Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece or Disasterpiece?
Review: There's an old joke about a woman who saw Hamlet performed for the first time. "I don't know what anybody sees in that play," she said, "it's just a bunch of cliches strung together." Whether Hamlet spawned or merely perpetuated cliches, the play abounds with phrases that have passed into the common speech. From beginning to end, from "There's something rotten in Denmark" to "goodnight sweet prince", familiar language assaults the ear. The long life of these sayings attests to Shakespeare's powerful plotting and powerful language. Critics have hailed "Hamlet" as Shakespeare's masterpiece, prompting Oscar Wilde to ask "Are the critics mad or merely pretending to be?" It is a complex and paradoxical play, with complex, paradoxical protagonists engaging in complex, illogical behavior. Whether the play is a masterpiece or a disasterpiece, good or bad, is fairly debatable. But good or bad, it commands our attention and entertains us.The Dover Thrift Edition provides quality reading at a rock bottom price. Inexpensive, but not cheap!
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: This edition of Hamlet, with its accompanying critical essays is a good introduction to literary theory (in fact, my lit interpretation professor used it as exactly that). Wofford's essay on the critical history of Hamlet is clear and concise, with an interesting focus on the performance of the play. The critical essays' perspectives include feminist and Marxist theory.
Rating:
Summary: Ghosts, guilt, and graveyards
Review: Ah, yes. Hailed by many as Shakespeare's Magnum Opus (is that right?), this is certainly one of his most significant dramatic works. Hamlet is an atmosperic story of internalization - of feelings (guilt, love, hatred), of people, thoughts, and actions. Marked by indecision and a strong sense of self-pity and self-consciousness, Hamlet makes the slow transition from fear to determination in his quest to avenge his father's death. Oedipal complex, supernatural powers, royal incest, revenge - these are all explored in the play. Several famous questions are posed and thoughts explored - of existence, suicide, meaning, value. Hamlet is just packed with philosophy, psychology, and humanity. A must-read in which you will find many of the most famous soliloquies in all of Shakespeare. Thrown in Yorick's skull, poor Ophelia, good Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, you've got yourself one awesome play.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderfully Intricate work by Shakespeare
Review: Hamlet is a very intricate book that requires very in-depth reading or even a little help from essays written on Hamlet or something of that nature. It is a very good book with a nice blend of puns and paradoxes to foreshadowing. It is a story of a Danish prince caught in the middle of an uncle who recently became king at the death of Hamlet's father, a mother who married Hamlet's uncle after Hamlet's father's death, and a girlfriend who is a bit crazy. This all sets up a Shakespeare's classic. It is a reference of the monarchies of the late 1500's early 1600's when family members killed other family members for the monarchy. Their is the outside conflict Hamlet has with his mother and uncle but also their is the intricate inner conflict in Hamlet of what to do. This discussion leads to the question is Hamlet crazy. This all sets up one of the most famous speech in literature, "To be or not to be? That is the question."
Rating:
Summary: One of the best...
Review: While my all time favorite piece of Shakespeare is MacBeth, I also really enjoied this one as well. I would praise it more, but really, its written by Shakespeare, that says enough. :)
Rating:
Summary: Take care read and think
Review: It is obvious that a work of this kind may simplify Shakespeare's masterpiece, but I understand that it is necessary, just like translations; I am Brasilian and one of my first books ever read was Hamlet, in a translation to portuguese. Trying the original text was a pleasure achieved years later.
