Looking for HamletA mysterious, melancholic, brooding Hamlet has gripped and fascinated four hundred years' of readers, trying to "find" and know him as he searches for and avenges his father's name. Setting itself apart from the usual discussions about Hamlet, Hunt here demonstrates that Hamlet is much more than we take him to be. Much more than the sum of his parts--more than just tragic, sexy youth and more than just vain cruelty--Hamlet is a reflection of our own aspirations and neuroses. Looking for Hamlet investigates our many searches for Hamlet, from their origins in Danish mythology through the complex problems of early printed texts, through the centuries of shifting interpretations of the young prince to our own time when Hamlet is more compelling and perplexing than ever before. Hunt presents Hamlet as a sort of missing person, the idealized being inside oneself. This search for the missing Hamlet, Hunt argues, reveals a present absence readers pursue as a means of finding and identifying ourselves. |
From inside the book
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... offer their own ideas about what drives him , while as a role , he offers actors a chance to infuse Shakespeare's superbly written dialogue with their own personal- ities . Taking readers on a tour of Hamlet's world and his troubled ...
... by fast - food toys . In case you haven't read it recently , I offer a summary of the play , which , given its prolix nature , isn't easy . While away at university Hamlet learns of his father's death 4 LOOKING FOR HAMLET.
... offers to spy on Hamlet . Then , a troupe of traveling actors arrives at Elsinore . Conveniently , Hamlet has met these " tragedians of the city " before , and he enlists them now to stage a version of the murder of his father to be ...
... offers a history of reception , exploring how generations of readers and viewers have interpreted Hamlet the play and Hamlet the prince . Now , more than four centuries after it first appeared in print , Hamlet should seem very old ...
... offer Hamlet as a sort of missing person , impossible to locate definitively though seem- ingly close , in a cultural , historical , and personal sense . At the same time that we search for someone or something else , we are also ...
Contents
13 | |
Two The Three Hamlets | 31 |
Relocating Reality in Hamlet | 71 |
Four Dead Son Hamlet | 85 |
Five Contrarians at the Gate | 93 |
A Brief History of Grief | 105 |
Hamlet and Melancholy | 115 |