Why Hamlet didn’t kill Claudius Actually, Hamlet didn’t intend to kill Claudius: he went to Gertrude. How interesting! - it turns out that the king is praying somewhere in a passage room, uncomfortable, indiscreet, defenseless. And the prince, ready to take revenge, ready to "drink the living

Why did Hamlet end up in the cemetery? In my opinion, the scene in the cemetery is the most important in the play. On first reading, it seems completely ineffective; before the funeral precession appears, there is no obvious event in it, the meaning of Hamlet’s reasoning does not change during it,

Shakespeare's “Hamlet” in the context of the era The recognized sign of Prince Hamlet is his lack of will, “jamming reflection,” which delays normal spontaneous action. Only at the end of the tragedy, after much hesitation and excessive philosophical reflection, does the prince commit

Chapter 3 Hamlet Britain remained under Roman rule until 410, when the last Roman legions abandoned the island. Germanic tribes invaded the western provinces of the empire, and Rome could no longer supply its garrisons in Britain. Before the end of the century, pagan

Test work on William Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet"

1. Which kingdom was Hamlet a prince?

A) England B) Denmark C) France D) Scotland

2. Which of the characters in the tragedy is named after the famous Roman poet?

A) Polonius B) Cornelius C) Horatio

3. Why, when meeting the Phantom, does Marcellus say: “You, scribe, turn to him”?

A) according to legend, in order for a ghost to answer, you need to ask him

B) it is believed that the ghost answers only educated people

C) according to legend, the ghost does not hear people, he gives a sign through a book

4. Why did the Phantom “become invisible at the cock’s crow”?

A) the rooster announces the dawn, the morning when all ghosts disappear

B) the rooster is a sacred bird that ghosts are afraid of

C) the rooster is the ghost’s faithful companion and warns him of danger

5. What did Hamlet do in Wittenborg?

A) studied at the university

B) was treated by a famous doctor C) was hiding from the persecution of Claudius

6. What was the name of Prince Hamlet's father?

A) Heinrich YI B) Richard III C) Macbeth D) Hamlet

7. How, according to rumor, did Hamlet's father die?

A) drank poisoned wine

B) from wounds received in war

C) from a wound received with a poisoned blade in a duel

D) in the garden while sleeping he was bitten by a snake

8. Who says to Hamlet: “Farewell, farewell!” And remember me"?

A) Ghost B) Laertes C) Ophelia D) Gertrude

9. What did Hamlet make his friends swear to in order to keep the appearance of the Ghost a secret?

A) on the Bible B) on the sword C) on the blood D) on the cross

10. Finish Hamlet’s phrase: “The age is shaken - and the worst thing is that I ...”

A) born to restore it

B) I can break it

C) couldn’t fix anything

11. What was the name of the play performed by the actors at Hamlet’s request?

A) “Trap” B) “Rat Slaughter” C) “Trap” D) “Mousetrap”

12. Where does Hamlet advise Ophelia to go?

A) to the church B) to the theater C) to the pilgrimage D) to the monastery

13. Who overheard the conversation between the Queen Mother and Hamlet?

A) Claudius B) Laertes C) Fortinbras D) Polonius

14. Hamlet says to the Ghost: “What do you want, blessed image”? - and Queen Gertrude thinks her son is crazy. Why can't she see the Phantom?

A) according to legend, women do not see ghosts

B) according to legend, a ghost appears only to those to whom it wants to appear

C) according to legend, the ghost is visible only to the innocent

15. To what country do they want to send Hamlet?

A) Norway B) England C) Scotland

16. How did Ophelia die?

A) drowned B) hanged herself C) poisoned herself

17. To poison the wine in the goblet, the King hid the poison in...

A) ring B) snuff box C) pearls D) perfume bottle

18. Who did Hamlet fight a duel with?

A) Rosencrantz B) Guildenstern C) Voltimand D) Laertes

19. What question tormented Hamlet most?

A) To kill or not to kill B) To take revenge or not to take revenge

C) To be or not to be D) To live or not to live

20. Whose humanistic legacy: “Murder is vile,” did Hamlet inherit?

A) father B) mother C) Ophelia

21. Which Russian writer in 1860 dedicated an article to Shakespeare’s hero, calling him “a skeptic, woven from contradictions, incapable of action”?

