Hamlet is the most problematic play ever written. Inconsistencies arise from the variousness of its medieval and Renaissance sources; from discrepancies between printed versions of Shakespeare's drama; and from a host of unresolved thematic and psychological problems, such as the famous question of why the Prince delays his revenge. Hence the endless interpreting of the play. Yet interpretation is not simply a matter for scholars and critics. The Prince and virtually every other main character indulges in it. Shakespeare, in giving interpretation this significance, bad to develop previous versions of the story. So when one considers the issue of interpretation in the play one is also examining a prime example of how texts undergo alteration from period to period. Specifically, there are two influences on the metamorphosis of Hamlet: the intellectual climate in which it was written and the nature of the sixteenth-century political world. Together, they put at Shakespeare's disposal transformations of his inherited versions that are highly revealing of his creative processes. Shakespeare gives important dramatic voice to a newly emergent form of Europe's early modern self. **********
