Why Claudius is King? When at the beginning of Act I scene ii of Hamlet we find that Claudius, and not young Hamlet is king of Denmark, we are surprised. Part of this surprise comes from our anticipation that the son of the old king should be the natural heir to the throne. Shakespeare takes advantage of this expectation by naming his prince 'Hamlet'. So when, after encountering the ghost, Horatio and the others decide to "impart what we have seen tonight/Unto young Hamlet" (I, i,185), we are expecting to meet a young king and not the elder Claudius. Why old Hamlet did not name his son as successor is not clear, but that he could have is shown strikingly when Claudius makes "the world take note" that Hamlet "is most immediate" to his throne (I, ii, 115). This, coupled with the fact that Hamlet was at Wittenberg when his father died, are the two....

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