1. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
William Shakespeare
Written between 1599 and 1601

2. Shakespeare’s Theater
Theatres: several before the Globe
Very popular entertainment: All classes attended plays
Shakespeare wrote, and the plays were performed, to make money
Sinful: theaters across the river from the city
Puritans closed the Globe in 1642

4. The Plays Histories Comedies (such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Tragedies (such as Hamlet)
Romances

5. The World
Set in an imaginary “Denmark”
Nominally medieval

6. The Precursors
Saxo Grammaticus, 12th century Danish chronicle of Amleth
two stage plays by the dramatist Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy (1592), and theUr-Hamlet
Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, had just died at the age of eleven

7. Aristotelian vs. Elizabethan Tragedy
No more unities (time, place, action)
An elevated character with a tragic flaw (hamartia) What is Hamlet’s tragic flaw?
Something is wrong with the city; the sacrifice of the tragic hero restores its balance
Anagnorisis? Catharsis?

8. The Disordered City
Examine the very first lines of the play. What is odd about who calls and who responds?
What is the perceived threat at the beginning of the play?
The old king is dead.
Who inherits?
Where was Hamlet before
being called back to
Elsinore?
“something is rotten in
the state of Denmark”
(I.iv.100)

9. Freudian or Psychoanalytic reading
Freud, Mourning and Melancholia: unless one cuts ties with a dead loved one, his or her death can cause the lover to get dragged into death as well (depression and suicidal ideation). To the extent that we love someone, we identify with that person (explanation for apparent selflessness).
The Oedipal Complex—how does it play out in Hamlet?

10. Hamlet’s first speeches—seeming vs. being
Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

11. CATHOLICISM
-the sacrament of CONFESSION (among others)
-belief in PURGATORY. Hmm…
PROTESTANTISM
-direct, individual interpretation of the Bible—no sacraments or intercessors necessary
-Only Heaven and Hell.

12. Act II: Time and Inaction. Two months go by?
The ambassadors sent to the King of Norway (I. ii. 27) are just returning.
Laertes, whom we saw leaving Elsinore (I. iii), has been in Paris long enough to be in want of fresh supplies.
Ophelia has obeyed her father's command (given in I. iii.), and has refused to receive Hamlet's visits or letters.
Hamlet has put on an 'antic disposition' and established a reputation for lunacy, with the result that his mother has become deeply anxious about him, and with the further result that the King, who was formerly so entirely at ease regarding him that he wished him to stay on at Court, is now extremely uneasy and very desirous to discover the cause of his 'transformation.'
Hence Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been sent for, to cheer him by their company and to worm his secret out of him; and they are just about to arrive.
Beyond exciting thus the apprehensions of his enemy Hamlet has done absolutely nothing.

13. Feminist Reading
An examination of what the play says a woman is or should be
Gertrude: Strengths? Weaknesses? What should she do? What does she do?
Ophelia: Strengths? Weaknesses? What should she do? What does she do?