Using a variety of approaches, from postcolonialism and New Historicism to psychoanalysis and gender studies, the international contributors to Hamlet: New Critical Essays contribute major new interpretations on the conception and writing, editing, and cultural productions of Hamlet. This book is the most up-to-date and comprehensive critical analysis available of one of Shakespeare's best-known and most engaging plays.

A comprehensive collection of the best writing about this Shakespearian play, both as dramatic literature and theatrical performance, this book is an excellent resource companion to the text. This collected wisdom was originally published in 1986. It contains pieces of commentary from as far back as the late 18th Century but also highly acclaimed critical pieces from more recent years, organised into six general themes.

Critical essays about William Shakespeare's "Hamlet".

Edited by Joseph Pearce Contributors to this volume: Crystal Downing Anthony Esolen Gene Fendt Richard Harp Joseph Pearce Andrew Moran Jim Scott Orrick R.V. Young Arguably Shakespeare's finest and most important play, Hamlet is also one of the most misunderstood masterpieces of world literature. ""To be or not to be"", may be the question, but the answer has eluded many generations of critics. What does it mean ""to be""? And is everything as it seems to be? These are the questions that are asked and answered in the introduction by Joseph Pearce, author of The Quest for Shakespeare, and in the tradition-oriented critical essays by leading Shakespeare scholars that can be found in this groundbreaking edition of Shakespeare's masterpiece. To see or not to see, that is the question. The Ignatius Critical Edition of Hamlet will help many people truly see the play and its deepest meaning in a new and surprising light. The Ignatius Critical Editions represent a tradition-oriented alternative to popular textbook series such as the Norton Critical Editions or Oxford World Classics, and are designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature. Whereas many modern critical editions have succumbed to the fads of modernism and post-modernism, this series will concentrate on tradition-oriented criticism of these great works. Edited by acclaimed literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, the Ignatius Critical Editions will ensure that traditional moral readings of the works are given prominence, instead of the feminist, or deconstructionist readings that often proliferate in other series of 'critical editions'. As such, they represent a genuine extension of consumer-choice, enabling educators, students and lovers of good literature to buy editions of classic literary works without having to 'buy into' the ideologies of secular fundamentalism. The series is particularly aimed at tradition-minded literature professors offering them an alternative for their students. The initial list will have about 15 - 20 titles. The goal is to release three books a season, or six in a year.

A comprehensive collection of the best writing about this Shakespearian play, both as dramatic literature and theatrical performance, this book is an excellent resource companion to the text. This collected wisdom was originally published in 1986. It contains pieces of commentary from as far back as the late 18th Century but also highly acclaimed critical pieces from more recent years, organised into six general themes.

A study tracing the impact and evolution of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

'Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness' is a radical new interpretation of the most famous play in the English language. By exploring Shakespeare's engagements with the humanist traditions of early modern England and Europe, Rhodri Lewis reveals a 'Hamlet' unseen for centuries: an innovative, coherent, and exhilaratingly bleak tragedy in which the governing ideologies of Shakespeare's age are scrupulously upended.

"A collection of thematically related essays on a variety of works by Shakespeare"--P. 11.

A collection that includes a lengthy introduction describing historical trends in critical interpretations and theatrical performances of Shakespeare's play; 20 essays on the play, including two written especially for this volume (by Maurice Hunt and David Bergeron).

In these Shakespearean essays originally published together in 1979, the distinguished literary critic L. C. Knights offers the fruits of his long-term thinking about individual plays (notably, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Lear) and explores the ways in which a deep and imaginative understanding of Shakespeare's work can relate to and enrich other areas of knowledge - politics, history, social and emotional relationships, the nature of theatrical experience ... Certain critical assumptions are of course implicit here: that great works of art have a continuing life which is renewed through perception; that the vitality generated by such works is for all men and that the critic's function is to encourage all readers to see as much as they can for themselves, not to dogmatize or try to impose a particular reading. L. C. Knights admirably fulfils this function in these essays most of which have been gathered from the three volumes entitled Explorations, Further Explorations and Explorations 3.