HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

a Viking tragedy of murder and revenge

“To be, or not to be:
That is the question.” – Hamlet

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In my personal view, in the entire history of Literature, no better work has ever been composed than Shakespeare’s Hamlet. No greater tragic hero has ever been created than Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet.
The character of Hamlet, a Viking prince, dominates this drama of assassination and vengeance, of psychological tension and struggle. Possessed by a rending inner conflict, Hamlet cannot come to a definite decision, and cannot rest easy. Emotional, forceful and even warlike, he cannot bring his hand to do what he so often bids it. This inability of a psychological nature to do what he must do points to the foremost controversy in the literary field. Why can’t he? This is the Mystery of Hamlet.

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Marcellus. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

I.5 Another part of the Platform. Ghost and Hamlet.

Ghost. Mark me.

Hamlet. I will.

Ghost. My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

Hamlet. Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

(I believe Shakespeare himself played the role of the Ghost.)

Hamlet. Speak; I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

Hamlet. What?

Ghost. I am thy father’s spirit;
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love –

Hamlet. O God!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Hamlet. Murder?

Ghost. Murder most foul …
But this, most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Hamlet. Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost. I find thee apt.
Now, Hamlet, hear:

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I do not know

Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength,
and means,
To do’t.

Hamlet cannot fathom his own lack of motivation. He simply cannot comprehend what’s wrong with him, why he cannot discharge his moral and personal responsibility. Hamlet, frustrated and furious, cannot solve the Mystery of Hamlet.

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Note

Solution to the Mystery of Hamlet

For most of the play, Hamlet does not understand his inability to do his duty. But he does come to realize it eventually. . .

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