Hamlet

With his adaptation of the Hamlet story, Shakespeare created one of the best-known dramas of all time, which is presented here in the customary German translation by August Wilhelm von Schlegel: The Danish prince Hamlet is commissioned by his father's ghost to avenge his murder by his own brother Claudius - Hamlet's uncle. Claudius, however, has married Hamlet's mother in the meantime and rules over Denmark. Hamlet swears revenge, but hesitates throughout the play to actually carry it out. This inner conflict, which finds expression in Hamlet's soliloquies, is the central topic of Shakespeare's longest play. It is embedded in Hamlet's attempts to protect himself by feigning madness and to convict Claudius of his crime. When revenge is finally carried out in the last act, not only the royal family has met its end, but also that of the court master Polonius, in whose daughter Ophelia Hamlet had a lover.