William Shakespeare's Hamlet as the Most Known Play in the English Language

William Shakespeare's Hamlet as the Most Known Play in the English Language Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English

language. Probably written in 1601 or 1602, the tragedy is a milestone

in Shakespeare's dramatic development; the playwright achieved

artistic maturity in this work through his brilliant depiction of the

hero's struggle with two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need

to avenge his father's murder.William Shakespeare was an English

playwright and poet. He is generally considered the greatest dramatist

the world has ever known and the finest poet who has written in the

English language.

During Shakespeare's lifetime, he was well known to people in England.

By the time Queen Elizabeth died, the English were struggling with

many social and economic problems. These problems were complicated by

minor wars with other countries-wars that often seemed without

purpose. To many English people, the world appeared to be

deteriorating and becoming in Hamlet's words, "an unweeded garden/

That grows to seed." Shakespeare's tragedies, like other Elizabethan

tragedies involve the murder or suicide of many of the leading

characters.

Young Hamlet is very well-liked. He is a soldier, a scholar, and a

diplomat. We learn that he's "the glass of fashion and the mould of

form", i.e., the young man that everybody else tried to imitate. He's

also "loved of the distracted multitude", i.e., the ordinary people

like him, and if anything were to happen to him, there would be riots.

Hamlet is mourning for his fat...

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...of literature to look squarely at the

stupidity, falsity and sham of everyday life, without laughing and

without easy answers. In a world where things are not as they seem,

Hamlet's genuineness, thoughtfulness, and sincerity make him special.

Hamlet is no saint. But unlike most of the other characters (and most

people today), Hamlet chooses not to compromise with evil.

Dying, Hamlet reaffirms the tragic dignity of a basically decent

person in a bad world. "Hamlet" is the first work of literature to

show an ordinary person looking at the futility and wrongs in life,

asking the toughest questions and coming up with honest semi-answers

like most people do today. Unlike so much of popular culture today,

"Hamlet" leaves us with the message that life is indeed worth living,

even by imperfect people in an imperfect world.