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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help


Thirty is a dangerous age, Cynthia

He's thirty. The only reasons anyone has for having trouble with that are two: First, today people go to college around age 20, so we assume they always did. That simply isn't true; in Sh's day it was quite common for a "professional student" to stay at university all his life, gradually shifting from student to teacher. Secondly, some people find Hamlet's behavior immature in some ways. Others don't. But Sh SAYS he's 30. And the idea that 15 years pass in Act IV just doesn't work: that would mean that it took that long for the news of his father's death to reach Laertes and for Ophelia to go crazy.

Posted by Hamlet on March 21, 1997 at 11:29:08
In Reply to "How old is Hamlet?" posted by Starri on March 21, 1997 at 09:14:38


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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help