Hamlet: A tragedy by William Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark often shortened to Hamlet (/ˈhæmlɪt/) is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare at an uncertain date between 1599 and 1602. Set in Denmark the play dramatises the revenge Prince Hamlet is called to wreak upon his uncle Claudius by the ghost of Hamlets father King Hamlet. Claudius had murdered his own brother and seized the throne also marrying his deceased brothers widow.Hamlet is Shakespeares longest play and is considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature with a story capable of seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others. It was probably one of Shakespeares most popular works during his lifetime and still ranks among his most performed topping the performance list of the Royal Shakespeare Company and its predecessors in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1879. It has inspired many other writers-from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Charles Dickens to James Joyce and Iris Murdoch-and has been described as the worlds most filmed story after Cinderella.The story of Shakespeares Hamlet was derived from the legend of Amleth preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum as subsequently retold by the 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. Shakespeare may also have drawn on an earlier Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet though some scholars believe he himself wrote the Ur-Hamlet later revising it to create the version of Hamlet we now have. He almost certainly wrote his version of the title role for his fellow actor Richard Burbage the leading tragedian of Shakespeares time. In the 400 years since its inception the role has been performed by numerous highly acclaimed actors in each successive century.Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto (Q1 1603) the Second Quarto (Q2 1604) and the First Folio (F1 1623).Each version includes lines and entire scenes missing from the others. The plays structure and depth of characterisation have inspired much critical scrutiny. One such example is the centuries-old debate about Hamlets hesitation to kill his uncle which some see as merely a plot device to prolong the action but which others argue is a dramatisation of the complex philosophical and ethical issues that surround cold-blooded murder calculated revenge and thwarted desire. More recently psychoanalytic critics have examined Hamlets unconscious desires while feminist critics have re-evaluated and attempted to rehabilitate the often maligned characters of Ophelia and Gertrude.Hamlet departed from contemporary dramatic convention in several ways. For example in Shakespeares day plays were usually expected to follow the advice of Aristotle in his Poetics: that a drama should focus on action not character. In Hamlet Shakespeare reverses this so that it is through the soliloquies not the action that the audience learns Hamlets motives and thoughts. The play is full of seeming discontinuities and irregularities of action except in the bad quarto. At one point as in the Gravedigger scene Hamlet seems resolved to kill Claudius: in the next scene however when Claudius appears he is suddenly tame. Scholars still debate whether these twists are mistakes or intentional additions to add to the plays themes of confusion and duality. Hamlet also contains a recurrent Shakespearean device a play within the play a literary device or conceit in which one story is told during the action of another story.