Hamlet

Hamlet is a tragedy about a Danish prince who is told by his father's ghost that he was murdered by his brother Claudius, now king and married to Hamlet's mother. Hamlet's struggle to take revenge makes it Shakespeare's longest and most famous play.

Main characters

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
• Claudius, King of Denmark, Hamlet's uncle
• Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet's mother
• The Ghost of Hamlet's father
• Polonius, the King's chief counsellor
• Ophelia, Polonius's daughter
• Laertes, Polonius's son
• Horatio, Hamlet's friend
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, old schoolfellows
• Fortinbras, Prince of Norway
• The Gravediggers

Plot summary

This summary gives away the ending.

On the battlements of Elsinore, soldiers see the ghost of the dead King Hamlet. Prince Hamlet, already disgusted that his mother Gertrude has married his uncle Claudius barely a month after the funeral, meets the Ghost, who tells him Claudius poisoned him and demands revenge. Hamlet swears to act, and decides to put on an 'antic disposition' of madness.

The court is baffled by Hamlet's behaviour. Polonius believes he is mad for love of Ophelia and, with Claudius, spies on them together; Hamlet rejects her savagely. Claudius sends for Hamlet's friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on him. Unsure whether the Ghost is honest, Hamlet has visiting actors stage a play reenacting the murder, The Mousetrap, and Claudius's reaction confirms his guilt. Soon after, Hamlet finds Claudius praying but does not kill him, fearing he would go to heaven.

Confronting his mother in her room, Hamlet stabs through a curtain and kills the eavesdropping Polonius. Claudius ships Hamlet to England with sealed orders for his execution; Hamlet rewrites them, sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths instead, and returns to Denmark. Ophelia, driven mad by grief, has drowned. In the graveyard Hamlet holds the skull of the jester Yorick and meditates on death before fighting with Laertes in Ophelia's grave.

Claudius and Laertes arrange a fencing match with a poisoned blade and a poisoned cup. Gertrude drinks from the cup and dies; Laertes wounds Hamlet, is wounded by his own weapon and confesses the plot. Hamlet at last kills Claudius and dies in Horatio's arms. Fortinbras of Norway arrives to find the royal family dead and takes the throne.

Themes

• Revenge and delay
• Death and what follows it
• Madness, real and feigned
• Corruption and surveillance
• Action and thought

Famous lines

To be, or not to be: that is the question.

Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 2

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Marcellus, Act 1 Scene 4

This above all: to thine own self be true.

Polonius, Act 1 Scene 3

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Polonius, Act 2 Scene 2

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Gertrude, Act 3 Scene 2

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.

Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 1

The rest is silence.

Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 2

More in our collection of famous Shakespeare quotes.

Sources

The story goes back to the legend of Amleth in Saxo Grammaticus's 12th-century Danish history, retold by François de Belleforest in his Histoires tragiques (1570). An earlier English Hamlet play, now lost and often called the 'Ur-Hamlet', was performed in London by 1589.

On stage and screen

Hamlet survives in three early texts, the 1603 quarto, the longer 1604–05 quarto and the First Folio, which differ significantly; most modern editions combine them. Shakespeare's son was named Hamnet, a spelling that was interchangeable with Hamlet at the time, but any link between his death in 1596 and the play is speculation. The role has been played by Richard Burbage, David Garrick, Sarah Bernhardt, Laurence Olivier and many others.

See where Hamlet sits in Shakespeare's career on the timeline, or read about the playhouses it was written for.