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I think Hamlet’s popularity mainly comes down to Hamlet himself. He is not your typical revenge hero who simply has a cause to fight for. Rather, he constantly contemplates, questions, and fights with himself about what he is supposed to do. When he discovers the truth about his father’s murder, he doesn’t just jump into the role of avenger. Instead, he gets stuck thinking philosophically about the bigger issues of life and death, morality, and justice. This makes him more relatable, more realistic. He does not act like a typical hero. Instead, he overanalyzes and is paralyzed by doubt, just like most people would be in that situation. He is also not a simple hero or villain, but an anti-hero, one that makes the story more engaging. You want revenge for him, but you understand why he doesn’t act on it, and it is that internal struggle that really propels the action of the play. Hamlet is a character that can be interpreted in many different ways. Depending on the reading one does of the character, one considers him as someone that is sentimental, intelligent, mad, confused, among others. This type of the character is one of the main reason for the literary success of the play. And, the play’s text has become the source of numerous plots over the years. For instance, one may take a movie such as The Lion King, which is seemingly seems unrelated, but how it was pointed out by other classmates its just Hamlet with animals. It also deals with the same themes of vengeance, duty, and self-identity. Hamlet’s character had made the play memorable and its interpretations through time prove how relatable Hamlet’s story is for different generations of people.

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I think Hamlet’s enduring popularity has to deal with the looming theme of revenge. I think what makes a lot of modern action movies so popular is the idea that all of the bloodshed and conflict is justified based on something that happened before the audience enters the world of the book/play/movie etc. For example, I believe a lot of human nature is being enraptured by things that are not necessarily “good”. People are obsessed with murder mysteries, true crime, violent T.V. shows and video games, and many more things that are not considered to be wholesome or pure. Due to the fact that Hamlet’s father was killed, and a large chunk of the play is him deciding if he should extract revenge or not, audiences sort of get permission to enjoy or at least be interested in the conflict and bloodshed that follows.

The fact that Hamlet also hesitates to take his revenge at several instances in the play adds to his dimension as a character, and makes him more palatable for audiences. For example, to the general public, it is much more easily justifiable to identify with a character who has had their circumstances thrust upon them than it is to identify with a static character who is an easily characterized villain. The fact that Hamlet goes through the process of methodically establishing Claudius’ guilt by setting up the play, and the fact that he hesitates to kill Claudius while praying is not only good for dramatic effect, but it also shows the audiences how tormented Hamlet is by what he feels he has to do. I think this can be seen in a lot of modern media and makes the audience feel like they are supporting the “right” character. Furthermore, I believe that Hamlet killing Claudius in the last scene further supports this idea because Caludius’ death was a result of his own plan going awry and not due to Hamlet’s outright actions. I think there are a lot of things that make Hamlet a really alluring character and this internal struggle is definitely one of them.

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Thematic interpretation is central to media consumption. Given the case of Hamlet, it has stood the test of time, continuing to be adapted across the stage, screen, and page for many years for that very reason. The concepts explored throughout Hamlet are ones readers and watchers can easily project onto. Themes surrounding grief and vengeance are explored and morality is questioned through a psychological lens. These themes are familiar and understood by the audience, given the context of the story. Audiences empathize with Hamlet's moral dilemmas as he becomes a projection of their own fears and desires surrounding these themes. It’s because of this uniquely human portrayal that Hamlet is still discussed to this day.

All media is in some way influenced by another source of media; this implies that there is no filtered viewing of the original play/text. For example, when I was younger, I watched The Lion King but had little to no knowledge on Hamlet, despite the film being based on it. So, when I finally did read/watch the play, I was accustomed to the adaptations I had seen and viewed the play through that lens; for example, seeing the Scar/Claudius parallels and Mufasa's ghost speaking to Simba (my fav scene), etc. However, being aware of these influences allows us to question them and develop our own perspective in the end.

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I think Hamlet's popularity can largely be attributed to how relatable he is. He's a flexible character- you can project essentially anything you want onto him and have it work (to a certain extent). At the same time, he's not a reader/viewer-insert; he does have his own personality and way of doing things, which is rare for a character with so much creative flexibility. He runs the gauntlet of human experiences.

As an actor, I can say personally that other interpretations 100% color the way I read plays and act them out. When I see a really good interpretation, my first instinct is to nick some of their takes for my own when I play the character. Others just line up better with the vision of the character you have in your head, which as an actor influences how much of that interpretation makes its way into your own. I'm not really sure that you can read anything where you've seen another interpretation of it and not draw comparisons, and all the interpretations build on each other to a certain degree- the Oedipal complex in what I believe is Olivier's version of Hamlet, for example, which pulls so much weight for this interpretation of Hamlet and Gertrude's relationship.

