Hamlet by Shakespeare: Act by Act Summary

Table of Contents Act I – Shadows on the Battlements Act II – Madness and Spies Act III – The Play’s the Thing Act IV – Blood and Madness Act V – The Final Reckoning Info! An engaging act-by-act summary of William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark . Written to feel like a story, not a dry outline. Act I – Shadows on the Battlements M idnight. The air is sharp with cold on the high stone platform of Elsinore Castle. Two nervous sentinels, Barnardo and Francisco, change the watch. Marcellus arrives with the skeptical scholar Horatio. They have seen something that freezes the blood — a ghost in full armor, the very image of the dead King Hamlet. When the pale figure appears again, it will not speak. Horatio, shaken at last, agrees they must tell the prince. Inside the castle the mood is very different. King Claudius, the dead king’s brother, sits on the throne beside Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, whom he has married with almost indecent haste. The court celebrates. Claudi…