A) L. Tolstoy B) I. Turgenev C) N. Gogol D) N. Nekrasov

22. Which Russian critic spoke admiringly of Shakespeare’s hero?

A) Dobrolyubov B) Goncharov C) Belinsky D) Pisarev

Test verification key

William Shakespeare (23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) is considered one of the world's greatest poets and playwrights.

With this material, AiF.ru begins a series of regular publications in the “Question-Answer” format about the most famous events in the world of culture and works of literature, painting and cinema.

Who actually wrote under the name "Shakespeare"?

Under the name "William Shakespeare" 37 plays, 154 sonnets, 4 poems were published. They began to look for manuscripts and documents of the author of the great tragedies only 100 years after the death of William Shakespeare, but they never found evidence that Shakespeare was the true author of the famous tragedies.

The only known reliable depiction of Shakespeare is an engraving from the posthumous First Folio (1623) by Martin Drushout. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Most of the works were written over a period of 24 years from 1589 to 1613. However, there is not a single record that the author of the works, William Shakespeare, received any literary fees. Rose Theater owner Philip Henslowe, where Shakespeare's plays were staged, carefully recorded all payments to the authors. But William Shakespeare is not listed among the playwrights on his books. There is no such name in the surviving archives of the Globus Theater.

Many researchers question the authorship of Shakespeare's famous works. American schoolteacher and journalist Delia Bacon in her book Uncovering the Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays, she doubted that William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. In her opinion, the author of such a work should have had a sufficient level of education, in particular in the field of historical and cultural knowledge. She attributes the authorship of this work to Francis Bacon.

The priest was of the same opinion, author of a biography of Shakespeare - James Wilmot. For 15 years he unsuccessfully searched for Shakespeare's manuscripts. In 1785, Wilmot suggested that Francis Bacon was the real author of the famous tragedies.

In June 2004, the American scientist Robin Williams stated that Shakespeare was actually a woman, namely an Oxford woman Countess Mary of Pembroke(1561-1621). According to the scientist, the countess composed magnificent literary works, but could not openly write for the theater, which in those days was considered immoral in England. According to the scientist, she wrote plays under the pseudonym Shakespeare.

Who did Hamlet kill?

Several people suffered because of Shakespeare's character Hamlet - he killed someone with his own hands, and was indirectly to blame for someone's death. As everyone knows, Shakespeare's hero was obsessed with a thirst for revenge - he dreamed of punishing the murderer of his father, the king of Denmark. After the ghost of the deceased revealed to Hamlet the secret of his death and told him that the villain was his brother Claudius, the hero vowed to bring justice - to kill his uncle, who had ascended to the throne. But before Hamlet carried out his plan, he mistakenly took the life of another person - the noble nobleman Polonius. He talked with the queen in her chambers, but, hearing Hamlet’s steps, hid behind the carpet. When the enraged son began to threaten his queen mother, Polonius called people for help, thereby giving himself away. For which Hamlet pierced him with a sword - the character decided that his uncle Claudius was hiding in the room. This is how Shakespeare describes this scene ( translation by Mikhail Lozinsky):

Hamlet and the body of the murdered Polonius. 1835. Eugene Delacroix. Commons.wikimedia.org

Polonium
(behind the carpet)
Hey people! Help, help!
Hamlet
(drawing his sword) What? Rat?
(Pierces the carpet.)
I bet gold - she's dead!
Polonium
(behind the carpet)
I was killed!
(Falls and dies.)
Queen
God, what have you done?
Hamlet
I don't know myself; was it the king?

Having learned about Hamlet’s act and the death of her father, after some time Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, also drowns.

At the end of the play, the main character takes up arms again - he pierces his enemy Claudius with a poisoned blade, thereby fulfilling the will of his father. Then he himself dies from the same poison.

Why did Ophelia go crazy?

In the tragedy “Hamlet”, Ophelia was the beloved of the protagonist and the daughter of the royal adviser Polonius - the same one who was accidentally pierced with a sword by the “mad” Hamlet. After the incident, Ophelia, a girl of fine spiritual organization, suffered from the main conflict of classicism - torn between feeling and duty. Devotedly loving her father Polonius, she grieved the loss, but at the same time almost idolized Hamlet - the man whom she should have hated and wished him dead.

