The scene opens with Claudius interrogating Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who don't have good answers to his questions about Hamlet's mood and behavior.
Polonius sets up Ophelia's confrontation with Hamlet: the "Get thee to a nunnery" scene.
We discussed various possibilities for playing this scene: Ophelia is the passive pawn of her father; Ophelia betrays
Hamlet and feels terrible about it; Ophelia betrays Hamlet because she is loyal to her father and doesn't feel terrible
about it (is more concerned for the damage of her own prospects of marriage) or Hamlet and Ophelia are in a kind of
conspiracy with each other, "playing" this scene for Claudius and Polonius but actually one each others' side.
Whatever the case may be, after hearing this scene, Claudius decides that Hamlet is not mad for love and makes plans to send him to England.
Polonius convinces Claudius not to finalize these plans until allowing Hamlet to talk to his mother that night after the play.
Scene 2
The actors enter for the performance of The Murder of Gonzago. Hamlet banters with them about the craft of acting, giving them advice as to his preferences in acting styles. The play's audience enters. Hamlet and Ophelia bicker. Hamlet sexually harrasses and she pretends not to understand his double entendres. She makes a few digs at him ("You are as good as a chorus, my lord).
The play begins.
TO BE CON'T...
Notes on Act 4
Scene 1
Gertrude reports Polonius’s death. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find Hamlet and recover Polonius’s body (which, as you may recall, Hamlet drags out with him after his confrontation with Gertrude).
Scene 2
Hamlet refuses to tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern where he put the body of Polonius.
Scene 3
Hamlet is sent for by Claudius and told he must leave for England immediately. (Note: this is a bit reminiscent of Medea departing for Athens at the end of Medea, in the sense that the loose cannon is heading directly for the place in which the play is being staged). Once Claudius is alone, he reveals his plan to have have Hamlet killed abroad (“Do it, England”).
Scene 4
Hamlet sets off. Fortinbras and his army cross his path on their way to invade Poland. This scene shows how much is on the line with Claudius’s bungling kingship. Hamlet talks to a captain in Fortinbras’s army.
Hamlet delivers his “How all occasions do inform against me” soliloquy.
“O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!”
Hamlet envies Fortinbras’s vigorous activity and resolves once again to leap into action with his revenge.
Scene 1
Gertrude reports Polonius’s death. Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find Hamlet and recover Polonius’s body (which, as you may recall, Hamlet drags out with him after his confrontation with Gertrude).
Scene 2
Hamlet refuses to tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern where he put the body of Polonius.
Scene 3
Hamlet is sent for by Claudius and told he must leave for England immediately. (Note: this is a bit reminiscent of Medea departing for Athens at the end of Medea, in the sense that the loose cannon is heading directly for the place in which the play is being staged). Once Claudius is alone, he reveals his plan to have have Hamlet killed abroad (“Do it, England”).
Scene 4
Hamlet sets off. Fortinbras and his army cross his path on their way to invade Poland. This scene shows how much is on the line with Claudius’s bungling kingship. Hamlet talks to a captain in Fortinbras’s army.
Hamlet delivers his “How all occasions do inform against me” soliloquy.
“O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!”
Hamlet envies Fortinbras’s vigorous activity and resolves once again to leap into action with his revenge.
Scene 5
Reports come to court that Ophelia has lost her mind—she has had some kind of a breakdown after receiving the news of her father’s death. Think about how you interpret this breakdown. Why is she in such a fragile mental state? How much of her behavior seems within the range of understandable responses to a parent's death? How much seems like it might have other causes? What might these other causes be? Ophelia makes quite a dramatic turnaround in this play from what seems to be sanity to madness to death—it’s dramatically unexpected in the same way as Anne’s acceptance of Richard’s marriage proposal in Richard III. What is the effect of this sudden turn in the plot? How does it change the way we think about Ophelia, her relationship with Hamlet, or the Polonius/Laertes/Ophelia family unit?
Ophelia enters singing songs in her madness. One of them includes the lyric “Before you tumbled me,/ You promised me to wed.” Perhaps this is where some of the ideas about Ophelia being pregnant come from? Or at least, where they might find some support in the text of the play.
Laertes has come back secretly from France. They’ve quickly buried Polonius.
