Among the most powerful tragedies in the English language, Hamlet is a drama set in Denmark, where Prince Hamlet exacts blood revenge on his uncle Claudius for murdering his father, the King, usurpation of the throne, and for marrying his mother, who readily consented, much to his disillusionment, thus laying the foundation for real and feigned madness - from unspeakable grief to livid rage, thereby giving Shakespeare the grounds to explore the themes of tragic waste, revenge, incest and moral deprivation - all at once

The universality of Shakespeare's genius is in some sort reflected in Hamlet. Hamlet has a mind wise and witty, abstract and practical, the utmost reach of philosophical contemplation is mingled with most penetrating sagacity in the affairs of life; playful jest, biting satire, sparkling repartee blended with the darkest and deepest thoughts which can agitate man. He swiftly divines the nature and motives of those who are brought into contact with him. He is equally at home whether he is mocking Polonius with hidden raillery, or dissipating Ophelia's dreams of love, or crushing the sponges (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - a pair of servants and childhood friends of Hamlet) with sarcasm and invective, or talking euphemism with Osric and satirizing while he talks it, whether he is uttering wise maxims or welcoming the Players with facetious graciousness, probing the innermost soul of others or sounding the mysteries of his own.

Shakespeare has created Hamlet by presenting him in all sorts of company. We see him with the girl (Ophelia) he loves and with the mother (Gertrude) he has adored. We see him with the closest friend (Horatio) whose temperament is the compliment of his, and we see him with his school fellows as he once knew them. He is a very different person with Claudius, Leartes and with Polonius. We laugh with him at Osric, with him we hold our breath in the dread presence of the Ghost. Perhaps he charms us most when he is with the common people, with the Players and the grave-digger. And then above all we listen to Hamlet when he is alone. He confides to us his many moods. We know what others think of him, we know what he thinks of others, and we know what he thinks of himself.

It follows that Hamlet is the most many-sided of Shakespeare's creations. Hamlet might indeed say with the poet Walt Whitman: "I am large, I contain multitudes".

Hamlet is at once individual and universal. He is Everyman, he is courtier, soldier and scholar - the Elizabethan ideal which combined the chivalry of the Middle Ages with the intellectual curiosity of the Renaissance. The fact that critics would never leave Hamlet alone, the futile endeavour to pluck out the heart of the mystery, is surely the best evidence that the real and the lasting mystery of the human situation has been greatly depicted.

Hamlet, then, is Hamlet; Hamlet is Sir Philip Sidney; Hamlet is Richard Burbage. He is Goethe and Coleridge. He is you and I. He is William Shakespeare. He is an individual and yet more than individual; he is larger than life. In Hamlet the prince Shakespeare has held up a mirror not merely to the age but to Nature or humanity. "I have a smack of Hamlet myself," confesses Coleridge, and Hazlitt repeats the same view: "It is we who are Hamlet".

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