Shakespeare wrote the standard revenge play, but in an entirely new form. Revenge tragedy was hugely popular in Shakespeare's day. The revenge play revolved around a hero who was bound to avenge a wrong. Like their models in the Roman tragedy of Seneca, the heroes and villains were dramatically mad, melancholy, violent. The plays were graphic, bloody. Shakespeare, being an original thinker, placed refinements in his work, creating new tensions and increasing some of the old questions.
Were the play a true revenge play, Hamlet would act sooner. He would dispatch the King at the start, with the rest of the play elaborating upon what transpires after Claudius' death. By not acting more promptly, Hamlet leaves us pondering his true motivation. Hamlet has every opportunity to kill the unguarded king, yet Claudius lives. Shakespeare's Hamlet's obstacles are not physical, and within this fact lies the first rub for critics and interpreters. Hamlet's actual obstacles depend largely on the culture from which the interpreter comes; obstacles that seem obvious to modern readers/audiences never occurred to readers/audiences of the 16th century.
The fact that people need CliffsNotes to understand Shakespeare's work would undoubtedly appall him. Shakespeare wrote for a popular, vibrant theater that attracted people because of its energy and its raw entertainment value. The same audience who attended bearbaiting or public executions went to see Shakespeare's plays. They were not a highbrow crowd; they just wanted to hear a protagonist agonize with pretty words and sexual innuendo over the human dilemma, and they went to see blood and destruction manifest on stage.
