Hamlet (Signet Classics) by William Shakespeare
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Book Reviews of Hamlet (Signet Classics)
Book Review: Madness in great ones must not unwatched go
Summary: 5 Stars
The reading of Hamlet and Lear in high- school helped me understand my father. Or rather my father helped me understand them. All the hesitation and delay and indecision, all the great outpourings of feeling in soliloquy , all the great sense of life as tormenting and impossible and yet somehow great and sublime, all this echoed and reflected from my own childhood family life world back and forth to Hamlet. The great language reaching out to metaphor no ordinary mind could find. This too.
Of the plot and the story of the father murdered and the son who needed to revenge and delayed and the mother who betrayed and enticed, this was far far from me. More I loved the language the great speeches even when we were taught that they were ironic and self- condemning (To thine own self be true as triteness not truth) I loved and memorized much of Hamlet's solitary crying , " Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt thaw and resolve itself into a dew" and felt in the pain of Hamlet my father 's pain and poetry. I know for most this is the greatest play ever played, and I know too how down the generations critics have given their own long theories explaining why Hamlet delayed and what the ultimate meaning of the play is. But what each of us is given in his own way is another story. And if I have here said a few private words it certainly will not harm or change very much that vast sea of readings which have accumulated around this work, and which will grow still larger and larger in time. One of the great works unquestionably, one mankind will go on reading and rereading as long as mankind keeps reading. And for me a hint that my father's life and suffering somehow related to a higher world called Literature where it might have its echo, and who knows one day truly find its meaningful expression.
Book Review: Hamlet, glossed.
Summary: 5 Stars
I hated Shakespeare in high school, partly because I could only understand about one word out of every three. Recently -- that is, thirty years post-high-school -- I forced myself to read it again, in the Signet edition, and was dumbfounded at how different my response was. All the difficult terms were explained at the bottom of each page in footnotes. I learned the difference between the two terms of address, "Sir" and "Sirrah," and a lot of other things as well. As an adolescent I asked myself why the hero didn't just kill Claudius right of the bat and have done with it. The reason, it seemed to me, is that there wouldn't have been any play. Hamlet refuses to use his sword on his uncle for the same reason the Indians don't shoot the horses when they're chasing the stagecoach. What a change time has wrought. I guess when you're a kid you don't know the meaning of the term "moral doubt" because so many things seem black and white. It takes a certain degree of maturation to realize that murdering a king because some ghost told you to is a bit morally -- well, fuzzy. For instance, can you be absolutely certain that you're doing it to avenge your father instead of being jealous about your mother's affections? Questions like that, which a thoughtful adult might ask himself, are enough to give anyone pause. It's a fascinating tragedy. Probably the best film about it is still Olivier's from 1947 or 1948, which won an Academy Award if that still means anything. The signet edition is extremely helpful too in providing brief critical essays that review the play from differing perspectives, the Freudian, the feminist, and so on.Book Review: Shakespeare's Finest
Summary: 5 Stars
A tragedy by William Shakespeare, written around 1599-1601. Before the play opens, the king of Denmark has been murdered by his brother, Claudius, who has taken the throne and married the queen, Gertrude. The ghost of the dead king visits his son, Prince Hamlet, and urges him to avenge the murder. Hamlet, tormented by this revelation, appears to be mad and cruelly rejects Ophelia whom he loved. Using a troupe of visiting players to act out his father's death, the prince prompts Claudius to expose his own guilt. Hamlet then kills Ophelia's father Polonius in mistake for Claudius, and Claudius tries but fails to have Hamlet killed. Ophelia drowns herself in grief, and her brother Laertes fights a duel with Hamlet.Hamlet's dilemma is often seen as typical of those whose thoughtful nature prevents quick and decisive action.
Hamlet contains several fine examples of soliloquy, such as " To be or not to be" and Hamlet's earlier speech lamenting his mother's hasty remarriage and Claudius' reign which opens "O! that this too too solid flesh would melt". Much quoted lined "Neither a borrower nor a lender be", "Something is rotten in the stste of Denmark", "Brevity is the soul of wit", "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;" The lady doth protest too much, methinks," and "Alas, poor Yorick". Arguably Shakespeare's finest play and one that can be read again and again.
Book Review: Shakespears greatest piece of art.
Summary: 5 Stars
A masterpiece in the minds of many play critics, shakespeare enlightens and motivates the minds and souls of its readers. Not only are the charecters dynamic, but the reader will be able to feel the overwhelming emotions flowing throughout the play. The shakespearen language stimulates the mind along with the body. Through Shakespeare's brilliance in the arts, he is able to write a play that can take place in a variety of settings and times. An example of this would be Zefferelli film compared to Bronnach's interpretation of the play. They both illustrate the time and motivation that Shakespeare intended, yet they take place in a different setting. Ophelia, Shakespeare's most dynamic character, overwhelmes the readers with a bluster of feelings. They inlude happiness, depression, true love and many others. Readers are able to relate with this rounded character and this demonstrates why many critics coinsider 'Hamlet' as one of Shakespears best works.Book Review: Mousetrap
Summary: 5 Stars
Hamlet and his family have lived in Denmark. They stay in a castle at Elsinore. A short distance on the estate is an orchard with cool shade. The time is the afternoon. The king leaves to get some rest in the orchard. Time passes, and he does not return. The family becomes worried. Someone goes to the orchard and finds the king. The rumor is that he has been killed by a poisonous snake. A madness has fallen on Hamlet. Thus the deceased king's apparition is clearly seen and heard. For a time members of the family and others detect Hamlet's queer demeanor. As time passes, it is seen more frequently. It sounds as though he spent much of his salad days with the jester. A reader is not as easily mousetrapped as other readers about Hamlet's motives. The historical record shows that Emperor Claudius was poisoned by his wife so that her son, Nero, would inherit a throne.