Hamlet Criticism

William Shakespeare's Hamlet is a seminal work in Western literature, critically acclaimed for its intricate exploration of themes like madness, revenge, and the dichotomy between appearance and reality. The play's narrative follows Prince Hamlet as he seeks vengeance for his father's murder, a quest that intertwines familial turmoil with political corruption in the Danish court. This pursuit is central to many critical discussions, with scholars such as Paul Gottschalk examining Hamlet's redemption arc in Hamlet and the Scanning of Revenge, while John Hunt's A Thing of Nothing: The Catastrophic Body in Hamlet addresses his struggle with corporeal acceptance.

Contents

  • Hamlet (Vol. 59)
    • Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
    • Criticism: Character Studies
    • Criticism: Gender Issues
    • Criticism: Language And Imagery
      • Superposed Plays: Hamlet
      • 'Never Doubt I Love': Misreading Hamlet
      • Hamlet's Account of the Pirates
      • Mouse and Mousetrap in Hamlet
    • ‘Ower Swete Sokor’: The Role of Ophelia in Hamlet
    • Criticism: Thematic Roles
      • Life, Crown, and Queen: Gertrude and the Theme of Sovereignty
      • Hamlet, Revenge!
    • Further Reading
  • Hamlet (Vol. 71)
    • Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
    • Criticism: Character Studies
      • Hamlet and the Scanning of Revenge
      • A Thing of Nothing: The Catastrophic Body in Hamlet.
      • Hamlet and the Trauma Doctors: An Essay at Interpretation
    • Criticism: Production Reviews
      • Toward an Objective Correlative: The Problem of Desire in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet
      • Zeffirelli's Hamlet: The Golden Girl and a Fistful of Dust
      • A Richness of Hamlets
      • The Tragedy of Hamlet, Peter Brook's Adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet
    • Criticism: Themes
      • Shakespeare's Theatrical Symbolism and Its Function in Hamlet
      • The Conflict in Hamlet
      • ‘What Is It You Would See?’: Hamlet and the Conscience of the Theatre
      • Androgynous ‘Union’ and the Women in Hamlet.
      • The Problematic Relation between Reason and Emotion in Hamlet
    • Further Reading
  • Hamlet (Vol. 82)
    • Hamlet and Counter-Humanism
    • Polonius, Our Pundit
    • Criticism: Production Reviews
      • A Simpler Melancholy
      • Hamlet
      • A Pacifist Prince in Brits' Latest Hamlet.
      • Hamlet
      • Aye, in a Harlem Courtyard, the Witching Time of Night
    • Criticism: Themes
      • ‘It Is No Novelty for a Prince to Be a Prince’: An Enantiomorphous Hamlet
      • ‘A Springe to Catch Woodcocks’: Proverbs, Characterization, and Political Ideology in Hamlet.
      • Hamlet and Friendship
      • ‘It begins with Pyrrhus’ (2.2.451): The Political Philosophy of Hamlet
      • ‘Vows to the Blackest Devil’: Hamlet and the Evolving Code of Honor in Early Modern England
      • Doing Nothing
      • Hamlet's Neglect of Revenge
    • Further Reading
  • The Last Mystery
  • Hamlet and the Scottish Succession
  • Mourning and Misogyny: Hamlet, The Revenger's Tragedy, and the Final Progress of Elizabeth I, 1600-1607
  • The First Quarto of Hamlet: Reforming Widow Gertred
    • Introduction
    • I. Widows and Remarriage
    • II. The Widow Gertred
    • III. "Else-Where"
  • Hamlet and A Matter Tender and Dangerous
  • Hamlet (Vol. 35)
    • Overviews
      • Hamlet—The Plot's the Thing
      • Hamlet's Grief
      • Hamlet, 'A Man to Double Business Bound'
    • Madness
      • Hamlet's Therapy
      • On Ophelia's Madness
      • Hamlet's Precarious Emotional Balance
      • Madness
      • Dangerous conjectures: Madness in Shakespearean Tragedy
      • Hamlet: A Document in Madness
    • Revenge
    • Characterization
      • Dramatis Personae: Sounding Through Their Masks
      • Hamlet's Mother
      • Hamlet and the Modern Dilemma
      • Hamlet: The Name of Action
      • A Heart Cleft in Twain: The Dilemma of Shakespeare's Gertrude
      • Freud's Hamlet
    • Imagery
    • Further Reading
  • Hamlet (Vol. 37)
    • Introduction
    • Hamlet's Subjectivity
    • Notes
    • Works Cited
  • Nobler in the Mind: The Dialect in Hamlet
  • Hamlet's Ear
  • Grinning Death's-Head: Hamlet and the Vision of the Grotesque
  • Hamlet (Vol. 44)
    • Overviews
      • On the Value of Hamlet
      • The Play and the Critics
    • Psychoanalytic Interpretations
      • 'Who's There?': Hamlet
      • Sight Lines on Hamlet and Shakespeare Tragedy
      • Man and Wife Is One Flesh: Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body
      • Tragic Alternatives: Eros and Superego Revenge in Hamlet
    • Gender Issues
    • Hamlet And His Dilemma
      • Chapter II: Hamlet
      • Hamlet and Death: A Recasting of the Play Within the Player
      • 'To be, or not to be': Hamlet's Dilemma
    • Secondary Characters
      • The Character of Hamlet's Mother
      • The Claudian Globe
      • Representations of Ophelia
    • Further Reading
  • Framing Ophelia: Representation and the Pictorial Tradition
  • The 'Heart of My Mystery': Hamlet and Secrets