Thoughts on Hamlet Part I

                                             To be, or not to be, that is the question?

Years ago, my mother read Shakespeare's Hamlet to me. This has always been one of my favorite stories. Although I wanted to read it again for many years, I just recently got around to doing that.
While I will get into the plot some other time, I would like to discuss some themes today.
 Hamlet is often considered Shakespeare's greatest work. The No Fear Shakespeare Series, which I have often used for reading Shakespeare, includes the archaic early modern English, and updated English, side by side.

 A long play, many dramatizations on stage or in film have been made about this classic work over the years. Sometimes, Shakespeare's Hamlet is considered the greatest work of English Literature after the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible.
Mortality and madness, truth and thoughts, revenge and deception are common themes throughout this work. Again and again, we are left to debate so many key features of the story such as whether or not Hamlet is mad or knows what he is doing.
The Lion King has sometimes been called the greatest film based on this play, with Scar being akin to Claudius, and Simba to Hamlet. Other film adaptions based on Hamlet have starred Lawrence Olivier, Mel Gibson, and Kennath Branagh, all at different points playing the title character.
Religious themes are to be found in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Some have found a connection between Roman Catholicism and the ghost, whereas Hamlet himself exemplifies Protestantism.

                                                         I am thy father's spirit
                                                         Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
                                                         And for the day confined to fast in fires
                                                         Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
                                                         Are burned and purged away. But that I am forbid
                                                         To tell the secrets of my prison house,
                                                         I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
                                                         Would harrow up that soul, freeze thy sound blood
                                                         Make thy two eyes, like starts, start from the spheres,
                                                         Thy knotted and combined locks to part
                                                         And each particular hair to stand on end,
                                                         Like quills upon the fearful porpentine.
                                                         But this eternal blazon must not be.
                                                         To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, oh, list
                                                         If thou didst ever thy dear father love.

In the passage above, the spirit of Hamlet's father is referring to Purgatory.
While Hamlet's father was Roman Catholic, it seems Hamlet himself was Protestant. Hamlet is spoken of in the play as being a student at Wittenberg, where Martin Luther greatly contributed to the Protestant Reformation.
There has been a debate going on for centuries if Shakespeare was a Catholic or Protestant. Some understand the playwright to have not been devout towards either view.
It has been said that every line in Hamlet is profound. No surprise, given all the literary criticism upon its text.




Some further Sources: Hamlet: Barnes and Noble Shakespeare by Jeff Dolven, No Fear Shakespeare Hamlet, https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analyzing-William-Shakespeares-Hamlet-from-a-Religious-Context, https://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/viewer/initiative_08.01.09_u,