Thus, the heroine could neither forgive her lover for his serious crime, nor “strangle” her feelings for him - and as a result, she lost her mind.

Since then, the distraught Ophelia several times frightened members of the royal family, her brother and all the courtiers, starting to sing simple songs or uttering meaningless phrases, and soon it became known that the girl had drowned.

There is a willow above the stream that bends
Gray leaves to the mirror of the wave;
There she came, weaving in garlands
Nettle, buttercup, iris, orchids, -
Free shepherds have a rougher nickname,
For modest maidens they are the fingers of the dead:
She tried to hang it on the branches
Your own wreaths; the insidious bitch broke,
Both the grass and she herself fell
Into the sobbing stream. Her clothes
They stretched out and carried her like a nymph;
Meanwhile she sang snippets of songs,
As if I didn’t smell trouble
Or was she a creature born
In the element of water; it couldn't last
And the clothes, heavily drunk,
The unfortunate woman was carried away by the sounds
Into the quagmire of death.

"Ophelia". 1852. John Everett Millais. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Ophelia was buried according to Christian customs. While digging a hole, the gravediggers exchange jokes and discuss whether the deceased committed suicide and whether she can be “buried with a Christian burial.”

A similar conflict between feeling and duty, like Ophelia’s, was experienced by many literary heroes: for example, Cid Campeador in Pierre Corneille’s play “The Cid”, Matteo Falcone in Prosper Merimee’s short story of the same name, Gogol’s Taras Bulba and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Who is Yorick and what was his fate?

Yorick is a character in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, a former royal buffoon and jester. His skull was dug up by a gravedigger in Act 5, Scene 1 of the play.

Hamlet:
Show me. (Takes the skull.)
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio;
a man of infinite wit,
a most wonderful inventor; he wore it a thousand times
me on your back; and now - how disgusting
I can imagine it! To my throat
comes at the thought. These lips were here
which I kissed I don’t know how many times. —
Where are your jokes now? Your tomfoolery?
Your songs? Your flashes of joy, from which
did the whole table laugh every time?
(Act 5, sc. 1)

In the play Hamlet, Yorick, the jester whom the main character knew and loved, is mentioned as dead. In the cemetery scene, the gravedigger throws his skull out of the hole. In Hamlet's hands, Yorick's skull symbolizes the frailty of life and the equality of all people in the face of death. It is difficult to tell from the skull who its owner was, since after death a person is left with impersonal remains, and the body becomes dust.

Shakespeare scholars disagree on the etymology of the hero's name. Some believe that "Yorik" comes from the Scandinavian name Eric; others believe that this is the Danish equivalent of the name George, and others that this name is derived from the name Rorik, which was the name of Hamlet's maternal grandfather. Some believe that a possible prototype of Yorick was the actor-comedian Richard Tarleton, Elizabeth I’s favorite jester.

What was the name of Hamlet's father?

The ghost of Hamlet's father is one of the characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In this play, he is the ghost of the king of Denmark, Hamlet, a cruel ruler and conqueror.

Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus and the ghost of Hamlet's father. Henry Fuseli, 1780-1785. Kunsthaus (Zurich). Commons.wikimedia.org

Shakespeare gives a direct indication of the name of Hamlet's father, saying that Prince Hamlet was born on the day of Fortinbras' death at Elsinore Castle. The main version that Hamlet's father was called Hamlet comes from the following words:

...Our late king,
Whose image appeared to us now, was,
You know, the Norwegian Fortinbras,
Moved by jealous pride,
Called to the field; and our brave Hamlet -
This is how he was known throughout the known world -
Killed him... (Act 1 Scene 1)

At the funeral of his deceased father, King Hamlet Sr., Prince Hamlet was summoned from the University of Wittenberg. Two months later, on the eve of his mother’s wedding to the new king Claudius (the brother of the deceased), the prince meets the ghost of his father and learns that he was vilely poisoned by his own brother.

Will a person die if poison is poured into his ear?

Everyone is familiar with the scene of the appearance of the shadow of Hamlet's father, where the ghost talks about the crime committed - Claudius poured henbane poison into the ear of his sleeping brother - Hamlet's father.

Claudius poured henbane juice into Hamlet's father's ear, a plant considered one of the most poisonous.