The messenger delivers news to Claudius that there is actually a movement of popular support for Laertes to be king.
Laertes enters, thinking that Claudius was the murderer of his father. He wants revenge, and Claudius has to talk him out of it and inform him who the really killer was.
Ophelia enters and Laertes sees her in her madness. This is a very poignant scene in which Ophelia gives out flowers and then leaves.
Claudius tells Laertes that he should have revenge, but that he should be avenged upon the person responsible for Polonius’s death and Ophelia’s madness: Hamlet. Claudius tells Laertes: “Where th’offense is, let the great ax fall.”
Scene 6
Horatio gets a letter informing him that Hamlet got on a pirate ship and is coming back to Denmark. This is an interesting turn of events! Stoppard jumps on it as an opportunity for adaptation, as a kind of free space in the Hamlet story. He uses it in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
This is exactly the kind of plot twist that Claudius just couldn’t see coming! How could he imagine that Hamlet's ship would be captured by pirates?
Question: does Hamlet come back from this voyage transformed? Does he seem different when he returns? How?
Scene 7
Claudius and Laertes plot against Hamlet. They plan a fencing match with a poisoned rapier in which Hamlet will be killed. They try to plan for contingency too: if Hamlet wins the match, they will hand him a poisoned cup of wine and kill him that way.
They discuss the ruthlessness with which revenge should be enacted. "Revenge should have no bounds," says Claudius, egging Laertes on. And Laertes says that he is ready "to cut his throat in a church" (an echo and reversal of Hamlet's unwillingness to kill Claudius at prayer).
Gertrude enters to tell them that Ophelia has drowned. Her description is gentle-- perhaps as though she is cushioning the blow for Laertes (Act 4, Scene 7, lines 190-210).
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Ophelia's descent into madness and death by drowning were a common subject for Victorian painters. In fact, Ophelia is one of the most-painted figures in all of literature. As Edgar Allan Poe put it in 1846, summing up the 19th century's obsession with such subjects and scenes: "The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." "Here are some of the most famous images of Ophelia, and for more, please see the following collection online: http://pictify.com/user/caperucitarusa/ophelia.
Reports come to court that Ophelia has lost her mind—she has had some kind of a breakdown after receiving the news of her father’s death. Think about how you interpret this breakdown. Why is she in such a fragile mental state? How much of her behavior seems within the range of understandable responses to a parent's death? How much seems like it might have other causes? What might these other causes be? Ophelia makes quite a dramatic turnaround in this play from what seems to be sanity to madness to death—it’s dramatically unexpected in the same way as Anne’s acceptance of Richard’s marriage proposal in Richard III. What is the effect of this sudden turn in the plot? How does it change the way we think about Ophelia, her relationship with Hamlet, or the Polonius/Laertes/Ophelia family unit?
Ophelia enters singing songs in her madness. One of them includes the lyric “Before you tumbled me,/ You promised me to wed.” Perhaps this is where some of the ideas about Ophelia being pregnant come from? Or at least, where they might find some support in the text of the play.
Laertes has come back secretly from France. They’ve quickly buried Polonius.
The messenger delivers news to Claudius that there is actually a movement of popular support for Laertes to be king.
Laertes enters, thinking that Claudius was the murderer of his father. He wants revenge, and Claudius has to talk him out of it and inform him who the really killer was.
Ophelia enters and Laertes sees her in her madness. This is a very poignant scene in which Ophelia gives out flowers and then leaves.
Claudius tells Laertes that he should have revenge, but that he should be avenged upon the person responsible for Polonius’s death and Ophelia’s madness: Hamlet. Claudius tells Laertes: “Where th’offense is, let the great ax fall.”
Scene 6
Horatio gets a letter informing him that Hamlet got on a pirate ship and is coming back to Denmark. This is an interesting turn of events! Stoppard jumps on it as an opportunity for adaptation, as a kind of free space in the Hamlet story. He uses it in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
This is exactly the kind of plot twist that Claudius just couldn’t see coming! How could he imagine that Hamlet's ship would be captured by pirates?
Question: does Hamlet come back from this voyage transformed? Does he seem different when he returns? How?
