Hamlet [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1613820917 | ISBN-13: 978-1613820919

Many consider the tragedy of "Hamlet" to be Shakespeare's masterpiece and one of the greatest plays of all time. It has entertained audiences for centuries and the role of Hamlet is one of the most sought after by actors. It is the story of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark who learns of the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius. Claudius murders Hamlet's father, his own brother, to take the throne of Denmark and to marry Hamlet's widowed mother. Hamlet is sunk into a state of great despair as a result of discovering the murder of his father and the infidelity of his mother. Hamlet is torn between his great sadness and his desire for the revenge of his father's murder. "Hamlet" is a work of great complexity and as such has drawn many different critical interpretations. Hamlet has been seen as a victim of circumstance, as an impractical idealist, as the sufferer of an Oedipus complex, as an opportunist wishing to kill his Uncle not for revenge but to ascend to the throne, as the sufferer of a great melancholy, and as a man blinded by his desire for revenge. The true motivations of Hamlet are complex and enigmatic and have been debated for centuries. Read this classic tragedy and decide for yourself where Hamlet's true motivations lie and how they influence his ultimate demise.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A pathbreaking edition, one that promises to change irrevocably our understanding of Shakespeare's greatest play."—Professor James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

 

"Hamlet's latest editors have undertaken a heroic task with great skill and thoroughness."—Stanley Wells, The Observer (UK)

 

"Quite simply the most comprehensive edition of the play currently available, a status I suspect it will enjoy for many years to come."—The British Theatre Guide

 

"Stunning! There is absolutely no doubt about this being the text to buy . . . for those students who will be studying the play at university. This critical edition gives the reader the Second Quarto Text (1604-1605), annotated with intelligence and care, a wealth of historical and cultural references and a survey of different critical approaches to the play."—The Use of English

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Ann Thompson is Professor of English Language and Literature and Head of the School of Humanities at King's College London. She has edited The Taming of the Shrew, and her other publications include Shakespeare's Chaucer, Shakespeare, Meaning and Metaphor (with John O. Thompson), and Women Reading Shakespeare, 1660-1900 (with Sasha Roberts). She has also published widely on editing Shakespeare and Shakespeare's language. She is one of the general editors of the Arden Shakespeare.

Neil Taylor is Dean of Research and Dean of the Graduate School at Roehampton University. He has edited Henry IV, Part 2 and (with Brian Loughrey) Thomas Middleton: Five Plays. He has also published widely on editing Shakespeare, Shakespeare on film, and other aspects of Renaissance and modern drama.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 330 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Brown (August 10, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1613820917
• ISBN-13: 978-1613820919
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > History > Europe > Scotland
  • #72 in Books > History > Europe > Wales

More About the Author

A poet, a lecturer,and a versatile writer, Raja Sharma has written critical essays, summaries, and analysis of most of the classic literary works of the past masters.

He has been teahing English Literature to University Students for well over two decades. Though physically restricted to his writing desk, for his backbone does not support his body, Mr.Sharma reads and writes for more than 18 hours a day. He has an amazing reading speed, and he can read a novel of about three hundred pages, with full comprehension, in less than two hours.

His students are scattered all over the world; many of them are lecturers,professors,pilots,engineers,businessmen,and so on.

If approached,Mr. Sharma is always ready to help underprivileged students free of charge. Through his earnings, he has been helping hundreds of underprivileged students from the third world countries.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Arden Shakespeare Hamlet December 4, 2006

By Nathan Records

Format:Paperback

I am currently working on my MFA/Directing. I directed Hamlet and am now writing my defense of it. I have two thoughts on this third edition.

After going through this edition, from a point of view of the script, I'm not sure I understand the need to update Harold Jenkins's 2d edition. The script itself was easier to navigate in the 2d edition and I thought Jenkins's notes were more helpful. I also disagree with some of what Thompson and Taylor have to say in their editorial notes below the script. That said, I am biased because I used the 2d edition as a sort of "Hamlet Bible" as I directed the piece. Jenkins's notes were extremely insightful and useful. I became very comfortable with it.

