Hamlet is
generally considered the greatest revenge tragedy, if not the greatest tragedy,
if not the greatest play, ever written. The central reason for the play's reputation is the
character of Hamlet. His brooding (=gloomy), unpredictable nature has
been analysed by many of the most famous thinkers and artists of the past
four centuries. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described him as a poet - a
sensitive man who is too weak to deal with the political pressures of
Denmark.
The story of the play originates in
the legend of Hamlet as recounted in the 12th-century Danish History, a Latin text by Saxo the Grammarian.
Shakespeare was probably aware of this version, together with another play
performed in 1589 in which a ghost apparently calls out, "Hamlet,
revenge!" The 1589 play is lost, but most scholars attribute it to Thomas
Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy of 1587. The Spanish Tragedy shares many elements with Hamlet, such as a ghost seeking revenge, a secret
crime, a play-within-a-play, a tortured hero who feigns madness, and a heroine
who goes mad and commits suicide.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in
reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and
admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension
how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the
paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence
of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your
smiling
you seem to say so.
Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2)
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