Hamlet is jammed with famous quotes like “to be or not to be,” “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” “time is out of joint,” “the play’s the thing,” “get thee to a nunnery,” and “the rest is silence.” But who really knows what happens in the world’s most famous play? And why is it so damn long? Jonty confides the intense boredom induced by the unabridged 5.5 hour Kenneth Branagh marathon Hamlet during the 90s.

Jonty and Sophie are in heated agreement that Hamlet is not a nice guy but a bit of an over privileged brat. The Ghost, not Hamlet, gets SLOB’s prize this week for MVP. not to mention lovely Ophelia, the play’s most moving and sympathetic character.  

There many unanswered questions in Hamlet and Sophie argues that “to be or not to be?” isn’t even in the Top 10. And also, why do actors speak so slowly when delivering the “to be or not to be” speech? Jonty - at last - concedes that the Protestant Reformation is at the heart of this text! Plus we get a quick primer on political and religious life under Queen Elizabeth I, who was in crisis with a threatened rebellion from the Earl of Essex. The queen wasn’t the only one in a career slump in the late 1590s - Shakespeare was having problems with his work-life balance  too. 

Why — and how — did he and his business partners dismantle their theater and carry it across the Thames one frosty December night in 1598? Hear why Shakespeare played the Ghost in the first performances of Hamlet, and how this very adult play is also about the death of Shakespeare’s 11 year old son named Hamnet, a few years earlier.

Visit the Secret Life of Books and join a conversation about the episode and the show: https://www.secretlifeofbooks.org/forum

Further Reading:

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Folger Shakespeare Library edition. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/read/

James Shapiro, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (Harper Collins, 2005)

Stephen Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton UP, 2014)

Rhodri Lewis, Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness (Princeton UP, 2017)

T. S. Eliot, “Hamlet  and His Problems.” In The Sacred Wood (Dover Publications, reprint edition 1997).