Hamlet's Age

It has been inferred from the grave-diggers that Hamlet's age is thirty. Most of the critics in fact agree with it. A.C.Bradley remarks that these statements "show him to be exactly thirty, unless these statements appear to be casual. But they have to my mind, on the contrary, appear of being expressly inserted in order to fix Hamlet's age"

The celebrated critic's arguments in favour of the same are the following:

1) The grave- digger came to his business on the day when old Hamlet defeated Fortinbras.

2) On that day young Hamlet was born.

3) The grave-digger at the time of speaking has been sexton for 30 years.

4) Yorick's skull has been in the earth twenty-three years.

5) Yorick used to carry young Hamlet on his back.

On the contrary, Shakespeare did not insert them to fix hamlet's age. Rather, they have been inserted to show Horatio's comment on the indifference of the grave-digger at corpses and graves; and to show his seniority. Usually people remember things only by connecting it to other things and hence the reference to the day when Old Hamlet defeated Fortinbras. The calculation of the age of Yorick's skull is indispensable as it provides the motivation.

Shakespeare never wanted to pinpoint Hamlet's age. We can easily comprehend the same from the differing references to his age:

1) He is referred to several times as 'young', apart from being called 'young' to distinguish himself from his father.

2) In some passages there is an air of boyish petulance.

3) The language used by Laertes and Polonius to Ophelia in Act I, Scene III would lead to think that he was less than thirty.

4) The maturity of Hamlet's thought in the soliloquies.

5) His mode of behavior to men and his mother which is far from suggesting that he is a youth.

6) The fact that the player-king speaks of being married for forty years shows that here too the writer does not have any reference to Hamlet's age in mind.

7) A passage to horatio in which he indicates that both of them have seen a great deal of life