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A big part of why I think Hamlet has remained so universal is because the themes the play works on are so universal. The psychological depth of Hamlet is intriguing, focusing on an inner world so filled with anger, grief, and dread that is easy for any audience to sympathize and understand, not to mention the amount of analysis allowed within such a character. The themes of family, madness, morality, and corruption are themes bound to remain strong for generations, thus the play has a higher staying power than most. The character of Hamlet is one that is bound to exist in essence for a long time, as psychological confusion and tension is pretty much an eternal presence. It's also probably impossible to read the play without being influenced by other adaptations, mostly thanks to the most popular one: the Lion King. Pretty much everyone has at least heard of that movie, and it's basic Disney trivia that Hamlet inspired that movie. The popularity of that movie means that not drawing the parrallels is kinda impossible. Not to mention how many quotes from this play are drawn upon and how many references can be found in popular media. Even if you don't know where it comes from, everyone's heard the quote "To be or not to be". I think the implication this has on the play is that since the plot is so well known, it means that audiences aren't just consuming the play, but constructing the plays meaning, meaning that constant reinvention is necessary to keep it from becoming a museum piece. It also means that the focus of Hamlet is less on the plot and more the characters, drawing more attention into why characters act rather than just what's going to happen next.

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I honestly think a big part of it comes down to how flexible the character of Hamlet is. You can humanize him in a lot of ways, but you can also easily make him look like the villain depending on how you read the play. That kind of balance makes the story interesting because it feels like every interpretation reveals something slightly different about him. Sometimes Hamlet feels like a genuinely sympathetic character who is grieving and trying to figure out what the right thing to do is after losing his father. Other times he comes across as manipulative, cruel, or even reckless with the people around him. That tension makes the character feel a lot more human, because real people aren’t always purely good or purely bad either.

I actually watched a few different interpretations of the play, and honestly I don’t think those versions change the core of the character that much. Even if a performance makes Hamlet seem more emotional or more relatable, you could still interpret that as part of his manipulation. Hamlet spends a lot of the play pretending to be something he’s not, especially when he decides to act “mad,” so any moment where he feels more human could still be seen as him controlling how others perceive him. Because of that, I don’t think previous interpretations completely shape how we understand the play. At the end of the day, a lot of it comes back to what you personally take from the text itself.

I also think the story stays popular because it works really well as a morality story. People naturally gravitate toward vengeance narratives, especially ones where the main character is clearly struggling with what revenge is doing to them. Hamlet’s situation is tragic from the beginning since his father is murdered and his whole world basically falls apart. That alone gives the audience a reason to sympathize with him, even when his actions start getting extreme. Some people might look at the way Hamlet behaves and think it shows someone slowly losing their mind because of revenge. His plans become more complicated and sometimes unnecessarily cruel, which can make him seem unstable. At the same time though, you can still pity him because his motivation comes from something deeply emotional. His love and loyalty to his father are what push him down that path in the first place.

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Something that I think is very special about Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, is that the character Hamlet is one of the few characters who actually portray someone who has genuine human emotions. As for the other characters of this play, they are not the best at making smart decisions, in this play and Hamlet is stuck in the middle of all the drama. However, when it comes to this play, it is better to read the original play first before watching an interpretation of his iconic play because most of the time whether it be a series or a movie, Hollywood likes to exaggerate and change up the story to make it shorter and more entertaining rather than what the original text says. I stand by this opinion because I would say the same thing to everyone. I would recommend reading the book before watching the movie because the book is going to be a more accurate adaptation than the movie. If I did have to pick a movie that showed a good version of Hamlet, I would have to pick Kenneth Branagh’s film of Hamlet. This movie is closest to what the original text is like, and the actor who played Hamlet did a very good job at portraying this character by making him act like a real human. Another thing that I think is very important about this play is Hamlet’s mission to avenge his father’s death, and that is something that was talked about in Essential Shakespeare. In both the play and the movie adaptation that I watched back in high school, I think that Hamlet’s revenge story is very memorable for me as a reader because he pretended to go clinically insane just so people would not pay as close attention to him as others is a very genius idea, even though trying to get revenge on his uncle did make him go crazy. Overall, I do think that Hamlet is a very popular play, and if I had to recommend one of his plays to someone, I would recommend someone to read this play first.

