William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, is a play that bridges the past with the present in terms of its content and dramatics. Many of the same attributes that people expect from a good movie or book can be found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and in other plays that Shakespeare wrote. Hamlet has been regarded as Shakespeare’s most famous play, intriguing readers with its many underlying themes and symbols that can be related to a persons own life.  Because of the many different ways a person could interpret the character of Hamlet, it continues to amaze and provide debate to readers today. The story line revolves around Hamlet, and his desire to avenge his father’s death when he discovers, from the ghost of his father, that his Uncle is responsible for his father’s murder. To complicate matters, his mother’s marriage to Hamlet’s Uncle, only 2 months after his father’s death, has left Hamlet deceived about his mother and what he thought her to be. While the story line in Hamlet is just as good as any modern day tale of a tragedy, complete with action, blood and gore, it is the underlying interpretation of Hamlet that has provided nearly 400 years of spirited debate. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” is pertinent to us today based on the following three significant reasons.

First, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”, provides historical literary significance because of who wrote it and when they wrote it. William Shakespeare, by himself, is recognized world wide as one of the greatest poets and English playwrights. Although there is very little documentation on the life that Shakespeare lived, a lot can be said of Shakespeare through his poems, sonnets and playwrights. Reading through Hamlet, one can gain insight into the attributes that were important to Shakespeare and thereby know the person, whom so little is known about. Another significant feature of Hamlet, in historical context, is the time that the play was written, in 1600. Through the verses that Shakespeare has written, the period of the Renaissance comes alive to the reader. Kings, Queens, Lords and realms, with all of the glory of nobility, envisions the mind of the reader and brings the past to life.

The second reason how Hamlet is important to us can be thought of as a bridge to the past. The people that enjoyed the playwrights of Shakespeare were perhaps not all that different from the people of today. Whereas a family of today enjoys a good movie that contains action, adventure, romance and surprise, a family of 1600 enjoyed the very same attributes that can be found in the content of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Shakespeare’s literary works have bridged space and time, effecting the lives and our learning experiences in the world of today. Perhaps it was more of Shakespeare, bridging his writings into the future, that seem to have withstood the age of time and still remain as some of the most important writings in human history. As his contemporary, Ben Johnson, stated, “he was not of an age, but for all time!”

Finally, the third reason Hamlet is pertinent to us is for the social and political statements that are emphasized through the thoughts and human expressions of Shakespeare’s characters: statements that are just as emotional today as they were in 1600. While Hamlet by itself is an intriguing and entertaining story, it is the messages and expressions of human nature that lay underneath the story line, embracing generations of readers, from 1600, to 2010 and beyond. Such is the case when Hamlet discovers that his mother has married his deceitful Uncle, within two months of his father’s death. The shock of learning of this revelation, and the fact that Hamlet was disillusioned by his mother’s actions, brings to light a theme that is common to human nature, that a person may not be the person that they portray to be. In the innocence of our youth, there is goodness in the faces of the people we meet and have come to know. As Hamlet discovers, the innocence of youth quickly turns to disillusion when a loved one acts in a manner unbecoming to the nature they have portrayed. This is but one example of the many examples of symbolism and hidden messages that Shakespeare has creatively interwoven into Hamlet. What is remarkable about Shakespeare’s writings in Hamlet, is that so many different interpretations can be concluded from the thoughts and impressions of the characters Shakespeare has created. From political statements, to questions facing our own selves in our struggle to make sense of life, Shakespeare strikes a different chord in the thoughts and interpretations of each reader’s mind.

The mystic of William Shakespeare is not that he wrote about ideas and themes that people could not understand, but that he wrote about real life events and expressed the human character that we can all personally related to. Through Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we can understand that Shakespeare was a real life individual who thought, questioned and dreamed at an important time in human history, a time that holds the same values as we do today. It is intriguing that for a man who wrote so much, that there is so very little written about the life he lived. Perhaps Shakespeare wanted to be remembered in the words he wrote, and not judged by the life he lived. A fitting tribute for one of the world’s most known English poets and another example of the mystic of William Shakespeare. The beauty of Shakespeare’s writings is that 400 years later; his writings still have meaning and significance. Shakespeare’s writings are relative to yesterday, today and tomorrow. This is how Hamlet and other Shakespeare writings are pertinent to us today.