William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, one of his most famous tragedies, in the late 16th/early 17th century in London. The play follows Prince Hamlet of Denmark who seeks revenge on his uncle Claudius for murdering Hamlet's father, the former king, and marrying Hamlet's mother Gertrude. Other major characters include Ophelia, Laertes, Polonius, Horatio, and Fortinbras. The play explores themes of revenge, corruption, and moral decay through Hamlet's struggle to avenge his father's death and the complex characters and relationships. It remains one of Shakespeare's most studied and performed works due to its exploration of human psychology.

1. HAMLET
PRINCE OF DENMARK

2. WRITTEN BY:
“THE GREAT”
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

3. WHO IS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE?
• Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in
1564. Very little is known about his life, but by 1592 he was in
London working as an actor and a dramatist. Between about 1590
and 1613, Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and collaborated
on several more. Many of these plays were very successful both at
court and in the public playhouses. In 1613, Shakespeare retired
from the theatre and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon. He died and
was buried there in 1616.

4. WHY SHAKESPEARE WROTE HAMLET?
• For money. Shakespeare was a professional playwright and also a part owner of the theatre.
Audiences wanted new plays, not reruns, so it benefited the theatre companies and the
owners to have a prolific playwright as part of the company.

5. WHAT WAS SHAKESPEARE’S INSPIRATION IN
WRITING HAMLET?
• Many people think that Shakespeare based Hamlet on the legend of Amleth.
There was also an old Elizabethan play named "Ur-Hamlet", which has now
been lost. This is thought to be the biggest source for Shakespeare. Some
believe that Shakespeare may have been inspired by the death of his own son
'Hamnet' when writing 'Hamlet.' His son was only 11 years old when he died,
and as his only son, Shakespeare was probably deeply upset. Suggestions
have been that the grief and loss that Shakespeare was feeling was put into the
tragedy. If so, it is peculiar that he would have expressed these feelings four or
five years after Hamnet's death but not in such plays as Henry IV Part I or The
Merry Wives of Windsor which he wrote shortly afterwards. In all likelihood the
connection with Shakespeare's son is entirely based on the coincidental
similarity of the names Hamlet and Hamnet.

6. CHARACTERS IN THE STORY
Hamlet - The Prince of Denmark, the title
character, and the protagonist. About thirty
years old at the start of the play, Hamlet is
the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King
Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter,
and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for his mother’s
sexuality. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has studied at the University
of Wittenberg, Hamlet is often indecisive and hesitant, but at other times prone to
rash and impulsive acts.

7. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Claudius - The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s
uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The villain of the
play, Claudius is a calculating, ambitious politician,
driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power,
but he occasionally shows signs of guilt and
human feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance, seems sincere.

8. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Gertrude - The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s
mother, recently married to Claudius. Gertrude
loves Hamlet deeply, but she is a shallow, weak
woman who seeks affection and status more
urgently than moral rectitude or truth.

9. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Polonius - The Lord Chamberlain of
Claudius’s court, a pompous, conniving old
man. Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia.

10. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Horatio - Hamlet’s close friend, who studied
with the prince at the university in Wittenberg.
Horatio is loyal and helpful to Hamlet
throughout the play. After Hamlet’s death,
Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story.

11. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Ophelia - Polonius’s daughter, a beautiful young
woman with whom Hamlet has been in love.
Ophelia is a sweet and innocent young girl, who
obeys her father and her brother, Laertes.
Dependent on men to tell her how to behave, she
gives in to Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet.
Even in her lapse into madness and death, she remains maidenly, singing songs
about flowers and finally drowning in the river amid the flower garlands she had
gathered.

12. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Laertes - Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother,
a young man who spends much of the play in France.
Passionate and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil
for the reflective Hamlet.

13. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Fortinbras - The young Prince of Norway, whose
father the king (also named Fortinbras) was killed
by Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet). Now
Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge
his father’s honor, making him another foil for
Prince Hamlet.

14. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
The Ghost - The specter of Hamlet’s recently
deceased father. The ghost, who claims to have
been murdered by Claudius, calls upon Hamlet
to avenge him. However, it is not entirely certain
whether the ghost is what it appears to be, or
whether it is something else. Hamlet speculates
that the ghost might be a devil sent to deceive him and tempt him into murder, and
the question of what the ghost is or where it comes from is never
definitively resolved.

15. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - Two slightly
bumbling courtiers, former friends of Hamlet from
Wittenberg, who are summoned by Claudius and
Gertrude to discover the cause of Hamlet’s
strange behavior.

16. CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
Marcellus and Bernardo - The officers who first
see the ghost walking the ramparts of Elsinore
and who summon Horatio to witness it. Marcellus
is present when Hamlet first encounters the ghost.