Rating:
Summary: To be or not to be
Review: "Hamlet" is one of the most famous literary works, about which millions of words have been written. There are even Marxist, feminist, and psychoanalitical interpretations of it. That fact, alone, says much about the depth and width of "Hamlet". In this immortal tragedy, the Danish Prince Hamlet is extremely sad and suspicious about the death of his father, the King. His mother has remarried to the King's Brother, Claudius. Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed by the ghost of his father, in an unforgettable scene: yes, Claudius is the murderer of his brother. Hamlet goes mad with pain and fury, and starts to plot his revenge. Its outcome will prove fatal for many people. This peak of drama is an exploration into the human soul, emphasizing emotions such as remorse, rancour, the need for revenge, and folly. Long before existentialism, Hamlet asks for the meaning of existence: what it is and why existence exists. The dramatic tension is perfectly crafted and sustained; Shakespeare's sentences are also perfect and magnificent; the scenes eternal: Hamlet's encounter with the ghost of his father; his monologue on "to be or not to be"; Ophelia's death and burial; the theatrical representaiton of Claudius's sin; the climax at the duel. Hamlet is one of those works of art which have done the magic of becoming part of the popular, "subconscious" culture, much as "Don Quixote", the "Divine Comedy" or the classic Greek tragedies. Without regard to the actual number of people that read them, these works belong to us all because they have been determinant in the shaping of our culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Shakespeare's worst
Review: I am hardly a fan of any Shakespeare: I find that his characters overact, talk too much about nothing, and spend most of their plays inserting extra words in to sentences that could be said in four words or less. Hamlet, however, reaches a new level of Shakespearean lackluster: This one is simply boring, with lifelessly dull characters that can never seem to figure out what they want. It follows the standard Shakespearean tragedy plotline (Guy has stuff happen to him that's either really good or really bad, two little subplots, and then everybody dies), but this one lacks spark, or even a pulse for that matter. Well, there's my two cents... Go ahead, find my review unhelpful if you want... but seriously, if it's Shakespeare you want, go buy a different play than this.
Rating:
Summary: Glorious Read - And EASY believe it or not
Review: Shakespeare comes with a reputation and for some students, a stigma. I would like to say, first of all, that anyone can understand and even enjoy Hamlet. Macbeth was written in Latin compared to Hamlet. It's plot is well-known and the story is punctuated with humor and even sensuousness that everyone will catch. You should not be daunted by the 'stigma' surrounding Elizabethan Shakespeare. Hamlet was an excellent read, and very short at that, only 100 pages. ...
Rating:
Summary: When the Pleasure of Novelty Has Ceased . . .
Review: As the editor Horace Furness states in his preface, this volume is not intended to be your first taste of Hamlet. The editor's purpose in presenting the voluminous notes is to assist the reader who has, as Dr. Samuel Johnson states in the introduction to his edition of Shakespeare, "read . . . [the] play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all [Shakespeare's] commentators. When [the reader's] fancy is on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. . . And when the pleasure of novelty has ceased, let him attempt exactness and read the commentators." If you are captivated by Shakespeare's Hamlet and the "pleasure of novelty has ceased (Johnson)," you will be enlightened and enthralled with this New Variorum Edition. If you have struggled to make sense of Ophelia's speeches when she is mad, or if you have labored to reconcile Polonious' speech to his son Laertes (neither a borrower nor a lender be, etc.) with his conduct when he later engages Reynaldo to spy on Laertes, then you will find this collection of commentaries both helpful and interesting. This edition also contains textual notes on the differences from a "collation " of the Quartos and Folios and "some thirty modern editions (Furness)." These notes are clearly laid out. They appear on the same page as the text in most cases, and are separate from the critical notes. This division is invaluable and sets this edition apart. The editor states in his introduction that he has included notes that have "little of no value, except as hints of the progress or of the madness of Shakespearian criticism." In other words, the editor is not presenting one cohesive, definitive interpretation. He is giving the reader a variety of tools with which to build his or her own thoughtful conclusions. My only complaint is that the work is in two volumes that are sold separately. The second volume contains the text of the earliest Hamlet Quarto (1603) that is not included in the textual notes in the first volume. The valuable reference notes including the editions collated in the textual notes, and the explanation of abbreviations and symbols used are in the Appendix, which is only in the second edition. I suppose this keeps the cost down and allows you to "pay as you go" and order the volumes separately, but a package of the two at a reduced price (compared to buying them separately) should be offered by the publisher. This complaint is only about marketing, certainly not about the quality of the edition. The Oxford English Dictionary defines variorum as "an edition, especially of the complete works of a classical author, containing the notes of various commentators or editors. Also in the full phrase Variorum Edition." This volume meets the definition. The New Variorum Edition of Hamlet also meets the goal identified by the editor in his preface. This edition will help a reader who is familiar with the play to bridge the gap in time that hides the languages meaning, the significance of some grammatical structure, and the common knowledge shared by the original audience that is not common to us. It does equally well in presenting a variety of thought for the reader to contemplate in coming to his or her own deeper understanding of this play, and will help the reader realize the true Hamlet "an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning (Act II, Sc.ii, 418-420)."
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