Once upon a time there was a young prince of Denmark...
Hamlet avenge me!
Dad? Yes I have returned from the dead!
Looks like you've returned from the buffet. Well you little
Hello everyone! Welcome to another video it's me Yonas and today
I'm gonna be talking about why you should read the play
Hamlet
But before we get into things I'm just going to say that I think you should watch
or listen to a version of the play ie a performed version. I think uh consuming a perform version
before you read the text is really really important because you know you won't be
alienated from the language you'll be you'll be in there you'll be you'll be loving it you'll
be like 'I know I'll actually get this this would normally seem like gibberish to me but I get it.'
Yeah that's just a quick caveat before we you know just absolutely dive into
the multiple reasons why you should read Hamlet.
Now the first reason I think you should read Hamlet is perhaps not an obvious reason. It's
not one that you might have heard before. I think it's essentially a play about mental health.
However you look at it how you want to interpret the various characters and the various things they
go through and have gone through before the play started particularly the main character
Hamlet I think that ultimately it's a play about relationships people's feelings and particularly
yeah as I say particularly the central character of Hamlet you know um without spoiling anything
he goes through a lot as the play progresses and so does certain other characters and the
play I think essentially is an exercise in how people deal with suffering and without spoiling
too much uh there's a very interesting contrast in the play between melancholy and madness - you
probably you might know already that these are themes that Shakespeare often um plays with.
But yeah I think that the play is essentially about mental health or at least it has
lots to do with mental health and therefore I think it's still exceptionally relevant
today um and that's why I found particular solace in reading it and um it was very stimulating to
read during lock down at a time when I was having a lot of um contrasting feelings and confusion
and so forth. It's a very emotional play and I think it's worthwhile to read for that reason
in action how like an angel
in apprehension how like a god
the beauty of the world the paragon of animals and yet to me what is this
quintessence of dust
Reason number two kind of follows on from this but not only I think does Shakespeare really
reveal really interesting attitudes towards mental health I think that he reveals generally
quite insightful things just about human life more holistically. Hamlet it's also about family
and it's about love in all kinds of forms you know talking about family it's like it's about
how difficult family life can be sometimes... you know...
and you know Hamlet has a kind of girlfriend, he has friends and all these relationships sort
of become complicated uh over the course of the play and I think it can be really it can be really
useful to sort of consume art that kind of shows you maybe not your own life but kind of aspects of
your life and it sort of can help you to come to terms with things that maybe you're going through
you know um and I always think of the opening scenes from the film Two Hands and if you
haven't seen it it's uh Heath Ledger's first lead lead role - it's kind of an Aussie-made film -
and there's this Aussie guy at the beginning who's like you know he's uh I'm not gonna do
an Australian accent. In fact yeah i'm just going to link the clip in and um i'll let him explain
uh
If you're going through some sort of [ __ ] in your life chances are someone else
has been through the same thing before you - and they've written it down. Some
poet or philosopher has been through the same type of crap
and they've written about it. And when you find that poem or that piece of writing and you think
'bloody hell this bastard's just summed it all up' it's kind of comforting: know what I mean?
Okay well the third reason why I think you should read hamlet
uh is the sheer beauty of the language. You know it is it's a play but it's also just
it's poetry. You know Shakespeare's writing is just so poetic and I don't want I just I really
I don't like that people think it's really convoluted and it's boring you know because
I really believe that Shakespeare's writing is so powerful. It's so beautiful and it's so true
that it's just it's so essential reading it's so essential I think
and Hamlet is just one of the the finest examples of uh poetic writing I think
that I've ever read and I've ever seen. I think a lot of people would agree,
you know, Shakespeare just had a way of capturing you know these essential human emotions
like nobody else both in his time, but even today I think I still think he's
absolutely the best writer that I've ever read and every time I read him it just becomes more
and more clear to me that that just is the case. Yeah it's like when I listen to the Beatles. Like
I was listening to Rubber Soul earlier and I was like 'oh damn they just were the best they just
still were they just are the best at what they did'. 'They are the best at what they did' -
that doesn't make sense. You know what I mean. And I think this is kind of my... this is my fourth
reason as well um you know if you're an aspiring writer or even just an artist in general I think
you know you have to learn from the best and as I say Shakespeare just was the best,
still is the best and so I think if you want to learn how to write, if you want to learn how to
express yourself in that way, but also just to stimulate your imagination...
