Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Imagining Hamlet

The Text of Hamlet

Textual Notes
Appendix 1: Passages from Quarto 1 (1603)
Appendix 2: Passages from the Folio (1623)

The Actors' Gallery

Edwin Booth, 1878, 1882
Henry Irving, 1890
Sarah Bernhardt, 1924
Ellen Terry, 1908, 1932
John Gielgud, 1937, 1963
Richard Burton, 1954
Laurence Olivier, 1982, 1986
Kenneth Branagh, 1996
Michael Pennington, 1996
Jude Law, 2009

Contexts

The Bible (c. 1250 BCE-57 CE)
Genesis
Judges
Romans
Greek Tragedy (5th century BCE)
Aeschylus • The Libation-Bearers
Sophocles • Electra
Euripides • Electra
Orestes
Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE)
Agamemnon
Thyestes
Saxo Grammaticus • Historica Danica (1180-1208)
Dante Alighieri • Inferno (c. 1315)
Thomas More • The Supplication of Souls (1529)
Thomas Kyd • The Spanish Tragedy (1592)

Criticism

John Dryden • Preface to Troilus and Cressida (1679)
Nicholas Rowe • Some Account of the Life, &c of Mr. William Shakespeare, (1709)
Voltaire • Preface to Sémiramis (1748); Du Théâtre Anglais (1761)
Samuel Johnson • Notes on Hamlet (1765)
George Steevens • Letter to Garrick (1771); On Hamlet's Character (1785)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Lecture on Hamlet (1812)
John Quincy Adams • Letter to Hackett (1839)
Edgar Allan Poe • Review of Hazlitt (1845)
Abraham Lincoln • Letter to Hackett (1863)
Leo Tolstoy • Shakespeare and the Drama (1908)
Gilbert Murray • Hamlet and Orestes (1914)
Ernest Jones • A Psycho-analytic Study of Hamlet (1922)
Harry Levin • The Question of Hamlet (1959)
Elaine Showalter • Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism (1985)
Stephen Greenblatt • Hamlet in Purgatory (2001)
Kenneth S. Rothwell • An Annotated and Chronological Screenography: Major Hamlet Adaptations and Selected Derivatives (2002)
Tony Howard • Women as Hamlet (2007)
Margreta de Grazia • Empires of World History (2007)

Afterlives

Der Bestrafte Brudermord (early 17th century)
Henry Fielding • [Partridge and the Ghost] (1749)
David Garrick • [The Ending of Hamlet] (1772)
Hamlet Travesties
John Poole • Hamlet Travestie (1817)
Francis Talfourd • Hamlet Travestie (1849)
Geroge Edward Rice • An Old Play in a New Garb (1853)
Charles Dickens • [Mr. Wopsle's Hamlet] 1861
Mark Twain • [Huck Finn on Hamlet] (1885)
Boris Pasternak • Hamlet (1946)
Tom Stoppard • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967)
Heiner Müller • Hamletmachine (1979)
Jawad al-Assadi • Forget Hamlet (1994)
John Updike • Gertrude and Claudius (2000)
Jasper Fforde • Something Rotten (2004)

Resources

About the Author

Robert S. Miola is Gerard Manley Hopkins Chair of English at Loyola University Maryland. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Reading, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and Terence, Shakespeare and Classical Tragedy: The Influence of Seneca, and The Comedy of Errors: Critical Essays, as well as dozens of articles on sixteenth-century English literature.

Reviews

This Hamlet struts and frets his role through moody, watercolor paintings that effectively convey both action and emotion using the classic period setting and dress. Panel boundaries and narrative flow vary on each page, manga style, which allows a striking depiction of the entire "To be or not to be" soliloquy with Hamlet striding through a vaulted, shadowed gallery. Much has been cut in the adaptation, and the continuity sometimes suffers, but what's left is all muscular and artful Shakespeare. No character cameos precede, but a brief profile of Shakespeare ends the work. This fine adaptation is suitable for teens and up and first appeared in 1990 from First Publishing/Berkley Publishing. Consider also Neil Babra's more complete Hamlet in the "No Fear Shakespeare Graphic Novels" series (Spark Notes), with evocative, modern black-and-white art suggesting Craig Thompson's Blankets.-M.C. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Perhaps the best known of Shakespeare's tragedies, this story of destiny and revenge pits a young prince against the murderous uncle who has stolen the throne and queen. Students often struggle when reading Shakespeare, and listening can serve as a bridge, facilitating understanding. This excellent full-cast production includes musical interludes and an insert with scene-by-scene summaries, making it not only a strong listening experience, but also the perfect adjunct to literary appreciation. Fans of the long-running British science-fiction series Doctor Who, and David Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor, will be mesmerized by the 2010 BBC television production featuring Tennant as Hamlet, with Patrick Stewart as the nefarious uncle, Claudius. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.