Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy somehow speaks to human beings of all times and places since it was first produced. The play itself poses the question of why the depiction of such a different age and its ways should move us. Hamlet asks of an actor, “What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?” (II.ii.586-7, Folger ed.).

Why have so many commentators seen the epitome of modern humanity in the hero of the antique poetic form of a tragedy that was transmitted with accruals from Medieval Christian drama and Revenge Tragedy? How can a hero who seems to embody the tensions of a Renaissance Prince with a classical education who is heir to a part-Pagan, part- Christian Kingdom embody universal humanity?

We will discuss some of the literary and historical background and then closely read each of the Acts of Hamlet to form our own interpretation of the play and of why tragic poetry speaks to us.