Hamlet by William Shakespeare

¶ … Hamlet

Understanding Hamlet

William Shakespeare's Hamlet is one of the most famous plays in history. Since Shakespeare's time this play has been continually published and performed all over the world. But when it comes to actually reading the play, the fact that it is written in archaic language makes it very difficult to understand. So in order to understand the play; it's plot lines, characters, and themes, a modern reader must undertake a series of steps in order to fully explore Shakespeare's masterpiece. Using modern technology, particularly the computer, internet, and television, I was able to gain an understanding of Shakespeare's play.

The first thing I did was to obtain a copy of the text, which I located online, and immediately realized that while I understood most words in the sentences, the grammar or way the words were arranged, made it very difficult to understand the meaning of the sentences. It was as though the play was in a foreign language. So in order to get an idea of what the play was about, I consulted several Hamlet summary pages on the internet. One web page, called Absolute Shakespeare, had a very good summary of the plot and important actions within the play. For instance, Hamlet's father, the former king, was also named Hamlet, but referred to in the play as "Ghost." The web page also identified the main plot of the story when it stated "Hamlet learns from King Hamlet's Ghost that he was poisoned by King Claudius... The Ghost tells Hamlet to avenge his death but not to punish Queen Gertrude for remarrying…" ("Absolute Shakespeare") After consulting this background information, and obtaining a general overview of what the play was about, I was able to make a second stab at the actual text of the play.

There are several texts of Hamlet available online, many free, and the Literature Network provides an excellent version that is free and easily available. However, even with an idea of the plot of the story, as well as major events, I still found myself having difficulty understanding the text of the play. While I now know that the play begins with a scene in which the ghost of Hamlet's father visits some night watchmen, there are still problems understanding some of the text. I can easily understand lines like "Looks it not like the king? Mark it, Horatio" and "Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder." But I still do not understand what the text means when it states "with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch…" or "why this same strict and most observant watch…" (Absolute Shakespeare)

So I decided to obtain a DVD copy of the play, one that was most like the original text so that I could actually see what was going on and then be able to put words with actions and maybe understand what this ancient English means. After consulting the internet I discovered that Laurence Olivier's version of Hamlet was supposed to be one of the best and most traditional versions made. I discovered that it was in black and white, which gave it a bit of authenticity as the old time black and white seemed to compliment the archaic language and setting. Having the DVD also allows me to stop and rewind the play so when I come across something I don't understand, I can go back and see it again. I obtained a book which contains the text so I can follow along with the DVD, this way I can see what the Shakespeare wanted the audience to see when he wrote the play. That is something I am learning about reading plays, they were meant to be watched, not read, and contain a lot of non-dialogue action directions which are better watched than read (the online versions of the play only contain the dialogue and not the stage directions or background information). Perhaps in the past people knew what a "room of state in the castle" looked like, but I did not. (Act I, Scene 2) In my mind, I saw images of the Queen of England's throne room, but in Olivier's version, the room of state was nothing like the grandness of the Queen's rooms. Hamlet live in a dark age castle, which was cold, damp, and very primitive. This was very different from what I envision when I began to read the text.

After watching the DVD, and reading along with it, I now felt that I had a decent understanding of the play and could simply read the play by itself. I decided to read the book version since it had all the stage directions and information. In doing so I find that I am able to see in my mind what I am reading on the page. While the Olivier version of Hamlet cuts out whole sections of the dialogue, I believe that was done in order to fit the movie into the time allotted. The DVD is 2 1/2 hours long, with the cuts, and would have been well over 3 hours had the entire play been filmed. But even though there are new parts of the play to read, they do not bring up any new plot developments or such, the parts cut out of the film do not detract from the reading of the play.

While I am still having difficult understanding exactly what each sentence means, I am able to understand what is going on and what the characters generally mean when they speak. There are still a few words which either I do not understand and have to look up, or they are used in ways which are different from my understanding. But the fact that I have seen the DVD, and have an idea of what is going on, I can decipher the meaning of the lines. There is a part of the play where Hamlet speaks to the players who visit the castle and he asks them to perform a special play, he states "Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action…." (Act III, Scene 2) I have been able to decipher that Hamlet wants them to perform a play which will mimic the murder of his father by his uncle, and that he wants it to be as graphic as possible. Hamlet want the play to be as violent as the actual murder was with the hope of being able to embarrass his uncle and provoke a response from him.