Hamlet in His Modern Guises

Hamlet in His Modern Guises PDF Author: Alexander Welsh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400824125
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Focusing on Shakespeare's Hamlet as foremost a study of grief, Alexander Welsh offers a powerful analysis of its protagonist as the archetype of the modern hero. For over two centuries writers and critics have viewed Hamlet's persona as a fascinating blend of self-consciousness, guilt, and wit. Yet in order to understand more deeply the modernity of this Shakespearean hero, Welsh first situates Hamlet within the context of family and mourning as it was presented in other revenge tragedies of Shakespeare's time. Revenge, he maintains, appears as a function of mourning rather than an end in itself. Welsh also reminds us that the mourning of a son for his father may not always be sincere. This book relates the problem of dubious mourning to Hamlet's ascendancy as an icon of Western culture, which began late in the eighteenth century, a time when the thinking of past generations--or fathers--represented to many an obstacle to human progress. Welsh reveals how Hamlet inspired some of the greatest practitioners of modernity's quintessential literary form, the novel. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Scott's Redgauntlet, Dickens's Great Expectations, Melville's Pierre, and Joyce's Ulysses all enhance our understanding of the play while illustrating a trend in which Hamlet ultimately becomes a model of intense consciousness. Arguing that modern consciousness mourns for the past, even as it pretends to be free of it, Welsh offers a compelling explanation of why Hamlet remains marvelously attractive to this day.

Hamlet in His Modern Guises

Hamlet in His Modern Guises PDF Author: Alexander Welsh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400824125
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Focusing on Shakespeare's Hamlet as foremost a study of grief, Alexander Welsh offers a powerful analysis of its protagonist as the archetype of the modern hero. For over two centuries writers and critics have viewed Hamlet's persona as a fascinating blend of self-consciousness, guilt, and wit. Yet in order to understand more deeply the modernity of this Shakespearean hero, Welsh first situates Hamlet within the context of family and mourning as it was presented in other revenge tragedies of Shakespeare's time. Revenge, he maintains, appears as a function of mourning rather than an end in itself. Welsh also reminds us that the mourning of a son for his father may not always be sincere. This book relates the problem of dubious mourning to Hamlet's ascendancy as an icon of Western culture, which began late in the eighteenth century, a time when the thinking of past generations--or fathers--represented to many an obstacle to human progress. Welsh reveals how Hamlet inspired some of the greatest practitioners of modernity's quintessential literary form, the novel. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Scott's Redgauntlet, Dickens's Great Expectations, Melville's Pierre, and Joyce's Ulysses all enhance our understanding of the play while illustrating a trend in which Hamlet ultimately becomes a model of intense consciousness. Arguing that modern consciousness mourns for the past, even as it pretends to be free of it, Welsh offers a compelling explanation of why Hamlet remains marvelously attractive to this day.

The Ethics of Mourning

The Ethics of Mourning PDF Author: R. Clifton Spargo
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801879777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
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Fathers and Sons in Shakespeare

Fathers and Sons in Shakespeare PDF Author: Fred B. Tromly
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 144269906X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Some of Shakespeare's most memorable male characters, such as Hamlet, Prince Hal, and Edgar, are defined by their relationships with their fathers. In Fathers and Sons in Shakespeare, Fred B. Tromly demonstrates that these relationships are far more complicated than most critics have assumed. While Shakespearean sons often act as their fathers' steadfast defenders, they simultaneously resist paternal encroachment on their autonomy, tempering vigorous loyalty with subtle hostility. Tromly's introductory chapters draw on both Freudian psychology and Elizabethan family history to frame the issue of filial ambivalence in Shakespeare. The following analytical chapters mine the father-son relationships in plays that span Shakespeare's entire career. The conclusion explores Shakespeare's relationship with his own father and its effect on his fictional depictions of life as a son. Through careful scrutiny of word and deed, the scholarship in Fathers and Sons in Shakespeare reveals the complex attitude Shakespeare's sons harbour towards their fathers.

