Shakespeare's Influence | The Cultural Phenomenon of Shakespeare
Sometime around the turn of the seventeenth century, William Shakespeare sat down at his worktable to continue writing a play of revenge that he would call simply The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The title would attract audiences familiar with an earlier, popular melodrama on the same subject. Although he had worked his way into the third act, Shakespeare felt uneasy about his protagonist. Hamlet had taken on a complexity that an actor, even the great Richard Burbage, perhaps could not clarify for the spectators. Indeed, Shakespeare had created a problem for...
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