, the
, has been dead for only two months, but his mother,
, has married her ,
, who has now become king. A
, resembling the late King of Denmark, has appeared to sentries at the castle of Elsinore,
armed for a possible attack from , Prince of Norway.
and his friend
arrange a night meeting to see whether the ghost will appear, which he does and tells
Hamlet he was murdered by Claudius, who poured poison in his ear while he was sleeping in his
orchard. He asks Hamlet to avenge him, but to leave his mother’s punishment to heaven.
Hamlet pretends that he is so that he can carry out his plans more easily. ,
the king’s , thinks Hamlet’s madness is caused by his for his daughter
.
Hamlet arranges for a troupe of actors, who have come to entertain the court, to perform
, a play whose story is similar to the one revealed by the ghost.
The play is presented: King Claudius rises and rushes away. Hamlet goes to his mother’s bedroom
and, during an argument with her, kills Polonius, who is hiding behind a curtain to overhear their
conversation. The king decides to send Hamlet to England to get rid of him.
Hamlet is sent to to be killed. Ophelia goes mad and drowns herself. Her brother
wants revenge for his father’s murder and the king, after receiving the news that Hamlet has
escaped, plots his death in a duel with Laertes.
To kill Hamlet, the king prepares a and also puts poison on the
. Hamlet refuses to drink the
, which his mother then drinks
instead. In the duel Laertes wounds Hamlet with his sword, then the swords are exchanged and
Hamlet wounds Laertes. The queen dies, Laertes falls and, before dying, denounces the king, who
is stabbed by Hamlet. Hamlet asks Horatio to tell his , recommending that
be elected
. Then he too dies. Fortinbras enters and takes possession of
the kingdom after having given to Hamlet.
The story of Hamlet is set in the late (14th
and 15th centuries) in and around the royal castle in
, a city in .
Denmark was a country: Hamlet
studies in
, Germany, where
started the
, and he
is sceptical of the ghost, who claims to be his father’s
spirit wandering in , because
Protestantism rejected the notion of purgatory as
mere
.
Denmark is at with
(when the
ghost first appears, the guards are dressed for
battle). This sense of from another country
affects the of the play because
increases the of the first scenes and sets the
of the tragedy.