if you're not a writer, but you're a painter or you're a poet or
or anything you know if you're if you're if you're an artist of any kind I think
reading Shakespeare will be incredibly valuable to you because yeah he was the best. He had a way of
creating worlds and pictures and painting things with words which yeah I've never seen anyone do
do it quite like him. So in that sense I would say read all of this read out as much of him
as you can, but obviously if you just want one thing to read I think definitely read Hamlet.
That takes us to reason number five - we're almost at the end almost at the end guys stay,
stay with me stay with me. Reason number five is kind of a more I don't want to say it's fun
because I find it fun, but you might not, but I think you will. Reason number five is that
you can simply just show off your friends about how much you know about the play um.
You know there are so many little lines you can drop you know like I mean 'To be or not to be...'
is kind of a big one, but yeah even lines like: 'Go thy ways to a nunnery, and quickly
too - where's your father?' You know or:
'Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.' The lady dothn't
or: 'Alas poor Yorick...'
You know these these just iconic great lines um you can just drop them in anywhere and you'll
know what they mean and that will make you just so freaking awesome to whoever you're talking to.
They'll just be like
'Oh oh my oh you're yeah I love you like how did you
how did you say that like how do you know that?' and you'll be there like
'well I've actually uh actually read Hamlet.'
'No you haven't... you haven't read it. You haven't read the whole thing?'
'Well actually I have.'
You know you can do that and it'll be awesome, so definitely read Hamlet just even for that
reason. Just to be able to show off you know just arrogantly just throw lines out just like
quote things all the time you know and leave people dumbfounded at
your your brilliance, your your intellectual, artistic brilliance.
And this kind of like this sort of links onto my final point which is
'To be or not to be...'
'Oh my god!'
You know you hear that a lot. People say that all the time. It's referenced constantly,
but what does it actually mean? You know what is he talking about? Well,
I'm not gonna answer that. That's for you to find out when you read
Hamlet - which you definitely should. Recently, not too long ago, when me and
or I... I and two friends of mine may or may not have been partaking in some substances
um my lawyer helped me with that one. You know they were they were doing something
and I just said the first line to them they were like 'Yeah yeah cool yeah.' But then
I kept going and I recited the whole speech to them and I just watched as they were like
'Damn!'
I was like 'I know I know right.'
On a more serious note they were actually quite I think quite impressed,
you know the fact that I learned the whole thing, but also they they remembered certain lines in the
speech which had resonated particularly with them and they they would say to me
'Oh that thing that you said what was that line... yeah I really get what that means'. You know
and again this this links back to my earlier points of Shakespeare was the best writer at
conveying human emotions and human truths that if you read him you'll find so many lines that just
hit you or just like 'Oh my God! That is exactly what I'm feeling or I know exactly what that's
like.' You know this situation this character is going through I I'm going through that situation
right now, you know and the more of Hamlet you read the more lines there are that just hit you
for six and touch you in ways that nothing else could... no other language or literature could
um and you'll only be grateful you know once once you read it I think.
But yeah that's basically that's the video um.
Those are my sort of six rough reasons why I think you should read Hamlet um, thank you so much for
watching. Thank you for you know getting this far I really appreciate it um, if you'd like the video
to give it a like and if you want to see more content just subscribe.
I'm probably doing a lot more of these sort of Why You Should Read or Watch or Listen to
sort of videos, um i'm planning to do some more books but I might do some albums
or some films or some some things like that um, but they're gonna be kind of this style.
And yeah just if you wanna if you wanna sort of um,
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and I very much look forward to seeing you on a future video um, all the best for now.