In the final act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet the northern prince stumbles upon the grave of Ophelia, leaps in, and declares himself to the funeral goers: “This is I, Hamlet the Dane” (V.1, 270). By calling himself the Dane, Hamlet seems to identify himself as the rightful king of Denmark—as though the grave, in particular, is his sovereign territory. The grave itself was dug by a sexton who took up his profession “on the very day that young Hamlet was born” (V.1, 152), which also happens to be the day “our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras” (V.1, 148), seizing the Norwegian lands of the latter. This acquisition is familiar to us from the beginning of the play because the ghost of the former king has appeared “in the very armor he had on/When he the ambitious Norway combated” (I.1, 71 - 72). And the appearance of this ghost has set off a chain of events resulting in the death of the woman into whose grave Hamlet leaps. In this lecture, I will attempt to understand this strange scene. Why is it here, in a grave with such uncanny ties to his own birth, the ghost of his father, and the ultimate fate of Denmark that Hamlet asserts his sovereign rights? Hamlet cries, “This is I, Hamlet the Dane,” but what, in short, does he mean by the word ‘this’?

📷: John Everett Millais, "Ophelia" (1851) | via Wikimedia Commons