r/Hamlet

While most people who read Hamlet equate Shakespeare's Denmark as a thinly veiled analogue to Elizabethan England, especially Oxfordians who equate Polonius with Lord Burghley, I was struck recently by considering the differences between Shakespeare's Denmark and the England he lived in.

The main thing that interests me is that Shakespeare imagines Denmark as globalised and lacking a central identity, which I assume would've contrasted with England's intense patriotism at the time and its isolationism from the rest of Europe. We see this through Hamlet basically living in Germany and Laertes living in France, Claudius using swiss mercenaries and never native soldiers [where are my switzers?], or the way that the norwegians march through denmark to Poland. I suppose my question is to any historians, is Shakespeare making some critique of Europe here? At his time was England isolationist with a hereditary monarchy that could contrast with the weak state of Denmark, where kings are chosen by lot and all the important people seem to want to be away from Denmark as much as possible, or was England more of a player in Europe than I thought it would be.

I rarely see Denmark as a state very emeshed in the politics of Europe being discussed. Is there any historical merit to this idea? Personally I believe that Shakespeare is critiquing the excesses of English monarchy at many points in the play, but using a state shown to be unpatriotic and opportunistic which lacks a great chain of being type succession in order to not appear like he's critiquing monarchy itself.

I’m doing this project for my class of a trailer for hamlet and need some ideas on what I should wear as I play hamlet? Any suggestions? (Side note I’m a girl btw)

Why should a well-educated young man have second thoughts when it comes to killing a close relative who also happens to be the king of the land and the husband of his own mother? This is some enigma indeed, and the problem is not that a satisfactory answer has never been found but that we should keep looking for one. Should our enormous critical literature on Hamlet fall someday into the hands of people otherwise ignorant of our mores, they could not fail to conclude that our academic tribe must have been a savage breed, indeed. After four centuries of controversies, Hamlet's temporary reluctance to commit murder still looks so outlandish to us that more and more books are being written in an unsuccessful effort to solve that mystery. The only way to account for this curious body of literature is to suppose that back in the twentieth century no more was needed than the request of some ghost, and the average professor of literature would massacre his entire household without batting an eyelash. - Amir Khan

What the sigma grindset should be, what rizz is, why Ohio is Ohio, glaze glaze, and gyatt is gyatt were nothing but to waste glaze, Ohio, and gyatt. Therefore, since skibidi is the soul of wit, and fanum tax the limbs and outward flourishes, let me be brief. Your noble son is geeked. “Geeked” call I it, for to define true geekedness, what is’t but to be nothing else but geeked? But let that go.