By Dr Oliver Tearle

'To be, or not to be, that is the question': perhaps 1 of the most famous lines in all of English literature, just arguably also one of the about mysterious – and one of the nigh misread. Hamlet's soliloquy from William Shakespeare'due south play is rightly historic for beingness a meditation on the nature of life and decease, but some analyses and interpretations of the soliloquy serve to reduce the lines to a more than simplistic meaning. And so what does 'To be or not to be' really hateful?

First, hither's a reminder of Hamlet's words:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the heed to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take artillery confronting a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a slumber to say we stop
The heart-ache and the yard natural shocks
That mankind is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To dice, to sleep;
To sleep, perhaps to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of decease what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal ringlet,
Must give usa break—in that location'due south the respect
That makes calamity of and so long life.
For who would carry the whips and scorns of time,
Thursday'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd honey, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat nether a weary life,
But that the dread of something after expiry,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the volition,
And makes us rather bear those ills we take
Than fly to others that we know non of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents plow amiss
And lose the name of activeness.

Virtually everyone knows the line, 'To be, or not to be: that is the question'. Whether we hear Laurence Olivier reciting them, or erroneously picture another cracking Shakespearean actor pronouncing these words while holding a skull (which actually belongs in the later gravedigger scene), 'To be or non to be' is i of the about famous vi-line phrases from all of English literature.

Simply interestingly, in the kickoff press ofHamlet, the lines were quite dissimilar (see the prototype from the Quarto, below right): 'To be, or not to be: that is the question' was instead 'To be, or not to be, I in that location's the signal' (this version may have been actors or audience-members misremembering the lines from the play and trying to reconstruct them from memory).

Yet the precise meaning of these words, and the lines that follow, is frequently analysed in a mode that not only reduces the ambiguity of the lines to a unproblematic and straightforward narrative (Hamlet is pondering whether to impale himself or not) merely also risks losing sight of the broader context in which they appear, namely the play Hamlet viewed as a whole. For if in that location is one thing that marks Hamlet (and the character, Hamlet), it is his supposed vacillation, his indecision, his delaying: and his dilatoriness centres on his failure to take revenge on his uncle, Claudius, for the murder of his father, Old Hamlet.

What makes 'To exist or not to be' such a cryptic utterance is that the lines telegraph, and even actively elide, the full idea which Village is mulling over. Should 'To be or not to be' exist silently completed past us every bit 'To be alive or not to be alive' (the 'suicide' interpretation), or every bit 'To exist an avenger or non to exist an avenger' (bringing in the revenge plot of the play)?

The problem is that the lines which follow, far from beingness specifically about the pros and cons of killing oneself, can actually be used to support either interpretation. To 'suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing finish them' sounds similar somebody wondering whether to bear on living or to stop it all, but these lines might just every bit easily refer to Village's dilemma over whether to accept the claiming mounted past the Ghost (avenge his murdered male parent) or to stand up past and passively let things play out as 'fortune' decrees. The lines that follow:

To die—to sleep,
No more than; and by a slumber to say we end
The centre-anguish and the thousand natural shocks
That mankind is heir to

Seem to be more specifically focused on the suicide question, merely even hither there is some ambivalence. Given that the Ghost of his dead father is firmly on young Hamlet's mind, he is also meditating here on what happens when we die (not simply on what might happen when he dies). The Ghost appears to call into question that 'to die' is 'to sleep', since Old Village has non been allowed to rest; he is a 'traveller' who has returned from that 'undiscovered country' across the grave.

Village'due south delaying tactics are themselves oftentimes misinterpreted. Is it fair to say that Hamlet delays? Yep. Is it off-white to say that he delays because he is indecisive? That's less sure. He certainly gives us that impression, and torments himself for beingness not 'human being' enough to avenge his begetter.

Only Hamlet's 'failure' to act immediately is actually downright sensible, since he wants to be sure that the Ghost which he spoke to, which causeless the form of his begetter, actually was his father and spoke truth to him, rather than being some mischievous demon sent to goad him to murder an innocent man. This is why he puts on the 'play inside a play' (actually chosen The Murder of Gonzago, but which Village wittily renames The Mousetrap): to try to collect testify of Claudius' guilt.

As this is a soliloquy from a Shakespeare play, 'To exist or non to be' is in iambic pentameter – specifically, unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank poesy. But in that location are a number of variations. Should we stress 'that' or 'is' in 'that is the question'? Although 'that is the question' may be more than common an interpretation, 'that is the question' is viable likewise.

For our coin, the best estimation of Shakespeare's lines was by the great actor Paul Scofield; you can hear him reciting 'To exist or not to be' hither. For more most the play, see our analysis ofVillage and our report of the character of Hamlet. You might also find our analysis of some other of Village's soliloquies, 'O, that this too too solid flesh would melt', of involvement.

About Village

The role of Hamlet is ane of the virtually intellectually and emotionally demanding for an thespian: as Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor mention in their detailed introduction to Village: Revised Edition (The Arden Shakespeare 3rd Series) , the Oscar-winning player Daniel Day-Lewis even withdrew from the role in 1989, mid-run, later on he allegedly began 'seeing' the ghost of his father, the sometime Poet Laureate Cecil 24-hour interval-Lewis, who had died in 1972.

But despite – or, possibly, because of – this emotional intensity and complexity, actors down the ages accept been keen to put their own stamp on the role, including David Garrick (who had a special wig that made Hamlet'southward hair stand up on end when the ghost of his father appeared), Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Mel Gibson, Sarah Bernhardt (1 of many women to portray the Prince of Kingdom of denmark: see the image below), Ethan Hawke, Keanu Reeves, Kenneth Branagh, Maxine Peake, and fifty-fifty John Wilkes Booth, the human being who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Hamlet is frequently characterised equally 'a human who cannot make up his mind'. Indeed, the publicity for Laurence Olivier's celebrated 1948 film of Hamlet fabricated much of this description of Hamlet's graphic symbol. The words that tend to come when people effort to analyse the character or personality of Hamlet are indecisive, delaying, and uncertain, with 'inaction' being the key defining characteristic of what Hamlet actually does during the play. Certainly, the poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge thought Hamlet'due south main fault was his indecision: he detected 'an almost enormous intellectual activity and a proportionate disfavor to real action consequent upon it' – i.e., Village is meliorate at thinking about doing things than actually doing them.

And yet we might argue that Village doesn't exactly filibuster, or at least, he does non delay because he is indecisive, but for sound, practical reasons. Hamlet cannot be sure that the Ghost really is the spirit of his expressionless father, and not some fiend that's been sent to cause mischief and goad him to murder. So he needs to find out whether Claudius actually is guilty of murdering Hamlet Senior, and thus whether the Ghost can be trusted.

The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, amongst others,The Undercover Library: A Book-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History  andThe Great War, The Waste material Land and the Modernist Long Poem.