ABSTRACT
N o tragedy has endured such a weight of commentary as Hamlet, or such a variety of interpretation on the stage. Every actor aspires to play the part, and every critic feels a compulsion to add his piece to the endless discussion of texts, origins and character. The play, meanwhile, remains indestructibly alive. Some modern critics have emphasised the alleged 'imperfections' of this the earliest of the great tragedies, yet no work of dramatic genius has had a comparable appeal, even in translation, and in continents where the values of the original can only be dimly appreciated. Somehow Shakespeare created a tragedy acceptable at different levels of aesthetic enjoyment and Hamlet himself, the renaissance prince, in all the complexity of his moods, his learning and his motives for action, has provided for ordinary men everywhere some image of their own personality, and of the universal capacity for self-pity.
