Hamlet: Complete Authoritative Text: Complete, Authoritative Text With Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five ... (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312055447 ISBN 13: 9780312055448

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 1993

Synopsis

Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, Bedford/St. Martin's innovative Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series has introduced more than a quarter of a million students to literary theory and earned enthusiastic praise nationwide. Along with an authoritative text of a major literary work, each volume presents critical essays, selected or prepared especially for students, that approach the work from several contemporary critical perspectives, such as gender criticism and cultural studies. Each essay is accompanied by an introduction (with bibliography) to the history, principles, and practice of its critical perspective. Every volume also surveys the biographical, historical, and critical contexts of the literary work and concludes with a glossary of critical terms. New editions reprint cultural documents that contextualize the literary works and feature essays that show how critical perspectives can be combined.

About this title

Review

Undoubtedly the most famous of all of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet remains one of the most enduring but also enigmatic pieces of western literature. The story of Hamlet, the young Prince of Denmark, his tortured relationship with his mother, and his quest to avenge his father's murder at the hand of his brother Claudius has fascinated writers and audiences ever since it was written around 1600.

For many years interest focused on both Hamlet's inability to avenge his father's death, claiming that "the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought", and, according to none other than Freud, his oedipal fixation with his mother. However, more recently critics have turned their attention to Hamlet's bold theatrical self-reflexivity (most famously reflected in the performance of "The Mousetrap"), its fascination with issues of theology and Renaissance humanism, and its dense, complex poetic language. What is so remarkable about the play is the way in which it tends to uncannily reflect the concerns of different epochs. As a result, Hamlet has been at different moments defined as a romantic rebel, an angst-ridden existentialist, a paralysed intellectual and an ambivalent New Man. Whatever subsequent generations make of Hamlet, they are unlikely to exhaust the possibilities of this most extraordinary play. --Jerry Brotton

Review

Praise for "William Shakespeare: Complete Works: " A feast of literary and historical information. "-The Wall Street Journal""

"Gorgeous new Shakespeare paperbacks."
--Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312055447
• ISBN 13: 9780312055448
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 430
• Editor: Wofford Susan Lindgren