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I think one of the reasons Hamlet continues to remain one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays because of how strangely relatable Hamlet himself is as a character. He is quite possibly one of the most indecisive characters in all of fiction, and for a large chunk of the play, I found myself growing impatient with him as he soliloquys about whatever goes on in his mind. Yet it is that inability to just make a choice that makes him relatable. I am sure many of us have felt like we needed to take extra time to mull over an extremely important decision, and Hamlet is an exaggeration of that feeling to the point that it becomes just as much of a part of his character as being consumed by his own fake madness. As a psychology student, I cannot help but wonder if Hamlet indecisiveness comes from some form of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and that thought leads into another factor as to why this play is so popular. Hamlet’s desires and internal conflict (what is natural vs. what I want vs. obligation, especially when talking about revenge) are very closely tied to human nature, which means that even slight differences in how somebody grew up will result in them having a potentially very different reading of Hamlet. That being said, I do not think it is possible to watch a performance of Hamlet without at least thinking about how it compares to other versions that you have seen, especially when you consider that other works of fiction, like Disney’s The Lion King, are themselves adaptations of Hamlet. Now, this does not have to be a bad thing necessarily. The ability to see the same story from several different angles and perspectives, producing a far more complex understanding of that story, can be a valuable skill, as long as you take care to note what was in the original and what was not.

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Hamlet continues to be popular because of how indecisive Hamlet is. Because he is so conflicted with his own nature and questions what is natural/what he wants, it invites others to see him and ascribe whatever reasons and behaviors they wish to him. Any reading, with the right evidence, can be argued, justified, presented, and performed. There is also something to be said about how deeply rooted the desire for revenge is in humanity. While it probably rarely reaches the scale of Hamlet’s, the need for vengeance or revenge is an overwhelmingly common theme; it shows up in every religion or culture, and it is part of human nature. While it is accounted for in different ways, such as Christianity condemning it, with enough research, every culture will have its own thoughts on what is just in revenge. Therefore, it’s entirely predictable for it to be represented in the things those people create. Christian worlds especially had a fascination with revenge because Christianity was against it, but that doesn’t change that humans inherently desire it so strongly, and Hamlet is clearly a commentary and representation of that: what is the duty of a son to his father to seek vengeance, and what is his desire for revenge. As for influence, there is absolutely no way to see it without interpretations because it is such a popular play that even if a production that is proclaimed ‘different’ is presented, the reality is that that interpretation came from somewhere; even if it is original, it is likely a response to another representation or idea they have seen previously. It would take a person who has never heard of Shakespeare, never read his works or seen his plays to allow a neutral adaptation and while that may seem possible the odds of being able to introduce a person to Hamlet and not have the introduction create a preconceived idea of the play Hamlet it not original and therefore anything it creates will be just as influenced as it was.

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Every time we, as a class, start a new play, there is always at least one initial comment about some movie or TV show that they watched that they either didn't know was a Shakespeare adaptation or how they could not stop comparing said adaptation to the actual play as they read. After the Essential Shakespeare chapter, which in parts discusses the beginnings of Shakespeare adaptations, particularly Hamlet, and their increasing popularity since the invention of the video recorder in the 1980s, I think we cannot watch the play without being influenced by previous interpretations, for the most part. I am not saying it is impossible not to be impacted because there are people who have never watched the adaptations (or simply are unaware and miraculously haven't made the connection) or are masters at separating the two, but I think the likelihood of those scenarios is slim to none. It is one of those cases where the original has been used in so many types of media that it becomes "watered down," so to speak. As a child, I did not know that the Lion King was a Hamlet adaptation, but ever since I have learned that I cannot read hamlet without thinking about scar, which is where one can see the harmful implications of these adaptions where they are such an abbreviated version that it glosses over many keys parts of the play and loses some of the nuances of the original that are essential to understanding its popularity. This is not to say the implications are all bad because Hamlet is popular for a reason, one being that the feeling of revenge and the need to take justice into our own hands, even if it is "wrong", is part of human nature at this point. These adaptations, regardless of the light in which the story is painted, can boil down to the same theme of revenge (justified or not), so there is still value in the original, and even if we are influenced by the previous things we've seen or read, it does not change Hamlet as a whole.

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In the event you don’t get your response in on time, consider drafting a request like the one above. Professor Fasano was at Columbia and this message from one of his students went viral a couple of years ago. There is no way you wouldn’t get an extension with a request like this. In fact, I’d argue you should be exempt from the assignment altogether. This writer obviously understood the play.

Really interesting question this week. I have seen five film versions (some multiple times) and one live version of Hamlet (seen twice with a week between). I not only compared all the versions, I compared one live show against the other. One version has never spoiled any of the others for me. As I noted in class, the changes in my interpretation/enjoyment of the play (especially reading the play) have more to do with the changes in me than with the performances, particularly with the time in my life when I saw the particular version, i.e., Hamlet hits different at 60 years old than it did at 20. That’s true for a number of plays and books I have read and reread. So, I’m less likely to be affected by a newer or different directorial interpretation than I am by a newer or different interpretation by me because of me, if you will.

