LiteratureBook · 1603
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
A ghost tells Hamlet his uncle murdered his father, and Hamlet believes it, delays, tests it with a play, delays again, and kills the wrong man. The delay is the play, and nobody has settled what it means.
Why you should read this
Still the standard reference point for revenge tragedy in English, giving its central figure far more interior soliloquy than the genre typically allows. Many of its lines, including 'to be or not to be,' have become part of everyday English, so it can feel familiar even to first-time readers.
- Field
- Literature
- Form
- Fiction
- Published
- 1603
- Themes
- DramaLiterature
