Typically, love is not one of the most important points in Hamlet, compared to the other questions of parents and children, identity, and the existential questions contained most notably in the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. However, the play is so incredibly complex and tightly written that it tends to illuminate most issues concerning humanity.
Love between parents and children is important, and Hamlet's duty to his father and his disappointment in his mother's remarriage begin the play. That said, Ophelia and Hamlet are the most significant focal point for love. This relationship is often overlooked and overwhelmed by the revenge plot, but Ophelia is becoming increasingly important in how we look at this play. Hamlet is as tormented by his inability to grasp the meaning of his romantic love as he is by the demands of parentage. We learn that he had written a rather bad but sweet poem to Ophelia:
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
This poem captures the epistemological questions the play examines elsewhere. Against the questions that might be worthy of debate, Hamlet's love is most trustworthy, yet it changes, as does Ophelia's seem to when she returns his "tenders."
Ultimately, Shakespeare reminds us over and over again, that despite our intense desire to know that we are loved by another, we cannot have that knowledge. It will always have to be taken on faith, rendering us vulnerable. Eventually, Ophelia's death, as well as the events of his trip to England and confrontation with Yorick's mortality, brings Hamlet to a recognition that at some point, we must trust in forces beyond our control and "let be."
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