Guide Note

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a classic tragedy by William Shakespeare. Believed to have been written between 1599 and 1901, the play traces the story of Prince Hamlet, out to exact revenge on his uncle Claudius for having killed his father, assumed the throne and married his mother Gertrude. Depending on the reader's interpretation of the play, Hamlet either feigns madness or goes mad as he moves from grief to rage.

Hamlet is arguably Shakespeare's most widely-interpreted, adapted and performed play. In film alone, Hamlet has been played by Laurence Olivier, Mel Gibson, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, and Ethan Hawke.

Fast Facts

1. Published in first Quarto in 1603
2. Main Protagonist: Hamlet
3. Longest play in Shakespeare's canon
4. Famous Speeches:
   1. "To Be or Not To Be"
   2. "What a Piece of work is a Man"
   3. "Alas Poor Yorick! I Knew him"
5. Famous Quotes:
   1. "Frailty, thy name is Woman!"
   2. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
   3. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
   4. "The play's the thing wherin I'll catch the conscience of the king"
   5. "The lady doth protest too much"
   6. "O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I!"
   7. "When sorrows come, they come not single spies,But in battalions"
   8. "The rest is silence"

"To be, or not to be" Soliloquy

• To be, or not to be, that is the question;
• Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
• The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune
• Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
• And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
• No more; and by a sleep to say we end
• The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
• That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
• Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
• To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
• For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
• When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
• Must give us pause. There's the respect
• That makes calamity of so long life,
• For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
• Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
• The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
• The insolence of office, and the spurns
• That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
• When he himself might his quietus make
• With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
• To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
• But that the dread of something after death,
• The undiscovered country from whose bourn
• No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
• And makes us rather bear those ills we have
• Than fly to others that we know not of?
• Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
• And thus the native hue of resolution
• Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
• And enterprises of great pitch and moment
• With this regard their currents turn awry,
• And lose the name of action.