On the other hand, this third edition has some different insight into the play in performance than does the second edition, as well as information on casting and music that was not included in Jenkins. Obviously there is much written about William Shakespeare in the world, and this 3rd edition of Arden is probably the most up-to-date resource for bibliographic material (as well as some photos of past productions of the play). Jenkins edition is 24 years old, ancient in the scholastic world's "what's new" when it comes to sifting the vast quantity of material written on Shakespeare and Hamlet.

Obviously, the needs of the theatrical world for playing Hamlet are different than that of the scholastic world (of which I am currently stuck in both). I think Jenkins is more user-friendly for the theatrician while Thompson & Taylor suit the needs of the scholastic better. My final thought is that a scholar/student of Shakespeare will want to have both the second and third editions for the differences they have to offer.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hamlet: A Fresh Look at the Danish Prince January 9, 2007

By George C. Reynolds Jr.

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The folks at Arden decided to bring forth all three versions of Shakespeare's revenge (or anti-revenge) tragedy so that those who care can study the similarities and differences between the texts for themselves. I teach many Shakespearean plays and using the "bad quarto" of 1603 in conjunction with the oft used conflated text is an eye-opener for students who get a chance to truly engage in the text when comparing, say, Hamlet's third act soliloquy of the Folio (1623) version with the often maligned 1603 version. As usual, the people at Arden do an excellent job at editing the works. This is an excellent companion piece to the recently released third edition of Hamlet by the same editors of the 1604 Quarto text. A welcome addition to any Bardolators library.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Indispensable November 1, 2003

By Paul Frandano

Format:Paperback

When Henry James sat down to write on his Venetian travels for what later became the Italian Hours, he began with a disclaimer: "It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure there is not a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it." Turning to Shakespeare, we might amuse ourselves by writing on, say, Hamlet, but can anything be said that's not already been said, and better, a dozen times, by superior critics and closer readers? In the appropriate spirit of humility (and in utter submission to the Bard and his great gift to civilization), I offer a few thoughts on the Arden 2nd Edition of Hamlet, and not on "the greatest work in the history of literature."

Hamlet is by far the longest of the Ardens at 574 pages. It breaks down thusly: the prefatory material of editor Harold Jenkins - one of the Arden Series general editors and a Hamlet authority of great renown - alone takes up 164 pages. Three-quarters of this is bibliographical and historical. In his 40-page critical introduction, Jenkins addresses many of the plays thorniest problems, with the Talmudic attentiveness of the closest reader. Then comes the play itself, spread over 264 pages (in terms of sheer length relative to the Bard's other plays, the text is a monster, coming in at more than 3800 lines). Each page of the Arden includes an average half-page of Jenkins' detailed, argumentative, authoritative, and uncommonly helpful footnotes. The final 146 pages consist of longer (end)notes that Jenkins simply could not physically fit onto the bottom of a page. Many of these are short essays (including an appendix that glosses an earlier discussion on the dating of the play).

Each of the Arden Hamlet's three sections might merit separate publication (after a modest bit of repackaging), but as a totality, Jenkins' edition must be the greatest value on the Shakespeare market. Jenkins' ruminations on the provenance of the story and the many sources Shakespeare might have drawn on, the "Ur-Hamlet" that might have come from the quill of contemporary Thomas Kyd (The Spanish Tragedy), the complexities of determining an authoritative text, the drama's inconsistencies and unanswered questions, the import of the great soliloquy of III.i (which is emphatically NOT, insists Jenkins, a deliberation on whether to commit suicide), Elizabethan revenge dramas in general, and so much more make this a truly indispensable, illuminating, even breathtaking volume.

We think we know this play well. We have read it, and seen performed on stage and in memorable or hideously forgettable films. Many of its greatest lines are embedded in our hearts. The beginning of true understanding, however, resides in a superbly annotated scholarly edition. The Arden is one of several choices you can make and is for me the one to own, equally suitable for students, scholars, actors, and mere Bardolators. It will - provided, of course, you are not already a scholarly specialist in Elizabethan drama - knock the scales from your eyes. And until the 3rd edition now in preparation under Ann Thompson is published, this Hamlet will stand as the epitome of the Arden Shakespeare's greatness as a series.