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In Our Time: Culture

Hamlet

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.51K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2017

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, most quoted and longest play, written c1599 - 1602 and rewritten throughout his lifetime. It is the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, encouraged by his father's ghost to take revenge on his uncle who murdered him, and is set at the court of Elsinore. In soliloquies, the Prince reveals his inner self to the audience while concealing his thoughts from all at the Danish court, who presume him insane. Shakespeare gives him lines such as 'to be or not to be,' 'alas, poor Yorick,' and 'frailty thy name is woman', which are known even to those who have never seen or read the play. And Hamlet has become the defining role for actors, men and women, who want to show their mastery of Shakespeare's work.

The image above is from the 1964 film adaptation, directed by Grigori Kozintsev, with Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Hamlet.

With

Sir Jonathan Bate Provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford

Carol Rutter Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick

And

Sonia Massai Professor of Shakespeare Studies at King's College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:26.6

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0:29.4

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0:35.0

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0:38.0

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0:44.0

BBC in our time. I hope you enjoy the programs.

0:47.0

Hello William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet his longest play around 1599.

0:52.0

It was an immediate success and has since become his best

0:55.2

known work around the world and the most quoted. Shakespeare has Hamlet,

0:59.2

Prince of Denmark, reveal his inner self to the audience as he revenges the death of his father

1:04.3

while concealing his thoughts from all at the Danish court who sometimes presuming

1:08.6

insane. He gives him lines such as to be or not to be, alas poor Yorick and frailty

1:14.3

thy name is woman which are known even to those who have never seen or read the play.

1:18.6

And Hamlet has become the defining role for actors men and women who want to show their mastery of Shakespeare's work.

1:24.0

With me to discuss Shakespeare's Hamlet are Sir Jonathan Bait,

1:27.7

Provest of Worcester College University of Oxford, Kara Rutter,

...

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