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The Playwright

• • William Shakespeare:
  An Illustrated Biographical Summary

The Play

• • Introduction
• • Theatrical and Cinematic History
• • Frequently Asked Questions
• • The Play's Setting (Hamlet's World)
• • The Timeline
  • • Summary
  • • Comments
• • The Text:
  • • Act I – Scene 1
  • • Act I – Scene 2
  • • Act I – Scene 3
  • • Act I – Scene 4
  • • Act I – Scene 5
  • • Act II – Scene 1
  • • Act II – Scene 2
  • • Act III – Scene 1
  • • Act III – Scene 2
  • • Act III – Scene 3
  • • Act III – Scene 4
  • • Act IV – Scene 1
  • • Act IV – Scene 2
  • • Act IV – Scene 3
  • • Act IV – Scene 4
  • • Act IV – Scene 5
  • • Act IV – Scene 6
  • • Act IV – Scene 7
  • • Act V – Scene 1
  • • Act V – Scene 2

The Cast of Characters

• • Introduction
• • The Loyal Friend and Chronicler
• • The Audience
• • The Prince
• • The Ghost
• • The Devil
• • The Queen
• • The Counsellor
• • Cassandra
• • The Knight
• • The Pawns
• • The Sentinels
• • The Clowns
• • The Players
• • The Bit Parts

The Source Material

• • The Amleth Saga
  (Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ca. 1185)
• • Hamblet:
  The Amleth Saga's English translation
  (London, 1608)

The Major Topics

• • General Introduction
• • In particular: Hamlet and Women
  • • Eve and Her Daughters
  • • Hamlet and Eve
  • • Women in Catholic Doctrine:
    • Malleus Maleficarum
    • Saint Thomas Aquinas
    • Saint John Bonaventure
    • Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
    • Pope (Saint) Gregory I (Gregory the Great)
    • Saint Augustine of Hippo
    • Saint Ambrose of Milan
    • Saint Jerome
    • Saint John Chrysostom
    • Tertullian
  • • Medieval and Renaissance Women's Voices:
    • Queen Elizabeth I of England
    • Christine de Pizan:
    • • Excerpts in English translation
      • Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (excerpts in French)
      • Poetry (in French)
    • Eleanor (Aliénor) of Aquitaine
    • Empress Maud (Matilda)
    • Hildegard of Bingen
    • Héloïse
  • • Shakespeare's Other Women: A Selection of Portraits
    • Rosalind (As You Like It)
    • Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)
    • Portia (The Merchant of Venice)
    • Katherina (The Taming of the Shrew)
    • Viola (Twelfth Night)
    • Juliet (Romeo and Juliet)
    • Isabella (Measure for Measure)
    • Desdeomona (Othello)
    • Cordelia (King Lear)
    • Volumnia (Coriolanus)
    • Tamora (Titus Andronicus)
    • Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)
    • Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra)

The Great Scenes and Soliloquies

• • Introduction
• • "Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green ..."
• • "But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son ..."
• • "O that this too too solid flesh would melt ..."
• • "Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!"
• • "For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour ..."/"What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?"
• • "The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse ..."
• • "I am thy father's spirit ..."
• • "O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!"
• • "My liege, and madam, to expostulate ..."
• • "How does my good Lord Hamlet?"
• • "I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth ..."
• • "I heard thee speak me a speech once ..."
• • "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!"
• • "To be, or not to be"
• • "Get thee to a nunnery!"
• • "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you ..."
• • "Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man ..."
• • "For us, and for our tragedy ..."
• • "'Tis now the very witching time of night ..."
• • "O, my offence is rank ..."
• • "Now might I do it pat ..."
• • "What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue ..."
• • "Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?"
• • "How all occasions do inform against me ..."
• • "Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?"
• • "O heat, dry up my brains!/They bore him barefac'd on the bier ..."
• • "Now must your conscience my acquittance seal ..."
• • "There is a willow grows aslant a brook ..."
• • "Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?"
• • "Alas, poor Yorick!"
• • "There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow"
• • "Give me your pardon, sir."
• • "I am dead, Horatio"