Reprinted from Studies in Language and Literature; in honor of James Morgan Hart
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GHOST IN HAMLET
BY WILLIAM STRUNK, JR., PH.D.
Hamlet holds a unique position among Shakespeare's plays by reason of the challenge which it has offered to interpretation. As a whole and in its details the play has been the subject of more discussion than any other of its author's works. The judgments passed upon Hamlet's conduct have been of the most diverse kind, and correspondingly diverse theories have been formulated to account for his delay in carrying out his task, or to disprove that such delay exists. Not a few students of the tragedy, among whom may be mentioned J. Halliwell-Phillipps (Memoranda on Hamlet, 1879, pp. 6-7), have after long study expressed their conviction that the mystery of the play is insoluble.
Since modern research has tended to lend support to the hypothesis that Hamlet, in its received form, represents Shakespeare's revision and expansion of a first draft (represented imperfectly by the First Quarto, 1603), itself a rewriting of a lost play by Thomas Kyd,
