Hamlet, the MelancholicShakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet, features the most famous protagonist in English literature: Hamlet. Inseparable from his character is the melancholy which constantly afflicted him. This essay focuses on this aspect of Hamlet. Harry Levin explains the choices available to the melancholy hero in the general introduction to The Riverside Shakespeare: The Explanation of Hamlet, “What a work a man is! (II.ii.303), has an ironic reverberation. His melancholy gaze looks from top to bottom: towards the sky towards “this brave overhanging firmament” and towards the earth towards the grave. These two portraits that he shows to the Queen illustrate man's possibilities for good and evil. The ladder rises or falls with the spiritual and carnal aspects of its dual nature; he can aspire to be a divine Hyperion or crawl like a brutal satyr. Hamlet's existential dilemma echoes Montaigne's questions, not only through the language of John Florio's translation but in its ambiguous balance between skepticism and faith.(8) Hamlet's melancholy did not prevent him from choose the noblest of the available options. But let's start at the beginning: it is obvious that from the beginning of this tragedy there is a melancholy protagonist. And the depressing aspect of the drama's initial imagery tends to emphasize and reinforce Hamlet's melancholy. Marchette Chute in "The Story Told in Hamlet" describes some images from the opening scene: The story opens in the cold and darkness of a winter night in Denmark, as the guard is changed on the battlements of the royal castle of Elsinore. . For two nights in a row, just as the bell rings middle of paper......Greenhaven Press, 1996. Excerpt from Shakespeare's Women. Np: np, 1981. Rosenberg, Marvin. “Laertes: an impulsive but serious young aristocrat.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Masks of Hamlet. Newark, NJ: Univ. by Delaware Press, 1992. Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.htmlWest, Rebecca. “A Court and a world infected by the disease of corruption.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. of The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957. Wilkie, Brian and James Hurt. “Shakespeare.” Literature of the Western world. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co..., 1992.