Bokelskere.no

If we were to provide a Jingle-like anatomy of Hamlet's changing passions, it would read something like this. In turn Hamlet displays himself as ironic, sincere, obedient, despairing, disgusted, welcoming, questioning, disgusted, speculative, impetuous, angry, scholarly, antic, jocular, actorish, despairing, of mimic disposition, sarcastic, welcoming, speculative, despairing, exuberant, self-punishing, changeable (very), confused, contemptuous, actorish, courteous, playful, threatening, hesitant, fierce, scornful, rhetorical, bewildered, soul-searching, macabre, furious, mocking, stoical, parodic and resigned. It has become well known as a part to challenge actors (...).

Of course scholars of a later age have detected in Shakespeare's plays a subtlety of theme and intention that may well have escaped Elizabethan audiences. But it may be asked whether these are the inventions of the scholars rather than the dramatist.