E X T E N S I O N WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Hamlet is a revenge play, that is, a story based on the need to avenge a murder in the family, a kind of play which was very popular on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage and a theme which is still exploited today in the vast production of films and western movies. Typically, the avenger takes on the responsibility of vendetta early on and spends much of the time overcoming1 a series of obstacles (e.g. identifying the killer and tracking him down) which creates a great deal of excitement and violence. The mission is finally carried out with personal involvement of the avenger, and this usually happens face to face. Just eliminating the offender secretly or reporting him to the authorities is not satisfactory, there must be a public exposure of the murderer and his crime. In Hamlet, two young men, Prince Hamlet and Laertes, are called upon to be avengers. In the case of Hamlet, the original criminal has yet to be found out and is too powerful and resourceful2 to be killed at once; in the case of Laertes, revenge is made easy by Hamlet s admission of guilt and by the help of the King himself. Towards the end of the 18th century, critics began to discuss the character of the main hero, Hamlet, and to ask why he delayed3 so long in taking his revenge. Some critics asserted that Hamlet didn t delay in carrying out the task imposed upon him by the Ghost, he simply had to wait for the opportune moment; some others thought that Hamlet did delay, and offered many different explanations for this. S. T. Coleridge, one of the first and most influential critics of Hamlet, argued that the Prince was prevented from acting because he was too sensitive, too philosophically speculative and too finely poetical, and so he lost the power of action in the energy of resolve4 . 1. overcoming: surmounting. 2. resourceful: bright, clever. 3. delayed: postponed. 4. resolve: decision. 54