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What follows is an overview of the main characters in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, followed by a list and summary of the minor characters from the play. [1] Three different early versions of the play survive: known as the First Quarto ("Q1"), Second Quarto ("Q2"), and First Folio ("F1"), each has lines—and even scenes—missing in the others, and some character names vary.
The majority of characters in Hamlet have classical names, in contrast to the "particularly Danish" ones of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The names were common in the court of Frederick II and Christian IV , and also at the University of Wittenberg , an institution where Hamlet is mentioned as having studied (he refers to them as "my two ...
For Cantor, the character of Hamlet exists exactly where these two worlds collide. He is in one sense drawn towards the active side of heroism by his father's legacy ("He smote the sledded Polaks on the ice" [76]) and the need for revenge ("now could I drink hot blood. And do such bitter business as the day/ Would quake to look on" [77]).
In contrast, Goethe's Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, written between 1776–1796 not only has a production of Hamlet at its core but also dwells on parallels between the Ghost and Wilhelm Meister's dead father. [5] In the early 1850s, in Pierre, Herman Melville focuses on a Hamlet-like character's long development as a writer. [5]
Freud points out that Hamlet is an exception in that psychopathic characters are usually ineffective in stage plays; they "become as useless for the stage as they are for life itself", because they do not inspire insight or empathy, unless the audience is familiar with the character's inner conflict. Freud says, "It is thus the task of the ...
"To be, or not to be" is a speech given by Prince Hamlet in the so-called "nunnery scene" of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1). The speech is named for the opening phrase, itself among the most widely known and quoted lines in modern English literature, and has been referenced in many works of theatre, literature and music.
Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. He is the chief counsellor of the play's ultimate villain, Claudius , and the father of Laertes and Ophelia . Generally regarded as wrong in every judgment he makes over the course of the play, [ 1 ] Polonius is described by William Hazlitt as a "sincere" father, but also "a busy ...
[265] Commenting on "the character of Hamlet", he in effect joins a discussion among his contemporaries, adding to the mix of similar assessments by Goethe, [266] Schlegel, [267] and Coleridge [268] his observation that Hamlet "is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment." [80]