Zero to Well-Read – Hamlet by William Shakespeare (October 21, 2025)

Podcast: Zero to Well-Read
Hosts: Jeff O'Neal & Rebecca Schinsky
Episode Theme: A spirited, irreverent deep-dive into Hamlet—what it’s about, what makes it important, how to approach reading it, and why it continues to resonate.

Overview

This episode tackles the colossal literary titan that is Hamlet. Hosts Jeff and Rebecca break down the difficulties and pleasures of approaching Shakespeare today, frame the play’s place in literary history, dissect its structure and enduring appeal, and offer practical tips for readers and watchers alike. The goal: give newcomers “hooks to hold onto,” and inspire both beginners and seasoned readers to revisit the play. True to Zero to Well-Read’s spirit, it’s equal parts English seminar, cocktail party, and nerdy book club—with riffs, jokes, and hot takes galore.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge (and Joy) of Approaching Hamlet

• Ambition & Apprehension:
  • “It feels like trying to eat an elephant.” (Jeff, 01:46)
  • “It is an impossible task. You can't sum up Shakespeare in one podcast episode.” (Rebecca, 02:36)
• The weight of history and language is intimidating, but also part of the pleasure.

2. Practical Tips: How to Read/Experience Hamlet

• Let it Wash Over You:
  • “It's about the vibe, it's about the ideas of the play.” (Rebecca, 05:56)
• Don’t Stress Over Every Word:
  • “I don't need to look up every word that I don't understand here because you can get the context.” (Rebecca, 05:56)
• Try Audio Dramatizations or Stage Performances:
  • Full-cast audio performances can unlock the play (Rebecca recommends the free Spotify Modern Shakespeare edition, 3.5 hours) (08:32)
  • “You can hear the cadence, you can hear the tone, though the actors have done the interpretive work...” (Rebecca, 09:21)
• Reading Aloud Helps:
  • “If you get stuck, read it out loud to yourself or to whoever is around your house with you.” (Rebecca, 47:44)
• Adaptations and Side-by-Side Editions:
  • No Fear Shakespeare and annotated editions help decode language (69:00)

3. Context & Canon: What Is Hamlet?

• A Secular Scripture:
  • “This is secular scripture when it comes to the Western intellectual tradition outside of the Bible, this is the first and greatest secular scripture in the Western canon.” (Jeff, 14:24)
• Multiple Versions, No Single ‘Hamlet’:
  • “There is no agreed upon. This is the real thing.” (Jeff, 07:21)
• Fuzzy Authorship & Legacy:
  • “It's amazing, Rebecca, that we don't even know what Hamlet is…It's a fuzzy business for being a monument.” (Jeff, 13:54)
  • Extended riff on anti-Stratfordian theories and why Shakespeare likely really was Shakespeare (29:05–34:35)
• Why Is Shakespeare ‘Great’?
  • Some of it is tradition, but: “If you teach texts from classical antiquity…the characters do not feel modern…[Shakespeare's] tend to feel recognizable as characters. They have flaws…inner lives. They don’t map neatly onto archetypes.” (Jeff, 38:49)

4. Plot Basics: Hamlet in a Nutshell (22:43–24:00)

• Rebecca’s Quick Summary:
  • King of Denmark has been murdered.
  • Queen Gertrude marries deceased king's brother, Claudius.
  • Hamlet learns from ghost of his father that Claudius killed him; vows revenge.
  • Chaos ensues—accidental killings, poisoned sword fight, poisoned goblet, Ophelia’s suicide.
  • Nearly everyone ends up dead.

5. Why Hamlet Resonates: Humanity, Complexity, Questions

• Modern Psychology:
  • “Ophelia…is so real. We’re still telling those kinds of stories now.” (Rebecca, 39:58)
• Interior Life & Soliloquies:
  • “Shakespeare did not invent the soliloquy or monologue, but he did. Perfect it…The soliloquy as a place for the character to work out how they're feeling to articulate the complexity of what's going on inside is new.” (Jeff, 41:52)
  • Connection from Shakespeare’s soliloquies to contemporary inner-monologue in theater, songs, movies (43:47)
• Limits of Understanding:
  • “The play itself is about the limits of understanding. Right. The play itself is about what's beyond death. What is the right way to do this thing? … Because as I say here in the notes, the word question itself appears 17 times in the play.” (Jeff, 56:02)
• Investigation, Not Indecision:
  • “I answer with this: Does that really hold up? He does not immediately kill Claudius. True. But what he does is he conducts a moral investigation of Elsinore.” (Jeff, 65:08)
• Essential, Unanswerable Questions:
  • “All of the immortal questions: What is the good life? What do I owe my neighbor? How do I know what I know? Is this all there is? How to deal with the certainty of death?” (Rebecca, 70:43)

6. Enduring Influence & The Language of Hamlet

• Cultural Impact: Quotes & References (74:32)
  • “Frailty, thy name is woman.”
  • “To thine own self be true.”
  • “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
  • “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
  • “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
  • “Alas, poor Yorick.”
  • “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
  • “There’s the rub.”
  • “What dreams may come.”
• Modern Spin-Offs:
  • "The Lion King" as an adaptation.
  • Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
  • “Taylor Swift’s ‘Fate of Ophelia’,” (78:13)
• Sampling in Culture:
  • “If you like listening to music and being like, ‘oh, I know the song they’re sampling’…so much modern literature is sampling from Shakespeare…” (Rebecca, 51:02)

