Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, probably written between 1599 and 1601. Set in Denmark, the play tells how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle for murdering the previous king, Hamlet's father. Hamlet's uncle has since stolen the throne and taken Hamlet's mother, the dead king's widow, as his wife. The play vividly charts the course of real and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and explores themes of treachery, incest, and moral corruption. Despite much literary detective work, the exact year of writing remains in dispute. Three different early versions of the play survived, which are known as the First Quarto, the Second Quarto, and the First Folio. Each has lines, and even scenes, that are missing from the others. Shakespeare probably based Hamlet on an Indo-European legend—preserved by a 13th-century chronicler, and retold by a 16th-century scholar—and a lost Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet. The play's dramatic structure and Shakespeare's depth of characterisation mean that Hamlet can be analysed and interpreted—and argued about—from many perspectives. Hamlet is by far Shakespeare's longest play, and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language. The title role was almost certainly created for Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian of Shakespeare's time; in the four hundred years since, it has been played by the greatest actors, and sometimes actresses, of each successive age.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1343: Pope Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_VI)
1888: Two weeks after a group of over thirty explorers and scientists met in Washington, D.C. to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge," the National Geographic Society, publisher of the National Geographic Magazine, was incorporated. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Society)
1945: The Soviet Red Army liberated over 7,500 prisoners left behind by Nazi personnel in the Auschwitz concentration camp (entrance pictured) in Oświęcim, Poland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp)
1967: The Apollo 1 spacecraft was destroyed by fire at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1)
1973: The Paris Peace Accords were signed in Paris, temporarily ending the Vietnam War with a ceasefire. North Vietnam would later violate the treaty one year later when it attacked South Vietnam on December 13 1974. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Accords)
_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:
autological: (grammar) Of a adjective, describing itself. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/autological)
_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:
"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad." "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." -- Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll)
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