Hamlet (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853260096 ISBN 13: 9781853260094

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1992

Synopsis

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.

The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The Textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal.

Hamlet is not only one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, but also the most fascinatingly problematical tragedy in world literature.

First performed around 1600, this a gripping and exuberant drama of revenge, rich in contrasts and conflicts. Its violence alternates with introspection, its melancholy with humour, and its subtlety with spectacle. The Prince, Hamlet himself, is depicted as a complex, divided, introspective character. His reflections on death, morality and the very status of human beings make him ‘the first modern man’.

Countless stage productions and numerous adaptations for the cinema and television have demonstrated the continuing cultural relevance of this vivid, enigmatic, profound and engrossing drama.

About this title

About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England's Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare's working life was spent in the theatre world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theatre and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

From the Back Cover

Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, is urged by his father's ghost to avenge his murder by his wife and his brother who has seized the throne.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853260096
• ISBN 13: 9781853260094
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Watts M.A. Ph.D. Professor Cedric