A Prequel to Hamlet

[Qa'im]

Salaam alaykum. Not strictly Islam-related, but I have completed a new book that might interest the arts people here. 

“A Prequel to Hamlet”

Set in the years before Hamlet, this prequel delves into the intricate webs of ambition, love, and betrayal that set the stage for Shakespeare’s tragedy. King Hamlet, a valiant warrior and loving father, defends Denmark from the prideful King Fortinbras of Norway. Prince Hamlet navigates budding love for Ophelia, loyalty to his father, and early signs of existential doubt. Meanwhile, Claudius’s cunning ambition festers, as he contemplates fratricide to seize the throne and Gertrude’s heart. Written in iambic pentameter in Late Modern English, this play explores the destructive collision of lofty goals and their hollow realities.

Every year, I teach Shakespeare’s Hamlet to curious teenagers.

While some feel that Shakespeare’s work is too antique, too dense, and perhaps too pretentious for today’s youth, I strongly think otherwise: Shakespeare’s plays have lost little value if at all. They are not just important due to historical literacy or philology. They are important because their themes are universal – greed, jealousy, loss, love, madness – these are as relevant to the human experience today as they were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An international student from China can relate to these plays just as well as an English lord from the Victorian era. If anything, young people are more keen on understanding Shakespeare’s nuanced characters, because they are mature enough to understand that the world is not black-and-white, that some of their peers are two-faced, and that their hearts house both good and evil. For these reasons, their young eyes can appreciate the conflicts and themes of Shakespeare.

As I taught Shakespeare’s Hamlet year after year, I was impressed with how developed its characters were from the first Act. I often wondered what Prince Hamlet would have been like prior to the play: before the tragic loss of his father, and before the untimely marriage of his mother to his uncle. The original play introduces us to a broken and depressed prince, already in the middle of his love story with Ophelia, already the apple of Horatio’s eye, well-liked in Denmark and taking a break from his studies at Wittenberg. We are also briefly introduced to a resolute Prince Fortinbras and his sickly uncle, after what seems to have been a war between Denmark and Norway that resulted in the death of King Fortinbras. Hence, the idea of a Hamlet prequel was born.

In this play, I mirrored some of the themes of the original play. I explored the relationships and conflicts between the existing characters, and I created some characters of my own. I tried to be faithful to the iambic pentameter in most places, and I wrote in a broadly Late Modern English style. Along with the King James Bible, Shakespeare’s work was the nucleus of modern English. The two ossified the English language until it became today’s lingua franca. The more these works are discarded, the more English goes into free-fall, changing beyond recognition after a few generations. As Shakespeare unwittingly stabilized a language, he purposefully tried to warn us of the dangers of unbridled passion. In that sense, there is a great deal of moral literacy gained from these works as well.

As Robert Frost inimitably wrote:

Some say the world will end in fire

Some say in ice

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire

But if it had to perish twice

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

I pray that you enjoy reading this play as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Available now in paperback and Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPQ783PX?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520

[Hameedeh]

On 12/7/2024 at 3:21 PM, Qa'im said:

Salaam alaykum. Not strictly Islam-related, but I have completed a new book that might interest the arts people here. 

Salam, Brother. Thank you for writing “A Prequel to Hamlet”.

On 12/7/2024 at 3:21 PM, Qa'im said:

I pray that you enjoy reading this play as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Available now in paperback and Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPQ783PX?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520

My bachelor degree at university was in teaching English (grammar, literature, linguistics), so I always appreciate your topics, but what you wrote above was so enjoyable that it made me want to read "A Prequel to Hamlet". At the link, I was reading the pages that are available, including the front and back cover. I wish everyone (faculty, staff and students) could read what you have written. 

[Qa'im]

14 hours ago, Hameedeh said:

My bachelor degree at university was in teaching English (grammar, literature, linguistics), so I always appreciate your topics, but what you wrote above was so enjoyable that it made me want to read "A Prequel to Hamlet". At the link, I was reading the pages that are available, including the front and back cover. I wish everyone (faculty, staff and students) could read what you have written. 

Thank you! I hope you get a chance to read the play so you can let us know what you think.