I've read many children's or abridged versions of Hamlet but have never gotten the full story until now. This was an intriguing story for me.Synopsis from Goodreads: Hamlet is the story of the Prince of Denmark who learns of the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius. Claudius murders Hamlet's father, his own brother, to take the throne of Denmark and to marry Hamlet's widowed mother. Hamlet is sunk into a state of great despair as a result of discovering the murder of his father and the infidelity of his mother. Hamlet is torn between his great sadness and his desire for the revenge of his father's murder.The most interesting part for me of the whole play was that the line "sweets for the sweet" comes from it. Who knew? If I had been told that it came from a Shakespeare play I certainly not have guessed a tragedy. Speaking of tragedy, Hamlet is just about the most tragic story I've ever read. It's depressing! Everybody dies! Oops spoiler! But at leas I didn't say who died... just that everyone does. ;)
Overall I think it is a good story and one that has most obviously inspired other writings including (I'm given to understand though I haven't watched it) the Disney film The Lion King. There are a lot of good lines in the play, besides the one I mentioned above, such as the famous "to be or not to be" speech. I would like to watch a film version to see how Hamlet is played out on screen to get a better feel for it but in my opinion it gives you a lot of food for thought though it is very tragic.
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*whispers* Watch the David Tennant adaptation ;) It's brilliant, I think DT does a wonderful job in bringing out the humour in Hamlet to balance the torment and the indecisiveness.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing where some common phrases come from in Shakespeare, I forgot which play I was reading and was like "Wow, that line came from Shakespeare!" xD Good times :)
I want to watch it partly just because David Tennant!
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