Hamlet
William Shakespeare · 1564–1616 · England
Why it matters
A ghost demands revenge; a prince spends five acts thinking about it. The old blood-revenge plot slowed down around a consciousness so full it changed what characters in fiction could be: the most quoted, performed, and argued-over play in the language.
At a glance
tragedydrama
Difficulty 6/10medium pace150 pagesDense wordplay and long soliloquies, but the most annotated text in English eases the way.
Deep dive
Why the prince who thinks the most gets blamed for delay, when the play is actually asking whether decisive action was ever the right response to what he's been told.
Where to go next
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