Hamlet
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- Author
- William Shakespeare
- Year
- 1601
- Country
- England
- Copyright
- Written around 1600. Out of copyright; the full text is in the public domain.
A Danish prince learns from his father's ghost that he was murdered, and his delayed revenge brings down himself and the whole court.
Why it is a classic
It sustains tension for five acts with a hero who cannot act. The soliloquies are the plot, and the play-within-a-play, feigned madness and eavesdropping keep information asymmetry alive.
Structure breakdown
- 01Act 1 · The Ghost
Sentries see the late king's ghost. Hamlet hears from it that his uncle Claudius poisoned his father, and swears revenge.
- 02Act 2 · Feigned madness
Hamlet acts mad; Polonius misreads it as lovesickness for Ophelia. Players arrive and Hamlet plans to test his uncle with a play.
- 03Act 3 · The play and the mistake
The 'to be or not to be' soliloquy. Claudius flinches at the play, confirming guilt. Hamlet spares the praying king, then kills Polonius behind the arras in his mother's room.
- 04Act 4 · Exile and madness
Hamlet is shipped to England and turns the death order on his escorts. Ophelia goes mad and drowns; Laertes returns for revenge.
- 05Act 5 · Graveyard and duel
Yorick's skull in the graveyard. A rigged duel with a poisoned blade and cup kills the queen, Laertes, Claudius and Hamlet; Fortinbras takes the throne.
What to steal for your own script
- Renew the reason the hero cannot act with a new obstacle every act. Repeated hesitation bores; a changing reason is tension.
- Put soliloquies at moments of decision, not exposition. 'To be or not to be' is a scale being weighed, not a recap.
- Build what only the audience knows, as with the play-within-a-play and eavesdropping, so every scene carries irony.
Original excerpt
Act 3, Scene 1 — opening of the soliloquy · Studio script format · English original
A soliloquy that weighs a choice; each line sets two opposites against each other.
A room in the castle
Enter HAMLET.
HAMLET
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.