If henbane juice enters the human body, after a few minutes confusion, severe agitation, dizziness, visual hallucinations, hoarseness, and dry mouth occur. The eyes begin to shine, the pupils dilate. The victim experiences nightmares and then loses consciousness. Death occurs due to paralysis of the respiratory center and vascular insufficiency.

William Shakespeare describes a case of henbane poisoning this way:

...When I was sleeping in the garden
In my afternoon,
Your uncle crept into my corner
With damned henbane juice in a flask
And he poured an infusion into my ear cavity,
Whose action is in such discord with blood,
Which instantly runs around like mercury,
All internal transitions of the body,
Curdling blood like milk
With which a drop of vinegar was mixed.
So it was with me. Ringworm
Covered instantly dirty and purulent
Scabby, like Lazarus, all around
All my skin.
So I was by my brother's hand in a dream
Deprived of the crown, life, queen... (Act 1, scene 5)

"The Plays of William Shakespeare." John Gilbert, 1849. Commons.wikimedia.org

Is henbane considered poisonous?

Henbane is a biennial herbaceous plant that has an unpleasant odor. The root resembles parsley, soft, juicy, with a sweet and sour taste.

The entire plant is considered poisonous. Henbane poisoning is possible either by consuming young sweet sprouts and flowers (April - May), or by eating seeds. They are considered the most toxic in the plant. Symptoms of poisoning appear within 15-20 minutes.

Henbane grows along roadsides, in vacant lots, in courtyards and vegetable gardens. During flowering, the plant gives off a rather unpleasant odor. Even animals with a much more sensitive sense of smell avoid henbane.

First aid includes actions to remove poison from the body; for this, first of all, it is necessary to cleanse the intestines. If you have a fever, apply a cold bandage to your head. You definitely need to call an ambulance.

Could Hamlet's father die from henbane?

William Shakespeare made a mistake: henbane juice does not clot blood. The alkaloids it contains - atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine - are poisons not of hemolytic, but of nerve paralytic action.
The real symptoms of poisoning of Hamlet's father should have been a sharp excitation of the central nervous system, delirium, severe abdominal pain, salivation, vomiting and diarrhea, then convulsions that can lead to respiratory and cardiac arrest, and only then death.

Theater scene in Hamlet. Edwin Austin Abbey. Commons.wikimedia.org

What Shakespearean sonnets does Alla Pugacheva sing?

Not only are plays and films made based on Shakespeare’s works, they are also sung.

For example, in Russia the sonnets of the most popular poet and playwright are performed by Alla Pugacheva. She turned to the creative heritage of William Shakespeare twice - and both times on the big screen. In the musical feature film “Love for Love”, created based on the play “Much Ado About Nothing”, the singer performs sonnet No. 40 “Take all my passions, take all my loves” in translation Samuil Marshak:

Take all my passions, all my loves -
You will gain little from this.
Everything that people call love,
It already belonged to you.

I don’t blame you, my friend,
That you own what I own.
No, I only reproach you for one thing,
That you neglected my love.

You deprived a beggar of his bag.
But I forgave the captivating thief.
We endure insults from love
Harder than the poison of open discord.

O you, whose evil seems good to me,
Kill me, but don't be my enemy!

Shakespeare's poems in the film were set to music from the ballet Tikhona Khrennikova"Love for love."

In the semi-biographical film “The Woman Who Sings,” the pop star performed sonnet No. 90, also translated by Marshak.

If you stop loving - so now,
Now that the whole world is at odds with me.
Be the most bitter of my losses,
But not the last drop of grief!

And if grief is given to me to overcome,
Don't strike from an ambush.
May the stormy night not be resolved
A rainy morning is a morning without joy.

Leave me, but not at the last moment,
When small troubles make me weak.
Leave it now so that I can immediately comprehend
That this grief is more painful than all adversities,

That there are no adversities, but only one misfortune -
Your love will be lost forever.

What is a sonnet?

A sonnet is a poetic form characterized by a certain rhyme. The form of a sonnet has a strictly regulated volume. It consists of 14 lines arranged in a special order.

The sonnet is written primarily in iambic pentameter or hexameter; Iambic tetrameter is used less frequently. The average sonnet contains only 154 syllables.

