This is a historicist study of Shakespeare's most famous and enigmatic play. It is concerned with identity, time and power in Hamlet and the question of aesthetic form in realtion to all these. The author takes a fresh look at a Renaissance hero who exists, oddly, on the margins of his play - and yet is condemed to be its hero. It frames the question that lies, implicitly, at the heart of Hamlet and in, in some strange way, constitutes its tragedy: what is a play if not playacting?