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William Shakespeare's tragedies encompassed themes of murder and greed (Macbeth), love and fate (Romeo and Juliet), misplaced trust and gullibility (Othello), unreasonable expectation and misplaced fatherly devotion (King Lear), as well as historically-based politics and the power of rhetoric on the masses (Julius Caesar). But Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is a tragedy that addresses multiple themes in a psycho-drama of a play-within-a-play format including greed, incest, word-play, political gamesmanship, plans gone awry and murder gone afoul. But it also addresses the resolve of one person's need for revenge for a murder he needs to prove was not some contrivance of a disenchanted ghost condemned to wander aimlessly until his death is avenged by his son, the Prince of Denmark. Shakespeare's brilliance in presenting character development through dialogue that contains flying barbs and flaying retorts flows floridly through endless passages of blank verse among those of conversational prose. Therein lis the problems in understanding much of what Shakespeare masks in his lengthy passages replete with literary devices. Therefore, as I have done with the other tragedies (Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar), I have brought the action to the reader with language of the 21st century while maintaining, where I could, the blank verse and imagery of the original text. Hamlet is a play written for the Elizabethans, as were the others; but its themes are applicable universally throughout world-wide societies. No one can justly replicate Shakespeare's output or capture the beauty of his language that is becoming older by the day. But, because his message is so important, it deserves to be made available to those readers who have not had the opportunity to digest it as it was written. Enjoy the ride. It is a long one but it is direct.
