Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English language. Probably written in 1601 or 1602, the tragedy is a milestone in Shakespeare's dramatic development; the playwright achieved artistic maturity in this work through his brilliant depiction of the hero's struggle with two opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father's murder. William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet. He is generally considered the greatest dramatist the world has ever known and the finest poet who has written in the English language.
             During Shakespeare's lifetime, he was well known to people in England. By the time Queen Elizabeth died, the English were struggling with many social and economic problems. These problems were complicated by minor wars with other countries-wars that often seemed without purpose. To many English people, the world appeared to be deteriorating and becoming in Hamlet's words, "an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed." Shakespeare's tragedies, like other Elizabethan tragedies involve the murder or suicide of many of the leading characters.
             Young Hamlet is very well-liked. He is a soldier, a scholar, and a diplomat. We learn that he's "the glass of fashion and the mould of form", i.e., the young man that everybody else tried to imitate. He's also "loved of the distracted multitude", i.e., the ordinary people like him, and if anything were to happen to him, there would be riots.
             Hamlet is mourning for his father and he refuses to accept the title words of consolation offered by Claudius and the Queen. In public, Hamlet's bitterness and grief is controlled, in private however, his anger bursts out in passionate reproaches. We learn that his mother's remarriage has almost broken his heart. According to Hamlet it is an incestuous relationship because his mother has married his uncle too fast. The queen tries to make him understand ...