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…the most important playwright of London
writes one of his masterpieces…
• Hamlet’s father, king of Denmark has just dead
• His brother Claudius takes the throne and married Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother
• Horatio sees king Hamlet’s ghost and tells it to Hamlet
• A night king’s ghost appears to Hamlet and tells him that Claudius murdered him, so Hamlet decides to avenge him
• Hamlet pretends to be mad so Claudius and Gertrude give to Polonius the task of discovering the cause of his madness
• Polonius attributes the cause of madness to Hamlet’s love for Ophelia, Polonius daughter
• Hamlet tries to stage a play with a company of actors, in order to re-enact his father’s murder and determine Claudius guilt or innocence
• Claudius is disturbed to see that scene, so Hamlet decides to kill him
• Gertrude asks to Hamlet the reason of his behaviour and he tells her the truth about his father’s death
• Hamlet believing to kill Claudius murders Polonius while he is hidden
• Ophelia goes mad for her father’s death and drowns in a river
• At the Ophelia’s funeral procession her brother Laertes and Hamlet brave themselves
• Laertes pierces Hamlet with a poisoned blade but is wounded by it himself
• Gertrude drinks a poisoned wine and dies
• Hamlet manages to kill Claudius and names Fortimbras as his heir
Saga of Hrolf Kraki
(Scandinavian)
Vita Amlethi(Saxo)
Ur-Hamlet(Thimas Kyd)
Legend of Brutus(Roman)
• 1603 : Ling and Trundell’s “bad first Quarto”
• 1604 : Ling and Roberts’ second Quarto
• 1623 : Heminges and Condell’ s First Folio
• Focus on characters, not on action, using soliloquies
• There’s no strong subplot
• Play full of seeming discontinuities and irregularities of action
• The play lasts much more than usual plays at that time (4hrs to 2hrs)
• Courtly language (elaborate, witty discourse)
• Great use of rhetoric (Hamlet’s the most skilled of all at rhetoric)
• Presence of hendiadys
• Great use of introspection, particularly in Hamlet’s soliloquies
• Mention of Purgatory
• Ophelia’s burial ceremony
• Mention of Wittenberg
• Belief that will of God controls everything
• The impossibility of certainty
• The complexity of action
• The mistery of death
• The nation as adiseased body