Shakespeare and the Culture of Romanticism

Shakespeare and the Culture of Romanticism PDF Author: Joseph M. Ortiz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135190079X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
The idea of Shakespearean genius and sublimity is usually understood to be a product of the Romantic period, promulgated by poets such as Coleridge and Byron who promoted Shakespeare as the supreme example of literary genius and creative imagination. However, the picture looks very different when viewed from the perspective of the myriad theater directors, actors, poets, political philosophers, gallery owners, and other professionals in the nineteenth century who turned to Shakespeare to advance their own political, artistic, or commercial interests. Often, as in John Kemble’s staging of The Winter’s Tale at Drury Lane or John Boydell’s marketing of paintings in his Shakespeare Gallery, Shakespeare provided a literal platform on which both artists and entrepreneurs could strive to influence cultural tastes and points of view. At other times, Romantic writers found in Shakespeare’s works a set of rhetorical and theatrical tools through which to form their own public personae, both poetic and political. Women writers in particular often adapted Shakespeare to express their own political and social concerns. Taken together, all of these critical and aesthetic responses attest to the remarkable malleability of the Shakespearean corpus in the Romantic period. As the contributors show, Romantic writers of all persuasions”Whig and Tory, male and female, intellectual and commercial”found in Shakespeare a powerful medium through which to claim authority for their particular interests.

Shakespeare - Hamlet

Shakespeare - Hamlet PDF Author: Huw Griffiths
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0230209238
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Hamlet is one of the best known works of English literature throughout the world, and its central character one of Shakespeare's most recognisable and enduring creations. Hamlet's first critics in the 17th century were, however, concerned with the play's apparent lack of decorum, whilst the Romantics revelled in the melancholy prince's isolation. Caught between a dead father and a remarried mother, Hamlet inevitably provided scope for Freud and the psychoanalytic writers of the 20th century. The play has retained its fascination for more recent critics and every new interpretation provides fuel for further study. In this Guide, Huw Griffiths traces the history of the play's criticism from the 1660s through to the present day. Readers are provided with substantial excerpts from all the key critical readings - including accounts of the interaction between film versions and critical interpretations. Griffiths places each reading of the play within its own historical context and within the history of literary criticism, offering both students and teachers an approachable introduction to the critical fortunes of this most influential text.

Great Shakespeareans Set I

Great Shakespeareans Set I PDF Author: Peter Holland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441124039
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1078

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Book Description
Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. This major project offers an unprecedented scholarly analysis of the contribution made by the most important Shakespearean critics, editors, actors and directors as well as novelists, poets, composers, and thinkers from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Great Shakespeareans will be an essential resource for students and scholars in Shakespeare studies.

Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy

Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy PDF Author: Adrian Poole
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441107509
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.

Shakespeare's Sense of Character

Shakespeare's Sense of Character PDF Author: Michael W. Shurgot
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317056027
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Making a unique intervention in an incipient but powerful resurgence of academic interest in character-based approaches to Shakespeare, this book brings scholars and theatre practitioners together to rethink why and how character continues to matter. Contributors seek in particular to expand our notions of what Shakespearean character is, and to extend the range of critical vocabularies in which character criticism can work. The return to character thus involves incorporating as well as contesting postmodern ideas that have radically revised our conceptions of subjectivity and selfhood. At the same time, by engaging theatre practitioners, this book promotes the kind of comprehensive dialogue that is necessary for the common endeavor of sustaining the vitality of Shakespeare's characters.

Casual Shakespeare

Casual Shakespeare PDF Author: Regula Hohl Trillini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351120921
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Casual Shakespeare is the first full-length study of the thousands of quotations both in and of Shakespeare's works which represent intertextuality outside of what is conventionally appreciated as literary value. Drawing on the insights gained as a result of a major, ongoing Digital Humanities project, this study posits a historical continuum of casual quotation which informs Shakespeare's own works as well as their afterlives. In this groudbreaking, rigorous analysis, Dr. Regula Trillini offers readers a new approach and understanding of the use and impact quotes like the infamous, 'To be or not to be,' have had througout literary history.

Shakespeare and European Politics

Shakespeare and European Politics PDF Author: Dirk Delabastita
Publisher: Associated University Presse
ISBN: 9780874130041
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
"This volume's main focus is on the ways in which, over the past 400 years, Shakespeare has played a role of significance within a European framework, particularly where a series of political events and ideologically based developments were concerned, such as the early modern wars of religion, the emergence of "the nation" during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the First and Second World Wars, the process of European unification during the 1990s, the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, and Britain's participation in the war in Iraq." "The whole of the collection and particularly the opening section clearly invites a European and even a global perspective." "This book convincingly demonstrates that Shakespeare, both at the level of his meaning in his own time and at that of his reception in later ages, should no longer be studied only in relation to particular nations, but as Dirk Delabastita argues, also at various supranational levels." --Book Jacket.