Sonnet (from Italian sonetto, from Provence sonet - song). The word is also based on “son” - a sound, so the word “sonnet” can be interpreted as a “ringing song”.

Sonnets may have a "French" or "Italian" sequence. In the “French” sequence - abba abba ccd eed (or ccd ede) - the first stanza rhymes with the fourth, and the second with the third, in the "Italian" - abab abab cdc dcd (or cde cde) - the first stanza rhymes with the third, and the second from the fourth.

An Italian sonnet is constructed of either two stanzas (eight or six lines) or two and two. An English sonnet most often consists of three quatrains and one couplet.

Italy (Sicily) is considered the birthplace of the sonnet. One of the first authors of the sonnet was Giacomo da Lentino(first third of the 13th century) - poet, notary by profession, who lived at court Frederick II.

The unsurpassed masters of this genre of lyricism were Dante,Francesco Petrarca,Michelangelo, William Shakespeare. Among the Russian poets are Alexander Pushkin, Gavrila Derzhavin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Alexander Sumarokov, Vasily Trediakovsky, Mikhail Kheraskov, Dmitry Venevitinov, Evgeny Baratynsky, Apollon Grigoriev, Vasily Kurochkin and others.

What is a "Shakespearean sonnet"?

“Shakespearean sonnet” has a rhyme - abab cdcd efef gg (three quatrains and a final couplet, which is called the “sonnet key”).

"To be or not to be?" - the question that has faced people at all times: resist evil or come to terms with it? try to change a world in which injustice triumphs, or live peacefully in it? But for the first time it was formulated so clearly and definitely by the great Shakespeare in the tragedy “Hamlet”. This question was put into the mouth of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:
To be or not to be - that is the question;
What is nobler in spirit - to submit
The slings and arrows of furious fate?
Or, taking up arms in the sea of ​​turmoil, defeat them
Confrontation?

Hamlet faces a difficult choice, and he makes it - “he takes up arms in a sea of ​​turmoil.” The prince suffered a lot of grief: his father died, and his mother, the Dowager Queen Gertrude, marries Hamlet's uncle Claudius, as they say, before his shoes wear out. The ghost of his dead father appears to Hamlet and reveals a terrible secret: the king did not die a natural death, but was poisoned by Claudius, who poured henbane juice into his ear. Thus, Gertrude married her husband's murderer. "To be or not to be?" The prince decides to avenge the death of his father, but for Hamlet the desire to pay tribute to the murderer merges with the duty to remake the world, which is so unfairly structured. He understands the insurmountability of this task, and this discord between dream and reality torments him. Hamlet (what is the use of a madman?) pretends to be crazy. Around him in the royal castle he sees rude and self-satisfied people, and this leads him to despair:...What does a person mean,
When his deepest desires -
Food and sleep? Animal - that's all.

Hamlet invites a troupe of traveling actors to the castle to perform the scene of the king's murder. Claudius and Gertrude are present at the performance. And Claudius exposes himself.

Hamlet triumphs - he hit the nail on the head. Now he must carry out his personal revenge to the end. Now there is no way for him to reconcile. The problem “To be or not to be?” is finally decided. “To be” for Hamlet means to act in accordance with one’s beliefs and faith.

Throughout the entire tragedy, Hamlet suffers, suffers, and searches for the truth. It seems to him that everyone has betrayed him - both his mother and his beloved woman, he also suspects his friend of betrayal. Evil overwhelms Elsinore Castle. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, mistaking him for King Claudius. Ophelia goes crazy and dies. Her brother Laertes challenges Hamlet to a duel and stabs him with a poisoned sword. Before his death, Hamlet kills the king; the queen is poisoned. Revenge has been accomplished. But both sides are defeated. However, victory still remained with Hamlet, since he exposed evil.

“Hamlet’s strength lies not in the fact that he resolved the issue, but in the fact that he raised the question of the injustice of the world around him,” V. G. Belinsky wrote about this Shakespearean hero.

At the beginning of the 17th century, there was a clash between the old world, in which feudal darkness and cruelty reigned, and the new world, ruled by addictions and the power of gold. Watching the clash of two evils, the humanists of that time gradually lost...

In the history of art and literature, no play is more popular than the popularity of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. For more than 300 years, this tragedy has been played on the stages of theaters all over the world. People of different cultures look in it for answers to questions that trouble them....

