- Introduction:-
"Hamlet"written by William Shakespeare.He wasHamlet by William Shakespeare: Introduction. Hamlet is the first tragedy in Shakespeare's series of great tragedies which is believed to be published in between 1601 and 1603. This play is one of his successful, perfect and best plays ever known.
His famous four tragedy,....
- Hamlet
- King Lear
- Othello
- Macbeth
In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. The histories—along with those of contemporary Renaissance playwrights—help define the genre of history plays. Shakespeare's Histories might be more accurately called the "English history plays."
In addition to Hamlet's worth as a tragic hero, Restoration critics focused on the qualities of Shakespeare's language and, above all, on the question of tragic decorum. Critics disparaged the indecorous range of Shakespeare's language, with Polonius's fondness for puns and Hamlet's use of "mean" (i.e., low) expressions such as "there's the rub" receiving particular attention. Even more important was the question of decorum, which in the case of Hamlet focused on the play's violation of tragic unity of time and place, and on the characters.
- Claudius—King of Denmark, Hamlet's uncle and brother to the former King
- Gertrude—Queen of Denmark and Hamlet's mother
- Polonius—Chief counsellor to the king
- Ophelia—Polonius's daughter
- Horatio—Friend to Hamlet
- Laertes—Polonius's son
- Voltimand and Cornelius—Courtiers
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—Courtiers, friends of Hamlet
It’s only by chance, in other words, that Hamlet finally avenges his father’s murder, which might otherwise have remained unavenged. The retribution he happens to exact is exacted too late, moreover, to prevent all the deaths that need not have occurred, if only he had killed Claudius sooner. As a direct or indirect result of his procrastination, Hamlet slays Polonius instead of Claudius; Ophelia goes mad after her father’s murder and drowns; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dispatched by Hamlet to their deaths; and in the play’s climactic duel Hamlet’s mother drinks from the lethal cup intended for her son, who is fatally wounded by Laertes in revenge for the deaths of his father and sister. On them face of it, it’s hard to resist the conclusion most critics have drawn, which is that the main cause of the whole tragic train of events is Hamlet’s compulsion to postpone. And for those who assume that to be the case, all that remains is to crack the conundrum with which the play confronts them: why does Hamlet delay?
Set in Denmark, the play dramatises the revenge Prince Hamlet is called to wreak upon his uncle, Claudius, by the ghost of Hamlet'sfather, King Hamlet. Claudius had murdered his own brother and seized the throne, also marrying his deceased brother's widow.
Conclusion:-Hamlet is bent of revenge, but it can be said that Hamlet was not crazy. He was a man driven by grief and revenge for the wrongs that were done to him. When Ophelia commits suicide after her father's death, her brother, Laertes, comes and is angry and the king tells him that it was all Hamlet's fault.
