Classics Bookclub – 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.

So begins one of the most famous quotes in the history of the theater.

I love Shakespeare. I don’t know if it’s the language, the meter, the stories, something completely different or a combination of all of those. And Hamlet is my favorite of them all.

That sounds a little weird.

My favorite is the one where everyone dies in the end. Of course, there are several where everyone dies in the end…Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet…that’s why they’re called the tragedies.

I realize that being a Shakespeare lover probably puts me in the minority, so just in case you didn’t have to read it in your high school English class (or if you just don’t remember it), here is a short summary:

Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark. He is visited by the ghost of his recently dead father who tells Hamlet that the new king, his father’s brother, Claudius, murdered him by pouring poison in his ear and married his queen, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude.  Hamlet, being unsure whether or not he should take a ghost at his word, decides to pretend he’s gone crazy to see if he can find out the truth.  Unfortunately, his fake lunacy shows up for real in his beloved Ophelia when he tells her that he never loved her and that she should “get thee to a nunnery.”  This is after he has killed her father who was hiding behind the tapestry in the queen’s closet (that’s her bedchamber) where she has summoned her son to give him a good tongue lashing for all the trouble he is causing everyone since she’s not really sure about all this “crazy” stuff.  When she sees Hamlet begin talking to a ghost that she can’t see or hear (who shows up again during the visit), she fears that he actually has lost his mind.  While killing Polonius wasn’t in his plans, Hamlet doesn’t appear too torn up about it and drags the body away.  When King  Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle/stepfather) hears what has happened, he asks his nephew/stepson, “Where’s Polonius?”  The prince tells him that Polonius is at supper…not where he eats, but where he is eaten…by worms.  Ewwww.  Poor Ophelia’s madness (real, not fake) ends when she falls into a pond and drowns.  When her brother, Laertes, hears what has happened he returns to the castle angry (who wouldn’t be?), and the king talks him into challenging Hamlet to a fencing match where Laertes will use a foil that has been coated with poison so that his death will appear to be an accident and the queen won’t suspect anything…after all, death from a scratch in a friendly fencing match with a foil that has been dipped in poison is a common occurrence in Denmark.  And just in case the “envenomed” (remember, I love the language) foil doesn’t work, Claudius has prepared a draught (it’s the language again) of poisoned wine that he will offer to Hamlet…a death which will in no way look suspicious.  Hamlet, not being a thirsty sort of fellow, refuses the wine which the queen proceeds to take and drinks to his victory.  The king knows that he can’t tell her not to drink it or she will wonder what he’s up to, so he allows her to drink it.  She drinks and dies.  Hamlet meanwhile has been scraped by the envenomed foil but doesn’t realize the problem yet.  He somehow ends up with the foil and injures Laertes with it, who must have been highly allergic to the poison since it kills him very quickly…unlike Hamlet who is still walking and talking.  In his make-shift “deathbed” confession, Laertes tells Hamlet of the king’s plot, including the poisoned wine that killed the queen.  He dies.  Hamlet, angry (who wouldn’t be?) grasps the cup that killed his mother and pours it down the king’s throat.  The king dies.  Finally Hamlet, who at last is feeling the effects of the poison that so quickly killed Laertes, asks, with his dying breath, that his friend Horatio (who also saw the ghost, by the way, and knows Hamlet wasn’t really crazy) tell his story to the world.  The end.

Okay, a little violent.  But what language!

It had been years since I read the play, and I was impressed with the number of famous phrases that originated with Hamlet.  Here are just a few:

“A little more than kin and less than kind.”
“Frailty, thy name is woman!”
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
“Though this be madness, yet there be method in’t.” (We usually say, “There’s a method to his madness.”)
“The play’s the thing!”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” (Again, we usually say, “Methinks she doth protest too much.”)
“‘Tis now the very witching time of night.”
“Sweets to the sweet!”
“Good night, sweet Prince!”

This particular Barnes and Noble edition is a very good one with very helpful notes and an excellent introduction.

I’ve only seen a couple of theatre/film adaptations of Hamlet, but of those, this Mel Gibson version from 1991 is excellent.  There is some creative license taken with the order of the scenes and a few incidences that are just described in the dialogue of the play are acted out in the movie, but none of these take anything away from the story.  It doesn’t hurt that Mel is so easy to look at.  The touch of blond in his hair is…nice.  The last scene is quite graphic, more from the poisonings than blood, but could certainly frighten children so beware.

Just for fun, take a look at this short video version of Hamlet.  If it brings back memories of your childhood, leave a comment.  I’d love to know that I’m not the only one who remembers this!  I tried to embed the video, but it just wasn’t working for me.

The Classics Bookclub at 5 Minutes for Books meets on the first Tuesday of every month.  Click here to read more of this month’s reviews.