Community Reviews
To read Hamlet is to take a course in linguistics and speech-writing. You have your soliloquies and asides and double meanings, as well as your metaphors, anaphoras (a repeating sequence of words), puns, and double meanings. What I, however, often appreciate about Hamlet (this is my second time re-reading it) is the range of emotion characterized throughout the play. From insanity and disconsolation, to pure rage and malevolence to apathy, Hamlet seems to it all. Also, even at 4,042 lines, much of the character’s demeanor and motivations is up for the readers’ and actors’ interpretation which affect how they are portrayed on stage and analyzed in our minds. For example, if applying Freudian overtones to the play, Hamlet could be perceived as lustful and robust, as opposed to the more demure, gentler disposition associated with him, changing much of the atmosphere of the play.
In the same fashion, Gertrude’s character is pretty well cloaked, even though she is playing a central figure: did she or did she not conspire or even know of Cladius’ fratricide and to what extent does this interpretation manipulate or imbue her character’s portrayal. This is what makes Hamlet so fun (yes, I said fun) to read. You have the power to question and change the essence of the characters, modifying this classic itself.
Most of us may have first read Hamlet in an academic setting, whether it be high school or college. I believe that many readers’ antipathy towards these time-honored masterpieces culminates from having been beaten to reiterate what some professor thinks of the text and forced to decipher, dissect, and, ultimately, destroy the work itself until you’re brain-dead. What makes Hamlet more enjoyable to me is not having a course syllabus act as your shadow, compelling you to chart your progress, but, rather taking your own sweet time in it. Understand the plot, pick your favorite characters, appreciate the literary devices, take note of the witty aphorisms, and chuckle at the malapropisms. You’ll come to respect just how far Hamlet’s reach has been in impacting not only what we read today, but in the origins of every-day phrases (More honoured in the breach than the observance), pop culture references (To be or not to be…), and dramatic personification (the skull of Yorick).
In the same fashion, Gertrude’s character is pretty well cloaked, even though she is playing a central figure: did she or did she not conspire or even know of Cladius’ fratricide and to what extent does this interpretation manipulate or imbue her character’s portrayal. This is what makes Hamlet so fun (yes, I said fun) to read. You have the power to question and change the essence of the characters, modifying this classic itself.
Most of us may have first read Hamlet in an academic setting, whether it be high school or college. I believe that many readers’ antipathy towards these time-honored masterpieces culminates from having been beaten to reiterate what some professor thinks of the text and forced to decipher, dissect, and, ultimately, destroy the work itself until you’re brain-dead. What makes Hamlet more enjoyable to me is not having a course syllabus act as your shadow, compelling you to chart your progress, but, rather taking your own sweet time in it. Understand the plot, pick your favorite characters, appreciate the literary devices, take note of the witty aphorisms, and chuckle at the malapropisms. You’ll come to respect just how far Hamlet’s reach has been in impacting not only what we read today, but in the origins of every-day phrases (More honoured in the breach than the observance), pop culture references (To be or not to be…), and dramatic personification (the skull of Yorick).
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