Lermontov's review of Hamlet must be considered against the background of the literary era. During the period of the highest rise of romanticism, Shakespeare becomes the banner, the greatest, unattainable example of high poetry. “Shakespeare had the greatest significance for French romanticism...

Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet (1602) is one of the greatest works of world drama. Written for a specific time and responding to the mood of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, it has attracted many generations of readers and spectators for more than three centuries with its significance...

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There is an opinion that the play “Hamlet” was not written by Shakespeare at all. Indeed, there is no copy of this work written by the hand of the great playwright...

The text of the play “Hamlet,” which has not left the stages of the world for more than 400 years, is a compilation of several versions written down by different people at different times. Therefore, skeptics say, the significance and artistic merits of the tragedy are greatly exaggerated, and the deep meaning that more and more researchers are discovering was introduced by many generations of readers, viewers and critics. But, even if all this is really true, there is still no escape from the questions: why has this particular text excited minds and souls for so many years and why, in fact, is it so necessary for a person to discover any meaning in works of art, philosophical works and religion? After all, you can just eat, drink, have fun and make money. However, no, for some reason one, sometimes insignificant person, is given the gift of creating, and others are given the gift of taking to heart works that are eventually called great.

Of course, masterpieces do not exist to answer all our questions, but they at least clearly demonstrate that these questions exist and continue to arise. Let's increase their number by five more.

1. Why does the Ghost need Hamlet?

In fact, at first glance, the formidable Phantom could easily solve his problems himself. If he had appeared to Claudius once, the goals he had formulated would have been achieved: the royal bed was cleared of desecration and the vile fratricide was punished. In this case, the queen would most likely remain alive. Not to mention the prince. Was the death of his son part of the Phantom’s plans? Judging by his words, no. Just as there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of these words. But in reality it turned out differently. It turns out that the Phantom played his role against his will. And who is the director? Who set the rules according to which the Queen did not see the Ghost, but Hamlet and his comrades saw and heard? Obviously, the Phantom couldn’t just appear to Claudius. He had his own organic, that is, natural, inherent only to him, limitations, like each of us. Apparently, our achievements depend not so much on our goals, no matter how wonderful they may be, but on our properties, that is, limitations, regardless of whether we are aware of them or not. Therefore, no matter what we achieve, the goal is never lonely, there are always accompanying results that are significant for us and for others. And until you figure it out with yourself, you can never be sure that you are playing your own role and not participating in someone else’s performance. Like a Phantom.

2. Did Hamlet follow the Ghost’s instructions?

On the one hand, since Claudius is killed, the task can be considered completed, albeit in violation of the expected deadlines. On the other hand, in the process of execution, some additional results were achieved that were not provided for in the task, namely: Prince Hamlet, his mother Gertrude, his beloved girl Ophelia, the girl’s father Polonius, her brother Laertes, as well as school friends died an unnatural death Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That is, the executor of the assignment himself died, as well as his closest friends and relatives. At the same time, the hero killed some of them with his own hand, while others he fearlessly sent to certain death or did not properly protect.

Under these conditions, the answer to the question posed is no longer so clear. We do not know with what words the Ghost greeted the soul of his son where it apparently ended up after everything that young Hamlet had done. The options can be very different: from “Well done, son, you did a great job!” to “Is this what I asked you to do!” In any case, at least one managerial conclusion can be made: even in the clearest instructions it is impossible to indicate everything that should NOT be done when executing it. This should be clear without further explanation. And if people understand each other perfectly, then there is no need to indicate anything at all. And if they don’t understand, then things can turn out like the Ghost and Hamlet.

3. To be or not to be?

Sooner or later, every person faces questions to which they have to look for answers, as they say, “Yes - No”. Are there any actions that I should never do or are there no such actions and can you expect anything from me? Are there ideas that I will never support or are there no such ideas, and I can be convinced of anything? Is man born free and endowed with a conscience, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or do I have a different opinion on this matter? The questions may be very different, but, in any case, they relate to the basic rules by which we live. And perhaps not only our personal fate, but also the fate of many other people depends on our answers.

