At the core of all tragedies is "the conflict of the hero or heroine against overwhelming odds, a conflict that ends in catastrophe" (Cahn 1). Naturally, Shakespearean tragedies revolve around this essential conflict, but they also have their own set of principles unique to Shakespearean drama. William Shakespeare's revenge tragedy, Hamlet, presents young Prince Hamlet of Denmark with the daunting task of avenging his father's murder. While differing slightly from Shakespeare's other classic revenge tragedies, Hamlet still obeys long accepted standards for the classic tragedy and its tragic hero.

The ideal Greek drama was defined by Aristotle as obeying three unites: time, place, and action. In his Poetics, he "offered a set of working rules for the writing of tragedy" (Di Yanni 29). Over the years, various Shakespearean scholars have built on Aristotle's rules and developed other standards unique to classic Shakespearean tragedy. A.C. Bradley examines the construction in...