17. BRIEF SUMMARY OF HAMLET
• king Hamlet is dead.
• Claudius, king Hamlet’s brother, marries Queen Gertrude.
• The ghost of the dead king appears.
• In a soliloquy, Prince Hamlet, the son of King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude, expresses his
anger against his mother for her hasty remarriage
• The king asks Hamlet to stay in Denmark.
• Polonius, the king’s counselor, and Laertes, his son, warn Ophelia, Polonius’ daughter,
against Hamlet.
• The ghost tells Hamlet that he must avenge his father’s murder.
• Hamlet asks a group of actors to act a play that shows events similar to the killing of King
Hamlet in front of Claudius and Gertrude
• Hamlet becomes sure of what the ghost told him.

18. BRIEF SUMMARY OF HAMLET
• Hamlet wants to kill the king, but finds him praying.
• He confronts his mother and kills Polonius who was hiding behind the curtain.
• The king sends Hamlet to England and sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with him, giving them
orders to kill the prince.
• Ophelia becomes mad.
• Hamlet returns to Denmark.
• Claudius puts a plan to kill Hamlet by the poisoned sword in a duel with Laertes.
• Ophelia drowns in a pond.
• Hamlet and Horatio are at the graveyard
• .A funeral comes and Hamlet discovers that it is Ophelia’s coffin.
• Hamlet and Laertes fight.
• Hamlet accepts the fencing contest with Laertes

19. BRIEF SUMMARY OF HAMLET
• Hamlet and Horatio are at the graveyard
• A funeral comes and Hamlet discovers that it is Ophelia’s coffin.
• Hamlet and Laertes fight.
• Hamlet accepts the fencing contest with Laertes
• The king offers Hamlet the poisoned drink, but he does not take it. The Queen drinks it.
• Hamlet is wounded with the poisoned sword, and Hamlet wounds Laertes with the same sword.
• As Laertes is dying, he tells Hamlet that the king is to blame for the poisoned sword and the poison
in the cup. Hamlet stabs the king and forces him to drink from the cup.
• Fortinbras, the king of Norway, arrives with his army to conquer Denmark.
• Hamlet urges Horatio to tell his story. He says that he wishes Fortinbras to be made King of
Denmark; then he dies.
• Fortinbras orders for Hamlet to be carried away like a brave soldier.

20. KEY FACTS
• full title · The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
• author · William Shakespeare
• type of work · Play
• genre · Tragedy, revenge tragedy
• language · English
• time and place written · London, England, early seventeenth century (probably 1600–1602)
• date of first publication · 1603, in a pirated quarto edition titled The Tragicall Historie of
Hamlet; 1604 in a superior quarto edition
• protagonist · Hamlet

21. KEY FACTS
• setting (time) · The late medieval period, though the play’s chronological setting is
notoriously imprecise
• settings (place) · Denmark
• foreshadowing · The ghost, which is taken to foreshadow an ominous future for Denmark
• tone · Dark, ironic, melancholy, passionate, contemplative, desperate, violent
• themes · The impossibility of certainty; the complexity of action; the mystery of death; the
nation as a diseased body
• motifs · Incest and incestuous desire; ears and hearing; death and suicide; darkness and the
supernatural; misogyny
• symbols · The ghost (the spiritual consequences of death); Yorick’s skull (the physical
consequences of death)

22. FAMOUS LINES
• “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
• This line is spoken by Marcellus in Act I, scene iv (67), as he and Horatio debate whether or
not to follow Hamlet and the ghost into the dark night. The line refers both to the idea that the
ghost is an ominous omen for Denmark and to the larger theme of the connection between
the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the state as a whole. The ghost is a visible
symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius’s crime.

23. FAMOUS LINES
• “To be, or not to be: that is the question:”
• This soliloquy, probably the most famous speech in the English language, is spoken by
Hamlet in Act III, scene i (58–90). His most logical and powerful examination of the theme of
the moral legitimacy of suicide in an unbearably painful world, it touches on several of the
other important themes of the play. Hamlet poses the problem of whether to commit suicide as
a logical question: “To be, or not to be,” that is, to live or not to live. He then weighs the moral
ramifications of living and dying. Is it nobler to suffer life,

24. FUN FACTS AND TRIVIAS

25. FUN FACTS AND TRIVIAS

26. FUN FACTS AND TRIVIAS
• To date, since the beginnings of the cinema and television, there have been
over 50 productions film of Hamlet, for both the big and small screen.
• To date, over 200 women have played the role of Hamlet on stage. The first
female Hamlet appearing on film, was Sarah Bernhardt. Actress Eve Donne is
believed to be the first Hamlet on Radio. Sarah Siddons, an 18th Century
actress, is among the first women ever to play the Dane.

27. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING
DISCUSSED BY: MHARENCE DELA CRUZ