That doesn’t mean I don’t notice and at times appreciate the differences in the next iteration of the play. I do and I appreciate the way productions build on previous ones. The queen’s closet scene in the Zeffirelli version (which I will admit shocked me in 1990) would not have been dreamt of without the Olivier 1940’s version. It makes one wonder what will be in the upcoming 2026 version.

As to Hamlet’s popularity-that could be accounted for by any number of things-wonderful language (some iconic soliloquies), great characters (good/evil/funny), well-meaning (even if not perfectly-executed) performances. However, I think the main reason is our appetite for revenge-poisoned as it is. Hamlet seeks revenge, Laertes seeks revenge, Fortinbras seeks revenge. We’re rooting for Hamlet, a good person, to do a bad thing to a bad person. Plain and simple-OK, it’s not that simple. The tension in the play increases our blood lust-dramatically, in every sense of the word. Where does that revenge lead us-is it, could it be-a noble pursuit? That leads Hamlet (and us) to ask the ultimate existential question: To be or not to be.

If you read Hamlet once and don’t hunger to read it again, wait for a couple of months and then read it, even if you have to force yourself. Then, you’re likely to want to read it again and again. Mel Gibson was asked immediately after completing the 1990 version if he would be interested in doing another Hamlet film-maybe a prequel. He said no, but he would be more than willing to do the whole thing over again. That’s staying power.

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Hamlet stands as one of Shakespeare's most popular productions leading to so many years of adaptations and at its center you have Hamlet which as a character seeing his feigned madness transition into maybe being real madness is just something you cant look away from, the tragedy of Hamlet is something that you just can not look away from. Hamlet is so removed from what we in everyday life see as a person we can see Hamlet as a character and just watch him go about his convoluted revenge plan to avenge his deceased father. But Hamlet being one of the most popular and most produced works of Shakespeare that even elements of the play are seeped into other media that we consume. One of the primary examples I think about is how Disney’s The Lion King is pretty much a truncated version of Hamlet which seeing that first and then reading Hamlet several years later you just tend to point out the similarities between the stories before realizing that the film is just a very simplified version of Hamlet designed for a younger audience. Seeing an adaptation of Hamlet no matter how changed from the source material makes the experience of reading Hamlet into a game of recognizing this from something else you have seen before. This is not a bad thing in of itself, if anything it should have people appreciate the source material more by creating the tropes that they enjoy in other media that they consume. So there really isn't a way to read Hamlet without having alternate versions of the play in it’s many adaptations in your mind. But this does open up the discussion for how adaptation is handled and how they are different in what they take certain scenes to mean and how the mood of scenes are different between adaptations taking it from the original production. Hamlet’s popularity is a result of its multitude of adaptations no matter how drastic they are from played straight film versions of the production, to something like Disney’s The Lion King creates so many avenues to the original production being so popular in the modern era taking these characters from the play as a base and reshaping them to fit the needs of any possible setting to make the story more approachable is what makes Hamlet as popular as it is.

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I think what makes Hamlet so popular is that the character of Hamlet, is the most "real" character we get in literature. How complex the human psyche is, is presented through Hamlet himself, as well as other characters make them relatable to an extent. In the other plays we have read thus far, the characters are so unrelatable, and I think that is part of what makes the plays enjoyable. For people watching when Shakespeare’s plays were first performed, I think the characters are like archetypes of society. For example, in Much Ado About Nothing, Hero was so explicitly the embodiment of how women should be in society, a lot of women watching could probably relate to her on that level. However, Hero’s thoughts are never expressed or shared on a deeper level; a woman could conform to these societal standards, but maybe internally she agrees with Beatrice. Beatrice was then presented as this extreme of how a woman should be, once again, not learning of her thoughts or motives. She is a surface level character, and one that eventually conformed to society, so in my opinion, lost all of her ‘spunk’ or what made her stand out. You could argue that those are just the comedies, obviously Shakespeare knew the audience was not interested in how those characters thought. That then brings us to King Lear, the first tragedy we read. We never learned of Lear’s thoughts, true intentions or motives. Sure, we are presented with an old king, tired of ruling, but it does not go deeper than that. We learn none of the characters “true selves”. Imagine how much more depth, or even sympathy the audience could have had towards the King if he were revealed to the same extent as Hamlet. With the character of Hamlet, the audience is presented to his pain, motives, the back and forth of his conscious. He becomes relatable. So often are humans presented with what feel like impossible situations, and we have an internal battle of “To be, or not to be”. Hamlet is the first character that could do something so unthinkable, yet we understand the pull from the Id, Ego, and Super ego (To bring it back to Freud).