The selection criterion is of decisive importance here. For Hamlet this is nobility. We are free to choose another criterion, but how do we make a choice about the selection criterion? Ultimately, our decisions reveal our beliefs, character, and way of thinking. And the list of disasters against which the Danish prince considered it noble to take up arms has changed little over the past few centuries. This, as before, is the injustice of the oppressors, the pain of rejected love, the insolence of officials, delays in the courts, the humiliation of the proud - there is something to make a personal decision about: whether to endure in silence or end it in a fight. Of course, in this case we must be prepared to answer for our convictions, that is, to pay a certain price, which will be higher, the stronger the firmness of our convictions. Therefore, the inevitable choice of every person is to be able to accept the challenges of life or not to be so.

4. How does an intellectual major turn into a killer?

What must happen to a person for him to turn in a short time from a darling of fate into a half-crazed criminal? After all, until recently, the prince was simply the legal heir to the royal throne. A loving and beloved son, an intellectual, a handsome man who dictated court fashion, he dedicated love poems to a beautiful girl and his feelings were mutual. They talk about such people today - a typical major.

But suddenly old Hamlet, his idolized father, dies. The death of a beloved parent, and even under suspicious circumstances, will unsettle anyone. Especially if a person is inclined to think and is capable of deep feelings, and that’s exactly what Hamlet was. Soon his adored mother, the queen, marries her late husband's brother. Anyone who has observed a similar situation will probably agree that for a son, his mother’s imminent marriage is hardly good news. Moreover, relations between relatives were far from the best: the nephew suspected his uncle of murdering his father, and the uncle, in turn, suspected that he was suspected. The fact that Hamlet fell into extreme thoughtfulness seems completely natural. In fact, let’s imagine a son who, in such circumstances, could, as if nothing had happened, say something like: “Mommy, congratulations, a worthy choice, I wish you happiness!” Maybe someone could, but not Hamlet.

And then the next blow hits him. He meets the ghost of his father. Not everyone has such an encounter in their life, but it is easy to understand that someone who has experienced something like this may well seem a little strange to others. And in reality, to be no longer like everyone else, including not like you were just recently. Moreover, having a task that is impossible to refuse and impossible to complete. At least if you are not ready to become a killer and die yourself.

5. Hamlet or Fortinbras?

Once upon a time there lived two kings next door - a Danish and a Norwegian. The Danish one was called Hamlet, the Norwegian one was Fortinbras. Each of the kings had sons - young Hamlet and young Fortinbras, respectively. And they also had brothers. Hamlet's king is Claudius, and the name of the Norwegian king's brother is unknown; in the play he is simply called “the old Norwegian.”

One day the neighbors fought in a duel, each mortgaging part of their territory. The mortgage should go to the winner and then be inherited by the children - respectively, the Norwegian or Danish princes. The Dane won, the Norwegian was killed, and his mortgage became the hereditary possession of young Hamlet. But this turn of events did not suit the son of the deceased, and young Fortnibras, immediately after the death of the King of Denmark, began to demand the return of the lost territories, and moreover, he began gathering troops to solve the problem by force. In turn, the new Danish king, brother and murderer of the former king, Claudius, turned to Fortinbras’s uncle, an old Norwegian, with a request to calm his nephew. The request was granted. At the same time, it turned out that the Norwegian prince tried to deceive his king, assuring that the purpose of the military training was a campaign against Poland.

The old Norwegian forbade Fortinbras from any actions against Denmark, which he solemnly promised and, as a reward for obedience, received the right to a Polish campaign, the route of which ran right through the Danish kingdom. On the way back, the young Norwegian finds the end of the tragedy, all members of the Danish royal family are dead, and he has no choice but to become the new king of Denmark. Fortinbras is a real warrior, a man of action, for whom the main thing is to fight, no matter whether there are reasons for this or no reasons. He abandoned the war with Denmark, having his own reasons for it, made a senseless, from any point of view, campaign in Poland, and achieved what he could not even dream of, without making any special efforts and without bothering himself with unnecessary thoughts. Prince Hamlet, on the contrary, tried to understand the meaning of what was happening and comprehend his destiny. He ultimately succeeded (although at great cost).

Perhaps each of us has our own Hamlet and our own Fortinbras. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to think about your feelings and feel your thoughts. But there are times when you need to think less and just do your job, and then come what may. The choice, as usual, is a personal matter for everyone. The question “To be or not to be” has already been asked. We just have to answer it every day.