Shakespeare Analysis of Hamlet

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Drama Paper: Hamlet William Shakespeare was born in 1564, to a successful middle-class glove-maker, in England. He never received any more than a grammar school education in his life. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, but left his family behind around 1590 and moved to London, where he became an actor and playwright. Shakespeare accomplished immediate success in London and soon became the most popular playwright as well as a part-owner of the Globe Theater. Shakespeare left the theater life and moved to Stratford as a famous person. He died 3 years later in 1616 at the age of 52. Written during the early 17th century, Hamlet was probably first performed in 1602. It was first published in a printed form in 1603 and appeared in an enlarged edition in 1604. The setting of the play is in the kingdom of Denmark and the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet have on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father, and then taking over the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's wife and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play portrays both true and pretended madness, from devastating sorrow to livid anger, and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and ethical corruption. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in English literature. In Act IV, Scene V, Gertrude and Horatio discuss Ophelia. Gertrude encounters a gone-mad Ophelia. Unlike Hamlet's pretended madness, Ophelia really went insane “Gentleman: She is importunate.indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitited” (IV.v.2-3). Throughout this scene she sings about chaos, death, and unreturned love. “Ophelia: (sings) He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone, at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone” (IV.v 31-35). Claudius enters and Ophelia's songs suggest at
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