“The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience”: The Legal Community Reads Hamlet

This article explores the response of the contemporary legal community to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play that has garnered much attention from those who would investigate the complex intersections of law and literature. The particular focus of this article is the way legal scholars have interpreted Hamlet’s “problem,” that is to say, his famous delay in carrying out acts of violent retribution at the behest of his murdered father’s ghost. Such scholarly speculations have much to tell us, for to consider the meaning of Hamlet’s delay is also to grapple with such critical issues as the relationship between private vengeance and the law and the ethical meaning of violence in any codified legal system. This article thus surveys several representative readings of the Hamlet’s “problem” in an effort to outline how the contemporary legal community has engaged the deepest legal and ethical questions residing at the center of Shakespeare’s play.