7. Irreverence, Fun, Accessibility

• Bawdy, Not Snobby:
  • “Shakespeare is actually not snobby…there’s a lot of bodiness…There are dirty jokes…they’re having a good time.” (Rebecca, 78:39)
• Accessible to Many Levels:
  • “You could be an educated person…Or…I just want a good story…those exist in a sweet spot…” (Rebecca, 33:39)
• Hamlet as the Eternal Emo Boy:
  • “You want to tell your friends Hamlet's the first sad emo boy, that's not the worst way of understanding this.” (Jeff, 67:13)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Challenge of Summarizing Hamlet:
  • “We're not worthy. The little Wayne's World here, like this is where I am with this.”
    — Jeff, 02:26
• On the Pleasure of Struggle:
  • “The weight of history, the weight of the art, the weight of the craft, the weight of the ideas are so overwhelming. And that's part of the pleasure. Maybe that's the thing to say.”
    — Jeff, 04:00
• On Multiple Versions:
  • “There is no Hamlet, right? There is no agreed upon. This is the real thing.”
    — Jeff, 07:21
• On the Joy of Audio:
  • “You can hear the cadence, you can hear the tone, though the actors have done the interpretive work of what emotion should this word or this phrase convey that we can't get very easily because so much of the language is unfamiliar.”
    — Rebecca, 09:21
• Soliloquy as Modern Interior Monologue:
  • “Anytime you hear a voiceover in a movie or you listen to a pop song that’s told from a point of view…They all flow from a character speaking to us directly about what’s going on inside. Especially, you know, musical theaters are…maybe the best extent.”
    — Jeff, 43:47
• Favorite Language Moment:
  • “Do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me. You cannot play upon me.”
    — Jeff quoting Hamlet, 46:03
• On Enduring Mystery:
  • “The play feels then inexhaustible because I can never get my hand around it.”
    — Jeff, 54:14
• On Shakespeare’s Universality:
  • “If you can at least appreciate this. I really don't know to talk to you about art.”
    — Jeff, 79:27

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro & context: 01:27–04:00
• How to approach reading Hamlet: 05:56–10:05
• The canon and “secular scripture”: 13:34–15:26
• Plot summary: 22:43–24:00
• Why Hamlet’s important, themes, and accessibility: 38:49–50:12
• The soliloquy & psychology: 41:52–43:47
• Language, quotes, and cultural impact: 74:32–77:50
• Recommended approaches (editions, performance, translations): 69:00–70:13

Segment Highlights

[22:43] – Quick Plot Summary (Rebecca)

“The king of Denmark has been dead for a couple of months. His son, Hamlet… furious that his mother…has already gotten married…The ghost of the dead king appears…reveals…he was murdered…Hamlet vows to avenge…chaos ensues…By the end, everyone is dead…”

[41:52] – On Soliloquy and Character Interior

“The soliloquy as a place for the character to work out how they're feeling…is new.”

[46:03] – Language Fireworks

“Do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe?...You cannot play upon me.”

[74:45] – Ubiquitous Phrases from Hamlet (Rebecca)

“Frailty, thy name is woman… This above all, to thine own self be true… Brevity is the soul of wit… Though this be madness, yet there is method in it… The lady doth protest too much, methinks… Alas, poor Yorick… To be or not to be…”

Fun & Quirky Moments

Muppet Hamlet

• Would Hamlet work as a Muppet adaptation? (82:10)
  • Adam Driver as Hamlet, the only human; rest are Muppets.
  • “I love the idea of Adam Driver…talking trash to all these Muppets about how stupid they are.” (Jeff, 83:47)

Intrusive Thoughts

• Jeff: “Why do I read anything else?” (52:19)
• Rebecca: “Hamlet is very emo…You want to tell your friends Hamlet's the first sad emo boy, that's not the worst way of understanding this.” (67:13)

Zero to Well-Read Scorecard

| Category | Score (out of 10) | Comments | |-----------------------|-------------------|----------------------------------------| | Historical Importance | 10 | “Only 3-4 tens: Bible, Iliad, Odyssey, Hamlet.” | | Readability | 6 | “It’s not snobby, but it’s arcane.” | | Current Relevance | 10 | “These questions are return-to-earth forever 10.” | | Essential Questions | 10 | “The immortal questions are all here.” | | Book Nerd Credit | 10 | “Peak nerd read.” | | O Damn Factor | 10 | “The fireworks of the language, the impact.”| | Total | 46 / 50 | Highest possible category for a work of art |

Recommendations & Takeaways

• Don’t be intimidated—nobody “gets” all of Shakespeare on the first, second, or third encounter.
• Use audio, performance, or modern translation to help.
• Seek out live performances wherever possible.
• Appreciate that Hamlet is a “crowd pleaser”—violent, funny, emotional, philosophical—all at once.
• Recognize its infinite sampling in modern literature, film, even music.

Cocktail Party Crib Sheet

• Even Shakespeare’s authorship is debated (the "anti-Stratfordians"), but evidence points to him being real—just unusually talented (29:05).
• Hamlet likely exists in multiple forms; no single “original text” (13:34).
• Shakespeare probably played the ghost and/or Player King.
• Daniel Day-Lewis once quit a stage Hamlet after seeing his father’s ghost on stage (81:01).
• The play is endlessly adapted: The Lion King is a Hamlet retelling.

Final Word

If you care about books, literature, or just want to understand basic references in pop culture, Hamlet is foundational. As Rebecca says:

“If you want to engage with modern literature…this is so foundational…liking it is beside the point…It’s not about your enjoyment…it’s about what they do, what they mean in the body of literature at large.” (80:08)

This episode is a perfect guide to “just trying it”—permission to not understand everything, to enjoy the language, and to recognize the magnitude and flexibility of one of the great works of all time.