CRITICISM

Anderson, Linda. “Early Comedies.” In A Kind of Wild Justice: Revenge in Shakespeare's Comedies, pp. 23-56. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987.

Maintains that in Shakespeare's early comedies revenge serves as a structural device, along with intrigue, mistaken identity, and public humiliation. Surveying The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Anderson suggests a gradual evolution of revenge in these plays, from its use as a technique for advancing the plot to its function as a means of correcting social behavior.

———. “Problem Comedies.” In A Kind of Wild Justice: Revenge in Shakespeare's Comedies, pp. 126-68. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987.

Evaluates Bertram in All's Well that Ends Well and Angelo in Measure for Measure as objects of comic revenge, arguing that once they repent, both deserve mercy, not vengeance. Anderson also points out that even though Troilus and Cressida dramatizes what is inherently a tale of revenge, it places greater thematic emphasis on pride, honor, and jealousy than on vengeance.

Coursen, Herbert R., Jr. “That Within: Hamlet and Revenge.” Bucknell Review 11, no. 3 (May 1963): 19-34.

Identifies the conflict between redemption and revenge as the essence of Hamlet's spiritual struggle. In Coursen's view, the prince's desperate fatalism at the close of the play signals that he has chosen hatred over benevolence and damnation over salvation.

Gottschalk, Paul. “Hamlet and the Scanning of Revenge.” Shakespeare Quarterly 24, no. 2 (spring 1973): 155-70.

Focuses on the prayer scene in Hamlet, arguing that the prince's soliloquy in this scene manifests guilt and self-condemnation, for at this point in his extended attempt to define himself, Hamlet has become a villain. Gottschalk adds, however, that by the close of the play, Hamlet rejects the avenger's role and chooses instead to abide by the will of Providence.

Holbrook, Peter. “Nietzsche's Hamlet.” Shakespeare Survey 50 (1997): 171-86.

Proposes that Nietzsche found in Hamlet a means of developing and explicating his conviction that the principal goal of the individual is to create a unique self. In Holbrook's judgment, Nietzsche correctly viewed Hamlet as a man who rejects the notion that his actions should be determined by another—that is, by the ghost of his father, who would use him as an instrument of revenge.

Jacobs, Henry E. “Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy, and the Ideology of the Memento Mori.” Shakespeare Studies 21 (1993): 96-108.

Compares Shakespeare's use of the memento mori emblem in Hamlet with its function in three revenge dramas from the same period: Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, Chettle's The Tragedy of Hoffman, and Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy. Jacobs maintains that unlike the protagonists of these plays—for whom relics of mortality act as goads to vengeance—Hamlet meditates on Yorick's skull as part of his thoughtful preparation for death.

Keyishian, Harry. “Destructive Revenge in Julius Caesar and Othello.” In The Shapes of Revenge: Victimization, Vengeance, and Vindictiveness in Shakespeare, pp. 81-99. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1995.

Discusses three pursuers of revenge in Julius Caesar: Mark Antony, the Roman crowd, and the dead Caesar.

———. “Varieties of Revenge in the First Tetralogy.” In The Shapes of Revenge: Victimization, Vengeance, and Vindictiveness in Shakespeare, pp. 123-35. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1995.

Comments on similarities and differences among various revengers in 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI, and Richard III. He notes that this group of plays consistently represents vengeance as a means of self-gratification rather than a moral or ethical action, and he categorizes the revengers: York and Old Clifford as archetypes of factional revenge; Young Clifford as an indiscriminate revenger; Margaret as a personal revenger; and Richard III as initially a factional revenger but ultimately a prototype of utter vindictiveness.

McGuire, Philip C. “Bearing ‘A Wary Eye’: Ludic Vengeance and Doubtful Suicide in Hamlet.” In From Page to Performance: Essays in Early English Drama, edited by John A. Alford, pp. 235-53. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995.

A detailed analysis of the fencing match in Act V of Hamlet. McGuire points out that, unlike other Renaissance revenge tragedies, the death of the antagonist in Hamlet is not the result of the hero's careful plotting; indeed, Claudius's death is the inadvertent result of his and Laertes's scheming against the prince.

Paris, Bernard J. “The Tempest: Shakespeare's Ideal Solution.” In Shakespeare's Personality, edited by Norman N. Holland, Sidney Homan, and Bernard J. Paris, pp. 206-25. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

A psychoanalytic reading of The Tempest which suggests that Prospero manifests an internal conflict between aggressive vindictiveness and passive self-effacement that mirrors the ambiguity in Shakespeare's own personality.

Proser, Matthew N. “Madness, Revenge, and the Metaphor of the Theater in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Pirandello's Henry IV.” Modern Drama 24, no. 3 (September 1981): 338-52.

Maintains that in the course of the dramatic action, Hamlet abandons his youthful roles, tries out and feigns new ones, and finally achieves an identity appropriate to his social role as Denmark's leader and to his broader function as a sacrificial hero whose death renews a moribund nation.

Rees, Joan. “Revenge, Retribution, and Reconciliation.” Shakespeare Survey 24 (1971): 31-5.

Compares the way Shakespeare made use of three different dramatic forms—revenge, retribution, and reconciliation—in Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and King Lear.

Sacks, Peter. “Where Words Prevail Not: Grief, Revenge, and Language in Kyd and Shakespeare.” ELH 49, no. 3 (fall 1982): 576-601.

Examines the dramatic representation—in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Hamlet—of the failure of conventional ceremonies and language to assuage grief. Sacks explains that whereas Titus and Laertes feel that the only recourse to unconsolable loss is revenge, Hamlet's response to loss is profound melancholy.

Skulsky, Harold. “Revenge, Honor, and Conscience in Hamlet.” PMLA 85, no. 1 (January 1970): 78-87.

Questions whether Hamlet is prompted to revenge by hatred or honor. Skulsky remarks on the prince's association of revenge with suicide and conscience with cowardice, and concludes that Hamlet falls into the error of believing that he has been chosen to be the agent of divine punishment.