McKee

Haley McKee
Dr. Holt
A.P. English Literature and Composition
13 May 2016
Hamlet: The Broken Link
Over the past 400 years, Hamlet has served as a connector, linking audiences to ideas of
perception, humanity, and free will. Rather than directly telling audiences how or what to think,
Hamlet creates a space for questioning and forces readers to independently draw conclusions
from a mysterious and open plot. Because of this ambiguity, a diverse cross-section of readers
from completely different times, settings, and circumstances have all been able to discover
unique and relevant meaning and significance in Hamlet, which has ensured its lasting popularity
and has prompted scholars to label the text as timeless. However, as a changing world
struggles more and more to connect with the language and story of Shakespeares original
Hamlet, this label of timelessness will soon become incorrect as people come to realize that
although the ideas surrounding Hamlet may be timeless, Hamlet itself is not.
Hamlet in its original form was first published in 1602. It was written for a specific
audience in the 17th century. With the construction of theatres came the pastime of play
attendance, and as well, the English Renaissance, in which males and females of all social
classes attended drama performances (About Shakespeare 4). Shakespeare used biblical, Grecian,
and Roman allusions and sometimes incorporated words with double meanings into his plays
such as his use of globe in Hamlet (Shakespeare 30). Audience members would likely have
understood these allusions, such as the reference to Lethe wharf (28), a mythical river of

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forgetfulness in Hades, and would have enjoyed the double-meanings and clever language of
Shakespeares texts.
Today, Hamlet is still widely read in classrooms worldwide, and Hamlet the character is
the most-quoted character after Jesus (Delahoyde). Hamlet has even been considered the
summit of perfection by the whole civilized world (Tolstoy 253). Yet, as times change, Hamlet
is falling out of favor, with its Early Modern English (Pressley) and antiquated allusions making
the story increasingly inaccessible and frustrating for students to read. While Shakespeare had a
vocabulary of between 25,000 and 29,000 words, the average vocabulary today is merely 5,000
(Quinion), requiring students who want to understand the basic plot of the story to consult a
dictionary every few seconds. Furthermore, research has found that students are losing a desire to
interact with the original Hamlet, with a 2013 study finding that the majority of students elect to
read books well-below their grade level (The 2016 What Kids Are Reading Report), and
another study finding that teens and young adults are dropping literary reading more than any
other age group in America (To Read or Not To Read 9). While Hamlet effectively captured the
audiences of 17th and even 18th centuries, modern-day readers find the language and allusions of
Hamlet both alienating and baffling.
Yet, possibly even more alienating than the dating language is the fact that Hamlet is
great because it is ambiguous. Modern readers live in a world of information, where the answer
to any question is a few keystrokes away. Thanks to technology and science, adults and youth
alike are not used to discomfort or obscurity. T.S. Eliot once said, And probably more people
have thought Hamlet a work of art because they found it interesting, than have found it
interesting because it is a work of art. It is the Mona Lisa of literature (Eliot). In other words,
the story of Hamlet is not all that exceptional. Yet, the story has proven exceptionally interesting

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in a manner that makes readers think and prompts readers to try to discover the meaning behind
the mysterious and the strange. Hamlet has not been enormously influential because of its
content, its plot, or any other inherent characteristic of the story, but rather, Hamlet has
connected with so many people over such time because its ambiguity and openness prompts
questions, which lead readers to thought and reflection, allowing readers to discover
philosophical truths they previously had not considered. Modern readers, however, do not
embrace openness and ambiguity in plots as past audiences have done, and consequently, Hamlet
is beginning to fall out of favor with the youth of today who are more likely to reject any text
that makes them feel uncomfortable.
T.S. Eliot also claimed that Hamlet is a stratification (Eliot), or a work made up of
strata, or layers. Upon closer examination, this is true: the ideas and themes of Hamlet originate
from the true actions and stories of man recorded in Saxo Grammaticuss Historica Danica, the
first written account of Danish history that had been passed down orally for years. Later, in 1576,
Francois de Belleforest decided to adapt Grammaticuss story into Histories Tragiques. This
went on to influence Shakespeares Hamlet (Grammaticus 207). Hamlet, as a source text, has
also inspired a number of afterlives in the forms of adaptations and appropriations, including
Salman Rushdies Yorick and Tom Stoppards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. These
too are strata in the legacy of Hamlet, representing the lineage of literature and the adaptation
and appropriation of texts to reach more readers as times and audiences change. Hamlet serves as
a prime example of the fate of all literature: each piece will always be a conglomeration of
various stories and ideas all sourced from some other origin, but also a unique whole and source
text that spawns future thought and participation in the literary conversation. Through both

