"Hamnet" review — Into the "undiscovered country" of love, grief, and Shakespeare
“To be, or not to be — that is the question.” Caught between the living and the dead, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a haunted work. That’s not even a reference to the ghost of the title character’s father, who stalks around the castle grounds in the play’s first act. The play’s dialogue is focused on themes of death, suicide, revenge, violence, self-harm, and poetic reflections on the nature of the “undiscovered country,” as Hamlet describes it himself, that comes beyond the grave. In the tragedy, Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, seeks revenge on his uncle, Claudius, whom he discovers murdered his father, the late King Hamlet. It’s a heavy, weighty text that’s full of grief and unresolved pain over the loss of a loved one, which spurs on a vicious cycle of death. I certainly don’t need to convince the reader of the importance and enduring legacy of Hamlet . It’s one of the most revered texts in English literature. Its quotations have become part of the lexicon. It’s a staple of high sc...
