Had to check again: still a banger. ( )

From the madness of revenge death upon death a web of murder

I’d have to say this will take a second reading ( )

the more I read this play, the less I understand it
but also
the more I read this play, the more I love it.

Hamlet seems to deal more with questions than answers, so beware the risks of getting absorbed (and lost forever) into this black hole of a revenge tragedy ( )

I liked it. There's really no point in reviewing this other than to say that.
So emo, so mysterious, and a ghost, how chic. ( )

Possibly the best play by Shakespeare. I count this among the greatest tragedies of all time because I have read it numerous times over the years. ( )

I hope I did this right: I'm trying to review the Wordsworth Classics edition, ISBN 1853260096, which is an okay version, for the most part, although it has some careless mistakes. Most jarring was Hamlet's "What a piece of work is man" speech, where the punctuation is so wrong that it separates the subject and verbs from a few clauses and pairs them with chopped-up pieces of other clauses, completely changing the meaning without changing the words. "In action, how like an angel; in apprehension, how like a god" has become this: "In action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god." An angel in apprehension? An apprehensive angel? What does that even mean? "In apprehension, how like a god" has been quoted enough in literature that it should have been familiar. Aggravating!

Particular editions aside, the play is still good. I just feel like this publication was dashed off in a hurry.

Book 267 - William Shakespeare- Hamlet

Don’t be put off by the Shakespeare lingo...I was so engrossed I nearly found myself waxing lyrical just like a flibbertigibbet.

As for the play itself it covers some really deep themes…madness, murder, betrayal and ghostly goings on.

When Hamlet’s murdered father - the ghost - seeks revenge…it is up to the son to find the killer. In typical Shakespearean style there is a blood bath of an ending…

It is brilliant and so so dark. ( )

I read this pretty slowly and thoroughly using a Gutenberg edition for the iBooks. I haven't read it since my second year of college, though I've seen several movies. I read it along with the Harold Bloom book, Hamlet: Poem Unlimited, though I tended to read Bloom in big chunks after finishing chunks of the play. The last Shakespeare play I read was King Lear, and that was also very long ago.

Reading a play is interesting; you need to work hard to give each of the characters different voices in your head. These characters are so well drawn, that it's easy with Hamlet, Claudius, Polonius, Gertrude, though they still sounded like me in my head. Seeing a recent movie after reading the play really showed me that.

It's stupid to say, but this play is really good. It's a great great writer, operating a the peak of his abilities. It's remarkable the control Shakespeare has over what's going on, and how well he presents his characters. And, even considering that my vocabulary doesn't intersect with his, it's amazing to see the wealth of his vocabulary. And also the depth of his portrayal of these characters. You think, yeah, you know this from some movies or seeing some plays, but you only really realize it when you dive deep into one of the plays.

This is probably one of the greatest works of art I've ever encountered. In books, only probably Ulysses, Bleak House, Lolita, The Iliad, maybe Pride and Prejudice approach it (to name works I'm reasonably familiar with).

I highly recommend this thing. It's work to stay with it, but of course it's well worth it. ( )

(Read for school) Overall, I enjoyed it and the plot was interesting, but I think the experience of having to read it out loud while simultaneously trying to decode the Shakespearean English made it less fun to read. Harder to analyze than I thought it would be, but still worth it. Evidence that I really need to work on my Shakespeare though :) ( )

this feels hotly blasphemous, but i must confess i didn't appreciate hamlet at all. i think the conditions in which it was read, the course, the teacher, certainly soured me on it, and perhaps i'll revisit it in a decade and find a new appreciation, but for the moment i found it particularly disappointing. hamlet and ophelia were fascinating figures, but there was something about the structure of the play i found supremely lacking, and which perturbed me the whole way through. i didn't particularly like the book, but i like my rating even less. ( )

Good student study guide of side by side text facing modern version. Informative introduction. ( )

I really enjoyed this one when I had to study this in high school. Everything about this is perfect, from the plot to the characters to the atmosphere. I loved Hamlet himself, such a fascinating character! He is brooding, he is amusing, he is clever. He has to deal with the revelation of his father's "foul and unnatural" murder, that his uncle is to blame - who has now very conveniently married his mother Gertrude. There of course is always the debate about his madness: how much is he faking it, how much is he genuinely mad? He pushes and pulls poor Ophelia around which brings about her own madness and subsequent death. The ending is as one expects from Shakesphere, moving and tragic but very beautiful. ( )

The book was hard to understand but with the modern version beside me, it made much more sense. Hamlet was a good book with many suspense and global issues such as health problems during the time. ( )

Not my favorite Shakespeare but I did enjoy reading this one. ( )

You cannot give Hamlet, as written, a bad review. Starting out as a simple revenge tragedy, it just stretches out to a study of our attitude to life itself. The characters are well drawn, and while the conflict is clear, "Is Hamlet going to exact revenge for his father's death? And on Whom?" We readers soon are drawn to examining our own conflicts, and the solutions we have, or will have tried for them. At the end, after " ...carnal,Bloody and unnatural acts, of accidental judgements,casual slaughters,of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause...and purposes mistook fall'n on the inventor's heads"...the stage is filled with corpses, and only a messager character Horatio is left to explain to the eventual heir of the country what happened. As with almost all of the plays, you will find yourself reading aloud. The play was presented to the Lord Chamberlain in 1602. I seem to have read it nine times. ( )

Tragjedia më e famshme shekspiriane besohet të jetë shkruar në 1601-1602 mbi bazën e një sage daneze, por e përpunuar me një mjeshtëri aq unike sa mund të quhet vepra teatrale më popullore dhe më e thellë e skenës. Ky është një botim luksoz i përkthimit të Fan. S. Noli, rreth vitit 1926 i domosdoshëm për çdo biblotekë.

Superbly written play, but I don't like the main character. ( )

This was an OK production. An all American cast that at times feels like they are uncomfortably reading the lines. Some of the actors/actresses do very good jobs, others make the listening to and the flow of the story choppy and tough. Good enough for fans of the Bard, but I wouldn't use this for a classroom or early students of Shakespeare. Probably would turn them away... ( )

Sin dudas que voy a contramano, pero a mí me aburrió soberanamente, por más obra cumbre de las letras anglosajonas que sea. ( )

I've read it about 3 times. Great play. Love the language. ( )

Too many words I don't know the meaning of.
Hard to understand the relationship of all of the characters. Classic Shakespeare ( )

I thought I'd give Shakespeare one more chance since Hamlet is such a broadly used cultural reference. Historically, I haven't connected to the other plays I've read or watched and this one was no different. ( )

Acompañé a @dalilaitita en esta cruzada estudiando teatro y leímos esta obra que a mi juicio está sobrevalorada. En palabras no feas Hamlet me parece peor que la policía de la moral de internet (por no decir que es un pelotudo (?)

Le doy una estrella de regalo porque me gustó mucho el personaje de Ophelia aunque tuvo ese trágico final ( )

On rereading classic plays - I found Hamlet to be, well Hamlet. As in any book that gives extra information, much of it is useful, a lot of it repetitious. I found the information about the folio's vs the quarto's and the difference between the two fascinating. For example, some of the editions were put together from actor's memories well after the last performance. So parts are added, removed, and expanded on. Putting this all together in the way Shakespeare intended it is always a lot of guessing and arguing. ( )