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adaptation and appropriation, the characteristics of Hamlet that alienate readers can be addressed,
carrying on the timeless story to newer generations while persevering the
Hamlet is not timeless, in the sense that it will never change over time, and neither is any
other text. In fact, all literature inevitably interacts differently with audiences as time passes and
readers change. Literature is rooted in timewritten for a moment and a specific audience, in
response to a snapshot in history. Yet the ideas and enduring themes behind Hamlet, its
predecessors, and its decedents, endure as constant questions readers will always consider.
Perhaps these themes will ultimately keep its appeal timeless in the next new strata of the
Hamlet legacy despite a forever-changing readership.

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Works Cited
About Shakespeare. Shakespeare Theatre Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/_pdf/first_folio/about_shakespeare.pdf>.
Delahoyde, Michael. "Hamlet." Shakespeare. Washington State University, n.d. Web. 13 Mar.
2016. <http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/hamlet1.html>.
Eliot, T.S. "Hamlet and His Problems." The Sacred Wood. N.p.: n.p., 1921. Bartleby.com. Web.
21 Feb. 2016. <http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html>.
Grammaticus, Saxo. "Historia Danica (1180-1208)." Hamlet. Ed. Robert S. Miola. By William
Shakespeare. Norton Critical ed. New York: Norton, 2011. 207-15. Print.
Pressley, J.M. "Shakespeare's Language." Shakespeare Research Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar.
2016. <http://www.bardweb.net/language.html>.
Quinion, Michael. "How Many Words?" World Wide Words. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/howmany.htm>.
"Saxo Grammaticus." Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.search.eb.com/biography/Saxo-Grammaticus>.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Robert S. Miola. Norton Critical ed. New York: Norton,
2011. Print.
Tolstoy, Leo. "Shakespeare and the Drama." Hamlet. Ed. Robert S. Miola. By William
Shakespeare. Norton Critical ed. New York: Norton, 2011. 252-55. Print.
To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence. Rept. no. 47. Washington, D.C.:
National Endowment for the Arts, 2007. National Endowment for the Arts. Web. 13 Mar.
2016. <https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/ToRead.pdf>.

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"The 2016 'What Kids Are Reading Report.'" Children's Book Council. N.p., 17 Nov. 2015. Web.
13 Mar. 2016. <http://www.cbcbooks.org/the-2016-what-kids-are-readingreport/#.VuZDULTCqZM>.

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Works Consulted
Miola, Robert S. "Imagining Hamlet." Introduction. Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. Norton
Critical ed. New York: Norton, 2011. xi-xxxiii. Print.
Partoviz Tazeh Kand, Parviz. "Adaptations of Hamlet in Different Cultural Contexts:
Globalization, Postmodernism, and Altermodernism." Doctoral thesis. U of Huddersfield,
2013. Academia. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
<http://www.academia.edu/4096811/ADAPTATIONS_OF_HAMLET_IN_DIFFERENT_
CULTURAL_CONTEXTS_GLOBALISATION_POSTMODERNISM_AND_ALTERM
ODERNISM>.
Russell, Nicole. "Beware the Loss of Literature." The Federalist. N.p., 17 Mar. 2015. Web. 21
Feb. 2016. <http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/17/beware-the-loss-of-literature/>.
Schnog, Nancy. "We're Teaching Books That Don't Stack up." WP Opinions. Washington Post,
24 Aug. 2008. Web. 21 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202398.html>.

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