The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

• Main Author: Shakespeare, William 1564-1616 (Author)
• Other Authors: Holderness, Graham (Editor), Loughrey, Bryan (Editor), Bogdanov, Michael (personal essay by)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Longman Singapore 1990 (1992 printing)
• Series: Longman Study Texts
• Subjects: Shakespeare > 1564-1616. > William > Hamlet; Hamlet (Legendary character) > Drama; Kings and rulers > Drama > Succession; Murder victims' families > Drama; Denmark > Drama
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Physical Description: xxii, 415 pages 24 cm
• ISBN: 0582017335

Hamlet, for the director, is a great whodunit. It is the art of detection, unravelling the mystery, following the clues, building the evidence, deducing the story. On the surface, that story does not change. A series of events defines the parameters, whatever the year, whatever the century. To alter or omit some of these events is to re-define the story. Hamlet would then become a play, based on a play by William Shakespeare. Perfectly permissible, even desirable, in the tradition of theatre as a living entity, something that grows organically, springing from the spirit of the time- indeed the very way that Shakespeare arrived at his version of the story. But the constant story of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, dramatist, based on a deduction of the facts, does not change. Of course, there are always lots of loose ends to tie up in the plays - inconsistencies (not least of time), accidents of memory, improvisations by actors, insertions by commentators, and 'tidying up' by editors. And most of all, that old argument that Shakespeare 'did not bother with detail'.