Hamlet, the character

• Motivation? Does he delay "think too precisely on the event (4.4.41)?

• Haste me to know't [the murder], that I, with wings as swift
  As meditation or the thoughts of love,
  May sweep to my revenge.
          (1.5.29-31)

• Hamlet's Roles
  • With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: university banter (2.2.222ff).
  • Out-hamming the Player (2.2.555ff).
  • The "antic disposition" he puts on.
  • Others?


• Hamlet's return: has he changed?
  • R & G "put to sudden death, / Not shriving time allowed" (5.2.46-47).

  • There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
    Rough-hew them how we will.
            (5.2.10-11)

• The duel
  • ". . . the rest is silence" (5.2.360).