I read it as a political drama on usurpation and on the legitimacy of power. Fortinbras saving Denmark as it were from the family war reminds me of the war of the two Roses; and because of Denmark itself, as a reminder of James' wife, probably indicates that the Stuart power is saving England from the destruction promised to a monarchy with no heir left.

Hi. What an author wants to say in a work is secondary to what he really says. A work is a product of the ideology of the moment that it was produced, taking ideology as meant in social sciences. A great work can be approached from different angles and different critical theories. I would suggest Terry Eagleton's Criticism and ideology (2006); for a semiotic approach you could use A.J. Greimas, On Meaning: selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. Although these works are narrative oriented you can extrapolate them to drama with success. For more theoretical analysis you can consult Raman Selden, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, plus the latest edition of Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide.

In Indian medical system - a sage had said "there is no root that is not a medicine" - of course we have to experiment with them to find out what they cure in the same manner written words - howsoever are they written - have some meaning. It is for us to find out what they teach or what moral is there in them. Vinoba Bhave - a well know saintly person in India - said - One should read a text with an open and appreciative heart. - We call it - Sahriday Vaachak - a reader with lots of compassion.

Hamlet is, therefore, a wonderful work of art with potential of having many interpretations - including Moral one

Apart from Political play we certainly find human behaviour and attitude of people. People are opportunistic. It is clear from the characters of the Mother and and his uncle. Morals from polonious all show us how careful we must be in life. All these characters are fictious but they are very much alive in the socieity along with you . May be the time may change but the human attitude is alwasy oppertunistic. This truth is obvious in "HAMLET"

why not! any literary work may contain some moral especially the classic works. Hamlet can be read as a work presenting moral codes of the time as well as universal morals. however one should not be very obsessed with the idea of moral lessons of the work since it was not written to teach us but make us enjoy and think. one can learn a lot from the book which one can be some moral.

I think that Shakespearean audience need urgently to connect the text with the context; namely, they have to make a sort of relationship between the Elizabethan age and its dramatic products to get an answer.

Though Shakespeare was criticized for lacking a moral vision in his plays by Samuel Johnson, one can also see the moral message clearly in the play. Shakespeare somehow justified Hamlet's lack of action, because he is put in a moral dilemma, while a young person who lacks experience.  I think the moral vision is clear in Hamlet's struggle to solve the mystery of his father's murder, because he is put in a difficult task to fulfill his filial duty toward his father.

Although I doubt that Shakespeare would devote his works to issues of morality--but there is no mistaking in any of the tragedies the moral dimension present. Elizabethan ethics dominate Shakespeare's plays--those ethics generally involved the human use of reason/understanding/will (all parts of the upper faculties that separate humans from beats). I am speaking here of the ethics of the time (not my own view).  But moral issues provide some of our greatest dilemmas and most profound demands made upon both our psyches and our subsequent decisions.  Hamlet, like any good piece of literature, can be read on many levels with many points of contrast and comparison.

Frequently, the tragedies deal with kingship and the obligations of rule.  King Lear, whom daughter Regan speaks about, "He knows not himself" has violated a major Elizabethan ethic--to know oneself is paramount.  But Lear violates the rules of kingship in Elizabeth's time--he abdicates the throne but still wants the respect due to the monarch.  Well, he can't have both.  His understanding also fails in that he reads his daughters completely wrong--and Cordelia and eventually Lear pay the ultimate price for Lear's failures of understanding--both of kingship, himself, and those closest to him. 

Hamlet and Macbeth also deal with the murder of a legitimate, ordained monarch--a situation second only to "killing God," since the monarch was ordained by God to rule on earth as God ruled in heaven. In her own life, Elizabeth waited for many years before finally ordering the execution of Mary Queen of Scots--because she knew that (1) Mary had a legitimate claim to the throne of England; (2) Mary was an ordained ruler since the age of five.  One does not go around killing ordained rulers.  And as Harith points out, the young, inexperienced Hamlet doesn't know how to exact revenge upon his father's killers--his filial obligation in this time. He is angry that his mother has been a part of that great betrayal, but he also loves his mother and has been a good son. That increases the level of his moral questioning and doubt. 

Shakespeare is just one of those writers who is read and studied best on multiple levels, depending on the  age group who comprise your student population.  That is why in the U.S., high school students usually start with Romeo & Juliet (a good love story with a bad ending) and then Macbeth (witches, the occult, things students enjoy).  But by the time they read Macbeth, they are usually in high school and are able to look more seriously at the other important issues.  I use Othello in my core curriculum, literature classes because as my undergrad director told me years ago when I couldn't decide which tragedy to teach, "In Othello, you have race, sex, and violence. What more could you want?" (Please, remember that I am talking about the U.S. and not any other place or time).  King Lear with its complex sub-plot and range of characters is just too much for the core and younger college students.  But for a 300-400 level English major, King Lear is perfect.

There are two pieces of writing in English literature which are so complex that the critics are still trying, even after the lapse of centuries, to find their real import. These include firstly Shakespeare's Hamlet and secondly Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. There is a sizable section of critics premising that the so-called Shakespearean plays, including Hamlet, were actually the child of someone else's brain, maybe Francis Bacon. Regardless of this controversy, even if Shakespeare wrote these plays, he produced them as stage plays to make a living, as the contemporary events and biographical details reveal and, for so many years even after his death, they were no more than closet plays and were not acknowledged as masterpieces of literature. In none of his plays, Shakespeare created an original story and Hamlet is no exception. But what distinguishes Hamlet is Shakespeare's style. Hamlet is modern and universal, i.e. true to all ages and true to all places, not because of its moral outlook but because it represents an essential and inevitable human condition of procrastination or indiscriminate delay. It does not teach anything, neither does it offer any solutions to our problems; it just makes us aware of our fated helplessness under peculiar circumstances. It simply tells us that there are certain things in life about which we can't do anything. Fate is primeval and predominant and no one can avoid his destiny. Every Shakespearean tragic hero can see the tragedy awaiting him and the way he is consciously heading towards his fate makes his an ideal tragic protagonist. The beauty of the play lies in the nobility and grandeur of its tragedy and the hero's wilful acceptance of his fate. There is no other man-produced book in human history that contains so much moral than this treatise enjoys, still moral is not the objective of this book; the ultimate goal is the awareness of the volume of human tragedy caused by fate and its acceptance by the protagonist in which lies the nobility of his character.   

I think it depends on the reader's point of view. The morality depends on the attitude of the reader. According to me we can study Hamlet study as a moral drama to point out how not to be immoral.

I think that readers should be mindful of the Pagan and Christian discourses of revenge enacted in the play. While Shakespeare condemns the former, he condones and justifies the latter. I wrote an article on sacrifice on Hamlet, arguing that Hamlet is a witness / martyr. See, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00144940.2020.1794770?src=recsys