Much modern criticism focuses on the character of young Hamlet and his inability to act decisively.

When Claudius, in order to prevent Hamlet from revealing the truth about the old King's death, tries to have Hamlet killed, the result is that all three-Claudius, Gertrude, and Hamlet-are poisoned and the Danish throne is taken over by Fortinbras, the ruler of Norway.

Young Prince Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost, who demands that his son avenge his murder, but Hamlet is riddled with indecision and paralyzed into inaction. Its well-known story involves the murder of Hamlet, King of Denmark, by his brother Claudius, who then not only assumes the throne but also marries his brother's widow, Queen Gertrude. The play has been the subject of more scholarly investigation than any work of Western literature. So much for him.Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:Thus much the business is: we have here writTo Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hearsOf this his nephew's purpose, to suppressHis further gait herein in that the levies,The lists, and full proportions are all madeOut of his subject: and we here dispatchYou, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand.Hamlet, composed circa 1600, is Shakespeare's most popular tragedy among critics as well as on stage and screen. For all, our thanks.Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras,Holding a weak supposal of our worth,Or thinking by our late dear brother's deathOur state to be disjoint and out of frame,Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,Importing the surrender of those landsLost by his father, with all bonds of law,To our most valiant brother. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's deathThe memory be green, and that it us befittedTo bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdomTo be contracted in one brow of woe Yet so far hath discretion fought with natureThat we with wisest sorrow think on him,Together with remembrance of ourselves.Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,Th'imperial jointress to this warlike state,Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,With one auspicious and one dropping eye,With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,In equal scale weighing delight and dole,Taken to wife nor have we herein barr'dYour better wisdoms, which have freely goneWith this affair along.

William hamlet