Scene 7
Claudius and Laertes plot against Hamlet. They plan a fencing match with a poisoned rapier in which Hamlet will be killed. They try to plan for contingency too: if Hamlet wins the match, they will hand him a poisoned cup of wine and kill him that way.
They discuss the ruthlessness with which revenge should be enacted. "Revenge should have no bounds," says Claudius, egging Laertes on. And Laertes says that he is ready "to cut his throat in a church" (an echo and reversal of Hamlet's unwillingness to kill Claudius at prayer).
Gertrude enters to tell them that Ophelia has drowned. Her description is gentle-- perhaps as though she is cushioning the blow for Laertes (Act 4, Scene 7, lines 190-210).
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Ophelia's descent into madness and death by drowning were a common subject for Victorian painters. In fact, Ophelia is one of the most-painted figures in all of literature. As Edgar Allan Poe put it in 1846, summing up the 19th century's obsession with such subjects and scenes: "The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." "Here are some of the most famous images of Ophelia, and for more, please see the following collection online: http://pictify.com/user/caperucitarusa/ophelia.
Arthur Hughes, Ophelia, 1852.
John Everett Millais's depiction of Ophelia's death, 1851-2.
Alexandre Cabanel, Ophelia, 1883.
John William Waterhouse's Ophelia, 1889.
Another Ophelia by Waterhouse, 1894.
At the very end of Act Four, Claudius tells Gertrude (about Laertes), "How much I had to do to calm his rage! Now fear I this will give it start again." Obviously Claudius is saying the exact opposite of what just happened: in fact he was actively trying to spark Laertes to rage and revenge against Hamlet! The smooth operator keeps operating, lying to Gertrude about his desire to calm Laertes down and thereby possibly make amends between Laertes and Hamlet.
Notes on Act 5
Scene 1
Gravedigger scene. The gravediggers are discussing whether Ophelia deserves a Christian burial. There is suspicion that her death was suicide. This makes us question Gertrude's gentle account to Laertes, which made it sound like an accident. Hamlet returns. He sees a grave being dug and wonders who it's for. He reflects on death in the abstract and then in an ever-more personal way. He sees the skull of Yorick, his father's jester.
HAMLET Let me see.
Takes the skull
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.
HORATIO What's that, my lord?
HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
the earth?
HORATIO E'en so.
HAMLET And smelt so? pah!
Puts down the skull
Ophelia's funeral procession comes by. It is a small and modest funeral, because of the suicide suspicions.
Laertes is offended and demands more for his sister: "What ceremony else?"
Laertes is so grief-stricken that he actually leaps in Ophelia's grave to embrace her one more time.
Hamlet feels like Laertes is upstaging his own grief for Ophelia.
Scene 2
Hamlet and Horatio talk. News that Hamlet has been called by Claudius to a duel with Laertes.
Horatio says he can make excuses for Hamlet if he prefers not to, but Hamlet is ready.
HAMLET Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.
Scene 1
Gravedigger scene. The gravediggers are discussing whether Ophelia deserves a Christian burial. There is suspicion that her death was suicide. This makes us question Gertrude's gentle account to Laertes, which made it sound like an accident. Hamlet returns. He sees a grave being dug and wonders who it's for. He reflects on death in the abstract and then in an ever-more personal way. He sees the skull of Yorick, his father's jester.
HAMLET Let me see.
Takes the skull
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
me one thing.
HORATIO What's that, my lord?
HAMLET Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
the earth?
HORATIO E'en so.
HAMLET And smelt so? pah!
Puts down the skull
Ophelia's funeral procession comes by. It is a small and modest funeral, because of the suicide suspicions.
Laertes is offended and demands more for his sister: "What ceremony else?"
Laertes is so grief-stricken that he actually leaps in Ophelia's grave to embrace her one more time.
Hamlet feels like Laertes is upstaging his own grief for Ophelia.
Scene 2
Hamlet and Horatio talk. News that Hamlet has been called by Claudius to a duel with Laertes.
Horatio says he can make excuses for Hamlet if he prefers not to, but Hamlet is ready.
HAMLET Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.
Franz Hals, Young Man with a Skull, 1626-1628.
Philippe de Champaigne's Vanitas. Approximately 1671.
