| This page contains resources for teaching Hamlet, a favorite play among readers, actors, and theater audiences, as well as one of Shakespeare's most puzzling. Below you'll find links to resources from Folger Education that include Hamlet lesson plans, related teaching tools, a student-produced graphic novel inspired by the play, and more. |  |
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Lesson Plans
Folger Education offers lesson plans on Shakespeare's frequently taught plays, as well as lessons on introducing Shakespeare. Try the two plans below, or, for more lesson plans on Hamlet, visit the Lesson Plans Archive.
"Touching this vision: Imagery in Hamlet”
In this lesson plan, students identify the major symbols, images, and themes of the play.
"Enter Ophelia: Stage Directions, Promptbooks, and Film"
In this lesson plan, you'll cover NCTE standards 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8. Using a historic actor's promptbook as well as film adaptions of Ophelia's mad scenes, students explore connections between movement, staging, and interpretation.
Teaching Tools
The Folger edition of Hamlet includes facing-page notes and illustrations throughout the play, fascinating essays on the play, Shakespeare's life, theater, and times, and notes on unfamiliar language, or words that meant something different in Shakespeare's day.
Shakespeare Set Free , a groundbreaking curriculum on performance-based teaching, includes a unit on teaching Hamlet.
Audio and Video Resources
The Folger exhibition Now Thrive the Armorers: Arms and Armor in Shakespeare focused on how real-world military changes influenced many of Shakespeare’s plays, including Hamlet.
 Listen to the Podcast
Language
For many students today, reading Shakespeare's language can be a challenge. Things to pay attention to in Hamlet:
- unfamiliar words or words whose meanings have changes
- unfamiliar word order
- wordplay
In Hamlet Shakespeare occasionally uses unfamiliar words or words that have changed in their meaning since the play was written. These are explained in notes in the Folger Edition of the text. Shakespeare also uses language to create a past history in the opening scenes of the play through references to "the Dane," "buried Denmark," Elsinore, and other "local" worlds and references.
Shakespeare often uses sentence structures that separate words that normally appear together. This is often done to create a particular speech rhythm, or emphasize a certain word. For example, Horatio separates subject and verb when he says “When he the ambitious Norway combated" (1.1.72).
Puns and metaphors are used throughout Hamlet; Hamlet himself uses puns to express complex ideas, or when he is beyond normal expression. In addition, in the exchange between Polonius and Ophelia in scene 3, much of the dialogue is based on puns.
Seeing Shakespeare performed, or performing Shakespeare, can help alleviate these difficulties. To see performance-based education strategies for your classroom, check out our clips on YouTube here.
About the Play
Hamlet was printed in three different versions in first quarter of the 17th century. The first was published in 1603 in a quarto edition, and was called the Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark by William Shake-speare. The second quarto, or "good quarto" appeared in 1604, although some copies are dated 1605. The third version is in the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, printed in 1623.
To learn more, explore our Discover Shakespeare online resource, including the sections highlighted at right.
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