Revisiting Hamlet I see what would have helped me with this play during school. Teachers set it up by saying "You are about to read the greatest thing ever written in English" and that makes it extra depressing when you slog through the 29,000 words. A better set up wold have been to simply say "Hamlet" embodies older Norse and Danish myths and picked up a bit from the French text of Belleforest -- as a result of these primitive influences Hamlet is just an interesting mess. Its 400+ year age and classism is apparent when $uic1dal melancholy is played for humor. Madness likewise is made fun of. And the play jumps from one genre to another instantly and without transition -- ghost story, humor, revenge tragedy, history, propaganda. The hero stews and pontificates rather than executes. His revenge solves nothing and a neighboring army randomly shows up just in time to take power after all the melodramatic and naive royals poison the heck out of each other. Despite the lack of plot (Hamlet seeks revenge against his step-father for the murder of his father) Hamlet is mindnumbingly long. Strangest of all, this play, that shows so many hands and has so many prior versions, including Thomas Kyd's, is touted as 'Shakespeare's best' when at best he did the incomplete rewrite. To any future Lit majors -- Fear not. They say a lot of stuff about Shakespeare just because they have to. You have to read it and they have to like it but it isn't "the best thing ever written". There is far better stuff out there -- unified, unique and relevant to us non-monarchs. There are writers who use fewer words to say much more than Shakespeare -- "Be true to yourself" instead of the more pompous-sounding "To thine own self be true." Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, F Scott Fitzgerald and so many more. Don't give up. Just learn enough of the Shakespeare jargon to get through. Pretend you think it is (very very) good and they will pass you.
I love the interpretation of famous soliloquy and the key points of the act. Look forward to next one
Revisiting Hamlet I see what would have helped me with this play during school. Teachers set it up by saying "You are about to read the greatest thing ever written in English" and that makes it extra depressing when you slog through the 29,000 words. A better set up wold have been to simply say "Hamlet" embodies older Norse and Danish myths and picked up a bit from the French text of Belleforest -- as a result of these primitive influences Hamlet is just an interesting mess. Its 400+ year age and classism is apparent when $uic1dal melancholy is played for humor. Madness likewise is made fun of. And the play jumps from one genre to another instantly and without transition -- ghost story, humor, revenge tragedy, history, propaganda. The hero stews and pontificates rather than executes. His revenge solves nothing and a neighboring army randomly shows up just in time to take power after all the melodramatic and naive royals poison the heck out of each other. Despite the lack of plot (Hamlet seeks revenge against his step-father for the murder of his father) Hamlet is mindnumbingly long.
Strangest of all, this play, that shows so many hands and has so many prior versions, including Thomas Kyd's, is touted as 'Shakespeare's best' when at best he did the incomplete rewrite.
To any future Lit majors -- Fear not. They say a lot of stuff about Shakespeare just because they have to. You have to read it and they have to like it but it isn't "the best thing ever written". There is far better stuff out there -- unified, unique and relevant to us non-monarchs. There are writers who use fewer words to say much more than Shakespeare -- "Be true to yourself" instead of the more pompous-sounding "To thine own self be true." Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, F Scott Fitzgerald and so many more. Don't give up. Just learn enough of the Shakespeare jargon to get through. Pretend you think it is (very very) good and they will pass you.