The tragedy of ?Hamlet is a revenge tragedy.

By 1590 Shakespeare began to write plays for the stage. At that time the ancient Latin texts from Roman and Greek philosophers and writers, such as comedies from Plautus and Terenz, and the tragedies from Seneca were rediscovered, and Shakespeare rewrote a few of them into Elizabethan English.

The basic elements of Seneca?s plays - sensational outrages, pathetical monologues, ghost appearances

And revenge themes - had an immense influence on Shakespeare?s texts.

In the minds of the common people there existed three reasons that made a ghost appear:

The ghosts own demand for soothing disaster and if the ghost was the ghost of a murder victim, the torture of conscience, and therefore punishment of his murderer in haunting him which was the main function of the ghost - to incite revenge.

If a ghost appeared he could only speak when the world was directed to him first. This had to be done by that person for whom the message was destined. In the play the ghost already appears already in the first scene. Marcellus, Bernardo and Horatio are the first persons to get in contact with the dead king.

But why did Bernardo, Marcellus and Horatio see the ghost in act 1, scene 1?

He is the one who reveals his fate to Young Hamlet with the order to revenge his death (see I.5.29).

The only person the ghost speaks to is Hamlet

Old King Hamlet was a warrior king who risked his life and fought for his country on the battleground. This is shown when Horatio describes the Old King?s fight against Old Fortinbras, the King of Norway, whom he killed in a single fight on the battlefield and took parts of his lands. "That can I: at least the whisper goes so. Our last king, whose image even but now appear?d to us, was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, thereto prick?d on by a most emulate pride, dar?d to the combat. Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands which he stood seiz?d of." (I.1.92-109)

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Approximate Word count = 1577
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)