Hamlet
In this quintessential Shakespeare tragedy, a young prince's halting pursuit of revenge for the murder of his father unfolds in a series of highly charged confrontations that have held audiences spellbound for nearly four centuries. Those fateful exchanges, and the anguished soliloquies that precede and follow them, probe depths of human feeling rarely sounded in any art. The title role of Hamlet, perhaps the most demanding in all of Western drama, has provided generations of leading actors their greatest challenge. Yet all the roles in this towering drama are superbly delineated, and each of the key scenes offers actors a rare opportunity to create theatrical magic. Hamlet is a unique pleasure to read as well as to see and hear performed.
Stats for nerds
15recommend
134mentions
120people
2009–2026years
13% recommend84% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Shakespeare is from around the same time period as Rabelais in OP. If you haven't read Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, As You Like It, they also take some getting used to but are worth it in the end.
- Judging from the picture of this blogger's bookshelf, this is advice about reading from a non-reader. Almost any book will change your life if you let it, but that's a poor criterion for selecting a book, since you won't know how it's affected you until you finish reading it. Naïvely sorting books based on their preconceived life-changing potential will probably steer you towards vapid self-help books that promise to "change your life" in their subtitle. Most of those books are garbage. I mean that literally—they'll end up in your bookstore's free pile in ten years, or in the trash.
This blogger also implies that there's just no way to decide what to read. With 40 million, or even 4 million, books to choose from, who can pick? As if it were just a matter of picking one out of a hat. It's like he hasn't seen a bibliography, or Goodreads, or even just a list of books that some publisher puts online.
Here's a better plan: you should read the great books. They will change your life, but in deeper, more subtle ways. Start with the Greeks, then the Romans, medieval poets, Elizabethan dramatists, Enlightenment philosophers, Victorian novelists, and modernists. But don't take my word for it. Read any one of the hundreds of books about the Western canon. Skim the table of contents of the Harvard Classics series. Go through the Modern Library list of best books of the 20th century. A good rule is: is it an old book, but still in print, and still being widely discussed (in books, not on Reddit)? If so, read it. There's a reason there are still annual conferences where people are discussing Plato, Milton, Woolf, Joyce, and so on. There's a reason there are whole libraries dedicated to Shakespeare alone. There's no such phenomenon which surrounds the latest self-help book trending on TikTok.
Here's an example: should you read Hamlet, or Atomic Habits? Reading Hamlet will expose you to complex human emotions, deep ideas, and ingenious turns of phrase. It will unlock for you a whole wing of the library which discusses it, and conversations with others that have read it. You'll understand the many references to the play throughout Western culture, and the books that are based on it. On the other hand, reading Atomic Habits might change the way you think about your habits. I quite enjoyed it myself. It was interesting. But a hundred years from now, people are still going to be reading Hamlet, and the same is not true for whatever so-called "life-changing" book came out last week.
- As an alternative perspective, I am glad that my middle and high school curriculum included several works of Shakespeare, especially Macbeth and Hamlet, and several 19th century classics.
They really do require time, they’re hard to make time for, and while reading them wasn’t exactly fun, I’m glad that I did it. Many of the themes are timeless, the prose is elegant if difficult, and there are cultural references to these works everywhere.
They form a big part of the English speaking world’s cultural history. I think it’s worthwhile for children to be exposed to that history.
And if not then, when? I couldn’t make myself do the work now; I’m too busy and tired to read anything but easy/fun fiction after work. And I’m not sure I would have had the focus then if it hadn’t been assigned. Sometimes education isn’t fun or easy. That doesn’t make it less valuable.
- People take issue with them, but picking something off Adler's or Harvard's (five-foot-shelf) or Bloom's Great Books lists will almost never lead you wrong.
But, here we go anyway (and yeah, some of these are just off those lists):
1) Shakespeare's big four tragedies are, in fact, out-fucking-standing. Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth. IMO Hamlet reads the best of those. Any would be fine to watch, as well, and may be better that way. The language, especially, is easier to understand when performed, because you have body language, tone, and other context to work with.
2) Gilgamesh. I like Mitchell's edition.
3) The Odyssey. Iliad's a bit of a bore, but with a few incredible scenes that really stick with you. The Odyssey, though, is great. Screw the haters, even the "Telemachy" portion is good.
4) Revolutionary Road by Yates, for a certain kind of struggle with identity & purpose that I suspect will resonate and provide a useful mirror for lots of folks on here.
5) Woolf's To the Lighthouse is probably my favorite book, so I'll throw that on here.
6) The 20th century gave us tons of essayists (some of whom also wrote novels and such) who are great reads. Orwell, C.S. Lewis, and Forster all come to mind.
7) Maugham wrote a lot of novels, and most of them are well worth a read.
8) Farmer's Riverworld series are probably my favorite very dumb books.
- I do both. And movies. If it’s not worth reading or watching a second or third time, it wasn’t worth it the first time. I read Hamlet every year or two. It gets me every time. I’ve seen the Maltese Falcon about five times, and it still amazes me with its perfection each time. I’ve seen the Pickle Rick episode of Rick and Morty three times, and I fully intend to watch it three more times. Pure genius. Anything good has layers and details that usually can not be fully appreciated the first time through. Do you only listen to a song you like once?
- I had to visit the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, OR many times as a kid. My parents didn’t push attendance on me, but nor did my dad explain why Shakespeare is so great. “It’s classic literature.” “How? What makes it better than Isaac Asimov or the Hardy Boys?” “It’s just great literature.” I found this frustrating and started telling people that Shakespeare should be taught as a second language (a joke one of my college professor friends likes to repeat even now).
Fast forward 35 years. I have come to enjoy reading Shakespeare on my own.
(Why is it great literature? Incredible prose, insane plot lines, and way way underrated comedy. Some of the best comedy I have ever encountered is in Shakespeare’s so-called tragedies, a situation that very much matches my own tragedy-marred life. Reread “Hamlet”, “Richard III”, and “MacBeth” for a barrage of hilariously inappropriate one-liners.)
Anyway, a decade and half ago wife wants to take the kids, ages 7 & 9, to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. I tell them they don’t have to see any of it. I tell them I didn’t enjoy anything but the comedies as a kid but that the staging and costumes were always good. No pressure at all; they are welcome to hang out in the hotel room with iPads or to watch TV, a luxury they lack at home.
They go see everything, including histories and tragedies. And they totally get it. Apparently my children don’t know they’re not supposed to understand the antiquated English, because halfway through their first play (“Merchant of Venice”) I am sometimes having to ask them what’s going on, and my 7 year-old patiently and correctly gives me the 411. They attend pre-play lectures and, when asked by the lecturer, read better than most actors. We go many more times in the ensuing years and it’s now among my most cherished memories.
To this day they quote Shakespeare accurately and mumble “Exeunt” under their breath when they want to get out of a boring situation.
